Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics

Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics. By Jean Porter. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999. 340 pp. $28.00 (cloth).

The Anglican moral theologians drew heavily on the ideas and writings of the scholastics who provided the infrastructure of thought upon which the Anglican reformers built their theology. We know these ideas as natural law, which rests on the self-evident principle of practical reason; it directs people to choose and act for rational, intelligible purposes. It is often explained as, "The good is to be done and pursued; and evil is to be avoided." Because nature may be non-rational and in conflict with reason, natural law, as usually presented, argues that moral norms must be derived solely from reason. This priority of reason is also influenced by the arguments that moral "oughts" cannot be derived from "observations." Because reason is a characteristic of all humans, natural law is available to all humans, independent of societal or theological assumptions.

Jean Porter has been carefully reading the medieval writers from the time of Gratian's Decretum (ca. 1140) to the later part of the thirteenth century and finds a broader base for natural law than simply reason. There was more complexity of ideas, and the scholastics had their own version of the "threefold cord" consisting of Scripture, reason and nature. The scholars reflected on, and further developed, natural law by the process of considering each of these and their interrelations. It is frequently said that natural law and Scripture are parallel sources of moral knowledge and that they complement each other. But for the scholastics, the scriptural basis of natural law provided a way of determining those aspects of human nature that are normative. Natural law developed from reflections on the interaction of general and specific revelation, not by setting them in opposition.

Porter finds that the early emphasis was on the capacity for discernment, with the specific precepts being developed later. Because of this capacity for discernment, there is the possibility of employment of natural law today. Due to the frequently unrecognized theological foundation of natural law, it is not applicable to all rational people; but it does offer a way to understand Christian morality as a distinctive characteristic of human nature, and therefore not disjunctive with other moral systems.

A detailed study of the moral thought of times past would be of limited value if it were not applicable today. Porter considers the areas of marriage and the family as well as social ethics as illustrations of occasions where natural law may provide insights into moral action. She acknowledges that these applications are less than a fully developed theory, but the insights are much more than ad hoc appeals. They provide trajectories for continued thought and reflection.

For the person without a strong background in the subject, reading Natural and Divine Law requires attention and concentration. Porter is a clear and compelling writer, but her depth of knowledge is a bit intimidating to those who are more modestly informed. However, the effort to understand what she is saying is well worth it. There is a resurgence of interest in natural law, not just among Anglicans, but also among Lutherans and Calvinists. As presented by Porter, natural law is not of historical interest only, but provides a viable construct for thinking theologically about current moral issues.

WILTON H. BUNCH

Beeson Divinity School Birmingham, Alabama

Copyright Anglican Theological Review, Inc. Summer 2001
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved