{"id":136325,"date":"2025-04-10T09:05:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T13:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=136325"},"modified":"2025-04-10T18:08:28","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T22:08:28","slug":"wnd-theologians-against-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=136325","title":{"rendered":"(WND) Andrew Walker-Theologians\u00a0against\u00a0nature"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In an earlier volume, Awaiting the King<\/em>, Smith devotes an entire chapter to undermining appeals to natural law and natural law theory\u2014the very things one would need to reject to affirm what Smith wants to affirm nowadays. The whole chapter simplistically caricatures the natural law tradition and fails to represent it accurately. He only sets up a strawman version of natural law to tear it down. According to Smith, natural law is too minimalist and ineffective in a world marred by sin. It fails to give a robust explanation of the revelation of who Christ is. In that chapter, he upholds some generic notion of \u201cnature\u201d as a feature of the biblical storyline, but he then says that nature itself cannot be rightly known apart from Special Revelation. This common critique does not withstand scrutiny when held up to sound interpretation and human experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, people reject natural law\u2014but that doesn\u2019t mean there\u2019s something wrong with it. God\u2019s moral law doesn\u2019t misfire. Part of the reason people reject it is because sin has distorted human reasoning (Romans 1:21). But Scripture also says that people can knowingly suppress the truth that\u2019s clearly seen in the created world (Romans 1:18\u201320). Nowhere does Scripture speak of creation order being wholly unintelligible or humans being entirely ignorant of its order. In fact, in the same set of verses, Paul says that God\u2019s creation order is so teeming with moral order that people are \u201cwithout excuse\u201d when they disobey it (Romans 1:20). The Apostle Paul, in fact, focuses on sexual ethics to make this exact point. Homosexuality is a vivid rejection of the Creator\u2019s design for our bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since both the Bible and natural law point to the same moral truths, it\u2019s no surprise that Smith\u2019s rejection of natural law in Awaiting the King<\/em> eventually led him to reject what the Bible says about sexual ethics. You can\u2019t keep rejecting natural law\u2014especially the parts of natural law you don\u2019t like\u2014and still fully hold to the authority of Scripture. Morality is a package deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><\/p>

James K.A. Smith\u2019s example shows that even a theology that claims to be \u201cbiblical\u201d or \u201cReformed\u201d can go wrong if it ignores what the Bible says about creation. Smith has become a theologian who stands against nature. https:\/\/t.co\/dfIBuYQqPn<\/a><\/p>— Andrew T. Walker (@andrewtwalk) April 10, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote>