November 8, 2013

From Jim McGuiggan... Natural Theology in Romans 1?

Natural Theology in Romans 1?

 In Romans 1:16 Paul speaks of God's faithfulness as it comes to focus in Jesus Christ; but the background to God's faithfulness is human faithlessness (1:18-3:20). Romans 1:18-32 is a description of the moral darkness of the Gentile world and its condition under the judgement of God. He's describing Gentile unfaithfulness (and he will go on to describe Jewish unfaithfulness). Paul isn't making a rational argument, such as, design to Designer or creation to Creator. Nor is he saying that such an argument can successfully be made. That isn't his point—it has nothing to do with what he is working with. He isn't saying, "They could look at the heavens and reason from there and know that idolatry is abominable." To isolate 1:19-23 from the rest of that section is to confuse the issue.
These Gentiles suppressed (and suppress) truth. They suppress truth that God had made known to them (1:18-19). God had revealed himself as Creator and in their moral darkness the Gentiles suppressed that truth and turned to idolatry. What a piece of nonsense it was too, Paul indicates, since from the very beginning the creation proclaimed God's everlasting power and divinity—animals indeed (1:20-25)!
Given revealed truth, those that worship sticks and stones and crawling things and even people (yes!) defy the very heavens above them and the earth beneath them. Such people are inexcusable.
Their behaviour was not inexcusable because there was "natural theology" available. Their inexcusable behaviour included the immorality and unrighteousness that characterised them. These people knew the moral law of God (1:32) and they knew that those who behaved as they behaved deserved God's judgement. You can't—via unaided reason—come up with the moral strictures in this chapter. These Gentiles didn't learn the essential content of the Torah by inferring things from creation (see 2:12-14).
Some non-believers would like to think that we can establish moral law independent of special revelation but others more forthright (though inconsistent in practice) agree with Russell, Flew, Sartre, Kaufmann and others who say that moral law is a question of preference buttressed by prudence and self-interest.
Some believers become impatient when the issue of moral authority and content is raised. "Look, everybody knows it's wrong to 'steal' or 'murder' or such." And how do they know? "They just know!" But that's not good enough! I think we make a serious mistake when he minimise our dependence on special revelation.
But does Paul not say that the works of the flesh "are obvious" (Galatians 5:19-21)? Yes he did; but this is a man who has been taught by God and he's speaking to people who have committed to God in Jesus Christ. To such people we can generalise and say the evils that rise from our inner evil "are obvious". But they aren't "obvious" to all. [It hardly needs saying that even Christians have to be instructed about what is evil ("Do you not know…?" or "Are you ignorant?" and such phrases).] The truth about God's moral/ethical requirements are taught and from the foundational truths other truths are learned by extension. For those called by the gospel the situation is even more specific since their ethical response is to be modelled on the life (Jesus) that has been revealed to them.
This much is clear, the Gentile world of which Paul spoke knew God's righteous decree and knew how God felt about flagrant and impenitent perversion and ungodliness (Romans 1:32). Look at the long (but not exhaustive) list of vileness—this is part of what Paul had in mind when he said they were inexcusable (2:1). These weren't things they could deduce from the design of the human eye or celestial mechanics.
The central thrust of the above can be exposed as inadequate if we can make an "unaided reason" argument stick. Maybe someone will frame the argument without leaning on scripture; that would do it.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.

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