Recovering Natural Law: A Guide for Protestants

Discover the Moral Foundation Beneath Every Human Law

How do we engage in public debate with those who do not share our faith? How do we reason about ethical and political questions that Scripture does not directly address? And why do so many Christians feel ill-equipped to make the case for Christian ethics in public life without simply quoting the Bible at people who don't accept its authority?

The answer, Benjamin Saunders argues, has been available since the church's earliest theologians--and Protestants have been too quick to abandon it. Natural law recognizes that because God created this world, we should expect to find moral order within it: an order that is accessible to reason, confirmed by Scripture, and capable of providing a basis for ethical and political reasoning that all people--regardless of their faith commitments--can engage with honestly. Because as Paul makes clear in Romans 1, they already know it. They just suppress it.

Written at a level that all Christians can understand, Recovering Natural Law draws from the history of Christian political thought to provide a rich, accessible resource for thinking about ethics, law, and government. It shows how natural law expands our moral vocabulary without undermining confidence in Scripture--correcting the false opposition between Bible and reason that has left Protestants unable to make their best case in the public square.

For pastors, seminary students, Christian lawyers and public servants, and anyone concerned with how to reason faithfully about politics and ethics--this is the theological foundation you have been missing.

Anyone concerned with the political and ethical questions of our day will find in this book an insightful and intelligent guide to understanding--and explaining--what we all know but so often choose to suppress.

Benjamin B. Saunders is an associate professor at Deakin Law School, Australia, and holds a PhD in constitutional law from the University of Queensland. He is the author of The Crisis of Civil Law: What the Bible Teaches About Law and What It Means Today.