Augustine’s rule of love provides readers with a simple rule for interpreting Scripture. All interpretations must lead to the love of God and neighbor and no reading of Scripture can contradict these two commandments. For centuries, Christians have rightly accepted this rule as a helpful guide.
The natural law relates to the rule of love and also serves as a helpful guide when considered as the rule of nature. The rule of love guides us toward the perfection of our God-endowed nature or essence. This rule reflects the natural law, which dictates that good is to be done and evil is to be avoided. Thus, the natural law, like the rule of love, enables saints to rightly read Scripture and apply its ethical principles. One’s interpretive conclusions cannot be valid and contradict the natural law, for nature precedes and is not destroyed by grace. In this paper, I maintain that the natural law aids readers of Scripture by providing the intelligibility of a bipartite division of the law and revealing the indispensability of its moral precepts.
I begin with the philosophical and theological basis for natural law which compels readers of Scripture to discern the difference between moral and positive law. The light of nature provides the proximate starting point for natural law discussion by teaching that creatures possess essences with intrinsic teleology. These essences are real and exist independent of human minds and language, contra conceptualism and nominalism. They also possess a discernible teleology, since all things aim for the good. Examining this teleological component of natural law leads us to consider Aquinas’ argument for God’s existence from the government of the world. I will demonstrate that the eternal law is the remote and ultimate explanation for the natural law. God’s divine law, which he provides in Scripture by his speech, must be consistent with natural law since it issues from the same Lawgiver and depends upon the eternal law. With the natural law, readers can distinguish between moral and positive law while also discerning the immutability of the moral law across the canon of Scripture. Thus, any interpretation of Scripture that violates the natural law must be abandoned, for grace perfects, rather than destroys, nature.
I conclude the paper with two case studies. First, I consider God’s command for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. I maintain that the natural law is not set aside in this text, but upheld. Second, I evaluate The Widening of God’s Mercy by Christopher and Richard Hays. In this text, the authors set aside natural law, which, I argue, allows them to disregard texts that address homosexual actions and desires. The natural law is sufficient to prevent the unwarranted exegetical and theological conclusions put forth by Christopher and Richard Hays. Their failure to read Scripture with the natural law contributes to their errors. Thus, Christians should opt to read Scripture with the rule of nature.