Natural Law as a Scriptural Concept

Abstract

We typically regard biblical and natural-law ethics as two distinct approaches to Christian moral reflection. Yet, for the scholastic theologians of the high Middle Ages, the natural law was a scriptural doctrine, in the sense that the existence of a natural law is attested in Scripture. Furthermore, these scholastics took some of their starting points and substantive content, as well as justification for their systematic reflections on the natural law, from these scriptural attestations. I have argued for this point in more detail elsewhere, and I summarize these arguments in the first section of this essay. The main aims of this article are to draw out some of the theological implications of the scholastics' approach to the natural law and more particularly to explore its implications for the interpretation of Scripture itself.