Moral intutionalism and the law inscribed on our hearts

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Dec 1999 by Mathewson, Mark D

Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Or so I am told. But what about God's law? What about those who lived prior to God's written law or who presently live in locations where they have no access to God's written law? Is ignorance of this law no excuse?

Actually, this last question, according to the apostle Paul, is illegitimate. No one can claim ignorance of God's law because, as Paul writes,

For when the Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus (Rom 2:14-16 NASB). Part of Paul's argument for the guilt of all humanity is that each one knows enough about God's nature and moral demands to be held accountable whether or not they have God's written law (Rom 1:20, 32; 2:14-15).

But how is this knowledge gained? Without explication, Paul claims that the work of the law is written in human hearts. Paul's intent here is not to treat the epistemological question (he simply assumes individuals possess such knowledge), but to argue that those without God's special revelation of moral demands are without excuse. However, inquisitive readers may wish to ask the relevant questions as to how humans acquire this knowledge. What does it mean for the work of the law to be inscribed in us? And how do we then come to apprehend and then know it?

One account of moral epistemology, moral intuitionism, provides a plausible explication. On my view, Rom 2:14-15 can be construed in terms of a moderate moral intuitionism. My goal then is to do what Paul does notprovide an epistemology of the internal law. In what follows, I will examine the internal law of which Paul speaks in Romans 2, put forth what I take to be a successful account of moral intuitionism, then explicate the internal law in light of this moral intuitionist account. The result will be, I hope, a plausible formulation of just how each human can and does know God's moral demands apart from special revelation.

I. THE INTERNAL LAW OF ROMANS 2:14-15

Paul asserts that unregenerate people who do not have access to God's written law are able to obey God's law (or at least parts of it) presumably because they know and understand God's law. 1 Their accomplishing of the law (or, again, parts of it)' is not by accident or coincidence. From Rom 2:14-15 and 1:32 one is under the impression that the very reason these Gentiles do the law is that they possess a knowledge of it and purposefully keep it.

But how does this knowledge originate? Though an initial reading of Rom 2:14-15 may lead to the view that the law itself or a knowledge of it is innate, I am not so convinced. I argue, rather, that what is part of the human's constitutional makeup is the cognitive ability to grasp or apprehend the law. 3

The internal law spoken of in Rom 2:14-15 is not to be equated with any essential property we posses nor is reducible to any one of them. The internal law is not our instinct, impulse or even intuition though it may be known by one or more of them. 4 Moreover, the internal law is neither our conscience nor discovered by it. The conscience in 2:15 plays an evaluatory role with respect to one's acceptance and performance of the internal law. It is not the source of it. 5 One must be careful not to read "do by nature the things of the law" in 2:14 as "have innately as part of their nature the things of the law." One cannot automatically infer the latter from the former.----

But does not 2:15 say that the law is written or inscribed in our hearts? Some words of caution are needed before we too hastily take Paul's assertion here as a description of some innate property we have. The text provides us with no hint as to who (or what) has done the writing and how that writing was accomplished. Most would assume God as the inscriber, but one need not take him as such. Nothing in the text alludes to any divine action at this point.6 More to the point, the author does not appear to have as his purpose an attempt to inform us of exactly how the law became present in us and who (or what) is responsible for its presence in us. Paul's terminology may in fact be a metaphoric or stylistic way of simply saying that the law exists or is found in human hearts or minds in a more than ephemeral way. 7 1 see no conclusive support in 2:15 requiring the interpreter to take the law itself as being innate in humans. 8

One may want to object at this point that even if 2:15 does not force a reading of the law being innate, 1:32 does. Here Paul claims that the moral degenerates of which he speaks in the preceding verses know the just or righteous decree of God (-r6 &Kai(oVa ToO OFo) and that violation of it requires death. Paul appears to have a specific law in mind with a specific punishment, suggesting support for the notion that the law discussed in 2:14 is innate. However, as with 2:15, nothing in 1:32 insists that the law is an innate part of the human makeup. Paul simply asserts that humans generally have some degree of knowledge that the actions and behaviors of which he speaks in 1:21-31 violate God's moral standard and deserve punishment.9 He is not concerned with, and does not allude to,_how_that knowledge obtains.- Moreover. knowledge of specific moral requirements, that they are punishable, and even the extent of the punishment does not entail an innate set of moral laws. Knowledge of such facts may be gained apart from an innate law. C. S. Lewis's argument for a moral Lawgiver proves insightful here. 10 Lewis shows that from the moral order of the universe itself humans know that we ought to behave in a certain way (there is a specific moral law) and that it originates in an intelligence beyond the universe. Additionally, Lewis contends humans know that none of us are keeping this law; have thus made ourselves enemies of this intelligent Lawgiver, and we want to hide (for fear of punishment?) from it.