Ritual and Moral Law

~ Alastair Roberts

Today, I discuss the distinction between the moral and the ritual law, the threefold division of the Law, and natural and positive law.

Within the episode, I mention the Davenant Institute’s continuing work modernizing Richard Hooker (individual volumes are also available: I, II, III, IV). I also recommend Brad Littlejohn’s introduction to the work of Richard Hooker.

If you have any questions for me, please leave them on my Curious Cat account. If you have found these videos helpful, please tell your friends. If you would like to support my continued production of them, you can do so on my Patreon account. You can donate on PayPal here. You can also get the audio of these videos on Soundcloud or iTunes.

Published by Alastair Roberts

Alastair Roberts (PhD, Durham University) writes in the areas of biblical theology and ethics, but frequently trespasses beyond these bounds. He participates in the weekly Mere Fidelity podcast, blogs at Alastair’s Adversaria, and tweets at @zugzwanged.

3 thoughts on “Ritual and Moral Law”

  1. Pingback: Ritual Law and Moral Law | Leadingchurch.com
  2. Pingback: Parsing the Law—How to Keep the Sabbath – Adversaria Videos and Podcasts

  3. I appreciate your 3-part division. But I think the concept of “natural law” has been a curse to the church from the beginning. Romans 1 isn’t talking about Natural law, it’s talking about Natural Revelation. Most basic theology classes teach that the creation gives us “general revelation” about God’s power, ceativity, beauty, judgment,etc, but it is insufficient and is intended to drive us to the “specific revelation” in the Bible for the plan of redemption. We make a terrible mistake when we jump from natural revelation to so-called “natural law” in the realm of ethics, philosophy, and the like.

    Throughout the Bible God never, never calls us to return to “natural law.” He constantly and exclusively calls His people to return to His revealed law in the Old Testament. This was Aquinas’ great error, which I believe he realized at the end of his life when it was too late.

    Also this law was never exclusive to Israel because God’s standards of Justice do not change from nation to nation. The equity of the law of God applies everywhere and in every time. “So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of hte peoles who will hear all these sttutes and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people, For…what great nation is there tha has statues and judgments as righteous as the whole law which I am settnig before you today.” (Dt 4:6-8). All the nations came to Solomon to learn of his wisdom.

    I think its dangerous to call applications of God’s law ‘”positive” law, instead of simply applications of the equity of the law in different situations. Gods’ law is mostly negative -Thou Shalt Not, whereas positive law implies humanistic misuse of the law for “positive outcomes” such as so-called welfare laws. These require breaking of the law to redistribute wealth. As Bastiat put it, “the law turned against itself”

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