Extract

It is difficult to think of a volume that is as extensive, articulate, and persuasive as Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms. VanDrunen’s book is a thorough analysis of the Reformed understanding of natural law, viz. the ‘belief that God had inscribed his moral law on the heart of every person, such that through the testimony of conscience all human beings have knowledge of their basic moral obligations and, in particular, have a universally accessible standard for the development of civil law’ (p. 1), as well as the Reformed understanding of the two kingdoms, viz. the portrayal by early Reformers (Luther, Calvin) of ‘God as ruling all human institutions and activities, but as ruling them in two fundamentally different ways. … God rules the church (the spiritual kingdom) as redeemer in Jesus Christ and rules the state and all other social institutions (the civil kingdom) as creator and sustainer, and thus these two kingdoms have significantly different ends, functions, and modes of operation’ (ibid.).

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