Natural Law: A Short Companion, by David VanDrunen. Brentwood, TN: B&H Academic, 2023, xvi + 135 pages, $19.99, paper.

David VanDrunen’s Natural Law: A Short Companion is just the kind of clear and concise introduction to the topic (from a Reformed perspective) that I believe many readers have been wanting, even if many of those readers will not realize just how much till they read this breezy little volume. VanDrunen has taken seriously the wider evangelical audience assumed by the Essentials in Christian Ethics series, in which this volume appears, and it serves the work very well. The result is a pithy and useful guide that will clear up common confusions and orient readers—students just wading into the topic, friends unsure of the scriptural support for natural law, critics who believe it contradicts Protestant convictions, and so on—to the biblical case for the natural revelation of the moral order.

VanDrunen does not assume his readers are already familiar with the concept or contours of the natural law, much less a decidedly Protestant account of it. On the contrary, he takes the time to straighten the ethical room and set aside some common misconceptions as he begins to build a generously illustrated argument from Scripture. Each of the six chapters is clear, focused, and edifying. While those who have read VanDrunen’s other works will find this volume a relatively straightforward review of one of the major themes of his corpus, it is more than a mere recap of what he has already said elsewhere.

VanDrunen achieves something striking in these 120 pages that gives the work an almost unique place within his corpus: he successfully avoids the intramural Reformed debates over covenant theology and two kingdoms that have so often shaped the reception of his previous works. Since 2010, VanDrunen has produced a series of lengthy studies in Reformed moral theology related one way or another to the natural law. The weightiest contributions include Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms (Eerdmans, 2010), Divine Covenant and Moral Order (Eerdmans, 2014), and Politics after Christendom (Zondervan Academic, 2020). He has another on the way: Reformed Moral Theology (Baker Academic). His shorter practical work, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms (Crossway, 2010), fits the pattern too.

VanDrunen’s Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms together with Stephen Grabill’s Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics (Eerdmans, 2006) marks something of a turning point in recent Reformed moral theology. Reformed moral theology had grown hostile to its own natural law tradition and nearly lost its way in the twentieth century. What was needed, and what these two authors began to provide, was a recovery of this tradition and revitalization of Reformed moral theology more broadly. Grabill’s work was purely historical, demonstrating that Reformed moral theology was, prior to the twentieth century, a natural law tradition in substantial continuity with the medieval tradition and tracing out where it veered off course. VanDrunen went further, however, by developing a fresh exposition of a natural law Reformed moral theology—an exposition that he has continued to build on in each subsequent work and will continue in his forthcoming Reformed Moral Theology.

VanDrunen’s previous works have attracted devoted fans—no doubt including many readers of Ordained Servant—among those who view him as integrating the best strands of Reformed covenant theology with the best strands of Reformed moral theology and social thought. VanDrunen’s many and varied detractors, however, seem to think he is doing the tradition a great disservice. Perhaps ironically, the former may find his latest contribution of little interest. The latter, and those like me who fall somewhere in between, would do well to read Natural Law. They may discover a new appreciation for his contribution on this significant topic.

VanDrunen has always offered us far more than his opinion on the intramural debates that have sometimes swallowed the reception of his previous works. As he knows, I have welcomed his contributions on natural law and two kingdoms from the start, while finding his integration of covenant theology into moral theology unconvincing in places. (Readers interested in more on that can check out some of our recent collegial conversations hosted by Reformed Forum.) My reading of VanDrunen’s previous works have always been a very mixed exercise for me, with points of strong agreement and disagreement alternating throughout, not infrequently within a single sentence. I suspect—I know, actually—that I am not alone in this.

Natural Law is an exception. By largely sidestepping these intramural debates VanDrunen gives his readers a way to admire his significant contribution to recovering the classic Reformed account of the natural law and its abiding usefulness for contemporary Christians without the distraction of areas of potential disagreement or conflicting thoughts. While careful readers will see, for example, the contours of his covenant theology with its emphasis on discontinuity between the Mosaic and New covenants creeping into his illustrations here and there, it is not material to the biblical case for the natural law he is making. In other words, while there is ample evidence he has not changed his views, he has exercised considerable restraint in his determination to give us a clean and clear account of the natural law.

This work now tops my list of recommended primers on the natural law. I will likely require it in my introductory courses in moral theology, and I highly commend it to you. It is a great place to dive into the natural law; it is also a great place to dive into VanDrunen’s corpus; and it is just the right book to put into the hands of anyone you know who would benefit from a fresh and more appreciative reading of his significant contributions to contemporary Reformed moral theology.

Bruce P. Baugus is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and a professor of systematic theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Ordained Servant Online, March, 2024.