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Life ‘According to Nature’ and ‘Against Nature’: Essays by Rollin G. Grams

 

Today’s (30 June, 2026) ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States deserves a note.  One might want to say that it deserves applause, but should one applaud something that is, while important and appreciated, also a simple statement of fact?  We do not reward students for commenting that water is wet, the sun warm, and birds fly.  Be that as it may, after a season of exercises in antinatural illogic, we applaud the Supreme Court’s logic like a breeze in our sails to carry us out from the doldrums.  It is this: the Court ruled that men are not women and may not weasel their way into women’s sports, whatever gender pretenses they purport.  Justice Thomas simply stated:

Men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls, even if they believe that they are.  Sex is an immutable “biological” characteristic…; it is binary; and “man” and “woman”, “boy” and “girl”, are the terms that correspond to adults and children of each sex (West Virginia vs. B. P. J.)

The Court’s ruling was 6 to 3.  Of course, Justice Jackson was one of the three.  In her confirmation hearings, she could not define a woman—or would not—and that despite the obvious truth that she was chosen to sit on the Court because of her stellar qualifications of being black and a woman (a win for 'equity' and 'intersectionality').  One might suppose she would have been at a loss to define ‘black’ as well!

While in a democracy we might still speak freely (at least in the United States of America we might—not so much in the United Kingdom or Europe), I will request the great Roman jurist to speak in my stead about what makes for good law:

But if rights were established by peoples’ orders, if by leading men’s decrees, if by judges’ verdicts, there would be a right to rob, a right to commit adultery, a right to substitute false wills if those things were approved by the votes or resolutions of a multitude. But if there is such power in the opinions and orders of the foolish that the nature of things is changed by their votes, why don’t they establish that bad and ruinous things should be held to be good and salutary things? Or if law can make right out of wrong, can’t the same law make good out of bad? But we can divide good law from bad by no other standard than that of nature (Laws I.43-44).

So, we might say one who does not, cannot, or will not follow the standard of nature in making law will only make bad laws, full of cultural bias and personal opinion.  My purpose here is not to write an essay but to list, with links, the essays I have previously written about ‘nature’ and ‘against nature’ in antiquity.  They are as follows:

*Plato and Paul on How Same-Sex Acts and Orientations are ‘Against Nature’

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2026/06/plato-and-paul-on-how-same-sex-acts-and.html

*'Nature' and ‘Against Nature’ in Romans 1:26-27: A Study in the Primary Sources

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2016/12/nature-and-against-nature-in-romans-126.html

*Making Moral Decisions: A Comparison of Marcus Tullius Cicero (De Officiis) and the Apostle Paul (Letter to the Romans) on Social Instincts

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2026/06/making-moral-decisions-comparison-of.html

*James Talarico’s Confused Claims about Christian Convictions, and Europe’s Trans-Society

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2026/03/james-talicos-confused-claims-about.html

*The Great Western Experiment of Self-Creation

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-great-western-experiment-of-self.html

*The Particular Danger of Socialist Countries with National Health Care Practicing Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-particular-danger-of-socialist.html

*Towards a Creedal Statement on the Doctrine of Creation and Humanity

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2025/09/toward-creedal-statement-on-doctrine-of.html

*The New Virtues of a Failing Culture

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-new-virtues-of-failing-culture.html

*Unnatural, Civil Laws and Same-Sex 'Marriage'

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2025/06/unnatural-civil-laws-and-same-sex.html

*The Struggle to Do What is Right: Interpreting Romans 5.12 and 7.7-25

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-struggle-to-do-what-is-right.html

*Is There a Consistent Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture?

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2024/09/is-there-consistent-teaching-on.html

*France's Un-Olympic Games

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2024/07/frances-un-olympic-celebration.html

*False Teaching in the ‘Later Times’: A Look at 1 Timothy 4.1-5

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2023/10/false-teaching-in-later-times-look-at-1.html

*Our Bodies as Living Sacrifices, Holy and Acceptable to God: The People of God and the Relationship between Theology and Ethics in Romans

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2023/09/our-bodies-as-living-sacrifices-holy.html

*The Church and Same Sex Unions: A Response to Savitri Hensman

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-church-and-same-sex-unions-response.html

*Justice in the State: Comparisons between Plato’s Republic and the West. Essay 1: Nature, and the Differences between Men and Women

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2023/03/justice-in-state-comparisons-between.html

*Plato’s Republic and the West. Essay 2: Equal Training and Natural Inequalities between Men and Women in Plato's 'Republic' and the West Today

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2023/03/equal-training-and-natural-inequalities.html

*Justice in the State: Comparisons between Plato’s Republic and the West. Essay 3: Equality, Freedom, and Justice

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2023/03/justice-in-state-comparisons-between_19.html

*Justice as the Right Ordering in the Soul and the State. Essay 8 of Justice in the State: Comparisons between Plato’s Republic and the West

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2023/03/justice-as-right-ordering-in-soul-and.html

*A Response to Bishop John Inge's Advocacy for Same-Sex Marriage

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2023/01/a-response-to-bishop-john-inges.html

*Paul, Epictetus, and Romans 1.26-28

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2022/07/paul-epictetus-and-romans-126-28.html

*Should Christians Use Someone's 'Preferred Pronouns' in Compliance with 'Transgender' Politics?

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2022/07/should-christians-use-someones.html

* Platonists, Stoics, and Paul on Gender Fluidity, ‘Side B Christians,’ and ‘Conversion Therapy’

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2022/04/platonists-stoics-and-paul-on-gender.html

*A Brief Comparison of Plutarch and Paul on Their Opposition to Homosexuality

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2021/11/after-twothousand-years-of-clear.html

* How ‘Social Justice’ Becomes Idolatry in a Post-Christian Culture and in Progressive ‘Christianity’

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2021/03/how-social-justice-becomes-idolatry-in.html

*Some Characteristics of the West's Postmodern Tribalism

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2020/07/some-characteristics-of-wests.html

*The Antinaturalism of Late Postmodernity

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-antinaturalism-of-late-postmodernity.html

*From Naturalism to Anti-Naturalism: Understanding the Enemy in Today's Culture Wars

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2018/08/from-naturalism-to-anti-naturalism.html

*When Marriage is No Longer Understood as a Moral Act

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2018/02/when-marriage-is-no-longer-understood.html

*The Anti-Naturalism of Western Culture

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-anti-naturalism-of-western-culture.html

*Plato and the Church of England: Guidelines for Schools

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2017/11/plato-and-church-of-england-guidelines.html

*The Changing, Cardinal Virtues of Western Society

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-changing-cardinal-virtues-of.html

*The Christian Church's Stance on Abortion

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-christian-churchs-stance-on-abortion.html

*Ideals and Abstractions, Particulars and the Concrete: Understanding Sexual Orientation in Greek Philosophy and in Romans 1.26-28

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2016/12/ideals-and-abstractions-particulars-and.html

*Observations on Homosexual Orientation in Antiquity

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2016/11/christian-mission-to-west-homosexual.html

*Sexual Orientation in Antiquity and Paul

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2016/11/christian-mission-to-west-sexual.html

*The Argument that Homosexuality is Against Nature

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2016/11/issues-facing-missions-today-64.html

*The Church: 13. Comparing Aristotle’s Politics and Paul

https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-church-13-comparing-aristotles.html

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