ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a critical analysis of attitudes towards legal positivism in Lutheran ethics. Legal positivism claims that it is not necessary that law should satisfy certain demands of morality in order to be valid. Even if Lutheran theology is associated with a kind of natural law theory, it has also accepted some basic ideas in legal positivism, within the framework of the doctrine of the two kingdoms and its sharp distinction between law and gospel. A thesis in this article is that we should accept that morality is not a criterion of valid law, but ethics should be a source of critical evaluation of secular law. It is important to make a distinction between valid law and morally justified law. Additionally, it will be argued that the basis for an ethical critique of law should not be a natural law theory but an understanding of Christian ethics that is not based upon reason alone but also upon the gospel about God’s love in Christ.
