Consent of the Nations: Whose Consent Really?
Some time ago, I first came across the concept of "the consent of the nations" in determining what nature teaches. For those unfamiliar, consider two quotes from John Calvin (emphases mine):
"... but as some principles of equity and justice remain in the hearts of men, the consent of all nations is as it were the voice of nature, or the testimony of that equity which is engraven on the hearts of men, and which they can never obliterate."
- John Calvin, Commentary on Habbakuk, Habakkuk 2:6
"If Scripture did not teach that it extends to both Tables of the Law, we could learn this from secular writers... Since, therefore, among all philosophers religion takes first place, and since this fact has always been observed by universal consent of all nations, let Christian princes and magistrates be ashamed of their negligence if they do not apply themselves to this concern."
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV.XX.IX
Seeing that the natural law is written on the hearts of all men, and the principles of natural law still remain intact even after the fall, Calvin rightly recognizes that we can look to pagans for truths gleaned from the light of nature. But rather than look to one specific pagan writer or a group of writers from the same nation, Calvin points to the "universal consent of all nations" (this he does, I presume, in recognition that divers peoples and civilizations err in divers ways). This is the exact modus operandi that C. S. Lewis uses in Abolition of Man, where he lists in the appendix the consent of various civilizations, cultures, and eras regarding the teachings of the natural law. The patterns of civilization manifest the principles of nature.
"Second, the consent of nations, among whom (even the most savage) some law of the primitive nations obtains, from which even without a teacher they have learned that God should be worshipped, parents honored, a virtuous life be led and from which as a fountain have flowed so many laws concerning equity and virtue enacted by heathen legislators, drawn from nature itself. And if certain laws are found among some repugnant to these principles, they were even with reluctance received and observed by a few, at length abrogated by contrary laws, and have fallen into desuetude."
- Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, II.XI.I.XIII
However, I had always wondered whose consent we were really talking about. This came to mind again after having recently read book II of Plato's Laws, in which he has a couple of interesting quotes (emphases mine):
"... education is the constraining and directing of youth towards that right reason, which the law affirms, and which the experience of the eldest and best has agreed to be truly right."
"But the pleasure must not be that of chance persons; the fairest music is that which delights the best and best educated, and especially that which delights the one man who is pre-eminent in virtue and education."
Plato does not take into account what just any man thinks in the discerning of the good. He takes into account only what the best, most experienced, and most virtuous men think. Thus, we could say he considers the "consent of the best." Even in the above-mentioned appendix of Abolition of Man, I note that Lewis does not collect quotes spoken by random civilians but rather from the most prominent and respected philosophers and teachers from the various civilizations.
Having said all this, in my current thinking, it seems sensible to ascribe more weight to the teachings and attitudes of certain nations and civilizations, namely those that are relatively more virtuous and particularly those that are Christian. If a case arises where various Christian nations teach a certain principle that is seldom found amongst the pagan nations, then we can reasonably conclude that the principle is still correct. That profane men would attest to it would only further cement the truthfulness of that principle.