Though good laws require human determination, they are nevertheless from God, not only providentially but also in root and mode: They follow from God’s natural law (the root) and are promulgated and enlivened by God’s servant, the civil magistrate (the mode). Therefore, we can say with Demosthenes that “all law is a gift of God.”20 A just body of civil law is from God. It is, in this sense, theonomic.
