It's been a while since I posted here. I decided today I would begin putting up some book reports I wrote a while ago. These were written as part of my investigation into Christian Natural Law Theory, for the book I'm working on for my kids. I figured, if a theory is a "Christian Theory", then it should be motivated by distinctly Christian ideas -- that is to say, it should be traceable to scripture references. I started with Summa, and I was looking specifically for scriptural justifications for Natural Law Theory as a theory of jurisprudence. Most importantly, I wanted to know where they get the idea that humans have been given permission or authority from God to make laws.

All authority is from God. So, if we have not received a delegation of authority from God to do something, then we don't have authority to do it. This applies especially to government, since God expressly outlined a system of government and said "do not add or subtract from my laws". So, if we're going to say that God wants us to make up new styles of government, I hoped such a well developed theory would be able to provide some justification for the assumption.

In fact, it seems the thought never crossed the mind of Aquinas, nor of any of the other sources I initially read on the topic. In fact, on the topics of nearest relevancy, Aquinas and his sources (I read the chapters he cited from Augustine etc. as well) only a handful of verses are mentioned; and the whole verses are not used, but only a phrase from them; and the phrases are not used to motivate Aquinas's jurisprudence, but only to corroborate it. The most important verse appears to be from Romans 2, which I'll be giving some attention in my book.

At any rate, after much independent reading on the topic, I was dissatisfied, because this theory is advocated so boldly as Christian by Christians, both Protestant and Catholic alike. So, not knowing where else to look, I joined forums and asked AI for more informative sources, and I read what was recommended to me. For the benefit of the TQA forum, I wrote targeted "book reports" on a handful of books which were the most popularly recommended to me, both by AI, and by Catholic and Protestant Natural Law Theory advocates. These books were named as important independently by several of the groups I asked, and no other books came with comparable praise, so I think they must be the best. My reports focus on the chapters which were commended to me as relevant to my topic, but I also looked over the other chapters in the books in order to be more sure I didn't miss anything important. Truly, I don't know how I could be more fair to Aquinas's followers, except if I had written about them with less bias. But I do not intend to be an academic; I am a Christian and Biblicist first, and all the rest, I pray, is ministry.

So much for context. This is the first and shortest report I wrote.

Summary of VanDrunen "A Biblical Case for Natural Law"

First Chapter: "Human Nature" 

1. God is Moral as to his nature

2. Man is the image of God, which entails a moral character, implying knowledge of morals

3. Though sin clouds our minds, man still is in the image of God, so the knowledge of morals still persists.

On the basis of Romans 1, he argues that the knowledge of God's law which exists in man -- the naturally revealed law, or "natural law" -- is "practically comprehensive".

On the basis of Romans 2, he argues that "the requirements of this natural law are essentially the same as those of the law of Moses", and, "the Law [both natural and of Moses] judges people on the basis of their obedience to it, and 2:14-15 explains how this can be true even of those who do not have the law of Moses".

Commentary from me: So far, this is all well and good, and I don't necessarily disagree with the notion that we have a certain imperfect awareness of the law; only that it (as is very apparent even in legislation generated by Christians) doesn't enable us to reproduce the law of God in legislation, nor permit us to try. Chapters 2 and 3 are where the rubber meets the road. 

Second Chapter: "Two Kingdoms"

Basically, in Chapter 2, he bridges the gap between natural law and civil legislation by rejecting theonomy -- even WGE theonomy as I understand it. Here are some relevant excerpts:

> ...Furthermore, God never gave the church a civil code... 

> ...the Noahic covenant is for all people, the Abrahamic covenant is for some...

> Instead of mingling with unbelieving nations in cultural endeavors, God’s people were now commanded to exterminate the pagans within their nation’s borders (e.g., Deut. 7:1–5)... Yet, biblical revelation makes clear that this was a temporary, extraordinary situation that God established only for a certain time and place in order to accomplish specific purposes in his redemptive plan and to point ahead to the eternal, heavenly state.

> Solomon carried on a general commercial trade with nations all around ... The two kingdoms dynamic, therefore, again became operative for Israel when they were outside the bounds of the Promised Land. Only when abiding within the land, according to the theocratic principles of the Mosaic covenant, was the two kingdoms model temporarily set aside.

> New Testament Christians, therefore, live in two kingdoms, as Abraham and the patriarchs did before them. The social and cultural realm is a mixed realm, a common realm, whose magistrates hold legitimate authority apart from their religious convictions and where Christians and non-Christians may intermingle freely...The character of the civil kingdom as a common realm calls for a moral standard that is common to all human beings, and this is what natural law is.

[emphasis mine]

The argument in this chapter is, basically, since we're supposed to share government with pagans in the New Covenant, we can't argue for laws on the basis of scripture (although he never states "because they'd never agree to it" directly, I think it's strongly implied by what he wrote), instead we have to appeal to the natural law in them. 

And, to what end, he describes in chapter 3. Summarily:

> Moral goods such as peace and prosperity are to be cultivated (Jer. 29:7). Civil magistrates exist for the good of the people, and the people are to obey magistrates (Rom. 13:1– 7; 1 Tim. 2:2; 1 Peter 2:13–17)....The appropriateness of natural law as the moral standard for the civil kingdom becomes all the more important in light of the fact that, in a certain sense, Scripture is not the appropriate moral standard for the civil kingdom. Scripture, of course, provides much relevant teaching for God’s people concerning their attitude toward the world at large and their conduct in it.

[emphasis mine]

Chapter 4 talks about how nature will be different in heaven, and basically talks about how references to nature in the Bible are evidence of natural law.

So, TLDR, his argument (as I read it) is: Mosaic law is mandatory for everyone -- except for the parts about not having a pagan society; those were temporary; now we work with pagans, because 2K -- but the pagans wouldn't obey any of it if we told them it was from the Bible, so we have to convince them to obey it by appealing to their awareness of natural law. 

I could be wrong, but I'm thinking this isn't exactly compatible with Westminster General Equity Theonomy (WGE). And, in either case, I don't think his construal of the two kingdoms is really defensible, or even a component of Natural Law theory on its own, so my takeaway is (if this were the only representative) that the idea of Natural Law results in permit for human legislation only after bringing in an additional theory. Moving on to the next book.

So lately I've been especially attentive to styles of argumentation, in hopes of elevating my own consistency. I notice I have a habit, and I am not sure what I am accomplishing by it. Is it a temptation, a set of barriers, a defense, intellectual laziness? Here is the phenomena:

I am presented with a debate topic. I begin with argument A. It is an argument that is short, pointed, easy to deliver, and witty. It is an argument which I love, but one which I know is wrong, but I have genuinely forgotten that it is wrong because of my love for it. In fact, it was refuted several times before, but in the heat of those moments, I did not take the time to acknowledge its refutation. I quickly moved onto another closely related argument B; substantively linked but formally distinct, requiring my opponent to shift gears in order to rebut me. My opponent did not even notice that I shifted gears; in fact, without careful observation, it may appear that A and B support one another.

Argument B is, maybe, a very good argument, but I do not have the time to substantiate it. I will never have the time to substantiate it. The topic at hand is important, but life is short, and I must choose my battles. A good argument on an important topic requires years of research to formulate. Why am I wasting time on this topic anyway? What am I doing in this debate? My opponent asks for substantiation, and I am instantly discouraged. I realize my error and shift to argument C.

Argument C involves expressing the realization that I'm totally unqualified to be engaged in this debate. But there's a problem; I'm not less qualified than the person I'm debating. Argument C is, therefore, a call to epistemic submission to the forces accessible to persons of our mutual qualifications. It dawns on me that we're both citing research articles we barely understand, but it's too late, because I've already submersed myself in the muck with my opponent, and the mode of dialogue is established beyond repair. 

Can you guess the topic that caused me to notice this? Evolution is where this comes up most often.

This debate strategy is surely a defense mechanism; witless, reflexive, and developed involuntarily. I am discarding it. Argument C is where I belong.

I'm recently engaged in a series of conversations which have cornered me. First, I defend the notion that Presuppositionalism doesn't pin me to a position of inability to learn from secular sources. Later, separately, with the same people, I defend the notion that YEC and OE sources are similarly scientific (this is argument B). My opponent states that YEC and OE are not on equal footing with regard to science because of the freedom of the experts to express themselves. Here are my options:

- Deny that experts have freedom to express themselves (scholarly papers don't permit YEC). But if I make this argument, I have to defend it, and I can't. It has conspiracy-theory-level backing. It may be true (I like conspiracy theories), but in its current form it can't bear the weight I'm putting on it.

- Deny that atheists are capable of intellectual honesty (something I can argue well from Presuppositionalism, but I have already rejected in principle)

Either I am being inconsistent, or I am failing to notice an important category. This will be on my mind all weekend.

"Happy Valentines Day"

Right now I have something (maybe very silly) weighing heavily on my mind and I want to tell someone a story, but I'm the only one awake, and this place is an old reliable fallback, prepare to be the emotional outlet.

I recently listened to one of kitboga's scammer conquest videos. In this one he convinced the scammer that he was an old couple with a few hundred big in the bank. The scammer told him to move the money to a secure account to safeguard the funds (the scammer's own account, of course). This went on for a day or two I think. At some point there was a break in the conversation, and post gap kitboga informed the scammer that he had moved the money to the account of his son in law. The scammer, a little emotional about it, asked if kitboga trusted his son in law with the money. Kit said yeah, it will be an inheritance later anyway. The scammer said he was a good dad. Kit asked if the scammer was a good dad. The scammer explained he tries to be a good dad. The conversation went on, his son wants to be just like him, but he doesn't want his son to be like him. Here the scammer was being vulnerable, and Kit began a severe moral bludgeoning. The scammer tried to hint that the call was being monitored so he couldn't confess to being a scammer, and eventually, reduced to tears, gave in, then hung up. 

It was really sad to hear. I love to see criminals get pwnd, but this was an instance where I was thinking along the lines of, "I take no pleasure in the suffering of the wicked". The scammer's son is the same age as my son, and he's impoverished, and his dad hates himself. It's terrible for him! Even though his immediate surroundings attempt to normalize dishonesty, his conscience is inescapable.

I used to get a lot of scam calls, and I would share the gospel with them. One time, the caller cried on the phone with me.  I told him that Jesus died so he wouldn't have to live that way anymore. He tried to stick to the script, so I told him, "come on man, your company is paying you to lie to people. You can do better than this."  He broke down and said "but I have no other choice. What else can I do?"  I told him to go find a church that teaches about Jesus, and that they would help him out. I sure hope and pray it worked out for him. I had a few conversations like that, and then they stopped calling me. 

It actually makes me pretty emotional to think about those guys and imagine their situation.  Am I just too tired right now to process it impassionately? Idk. I think it has been weighing heavily on me for a few days, and the weight has been increasing as I have been listening to a lot of kitboga lately. Some of his videos are genuinely hilarious, and some really show that nobody can escape their God given conscience "bearing witness against them". 

Ok well that's the end of the story. Idk if I feel better having typed it out or not. What is it in people that makes them need to tell these kinds of things? 

"A hero"

My second child, a daughter, was born on July 4th! We gave her a name that we hope will point her toward the importance of generosity, service, forgiveness, and God's covenant: Lydia Jubilee. "Lydia", after the gentile seller of purple cloth who opened her home to the service of the saints, and whose entire household was saved -- a cool picture of the covenant and regeneration. "Jubilee", the backbone of the Biblical economy, forgiveness of debt and a return of everyone to their permanent inheritance, and a picture of the gospel (thinking of Isaiah 61:1-3). I'll be calling her Jube for short.

The first week has been basically sleep deprivation and a tiny bit of chores. The house wasn't quite ready for her -- we got a lot of our baby gear at the last minute because the second-hand donations that we'd been receiving up until that point were mostly actually kinda gross, so it isn't quite organized yet. Well, so I'm doing my best to get things in shape, or at least keep them from getting worse. 

Chowon suffered some more-than-typical harm during the delivery, but she's slowly getting back on her feet. I'm doing all the diapers, any soothing, swaddling, etc, so that all Chowon has to worry about is nursing and self-care. Chowon can't be satisfied by that kind of inactivity, though, and has managed to fill her time by responding to congratulations on the phone, the result of which has been a ton of meal deliveries at our house, which is really awesome.

Isaac is taking it very well. He's been very positive about having a baby sister, and he's been playing alone very well, and making himself breakfast sometimes. I'm trying to prioritize playing with him in my spare time, which also reduces the chores I can do. But family cohesiveness is more important than cleanliness in the final analysis, and I think my priorities are in the right place. The house is messy, but it's not gross, and it is slowly improving.

I have a lot of paid paternity leave. I'm nervous about getting back to work at my job after all of this.

In my progress on the book that I'm working on for Isaac (and now for Jubilee too!), I've noticed that Paul is rebutting the Circumcision party in nearly all of his letters. He's really seriously campaigning against them. That realization, and my renewed understanding of Paul's journey, has painted a more human picture of Paul in my head. 

I'm often praying that God will guide me to write what's true in my book, and not just write what I want to be true. I've definitely changed my perspective about a lot of topics as a result of this study, so that's something -- I hope, an indicator of God's activity in guiding my mind to some truth. 

I'm often back-and-forth about whether or not I will give the finished work to the guys who said they want to publish it if I finish it. Maybe I'll just pay to get the pages durably bound, and then give a copy each to my son and daughter, and call that the end of it. The more I research, the more I realize I'm a layman doing layman's research. I'm an autodidact and it definitely shows. What am I doing pretending to have answers to all of these arguments I'm taking on in my book? Who am I to lay claim to any true knowledge pertaining to scripture? By teaching, if I say anything true, I've only done what's commanded and expected of me, but if I say what's false, I have sinned and caused my neighbor to sin! I can only hope that my son will filter out the failures I present to him, and follow the Holy Spirit toward Christlikeness, becoming himself a better man than me. 

But I have to say something! I certainly can't leave my children to the wolves. I'm not merely subject to the belief that these philosophies I'm arguing against in the book are complete garbage; they really are trash and my children would only injure themselves by giving serious consideration to some of these thinkers. There are a lot of things in these writings I'm compiling about which I am firmly convinced I can't be wrong. Combing my conclusions to draw up a detailed blueprint of the structure connecting them to those primary beliefs is perhaps the work of many lifetimes, so I have to prioritize what I put my effort toward and how I do it. I can't let myself take too long, because I will age and lose my zeal (and besides, I might die tomorrow!); I can't be too quick or I will miss the important details. 

I don't want my children to waste time evaluating pop philosophy. I know it's a very common idea that people eventually have to evaluate the religious landscape for themselves and establish a personal conviction for Jesus anew after leaving their parent's household (I certainly did that), but I don't think that the activity needs to include any time wasted critically examining bullshit ideas like atheism or islam. Like, how thoroughly do we need to refute that crap before it doesn't deserve our attention anymore? Think of all the progress we can make if we rather devoted our minds to the truth! 

Don't get me wrong, apologetics is good work, and having a defense against outside arguments is important for everyone as a necessary evil, but I don't think that's the same as having a "reason for the hope that is within us". My reason for believing in Jesus is entirely compelling to me, but it isn't an argument in the common sense of the term; it's becoming more and more a blend of relational, spiritual, experiential, and rational ideas that feels increasingly bound up in my very self-ontology.

I want to present my children with something that they can use as a foundation to build-on. We're homeschooling them so that I can, by going alongside them, fill the gaps and equip them for this. I want them to skip all the trash philosophers I read, (I'll give them a cursory understanding of the history of philosophy insofar as I can make it an interesting story), and I want them to make positive progress by so thoroughly immersing themselves in the truth that the answers to outside challenges become too obvious for care. "The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them."

I once read the argument that people need to have an experiential understanding of "darkness" in order to know what "light" is. For example, if they only ever saw the color "white" they would never know what white was until they first saw other colors. I don't buy it. They would only know what white was until they saw other colors, and then they would know the other colors. I think contrast is helpful to demonstrate magnitudes and to build a sense of relevance by way of application, which is helpful to expedite learning, but not necessary to know truth. I don't need to go worship another god in order to know that Jesus is the true God. Nobody in Israel needs to be proselytized toward false religion in order to understand God's covenant with them. Deut 13:6-11 permits no such proselytization in Israel, while elsewhere the Bible commands repeatedly that Israel take plenty of time to learn God's words, precisely because in-depth knowledge of false ideas is not necessary. 

There are infinite falsehoods out there, and only one truth; how can I invent a falsehood in order to contrast it with the truth in order to gain knowledge of the truth if I haven't already known both the truth and the falsehood in order to contrast them with one another so as to understand the falsehood I'm inventing? The idea that knowledge must be founded on dialectical contrasts is philosophically incoherent.

My kids don't need to read Nietzsche as a prerequisite in order to know that he's not worth reading. Nor do they need to critically examine the theory of evolution in order to know that God created mankind from the dust on the 6th day, nor do they need to dabble in other religions to gain deep insight into Christianity. I want them to build on the foundation that was laid for them in God's word, and skip the crap. If I can give them that much, then I've saved them years of time, and if God graciously sees fit to give me so much of a great blessing, he may place them among those in heaven who never bowed to a false god, and to retain a man for God's kingdom from among my children for future generations. Oh God, do not permit my family to go astray, and my generations to be struck from the book of life!

"My soul is crushed with longing for your judgments at all times."

ETA:

I've been thinking about what I wrote here, and maybe I'm being redundant by re-engaging with my self-doubt here... (I thought about making it a separate blog post, but it's too soon). I do want to clarify that I'm not going to completely leave my kids ignorant of things like OE/TOE or the various manners of approaching nihilism, so I'm not completely isolationist here, but I do intend to give thorough emphasis both in time and effort to teaching things I believe to be true (as every teacher does, right?)... but also, I'm concerned about myself. Am I deceiving myself by means of a false humility, whereas I'm actually unwilling to budge on issues about which there are legitimate challenges out there?

I won't say I am not concerned about the possibility. Indeed that's why I write here. But on the other hand, I'm not quite ready to yield to it.

One time I read a philosopher argue along these lines, "if your ideas are contradictory to mine, and aren't at least as well developed as mine; at least as thoroughly challenged and time-proved as mine; at least as comprehensive in their explanatory power as mine; at least as coherent as mine -- then I may be willing to engage with you concerning challenges you have to my own ideas, but I see no need to spend any time versing myself on your ideas.". I suppose that may seem a sort of philosophical hubris, but on the other hand, Christianity is truly the best established system in existence on all accounts. I may not be an expert in Christianity (or any other system for that matter), but I don't need to be an architect to know which building is tallest. And, let's face it: Christianity does engage in internal criticisms of outside philosophies, but it is also entirely consistent with Biblical Christianity to maintain an attitude of derision toward non-Christian perspectives. "The fool says in his heart, 'there is no god'.". "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."

Sure, "what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?", and so some analysis of the enemy is necessary when in battle. And Christianity is a conquering ideology, aimed at ideological warfare, "We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete." But given limited time to build an awareness of the situation, whose troops should the king know better, his own or his enemy's? And should the king verse himself on armies which will not be involved in the current battle as thoroughly as on those who will? The most efficient use of my time as a teacher is to teach the truth, not to verse my kids on every untruth, nor even on those aspects of untruths which are easily refuted by things my students already know. 

If I am able to expand that category of prior knowledge effective to refute an enemy idea, so that it encompasses very much of the enemy's ideology, then there is little left for me to do by way of teaching on the enemy, except insofar as it expedites teaching the truth. Only: am I able? That is the prompt for my self-doubt. I'm not really all that worried about whether or not Christianity is subject to an undermining refutation, only whether I can prepare my kids sufficiently that they are not deceived by a weak refutation.

Trying to carefully parse the Bible, its premises and conclusions as it presents them, in order to gain a better understanding of God's law for the purpose of this book. Here's an excerpt from my notes concerning Romans 13. 

---------------------------

P1. v1. All authority is from God (no authority exists except this)

P2. v3-4. Rulers terrorize evil and promote good

P3. (implicit). Good and evil are defined by God's law, as well as the good means of terrorizing/promoting.

 = v5-6 =

Verse 6 must be read in light of verse 5. See how Paul chains together clauses using "for" and "therefore". 

In a phrase "A therefore B", A provides a basis for agreement with B.

In a phrase, "A for B", B provides a basis for agreement with A. 

Leading up to "we do it not only because of wrath, but because of conscience" in verse 5, we have a "therefore", which indicates that the prior verses form a unit which is now being used to support the idea that "we do it not only because of wrath, but because of conscience". After that, we have "for"s, indicating that verse 6a also supports verse 5, and verse 6b supports verse 6a,

So, recall, verses 1-4 can be summarized: "rulers terrorize evil and promote good because they are servants of God".

v5 "Therefore" (since they are servants of God), we obey not only because we don't want to be terrorized, but also because of our conscience, which demands that we likewise obey God. The "wrath" is something that he expects everyone to intuitively understand; his point here is that it's not only because of wrath, but also because of conscience, and so Paul's emphasis, the thing that is accomplished by his reasoning, is the additional clause, "because of conscience". 

v6. (6a) "for" it is because of "this" that you pay taxes, (6b) "for" they are servants of God. The "this" in v6a is "conscience" -- it is the emphasis of the passage, and is established again by repeating the justification from verses 1-4 in v6b.

Verse 6 reiterates that they are servants of God -- why? Remember the point of verses 1-5. "Them being servants of God" (v1-4) implies that "we should obey because of conscience" (v5). So, again, the emphasis here is that something is being done "because of conscience".

Now, isn't it remarkable that "for because of this you also pay taxes" begins with "for", indicating that it is given as a basis for agreement with the idea that we obey "not only because of wrath, but also because of conscience". We could reverse the argument: “we pay taxes for this reason [conscience], therefore we obey rulers not just because of wrath, but also because of conscience.”  So taxes are an example of something we do because of conscience, which Paul is using as support, to make the point that the rest of the law is obeyed because of conscience. 

If taxes are used as an example for support, then it is because he expects his audience to agree about them in advance. Arguments are supported by examples when the example contains common ground supporting the argument. So the reader is expected to have a prior understanding that taxes are paid because of conscience, which is so firmly rooted in their mind that Paul feels at liberty to use taxes as an example to support the idea that other laws should be obeyed "because of conscience", and not just because of wrath.

In order for the grammatical flow of this argument to make sense, the audience is expected to have had a prior inclination toward the idea that taxes are primarily paid on the basis of conscience as opposed to fear of penalty. It is no coincidence that the Old Testament law presents us with no civil penalty for failure to pay any of its taxes or tithes. Indeed, Paul's audience, on conversion, was given the gospel and the Old Testament, and they knew that their tributes to God were paid because of their conscience alone.

 = v7-8 =

This is supportable by verses 7 and 8. Pay taxes to whom taxes are due (v7). Don't owe anyone anything except love (v8). These two statements are not disconnected; verse 8 follows sequentially from verse 7, reiterates verse 7, and describes the consequence of obedience to verse 7. 

"Don't owe anyone anything except love" should not be interpreted to mean "don't pay taxes" -- Paul already said we pay taxes because of conscience. Now he frames that behavior as a debt of love. In this way, verse 8 transitions is discussion about the basis of obedience from conscience to love. Conscience and love are closely related, so that the next section (verses 9-10) is not disconnected from the prior section.

 = v8-10 =

How do we know that the point about conscience in the case of taxes (which is well established in the mind of his audience) can translate to the rest of the law, so that we should obey the rest of the law because of conscience, just like we do with taxes? Paul employs the link between conscience and love to show that it applies both ways because obedience to the law is loving, and love is a matter of conscience. Here he doubly supports his point about conscience and the law, framing the law as descriptive of love, and love as the embodiment of the law.

Applying the principle which we learned from the example of taxes to the rest of the law, Paul's point can be summarized:

"You already know that we pay taxes primarily because of [love / conscience]. In the same way, we should obey the rest of the law because of [love / conscience]."

 = e. =

So, in the final analysis: this passage does not support compulsory taxation. It doesn't say anything at all about compulsory taxation. It does not add any moral tolerability to an act of civil government to penalize nonpayment of taxes, nor to demand more taxes than what the law of Moses prescribes. It does not in any way establish compulsory taxation as a just or morally permissible behavior of government, nor establish additional taxes (not described by Moses) as morally permissible for civil government to take. 

Instead, this passage emphatically requires that the audience already know that taxes are given solely on the basis of conscience, and then uses that prerequisite understanding as common ground to build the case that the rest of God's law is also obeyed on the basis of conscience, in particular the rulers to whom God's law delegates authority, insofar as they act within the boundaries of that authority which is given to them by the law.

(Consider the way people interpret this passage without that understanding. All day long we hear the argument that this verse gives secular government blanket divine authority to terrorize evil however they want, as if the word “evil” could not describe any act of the government itself! It leads to moral contradictions and a complete overthrow of the rest of the biblical teachings on morality and justice. It’s as absurd as saying “sin is lawlessness, therefore we should make up some laws”, as though moral anarchists and degenerates were not governed by their own scruples that they just likewise made up.)

---------------------

Anyone who's read my writings on this in the past may notice that my perspective has shifted somewhat, but I think that this reading is better supported by the grammar of the passage, and I feel a better peace about verse 6 than I did prior to this particular parsing. I'll be reviewing this in the future to make sure I'm not messing anything up, as this is a particularly complex argument from Paul, but I am feeling pretty good about it.

"There were so many, I've lost count."

Slowly chipping away at a long writing project for my son. At the moment, my notes are disorganized and un-polished in the extreme, but I am not done generating notes. I have a clear end-goal for my notes; when I've achieved that I'll begin the work of seriously compiling and polishing all of this. I'm anticipating paternity leave later this year (woohoo!) and I don't think I'm going to be so crazy busy during that time that I won't be able to work on this project. So, I'm hoping to complete all of my notes by that time. 

At the moment, my notes are broken into four groups. Here are the groups, and the number of pages of notes I'm sitting on (if I just open word and paste them in; these are mostly in .txt files): 

- transliterations (76 pages)

- dialogues (42 pages)

- topical notes (111 pages)

- verse commentary (330 pages)

The transliterations are from my pocket steno notebooks, where I write down topics of interest as they come to me. The dialogues are transcriptions and copy/pastes of debates I've participated in. They'll be sifted and converted into stand-alone arguments. There's likely much overlap in the contents of the various groupings here. The topical notes and verse commentary were made using my Bible Notes application. The roadmap is to complete the verse commentary and then distill it into the topical notes, then sort everything into chapters aligned with an overall rhetorical vector.

Here's an excerpt from today's transliteration:

----

I hear a lot about people saying it's a good thing for a country to "base" its laws on God's law. What does it mean for a law to be "based on" God's law, though? Either it's the same as God's law or it's different from God's law. 

A more refined approach to this idea of "basing" laws on God's law might be to say that Christian legislators are doing the same thing that an SGE theonomist advocates -- drawing out the general equity and underlying moral precepts from of God's laws, as a judge might do if he were ruling in ancient Israel and encountered a new case, only afterwards the Christian legislators are making it into a law "based on" God's law. For starters, if this were really their intent then there would be no instance where they instituted a penalty which was not described by the law expressly, because the criminality of an action is determined by casuistry, associating it with a penalty according to the descriptions of what acts fall under that penalty in the law, but the penalty is not determined by the same kind of examination of general equity. So there's no room in the general equity to invent new penalties. Second, they cannot claim to be reaching for an underlying principle in the scripture without being able to point to some statement in the scripture which tells us that such an underlying principle can exist without its stated manifestation in the scripture -- I mean, they are looking at a law and saying that the underlying principle which motivates the law should exist without the law that describes it, so they must point out a statement in scripture to that effect, or else they are claiming that scripture is motivated by underlying principles which are not in perfect agreement with what scripture says. Finally, and importantly, it is impossible for them to legislate new laws without breaking God's law in Deut 4:2, 12:32, and so no such new legislation can claim to be drawn from the underlying principles in God's law, because those very underlying principles prohibit the legislation itself. 

If they say that they believe God's laws are perfectly just for their original audience, but not applicable to our circumstances, then they are again in the same boat — they are trying to ascertain the underlying principles in the law and generalizing them for our modern context. We need a reliable metric for determining what differences in circumstance warrant what changes to judicial procedures. Certainly, no such metric can be derived from scripture, because their very premise states that the scriptural prescriptions concerning judicial procedures are inapplicable to our circumstances. This is, first of all, in contradiction with 1 Tim 3:16-18, which says that the scripture can thoroughly equip a man of God for every good work. That being true, they cannot claim that the Bible lacks a prescription for our modern context. 

It is also in contradiction to their stated aim: They self-consciously avoid the what the Bible says while adhering to underlying principles which they claim are derived from what the Bible says, on the basis that these underlying principles motivate what the Bible says. If those principles really motivate what the Bible says, then we should see textual/grammatical clues concerning them, so that we would not need to rely on a kind of "wisdom" that reduces (in legislative practice) to "feelings" and "vibes" about how the Bible intends something other than what it says.

So, I am firmly convinced that it is incoherent for a Christian nation, believing that God's law is just and that the Bible is inerrant, to say that any laws not-identical to God's law are tolerable on the grounds that they are "based on" God's laws.

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Maybe someone will find that edifying, or tell me why I'm wrong.

"Let's keep reforming."

 Well guys, it's been ages since my last post. For a long time, I've been doing all my writing in the book I'm working on for my son. I've been working on a law-focused concordance with notes, that I'll later distill into the contents of the book, along with records of all my favorite apologetic arguments, a whole lot of basic hermeneutic advice, and a lot of advice for regular living. The concordance exports at about 200 pages now, and I just got to the New Testament, so the book is still a ways off. I imagine making all the content is only half the battle, the other half will be organizing it -- that's why I've been trying to keep my notes as organized as possible with my homebrew organizing applications.

I've been very busy and a lot has happened since my last post. I'm working at a factory in Philly; I'm an adjunct professor now; my son is growing and impressing me ceaselessly; my wife is pregnant again. Lots of exciting stuff! I'm also deciding between several future plans -- I like the professor gig, so I would like to get a PhD, but also my engineering career would be benefitted by the addition of a PE to my name, so I should plan on the FE soon. Lots of stuff going on.

Today I want to respond to the Tom Hicks article on Theonomy. A lot of other people have already responded to it, and I'm not a noteworthy writer or scholar, but I do have a lot to say (as you can all well see). Here's a link to his article. I'm going to give very brief addresses to each of his 16 bullet points before I read or watch any other theonomist's response:

1. New Testament Priority

His main point here seems to be encapsulated by this sentence: He says, "If the New Testament says an Old Testament passage has a particular meaning, we should assign that meaning to the Old Testament passage."

I'm not aware of any place in the New Testament where it assigns a particular meaning to an Old Testament passage which disagrees with the plain meaning of the Old Testament passage and the Old Testament's explanations of that passage. So, I'm gonna be totally real with you guys, I have no idea what he's talking about on this point. Seems like he's just made up a hermeneutic where he can interpret the NT in ways that contradict the OT, and call it "prioritizing the NT". 

2. Gentile Nations not being under the Old Covenant

He says gentile nations weren't judged by the Mosaic judicial law, because they weren't under the Old Covenant. They were only judged by the Ten Commandments, which are the moral law.

There's some really beautiful irony here. If you scan the OT law to try to find any indication of a difference between "Moral Laws" and "Civil Laws", you'll find no such distinction articulated anywhere in the Bible. However, what you will find is that the Ten Commandments in particular are called the Old Covenant with Israel.

Deuteronomy 4:13: "And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone."

Hebrews 10:16: “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,”

2 Corinthians 3:3: "And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts."

So, first: there's no such moral/civil distinction, or "covenant-law"/"moral-law" distinction. Second, if there were, then the Ten Commandments are the strongest and only case for what would be the Covenant Law for Israel.

3. The OC with its laws being abolished

He brings up Hebrews 7-10 — chapters I am familiar with, and which I believe do not contradict my view. They say two main things here:

- there is a change in the law
- the old Covenant is abolished

OK. So, when we read here that there is a change in the law, we should ask ourselves, "what is the change?". Are all of the old laws thrown out, or only some?

Mr. Hicks tries to help us here, "the moral law, which is summarized in the Ten Commandments, has not been abolished." 

In his article linked here, about the ten commandments, I'm very upset to see this quote: "[speaking of Matt 5:17]. What law is Christ speaking about? He goes on to list laws from the Ten Commandments: do not murder (Matt 5:21-26); do not commit adultery (Matt 5:27-32); do not lie (Matt 5:33-37).", which makes it seem as though Jesus only addresses the ten commandments in the Sermon on the Mount, and Hicks expressly uses that to justify the idea that Jesus is making the Ten Commandments unique in that they won't pass away, in contrast to the rest of the law which passes away. In fact, Jesus here talks about divorce (Matt 5:31-32, Deut 24:1-4), The Lex Talionis (Matt 5:38-48, Exodus 21:22-25, Lev 24:19-20, Deut 19:16-21), and love for neighbor (Matt 5:43-48, Leviticus 19:9-18). I'll stop short of accusing him of dishonesty here by saying explicitly that I intend to stop short of accusing him of dishonesty -- I'm interested in hearing another explanation for that one. 

But back on track -- are all the laws changed, or only some? He says, the ten commandments aren't changed, but everything else is. However, he definitely fails to establish that case. At best, in his article on the Ten Commandments, he establishes that circumcision is no longer required in the New Covenant, but that was never at stake -- Theonomists agree. 

Just read the passages in Hebrews. It explains what laws have been changed with the priesthood: it’s the priesthood laws. The laws in effect about the priests are changed, because the priest is changed.

"But what about Ephesians 2:14-15?" someone is asking -- well, that's not in Hebrews, so we should go read it in its own context, where it is talking about soteriology, and the means by which we are saved -- we are not saved by the ordinances and commandments, but by faith. Does anyone deny that the word "law" can be used in different ways in different contexts?

4. The existence of positive/natural law

He brings up Romans 2 a lot, let's walk through it: 

Verse 12-13: It's not the people who hear the law, but the people who do the law that are justified, whether they know about the law or not.

Verse 14: When are the gentiles a law unto themselves? It's when they, who don't have the law, by nature do what the law requires.

So, does this say anything about the gentiles being subject to a different set of laws? No. It says that they are by nature doing what the law (the same law) requires.

But what about these references to three of the ten commandments in verses 21-22? Every single OT law can be construed as a reference to the Ten Commandments in one manner or another. Hicks almost says so in his article about the ten commandments. Here's a quote:

The Old Testament tells us that the Ten Commandments were a sufficient summary of God’s most central laws. We see this taught in Deuteronomy 5:22, which says that after God had spoken the Ten Commandments, “he added no more.” After God gave the Ten Commandments, there was no need to add any more. The Ten Commandments sufficiently summarized the way God’s people were to express their love to Him and to one another. If God’s people obeyed these laws, then they would be keeping the heart of the law, and all other obedience would follow from it.

Notice how Hicks is careful to say "God's most central laws" and that if people love God and love neighbor, they would be obeying the "heart of the law". Whereas the Bible says, "On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.". If I wanted to quickly give examples from the law, where else would I look but the 10C? They're easy, quick, and everywhere. Just check Romans 13:8-13, "[examples from the Ten Commandments] and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: 'love your neighbor as yourself'...let us behave decently...not in carousing and drunkenness" (note, not limited to the ten commandments!).

Hicks goes on to give some narrative examples of people sinning, and God not pinning them down for it, as if God has to reiterate the law every time someone breaks it or else we're to assume it doesn't apply anymore.

In short, he doesn't successfully establish the existence of positive law by scripture, and his verses aren't even related to it.

5. Four kinds of law recognized by classical theology

He doesn't refer to any of classical theology's Biblical arguments for the existence of these categories, so there's nothing substantial to refute here.

6. Judicial laws of Israel were only to be practiced in Canaan

Does he think that Israel wasn't practicing the law on the way to Canaan?

7. Deut 4:6-8

I've never connected these premises to that conclusion, as he says theonomists do in this section. I've actually never heard any theonomist make this argument.

I can't really defend it, because I don't agree with it. I won't accuse him of making a straw man, though, because maybe he has heard this somewhere before.

8. Death penalties in OT law

I had to read this carefully to understand what he was getting at, (and I'm still not totally sure I follow). It looks like he's saying that, since capital punishment in the OT law is analogous to eternal hell, capital punishment is generally unjust, but it was applied in Israel because they were supposed to act as an analog for our spiritual state.

Is there any penalty that doesn't present a reasonable analog to hellfire and our spiritual state? When the Bible says that the law is perfectly just (i.e. Psalm 19, 119), is it wrong, or is it speaking of the spiritual thing that the law foreshadows, whereas the law itself was actually unjust?

This is, in so many ways, contradictory to everything the Bible says about the law. This is so far in left-field, I'm not sure what to do with it.

9. Theonomy sees OC Israel as nothing more than a paradigm for all earthly kingdoms

Really? Nothing more than a paradigm? Nothing??? Surely he doesn't think that this is true about Theonomists? What am I supposed to say about this one?

10. works-inheritance and the covenant of grace

The particular covenantal/eschatological framework he develops here isn't a necessary component of theonomy, and I'm not totally sure I agree with it. I think this is not an argument against theonomy in particular.

He says, "In the Theonomists’s view, however, a Christian’s faithful work to build earthly civilization under God’s law is also building Christ’s redemptive kingdom because the two kingdoms are ultimately one."

I don't know what he's loading into the idea of "Christ's redemptive kingdom"... are we not supposed to obey God, because if we do then that would be too similar to acting like we're in his kingdom?

Look, Idk what he thinks theonomy is, but I just wanna obey God here.

11. Theonomy not accounting for the way the OC law was severe to preserve the line of the promise.

Ew! Yuck!

Is he saying that God was excessively harsh on Israel because Jesus was a eugenics project, and he had to keep the gene pool pure? Is he aware that Jesus has gentiles in his genealogy?

What in the world. These are the arguments against theonomy, folks. Anything to justify not paying attention to God's law.

Galatians is, like Ephesians, about how we're saved from our sin -- not just about what is and isn't sin.

Acts is not saying that the law was too harsh, but that the soteriological component of the law was a burden. If we're to believe that this means the law was too difficult (as in, obedience to it, regardless of soteriology), then Jesus's Sermon on the Mount makes it infinitely more hard. "You have heard 'don't commit adultery', but I tell you anyone who looks on a woman with lust has committed adultery in his heart." Obedience is way harder with these New Covenant clarifications (esp if they are changes), and hell is harsher than death! It’s a good thing Jesus died for our sins, so we can be forgiven.

12. The New Testament only applies OT law to the church, not to gentile nations

We agree then.

The church is obligated to the law. And, we should be getting other people to join the church, whereafter they'll be obligated to the law.

Nations? Yeah. We make disciples of them.

13. Postmillennialism

I'm not really 100% on the postmil train, so I'll leave this one alone.

14. More postmil

15. The confessional tradition vs theonomy

The confessions are only good insofar as they agree with the Bible, and the reformers said we should be always reforming to make ourselves agree better with the Bible. 

I agree the confessions contradict the Bible on this point.

16. To sum it up

Actually there aren't any distinct arguments in this section; it's a summary, so there's nothing to respond to.

Should I summarize, too? Still waiting on a serious argument against SGE. Everyone flaps their gums against it, but God’s word is unshakable.

There you go!

Now I'm going to go watch the Lancastrian Theonomist's response to it here: God's System vs. God's Law and Examining an Anti-Theonomy Article by Tom Hicks - YouTube

Let's see if Luke Saint and I have any similarities in our approach.

"But His people will be restored."