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."