“Natural law theory in both forms (the realism of Natural law organicism and the nominalism of Natural law social contract — BLM) prevented the development of a uniquely biblical social theory. The doctrine of the biblical covenant was missing, since one or more of its five points were denied: (1)the absolute personal sovereignty of God over both nature and human history; (2)the hierarchical authority of all human institutions under God’s limited, delegated sovereignty; (3)Biblical law as authoritative in all civilizations; (4) God’s historical sanctions (blessing and cursing), imposed in terms of his Bible revealed law; and (5) the development of history in response to the imposition of God’s sanctions, though mitigated temporarily by His mercy. Point 1 is called Calvinism; Point two is called representative government; points 3 and 4 are called theonomy; and point 5 is called postmillennialism. They are a package deal. Without all five, it is impossible to construct an exclusively and covenantally faithful biblical social theory.”
Dr. Gary North
Millennialism And Social Theory — pg. 39
Social theory that strives to be Biblical has to be covenantally structured. A Biblical social theory looks to create a social bond among men not in some chain of being reasoning that connects all reality into an organic whole that can then be read by a Natural law mechanism that is reflection of the union of all reality, nor in a social contract theory where the nature of reality is very mechanistically laid out and where natural law becomes the mechanistic equivalent for social order that the other laws of nature are for the operation of the cosmos.
The organic view of Natural law seems to partake in the errors of pantheism where man and God are united by shared being with the result that man can know the mind of God apart from God if only there is some sort of organic union that exists between the two. The social contract view of Natural law seem to partake in the errors of deism where God and His creation are divorced with God leaving behind a Natural law mechanism that functions in much the same way that the independent laws of nature operate. Man does not need special revelation to read this Natural law aright, he merely needs the use of his own right reason.
Each of these view of Natural law theory then incarnate themselves into differing understandings of social theory. Natural law realism produces a social theory organicism that is characterized by chain of being thinking. The metaphor that is often used to describe such societies is that it is a living entity. In this kind of Natural law everything in a social order is living tissue that is inter-connected. Society is viewed as an organism, just as the Cosmos as a whole is.
Natural law nominalism on the other hand produces a social theory that is contractual and is characterized by some kind of pre-historic contract that the ancients entered into that is binding on successive generations because the contract is a reflection of the way things are. According to Gary North,
“In the social contract theory men in the distant past voluntarily transferred their individually held political sovereignty to the State, which now maintains social order. Each social institution is governed by the terms of an original contract, whether mythical or historical.”
Unlike organicism which teaches that there is a unity between the seen and a real unseen realm social contract social theory denies any transcendent metaphysical reality or social unity where the contract on earth is corresponding to a contract in the heavenlies apart from the will of mortals. (Hence the nominalism)
A Biblical social order theory eschews both of these alternatives and opts for a view of social order has one that is kept together by complex system of legal bonds with God as the ultimate enforcer of that complex system.
In this social order arrangement there are four primary covenants, personal, familial, ecclesiastical, and civil.
More anon,
Of topic, but. . .
I am reminded in your “chain of being” mention of the conversation we had about the nature of salvation as primarily ethical (your view, following Van Til) or as primarily ontological (my view, following M. Chambers).
You made the point that an ontological view would seem to imply that one may have more or less being in the Roman Catholic style. It seems to me that this suspicion only holds true upon natural law presuppositions. In other words, when we are thinking Biblically, there is no need to assume that one possesses more or less being, but rather, one possesses a being of one kind (dead in trespasses and sins) or a being of another kind (alive in vital union with Christ).
Just as the renewal of Creation proceeds by God’s good pleasure according to his timetable, our discarding the habits of the old being in being remade into the new being are eschewed in the power and pleasure of God, and in his timing.
An entirely ethical view of salvation does not adequately treat the language of death and life in the Scriptures, nor does it adequately explain the flesh as Paul speaks of it (particularly Romans 7). We have been renewed in our minds, but remain corrupted in our bodies. We await only the resurrection of the body to be complete. Thus, an ontological view comports well with Mark’s view of the body (sarx) in Paul’s usage, namely, that it is through the body (e.g. its native passions) than sin has agency to influence us though our minds have been renewed in Christ.
What do you think, Brother Bret?
I have to give it some thought Joshua.
There is just something about it that doesn’t ring right.
There is just something about it that doesn’t ring right.
Give me a ring and I’ll set things right. 🙂
The introduction of “chain of being” is a non sequitur. The new birth is a definitive and final event–the object of God’s grace has been born of God. The newly born new creature in Christ doesn’t get more being any more than the new born infant becomes more human. In both cases they simply grow up.