Who will you believe? Bojidar Marinov or Geerhardus Vos?
“God’s decree is not exclusively concerned with individuals but also comprises nations and establishes the bond between generations. The destiny of a nation is weighed by Him, as is the destiny of a person. There is not the slightest interest, indeed is completely impossible on Reformed grounds, to deny national election or whatever it may be called.”
Geerhardus Vos
Dogmatic Theology Vol 1. — pg. 111
Of course you can’t have national election if you don’t have nations.
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“The more Christianity gains ground, and the more Christians become with their religion, the less cultural differences we will see in the world. In the final day of history, every place on the planet will have the same covenantal views of God, man, law, judgment, and future, and therefore every place on the earth will have the same cultural practices informed by the Christian faith.
In short: people choose their religion, their religion determines their culture. When the world as a whole accepts the Christian religion, the world will be one culture.”
– Bojidar Marinov
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Bret Responds,
1.) Throughout History the European Protestants formed distinct Protestant and national cultures. The Swiss Protestants were different from the English Protestants who were different from the German Protestants, who were different from the Dutch Protestants. Is Marinov telling us that some or all of them were in sin and that postmillennialism requires us to eliminate the differences between Bavinck and Warfield — between Kuyper and Hodge? Between McAtee and Marinov?
2.) Also we need to ask why is it, given the few cultures that have been considered Christian, by any reasonable estimation, have not all been the same throughout history? If all Christian culture will look the same why didn’t the Christian culture of Charlemagne look the same as the Christian culture of Calvin’s Geneva or why didn’t Calvin’s Geneva look like Puritan New England?
3.) Marinov has not taken into considerations the likelihood that Theonomists in one Christian country will come to a different understandings of how the law of God applies in different settings and situations. The reality of this almost certainty has the explanation power to demonstrate why there might remain legal – jurisprudent differences between two nations in the Protestant Postmillennial Kingdom fully flowered.
4.) Marinov has lost the Many in his search for the One. His God (and so his view of culture) is the view of the Unitarian. Marinov, channeling U2, actually does believe that all colors will bleed into one. Marinov has embraced unity and no diversity now remains. Rushdoony pointedly warned against this.
5.) Marinov’s vision runs face flat into the wall of God’s Word where we find the Nations as Nations still existing in the New Jerusalem. In Revelation 5:9, 7:9 and in 22:2 we do not find the presence of an amalgamated Babel nation in the New Jerusalem, but rather the distinctions of the Nations remain. Marinov has lost the understanding that Grace restores nature and has exchanged it for the understanding that Grace destroys nature and replaces it.
6.) Marinov’s vision is the same vision of Saruman who started off with the best of intentions in resisting Mordor but who, because of his desire to save the world, became as evil as Sauron in trying to save the world. Marinov in seeking to save the world from Marx is actually in competition with Marx seeking to out Marx … Marx.
