Linkage Between R2K & The Enlightenment

In speaking of the Enlightenment author Rudolph Soan wrote;

“A natural law, a natural state, a natural society, and a natural religion shown as the great ideas on the intellectual horizon, and carried away the world of the 18th century in a movement of passionate endeavor. These battles prepared the way for the rise of modern Humanity.” 

This quote demonstrates for us how it is R2K is a return to the Enlightenment project. R2K, with its full throated praise for Natural law and fallen man’s ability to read Natural Law aright as pertaining to all spheres save for the Church indicates its commitment to a Christ-less natural social-order as governed by a natural state under the auspices of a natural religion that serves as the great North Star for a religion-less people.

Of course the implication of all this R2K “thinking” is that natural law for the public square supersedes God’s law, and as against a Godly social order R2K posits that as we live in the common realm, we live and move and have our being in the humanistic natural state.

In the words of R. J. Rushdoony;

 Because of its hostility to faith, the Enlightenment stressed reason as a great arbiter as well as the supplanter of Revelation. Natural law replaced Gods law, the state as Gods’ ministry of justice was replaced by a state defining law, creating law, declaring what is Good and evil for itself, and natural society, that is, life lived in terms of nature; replace life as envisioned by God’s law. Religion instead of being ordered by God’s grace and law, instead of being derived from revelation, now found its source in nature.

R2K, being a “theology” inspired by Enlightenment categories, makes the very same move for the common realm.

R2K is not Calvinism, nor is it basic Christianity. Instead R2K is Christianity reinterpreted through the lens of Enlightenment categories. In brief, R2K is heresy.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane