Joshua Ambassador asked;
“The practical question in the debate is this: Nearly everyone in society is unregenerate today, spiritually blind, and suppressing the truth. What basis can there be, then, for law and justice?”
Bret responds,
There can be no basis for law and justice if we compromise with the heathen. Indeed, compromising with the heathen means “non-law,” and “injustice.” Let the heathen compromise with Biblical Christians.
The basis of any social order must be God’s Law Word enforced by Magistrates. The current humanist “Law and justice” is enforced on me by the Magistrate. Why shouldn’t we advocate that God’s Law and Justice be enforced upon the heathen by Christian Magistrates? Is God so small that we must wait until the Christ haters agree to be ruled by God’s law in the civil realm? This is the Usus politicus sive civilis of the law. This the understanding that the law serves the commonwealth or body politic as a force to restrain sin.
JA asked,
When people who are new to the debate hear the arguments of presuppositionalists, it sounds like they are saying that all the unregenerate are so willfully blind that it’s pointless to even try to come to a common agreement with them about what is right and wrong. The basis for Law, justice, and government in society can’t exist. Therefore Christians should go to some uninhabited place and form their own society.
BLMc responds
Because all ground is common ground (God’s ground) it is not pointless to pray and expect conversion. At the same time it is true that no ground is neutral ground. Since no ground is neutral ground we must not yield any ground to the unregenerate as if they have deed, title, or right to that ground. All must yield to Christ’s Lordship in every area because every piece of ground is the Kings.
If the heathen are given the whip hand though, it is true that the basis of Law, justice, and government in society can’t exist. This because increasingly obvious as the antithesis works out its implications on both sides. Therefore non-Christians should Kiss the Son, lest they perish in the way.
If you compromise with the heathen, the end will ALWAYS eventually be increasing heathenism and humanist anti-Christ law.
Let the heathen go look for uninhabited lands to live in.
Look… it is either rule or be ruled. We can rule by God’s glorious law – and this despite the heathen screaming like stuck pigs, or we can be ruled by Old Slewfoot’s hobnail ruinous law that seeks to maim, kill, and destroy.
Whose law would you be ruled by?
JA wrote,
Yes, the Pilgrims did that but there was a lot more land available then. And plenty of Christians have to “seek the peace of the city where they are captives” (Jeremiah 29 from memory), which surely involves co-operating with the unregenerate and coming to some kind of agreement with them about how the city/community/nation should be governed.
BLMc responds
Cooperate with the unregenerate on these matters? Isn’t that defined as sin? Let the unregenerate co-operate with me.
Cooperation with the heathen is a denial of Christ’s crown and rightful rule over his creation. Christ doesn’t claim the right to rule heathen lands as Redeemer but as Creator, King, and Judge. All nations who will not submit to Him shall be judged according to His eternal moral Law. What has become of the Philistines? The Babylonians? The Assyrians? The Greek empire? The Roman empire? The native American “indians”? The Aztecs? The Mayans? They all succumbed to Christ’s judgement and are no more. And presently it looks like all the European nations are soon to join them as they repudiate their Christian foundation.
Psalm 110
1 The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
2 The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.
3 Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.
4 The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.
5 The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.
6 He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries.
God has only one standard for ALL nations.
WCF 19:5
5. The moral law doth forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator who gave it. Neither doth Christ in the gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen, this obligation.
Lev Ch 18
24 Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:
25 And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.
26 Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you:
27 (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;)
28 That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you.
Psalm 2
10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
It’s hard to know where to start in this discussion. I would like to think that the disagreement that Van Til, Rushdooney, and presuppositionalists have with Turretin is just semantics. However they insist vociferously that it is not. Apparently Turretin has seriously erred, along with many other Reformed writers. Whether they realize it or not, Turretin and his followers are denying Christ’s kingship, compromising with the heathen, and denying total depravity.
Their apologetics and evangelism are apparently completely off track too. Since unregenerate man (whether in the Church or in the world) only suppresses the truth, spiritually blind, etc we should only pray that God would regenerate him, so that we can finally start talking to him. Maybe we can tell him to repent, but that’s it. We should not waste time reasoning with him, even though God does that with people who are little better than heathens in Isaiah 1.
I don’t think there’s much disagreement between Turretin and Van Til about the ideal. Yes, ideally, the foundations of law, government, society should be based firmly on the entire Word of God. But we need law and government right now, or the unregenerate and regenerate cannot co-exist. Yes, God has decreed that all nations will serve Christ, but He has also decreed that the unregenerate will vastly outnumber the regenerate in every nation for a long period of time. During that long period, it is his will that nations and governments be established, laws be enforced, so that there is enough order for society to exist and for evangelism to happen. But Van Til makes it sound like non-Christian governments are so blind, and unregenerate man so rebellious and violent, that any measure of law and order is impossible.
Under Van Tilian thinking, the unregenerate cannot even live in a Christian nation. They only suppress the truth, and rebel against God’s law. In fact it would be dangerous even to tolerate their existence. They are not subject to God’s law – including the law “Thou shalt not kill.” They are murderers in waiting. And not just the heathen, Marxists, and humanists need to be executed or deported from a Christian country. All unregenerate within the Church need to be thrown out too – because they are just as incapable of obeying the commandment against murder as the heathen are.
Co-operating with the heathen may not be the best expression. But if you were a believer in Jerusalem, and heard God telling you to submit to Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 27) or a believer in Babylon and told seek the peace of the city where you are a captive, how would you do it?
Jer 27:8 And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the LORD, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.
Jer 27:9 Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon:
Jer 27:10 For they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land; and that I should drive you out, and ye should perish.
Jer 27:11 But the nations that bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, those will I let remain still in their own land, saith the LORD; and they shall till it, and dwell therein.
Jer 27:12 I spake also to Zedekiah king of Judah according to all these words, saying, Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live.
Jer 27:13 Why will ye die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the LORD hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?
JA writes,
It’s hard to know where to start in this discussion. I would like to think that the disagreement that Van Til, Rushdooney, and presuppositionalists have with Turretin is just semantics. However they insist vociferously that it is not. Apparently Turretin has seriously erred, along with many other Reformed writers.
BLMc writes,
That is correct. They seriously erred. However, we should not be surprised that with the message of time that more and more light breaks forth from Scripture.
All the Reformation that needed to happen did not happen in the 16th century.
JA writes,
Whether they realize it or not, Turretin and his followers are denying Christ’s kingship, compromising with the heathen, and denying total depravity.
BLMc responds,
True.
JA writes,
Their apologetics and evangelism are apparently completely off track too. Since unregenerate man (whether in the Church or in the world) only suppresses the truth, spiritually blind, etc we should only pray that God would regenerate him, so that we can finally start talking to him. Maybe we can tell him to repent, but that’s it. We should not waste time reasoning with him, even though God does that with people who are little better than heathens in Isaiah 1.
BLMc responds,
Anybody who tells you that man hears the Word before he is regenerated is NOT Reformed.
It is simply the case the God has ordained regeneration to happen in the context of the Word traveling along the tracks of the Spirit. It really is silly to divorce them as if they are not together the effectual means of regeneration.
However to say that man hears and understands and has faith and so is regenerated is pure Arminianism.
JA writes.
I don’t think there’s much disagreement between Turretin and Van Til about the ideal.
BLMc
There’s all kinds of disagreement on the foundational starting point.
Of course, Reformed chaps like Turretin and all those who embrace Natural Law remain Reformed but as those who are involved in severe contradiction.
JA writes,
Yes, ideally, the foundations of law, government, society should be based firmly on the entire Word of God. But we need law and government right now, or the unregenerate and regenerate cannot co-exist.
BLMc responds,
Right …. so it is the case that Christians use force to rule by God’s civil use of law.
JA writes,
Yes, God has decreed that all nations will serve Christ, but He has also decreed that the unregenerate will vastly outnumber the regenerate in every nation for a long period of time. During that long period, it is his will that nations and governments be established, laws be enforced, so that there is enough order for society to exist and for evangelism to happen. But Van Til makes it sound like non-Christian governments are so blind, and unregenerate man so rebellious and violent, that any measure of law and order is impossible.
BLMc
A nation can be ruled by a very small % of Christian population according to Christian standards. Unless that is the case the whole nation will be ruled by heathen standards that will get increasingly worse and worse over time and the non-Christians become more and more epistemologically self-conscious regarding their wickedness.
By God’s common providence the heathen are not as wicked as they possibly can be and as such some measure of law and order and sometimes be hoped for.
JA writes,
Under Van Tilian thinking, the unregenerate cannot even live in a Christian nation. They only suppress the truth, and rebel against God’s law. In fact it would be dangerous even to tolerate their existence. They are not subject to God’s law – including the law “Thou shalt not kill.” They are murderers in waiting. And not just the heathen, Marxists, and humanists need to be executed or deported from a Christian country. All unregenerate within the Church need to be thrown out too – because they are just as incapable of obeying the commandment against murder as the heathen are.
BLMc responds,
The Law in its civil use in a Christian commonwealth restrains men from being as wicked as they otherwise might be. That is why we have the civil use of the law. Since the heathen, in a Christian commonwealth are hemmed in by God’s law, their existence is allowed.
And it is true that all heathen are indeed murderers in waiting. To deny that is to deny the fallenness of fallen man. Arminians do that all the time.
I’m all for deporting all Marxists.
Joshua, you really are arguing like an Arminian.
JA writes,
Co-operating with the heathen may not be the best expression. But if you were a believer in Jerusalem, and heard God telling you to submit to Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 27) or a believer in Babylon and told seek the peace of the city where you are a captive, how would you do it?
Jer 27:8 And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the LORD, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.
Jer 27:9 Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon:
Jer 27:10 For they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land; and that I should drive you out, and ye should perish.
Jer 27:11 But the nations that bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, those will I let remain still in their own land, saith the LORD; and they shall till it, and dwell therein.
Jer 27:12 I spake also to Zedekiah king of Judah according to all these words, saying, Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live.
Jer 27:13 Why will ye die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the LORD hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?
BLMc responds,
But God has not told us to compromise with the heathen. He has told us to have dominion. The King has come and God’s word no longer teaches Christians to compromise with the Christ haters.