“Theocrats/CNs/Theonomists/etc fail to account for the progress of revelation and redemptive history. They all write as if the state of that people has not expired (WCF 19.4) but it has. This was true in the 16th century and in the 17th century.
We can see it in some of the most important Reformed writings of the period against tyranny. In his treatise On The Right of Magistrates Theodore Beza did this very thing. Our writers all recognized that national Israel was a temporary, typological institution but they all also assumed that there must be a state religion. That assumption, more or less demanded that they contradict their own reading of redemptive history. So, they talked about the king of France, as if he were king David and France, as if it were national Israel. It was incoherent and it remained so.”
Dr. R(2K) Scott Clark
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1.) Theonomists agree that the state of the people hath expired but we also agree with the rest of WCF 19:4 which R2K Clark loves to disingenuously leave out when he quotes WCF 19. Here is the complete rendering of 19:4;
IV. To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging under any now, further than the general equity thereof may require.
As many times as R2K Clark has been reminded of the part above in the bold one has to conclude that Clark is consistently in violation of the 9th commandment bearing false witness against the WCF.
I will guarantee you that all those 16th and 17th century Reformed writers, who R2K Clark styles “Theocrats” were operating under the umbrella of WCF 19:4. If that is true that means that R2K Clark, were he an honest man, would tell the world that his position on WCF 19:4 is in contradiction to what WCF 19:4 teaches. I mean, either R2K Clark is in violation of WCF 19:4 or else the Reformed Fathers that Clark complains about were in violation of WCF 19:4. Y’all can take R2K Clark … I’ll stick with Rutherford, Gillespie, Calvin, and their tribe.
2.) R2K Scott Clark is a Theocrat. I’ll say it again in case you skimmed past that. For all the bitching that R2K Clark does about Theorcats, Theonomists, and CN’s he is himself a Theocrat.
This is due to the fact that theocracy is an inescapable category. As a Theonomist I desire our government to rule consistently with God’s Law. That makes me a theocrat. However, as a anti-theonomist R2K Clark desires our government to rule consistently with Natural Law. Natural Law is thus R2K Clark’s God and as a Natural Law Theocrat R2K Clark insists on the State ruling according to that law.
Now, keep in mind that even the Christian Natural Law fanboys can’t agree on what Natural Law does and does not teach. Natural Law fanboys such as Dr. Stephen Wolfe and Dr. R2K Clark get along with one another like homeless people get along with soap and bathing. As such, since there is no uniform voice on what Natural Law, R2K Clark is a Theocrat who takes the State as his God. The State will determining the meaning of Natural Law and all the little Natural Law Theocrats will have to bow to the State as their God. Indeed, this is R2K Clark did during the Covid ruse. He followed his state god and insisted that the Churches shut down. R2K Clark is a Theocrat. He merely has a different Theo in his cracy (Theocracy).
3.) Of course this means that R. Scott Clark owns and practices a State religion. The very thing he complains about Theonomists, Theocrats, and CN’s. The State religion that R2K Clark practices is humanism. R2K Clark is a humanist Theocrat. R2K Clark practices the State religion except for a few hours on Sunday when he tips his cap to a God who is only ruling in the church realm. Keep in mind, that it is that God (who is no God) in R2K Clark’s church realm that is teaching R2K Clark that the God of the Church realm is not the explicit God over the common realm (public square).
4.) By now we see a couple truths;
a.) R2K Clark is the incoherent one. There are so many contradictions in R2K that it is amazing that R2K Clark can spit without dribbling it all over himself.
b.) It is R2K Clark’s reading of redemptive history that sucks. He is basically a Marcionite. He finds so much discontinuity between the Old and New Testament that he basically owns a different God from the Old Testament saints as well as those Reformed Fathers he so bitterly rails against.
Like all R2K chaps, R2K Scott Clark is a deceiver of the body of Christ. Now, like all sinners they may have the best of intentions, but at the end of it all they are advocating a different religion, and a different Christ.
Not only this but RS Clark is a presuppositionalist. He sure has some presuppositions and they are there for all to see.
He presupposes that God’s special Revelation is only for the Church realm.
A really odd person who presupposes that man is a sovereign interpreter in the common realm. That is a presupposition that contradicts Van Tilian presuppositionalism.
Bingo. Presuppositions are unavoidable and we all have them and we all display them as we operate by them. You have identified exactly Clark’s presupposition and it limits Christ’s reign and breaks down the walls so that Man’s autonomy has free reign in civic affairs as if Psalm 2 was never written. As if Christ is NOT King of kings. As if WCF 19:5 doesn’t say “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.” Thus it is clear that even pagans are bound to obey BOTH tables of the Law. There is no area in all creation exempt from His rightful rule as Creator.
Clark, Hart, Horton, Van Drunen and their ilk, are antinomian heretics that should be anathematized from the Church. They are complete and utter scum! The scriptures say this regarding these wicked men… “O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?” (Acts 13:10)
What would Clark do with William Symington’s “Messiah the Prince”, or George Gillespie’s “Wholesome Severity Reconciled with Christian Liberty”?
He would dismiss Gillespie due to being born in the 17th century. He explicitly says in what I quoted that the 16th and 17th century Reformed chaps got it wrong.
I don’t know what he would do with Symington. Probably just dismiss him because he was a covenanter.