Category: Apologetics

“Throughout the nineteenth century in the United States there was an unstable synthesis of intense private religion and a public order that officially recognized no god except the people…. Public life was left to the realm of nature, while grace was reserved for private life. This arrangement of private religion and public irreligion produced religious peace for the most part, while American society slowly became secularized….Nature was slowly devouring grace. In other words, the parts of life governed by autonomous human reason expanded, and the areas devoted to Jesus Christ contracted. Worst yet those parts of life left outside of Jesus Christ tended to become hostile to Him.

Dr. William Edgar — Reformed Theologian
God And Politics — pg. 187-188

Immediately we want to note that the one place we disagree with Dr. Edgar is his statement that “American society slowly became secularized. American society did not become slowly secularized. Instead American society became slowly de-Christianized in the direction of the religion of secular humanism.

With that caveat though this is an excellent quote since it so ably exposes the problem of Radical Two Kingdom virus theology. What the R2Kt virus does is to create realms of nature and realms of grace that men occupy. In the realms of nature belongs most of where we do our living. The realm of grace is occupied by the Church and our individual immortal souls. In the realm of nature truth comes through unaided reason as that unaided reason, starting from itself, reads natural law and implements upon the common realm the conclusions reached. The realm of nature is putatively a-religious and is a realm of neutrality where the regenerate and unregenerate can build a common culture.

The problem with this way of reasoning is that it can only work where a people have a shared worldview to begin with. It is the nadir of a disordered ratiocination to think you could slam people from a Hindu culture together with people from a Muslim culture and think that a functional culture could arise due to the variant peoples reaching the same conclusions in the common realm as instructed by Natural law.

And yet that is exactly what R2Kt virus theologians think can happen in our culture as they appeal to Biblical Christians and Secular Humanists to work out their common realm differences by an appeal to Natural law. All this can produce is either conflict in interpretations of Natural law or surrendering by Christians on Secular Humanist interpretations in order to accommodate the Secular Humanists so that they can live quiet and peaceful lives of capitulation to the crown rights of King Jesus.

What always happens in absolutist dualism approaches is that the dualism seeks to resolve the tension. What happened in our history is that we tried to follow the R2Kt paradigm, and as Edgar notes, it worked for awhile, but it only worked as long as it did because Americans shared a common heritage. That common heritage has dissipated as the secular humanism in control of the realm of nature, increasingly uninformed by an increasingly deteriorated public Christianity has expanded to create its own anti-Christian heritage, its own anti-Christian traditions and its own anti-Christian culture. The R2Kt paradigm that was employed by America with success in its early life no longer can provide peace because secular humanism has expanded at the expense of a now contracted Christianity.

Please note, it is not to the blame of the Christian community that this arrangement is ending, unless, of course, you blame wild game for resisting being torn alive by the resident carnivore. Further, more R2Kt as solution will not solve the problem of the massive expansion of the Secular humanist realm of nature combined with the massive contracting of the Christian realm of grace. Such solutions were accepted in the Germany of the 1930’s and we all know how well that worked out.

We continue to insist that while the distinction of Holy and common need to be maintained the way offered by R2Kt is a recipe for destruction of the Church of Jesus Christ.

“If the scholastics, with all their fine distinctions, had been careful…they would not have fallen into the error of giving as much credit to natural and to rational theology as they did. Natural and rational theology were never meant to function, even in paradise, apart from theology proper.”

Cornelius Van Til
An Introduction To Systematic Theology — pg. 74

The same sort of argument applies to the doctrine of the sacraments (29:5). The divines assume that we know what bread and wine are and what their nature is. Scripture does not teach us what is the “substance and nature” of bread and wine, only that they remain substantially bread and wine. We need Scripture to teach us what the sacraments are but nature teaches us what bread and wine are.

Does nature teach an anorexic what bread and wine are? Also what if we were pantheist? Would a pantheist who believes that god is everything and everything is god, if he were consistent, think that the nature of bread and wine are what Natural law teaches they actually are or would the suppression mechanism work in such a way that he would worship the bread and wine instead of eating it? No doubt nature and natural law teach a good number of things, but the issue that Dr. R. Scott Clark is not dealing with is the issue of suppression — an issue that the Scripture teaches on. Or would R. Scott Clark accuse the Apostle Paul of being Barthian?

Later in his comments D. R. Scott Clark launches the accusation at Theonomists that we do not believe people can know anything. This is nonsense because any theonomist worth his salt would tell you that a person who insist they can’t know anything has at the same time insisted that they know they can’t know anything. Second, the theonomist does not believe that people can’t know anything. The theonomist heartily agrees that people are culpable for their sin because they sin against a better knowledge. The theonomist does not insist that truth can’t be known. The theonomist insists that that truth can’t be known apart from presupposing God, and that the pagan, because of the suppression mechanism picks and chooses what he will admit to knowing. Dr. R. Scott Clark, in his argumentation denies total depravity. Clark seems to insist that man only suppresses the truth in unrighteousness in spiritual categories but in non spiritual categories he can interpret aright. And Clark believes this in the teeth of the twentieth century which built culture after culture in direct defiance of Natural law. Ask the Soviet Checka about Natural Law. Ask the German Einsatzgruppen about Natural Law. Ask the Chinese who lived through “the great leap forward” about Natural Law. Come visit the Soviet Gulags, or the Ukrainian Harvest of sorrow, or Bergen-Belsen, or the Cambodian killing fields and then make an argument with a straight face about Natural Law theory.

The Canons of Dort (RE 1.4) make a similar distinction between what “the light of nature” can and cannot do. The light of nature is insufficient for salvation, but it is sufficient for the ordering of common civil life. This teaching is explicit in CD 3/4/.4:

Who would ever disagree that the light of nature is sufficient for the ordering of common civil life? Absolutely the light of nature is, considered only in and of itself, sufficient for the ordering of common civil life. However, when fallen man reads that which is sufficient, because fallen man’s epistemology is insufficient, he reads that which is sufficient in such a way to make it insufficient. The problem is not in the light of nature. The problem is with he who reads the light of nature.

What shall we say, then? Is Natural law not true? Certainly not! Indeed Natural Law was one agency that God used to teach me of my sin. For I would not have known what suppressing the truth in unrighteousness really was if Natural law had not proclaimed the necessity of God to think aright. But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by Natural Law, produced in me every kind of opportunity to suppress the reality of God wherever such denial became convenient.

For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the Natural law,
deceived me. So then, Natural Law is holy, and what it teaches is holy, righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

There remain, however, in man since the fall, the glimmerings of natural light, whereby he retains some knowledge of God, and natural things, and of the difference between good and evil, and shows some regard for virtue and for good outward behavior. But so far is this light of nature from being sufficient to bring him to a saving knowledge of God and to true conversion that he is incapable of using it aright even in things natural and civil. By no means, further, this light, such as it is, man in various ways renders wholly polluted and hinders in unrighteousness, which by doing he becomes inexcusable before God.

Again, no Theonomist would disagree with this. By the way, don’t miss the parts in bold. Fallen man is incapable of using the light of nature aright even in things natural and civil.

There remains in postlapsarian man glimmerings of natural light but as fallen man becomes more and more consistent in working out the anti-thesis in the direction of God hatred that glimmering, while never completely extinguished, becomes increasingly faint.

WCF 10.4: “…be they ever so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature and the law of that religion they do profess” The Confession assumes that it is possible for human beings to order their lives according to the “light of nature.” A life thus lived is lived according to natural law. This law keeping is insufficient for salvation, but civil life is about law it is not about salvation.

Dr. R. Scott Clark left out the italicized part in the above blockquote. Since Dr. R. Scott Clark suggest that WCF 10:4 proves living a life guided by the light of nature is sufficient for the civil realm, does this mean that living a life guided by false religion is sufficient for the civil realm? If we as Christians are to esteem the light of nature for the civil realm, given Dr. R. Scott Clark’s appeal to WCF 10-4 should we also esteem the “law of that religion the pagans do profess,” for the civil realm? The Divines in WCF 10-4 combine the light of nature with the rules of pagan religion thus perhaps suggesting that they understood that the light of nature would always be read in relationship to “the law of that religion that pagans do profess.” This in turn is suggestive that when the Christian faith challenges “the law of that religion that pagans do profess,” they at the same time challenge their reading of the light of nature in the civil realm. The antithesis lies not only in the law of that religion that pagans do confess but also in the way that pagans read the light of nature because of the law of that religion they do profess.

WCF 20.4: …for their publishing of such opinions, or maintaining of such practices, as are contrary to the light of nature….” On Christian liberty, the divines connect “the powers” ordained by God to maintain order (which was a problem during the English civil war!) with this troublesome expression, “the light of nature.” This language and way of thinking about civil life was well and deeply ingrained in Reformed orthodoxy in the 16th and 17th century.

Absolutely it was! You would expect no less among a people living in the context of Christendom. It is the unity that Christendom brought to thinking that allowed for a commonly understood appeal to “the light of nature.” Take away the unity brought about by the existence of Christendom (as Dr. R. Scott Clark desires) and you take away the foundation upon which their notion of Natural Law was built. People who have different faith and cultural foundational presuppositions are going to likewise have different “lights of nature,” and different versions of Natural Law.

The contest here is not whether or not Natural Law exists. It does. The contest here is whether or not Natural Law can be used as a basis to build a common sphere among people of genuinely different faith systems and cultures. It can’t, because non-Christians read Natural Law through the prism of their faith and culture system and so distort it.

Unlike our theonomists, the divines believed that there is a natural law, that it can be and is known, that it contains specific precepts that are revealed with sufficiently clarity to be applied, even by the unregenerate, to specific instances. The skepticism that our theonomists have demonstrated toward the perspicuity of natural law is not only downright late modern (who can know anything really?) but contra confessional.

Yes, Yes, let us remember how well the unregenerate Communists applied Natural Law in their legislating against Christian Ukrainians. Let us remember how well the unregenerate National Socialist judges applied Natural Law to the legal realm with their rulings on the non-humanity of Jews. Let us remember how well the unregenerate Americans did in applying Natural Law to the decisions to fire bomb Dresden or Tokyo. Yes, all of these are instances where the Natural Law had sufficient clarity to the pagan so that even the unregenerate could rightly apply it to specific instances.

Those poor stupid Theonomists. Why can’t they just get with the game and see how wonderfully this R2Kt virus stuff and Natural Law works.

One of the more interesting ways in which theonomy is contra confessional is its Barthian-like rejection of the classic Reformed doctrine of natural law and implicitly it’s skepticism regarding natural revelation.

One of the more interesting ways in which R2Kt virus is contra confessional is its Thomistic Aristotelian Roman Catholic embrace of classic doctrine of two ways to truth and implicitly it’s skepticism regarding the need for special revelation. This can be seen in the way that Reformed people like Van Drunen works with Roman Catholics at the Roman Catholic funded Acton Institute in Grand Rapids Michigan. The Acton Institute was established in honor of Lord Acton, a fanatical Roman Catholic scholar, who fought against the evangelical gospel in England. Confessional Reformed people should be very wary about people who work hand in glove with Roman Catholics to promote a social order agenda that is acceptable to rabid Roman Catholics.

Over the last thirty years or so, many of us have had to wade through the theonomy/reconstruction literature. It is evident from some of the reaction to the post on natural law and homosexual marriage that some of our theonomic brothers haven’t done their homework. It isn’t as if I haven’t provided you fellows with lists of resources on natural law.

Taking seriously a list on the subject of Natural Law as given from Dr. R. Scott Clark would be like trying to take seriously a list on the subject of free market capitalism as given from Karl Marx. If I am going to do research on Natural law theory it is not going to start with a list of reading provided by somebody who hates theonomy.

The WCF opens thus:

Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation.

Note that the divines did not say that the light of nature is “not sufficient” for civil government but for salvation. For the divines, as for Calvin, civil government is one thing, salvation is another. Theonomists confuse these two things far too often.

First, it should be noted here that with this statement Clark has repudiated Van Til who taught that every fact is what it is because of who God is. Clark is insisting, in his always amicable and arrogant way, that facts like civil government, can be interpreted without reference to God. Remember the natural man hates God, flees God and denies God in all of his thinking. His life is committed to suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Scripture teaches that the carnal mind is at enmity (warfare) with God. And yet Dr. R. Scott Clark insists that fallen man is capable of consistently coming to right conclusions regarding natural law.

This reduces to the argument of whether or not natural revelation needs special revelation in order to be read aright. Clark is arguing that fallen man, autonomously starting from himself, while presupposing themselves as God, can read natural revelation and natural law aright.

Now, we are quite glad to concede that because people cannot ever be perfectly wrong they engage in what we call felicitous inconsistency. That is to say that fallen man in greater and lesser degrees do get things right because of the presence of fortunate contradictions that do not follow from their basic presuppositions. In the words of Van Til, pagan man steals enough capital from Biblical Christianity to get his God hating worldview off the ground. Because this is so, we shouldn’t be surprised when the sons of the serpent are sometimes wiser then the sons of light.

1.6: “there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature….” Notice that the divines taught that there are some circumstances “common to human actions and societies” that are ordered by the “light of nature.” The divines did not share the theonomic/Barthian skepticism about natural revelation and natural law. If I remember my history, the divines did not write during the Enlightenment. I think they were Christians and Reformed at that.

Actually, Dr. R. Scott Clark apparently doesn’t remember his history aright. It is commonly accepted that the Heidelberg Catechism breaths more of the spirit of the Medieval Church while the Westminster confession breathes more of the spirit of the Enlightenment Church.

Second, speaking of history, we must understand that the appeal to natural law theory by
Divines happened in the context of a vibrant Christendom. The reason this is important is because the very belief by Christian men in natural law only makes sense in a social order and climate where the operating assumptions are Christian. Where there exists theological and ideological harmony, as informed by a common faith and shaped by a shared religion there we should not be surprised by a corporate assumption that all men will come to see the same self evident truths.

It is a self evident truth that the confidence of the Westminster divines in Natural law was driven by the reality that a stable Christendom allowed them to assume some things that allowed them to come to certain conclusions regarding the “light of nature” that those of us who grew up in a culture of existentialism, and post-modernism can not share.

It’s worth noting how often the divines speak about “the nature” of this or that, including the human nature of Christ (ch. 8). Yes, special revelation teaches us a great deal about the human nature of Christ but not everything. Scripture assumes, as do the divines, that, if our sense perception is working correctly, we perceive with them truth about human nature. Scripture doesn’t teach us what an arm or a leg or skin is or even how to eat. Indeed, Scripture doesn’t teach us a great many things about daily life or natural human existence. It doesn’t intend to teach us those things. It intends to teach us about sin and salvation. How do we know what sort of humanity Jesus had, that he is really consubstantial with us? We know it because we know from experience what humanity is and we know from Scripture that he was like us in every respect, sin excepted. If we become skeptical about “nature” as a genuine source of knowledge we risk our Christology.

Here again Clark is giving up on Van Til. This same kind of assault was often leveraged against Van Til. We gladly agree that Scripture doesn’t explicitly “teach us what an arm or a leg or skin is or even how to eat.” No presuppositionalist has ever taught such a thing. What presuppositionalist have insisted upon is that since every fact is what it is because of who God is therefore if we are to be consistently right about arms, legs, skin or eating we must either explicitly presuppose God or for those who are not Christian they must embrace enough Christian capital in their worldview that allows them to get things about arms, legs, skin, and eating correct.

Second, Clark’s problem here is what appears to be an appeal to some form of common sense realism. Van Til destroyed Scottish common sense realism as a way of knowing. What seems to be happening here is that the R2Kt virus types are advocating presuppositionalism in the spiritual way to truth but deny presuppositionalism and embrace sense perception ways of knowing that explicitly do not presuppose God as it pertains to truth that isn’t spiritual. This would be just one more dualism.

Recently I came across a well known Ph.D. bearing false witness against classical Reformed Theology. I thought I would take on his response here.

Below is the question that kicked off his response.

Question,

Just curious: how come no one would personally and publicly debate Greg Bahnsen on theonomy, if theonomy was so obviously wrong that any covenant child could refute?

Answer,

This is an interesting question for a couple of reasons. I see theonomy as a sort of analogue to the FV. Both movements reflect a similar pathology in the Reformed corpus. Both reflect what call the Quest for Illegitimate Religious Certainty.

First, far later in the answer this man admits that FV and theonomy are not synonyms. What he doesn’t mention is that it was a Theonomic denomination that first blew the whistle in official church courts on Federal vision. One must wonder that if a similar “pathology” exists why the Theonomists would bring the Federal Vision up on charges. What this man is trying to accomplish by innuendo is guilt by association.

Second, this man decries religious certainty, which would seem to mean that he doesn’t have religious certainty. I mean how can one fault the quest for religious certainty and embrace religious certainty for oneself? So the objection here is that people should not have the religious certainty that theonomists have. Presumably our objector is certain of that.

The FV is making the doctrine of justification a little more “reasonable,” by reducing the scandal of the cross and the offense of the gospel. As it turns out, we do have a small part in justification! That’s just a little more reasonable than the confessional Protestant alternative. Theonomy represents another side of the same quest. It offers a kind of ethical precision and a kind of ethical authority that reduces ambiguities to certainties and, on its premises, makes Christian ethics a little more “reasonable.” Put the quarter in the slot, pull the handle and out comes the correct ethical answer to one’s particular question. The same spirit that produced the Talmud produced Rush’s Institutes. The same devotion to the rabbis gives us the fascination with Rabbi Rousas, Rabbi Gary, and Rabbi Greg.

Now, I must admit that I don’t see the linkage between religious certainty of Federal Vision that ends up denying the clear teaching of scripture on the sufficiency of Christ and the religious certainty of Theonomy that affirms the clear teaching of scripture on the certainty of Christian ethics. I think our Ph.D. is confused on this point.

Second, this man is disingenuous in the section I have put in bold. I have just finished Bahnsen’s chapter in “God and Politics” and in that chapter Bahnsen admits that determining God’s mind in the application of His Law-Word is hard work that will find disagreement among those who are doing the work. So the idea that it is all as easy as a vending machine is just plain false witness.

Third, note that this man has religious certainty that Theonomists dare not have religious certainty on ethical issues. He is ethically certain that biblical ethics shouldn’t communicate ethical certainty. Irony anyone?

Also, keep in mind that without ethical certainty in Biblical ethics we are inevitably going to be left with a church that is filled with each man doing what is right in his own eyes since uncertainty leaves each man to determine ethics for himself.

Fourth, this man doesn’t like the idea of Biblical Christians coming to determined conclusions regarding Biblical ethics (derisively referring to such men as “rabbis”) and yet, if Biblical Christians don’t arrive at determined conclusions regarding Biblical ethics then somebody else will have to determine the ethics by which the church and christians in the culture live by. I suspect for this man he would prefer Natural Law rabbis such as Rabbi John Dewey, Rabbi Jaques Derrida, and Rabbi Peter Singer as opposed to Rabbi Gary North, Rabbi Greg Bahnsen, and Rabbi R. J. Rushdoony. The point here is that someone is going to have to do the work on determining ethics. Would we prefer that work to be done by God’s men or the men of Natural Law?

Finally, it is despicable in the highest degree for this man to say that the same anti-Christ spirit that produced the talmud is the spirit that energized Rushdoony when he wrote the Institutes. That is a meanness that is beyond mere uncharitableness. That comment is hatred exemplified.

Second, let me question a premise of your question. I’ve been thinking about and dealing with theonomy since you were (probably) a child. I don’t know anyone, even one ardently opposed to theonomy, who thinks that it’s childplay. I am convinced that it’s profoundly wrong, but I’ve never thought it was “easy.” Like the FV, theonomy has to be unravelled and that’s hard work. Further, just as there are varieties of the FV, there are varieties of theonomy. Just as the FV is a moving target, so theonomy was a moving target. Today hardly anyone wants to admit being a theonomist. I half expect someone to deny that Greg was really a theonomist!

Allow me to proffer that the reason that theonomy can’t be unravelled is because it is Biblical Christianity.

Second, it is the case that there are varieties of theonomy, just as there are varieties of R2Kt virus proponents. I mean not even this man is as extreme as Lee and Misty Irons. Diversity in a movement is no proof of it being specious.

Personally though, I don’t think it is difficult at all to unravel R2Kt virus theology — or Natural Law for that matter.

Third, both movements have in common a deep concern for the collapse of the culture and our place in it. Some versions of theonomy/reconstructionism have culture being gradually regenerated through Christian influence and some expect a cataclysm out of which arises a Reconstructionist phoenix. FV wants to regenerate the culture through sacerdotalism (baptismal union). Both are visions of Christendom restored.

All this section is, is a complaint about post-millennialism.

Yes, it’s true that postmillennialists like B.B. Warfield, Jonathon Edwards, and Athanasius thought culture would be gradually influenced through Christian influence. Should they be run out of the Church as well?

Many Reformed men throughout Church history anticipated Christendom (Christ’s Kingdom) being restored. Do a-millennialists, like this man, believe that the notion of Christendom is a notion that should be repented of (yes, he once said that)? Does he mean to suggest that all post-millennialists throughout history need to repent?

These factors help explain why so many theonomists have been attracted to the FV and vice-versa. I realize that not all theonomists are FVists nor are all FVists theonomists and I realize that some theonomic groups have been justly critical of the FV, nevertheless, I regard those arguments as a family fight.

I realize that not all R2Kt advocates are followers of Lee and Misty Irons. I realize some R2Kt advocates have been critical of Lee and Misty Irons, nevertheless, I regard those arguments as a family fight.

The reluctance to debate Greg was grounded in some of the same concerns that folk have about the FV. At first it was regarded as a weird novelty, to which the critics didn’t want to give credibility, and then it was viewed as a threat. The perception of the FV has gone through the same process. At first, no one wanted to take it seriously. It was only after the Kinnaird case that people really began to pay attention (and Kinnaird denies holding the FV, but his relations to the FV weren’t clear a couple of years ago). Now churches are acting to protect themselves against the FV.

The reason people didn’t want to debate Dr. Greg Bahnsen is that he would have kicked their R2Kt virus butts up and down the Debate hall. Don’t let this guy kid you.

Second, a debate of sorts did take place in the literature. Compare the “Theonomy — A Reformed Critique” with “Theonomy an Informed Response” and it becomes dreadfully obvious who won the debate. Read Dr. Ken Gentry’s “Covenantal Theonomy” which was a response to Dr. T. David Gordon’s R2Kt virus writings and it becomes dreadfully obvious who won the debate. Read Dr. Greg Bahnsen as he dissected and dessicated Dr. Meredith Kline’s work on theonomy and it becomes dreadfully obvious who won the debate. Indeed, wherever and whenever the debate has been entered into the Klinean school has been sorely bruised.

Theonomy may be patently wrong, but that doesn’t mean that it’s an easy case to make. Like the FV, theonomy is a huge ball of twine that has to be unwound in multiple directions.

And Theonomists are still waiting for someone to make a dent.

Like theonomy/reconstructionism, FV has strong, colorful leaders.

Is this a fault, an argument for boring leadership, or an admission that the virus types are bland, vanilla, and flat?

Like Doug Wilson, Greg was fast on his feet and a good debater. Greg was a trained philosopher and could be intimidating. That also probably contributed to reluctance to debate him.

LOL… What contributed to reluctance to debate Bahnsen was fear.

Non-theonomic students at WSC, when I was a student, who wanted to enter this presbytery of the OPC lived in mortal terror of being grilled by Greg. He was said to question non-theonomic students ruthlessly on the floor of presbytery unless they had taken private tuition from him! I’m not saying that this is fact, it’s just my recollection of what happened c. 1984-7. I guess theonomists will deny it ever happened. “St Greg could never have done such a thing.”

The R2Kt virus house can only be built by tearing down Bahnsen. This is pettiness to the max.

I also remember Rabbi Gary saying once that if anyone criticized theonomy that he would “bury” them (ala Khrushchev). I got some pretty heated correspondence for daring to offer some mild criticisms of theonomy/reconstructionism in a short dictionary article! Imagine what would happen to one who dared to question one of the Rabbis directly?

If you can’t stand the heat stay out of the kitchen.

As Bahnsen believed that Theonomy and Biblical Christianity were synonymous I can no more fault him for defending the faith then I can fault the Apostle Paul for defending the faith against Judaic versions of Christianity.