Apologetics – Page 22

Kevin DeYoung’s Attempt To Institutionalize Polytheism In The Westminster Confession

There has been a debate that has arisen in “conservative” “Presbyterian” circles that finds a certain party in these denominations insisting that their founding revised 1788 American Westminster Confession of faith (WCF) was a repudiation of the 1646 Original WCF on the matter of how the Civil Magistrate is related to the claims of Biblical Christianity. The argument being advanced by Judas Goats like Kevin DeYoung is that in 1788 American Presbyterians had become recalcitrant in extending Establishmentarian religious authority to the state and consequently drafted a “revision” that had “more robust notions of religious liberty,” than what had previously existed in the original WCF. In the mind of the Quislings like DeYoung the American adaptation represent movement of the Reformed from historically Reformed position to a more Anabaptist/Libertarian understanding on the subject of Magistrates. DeYoung’s position putatively allows for more religious toleration. More religious toleration is, by definition, less religious toleration for those whose religion teaches that Christ and His Word is to be King over the civil Magistrate and that the Civil Magistrate is to be a “Nursing father to the Christian Church (Isaiah 49:23).”

We see here then that DeYoung and his pirate crew is not really pursuing a course that leads to an expanding of religious toleration but rather DeYoung and his pirate crew is pursuing a course that diminishes toleration for Biblical Christianity, with its claim that Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and that all Kings must submit to Him. That DeYoung is on such a course is seen in his own words;

“As new debates about the proper relationship between church and state continue to multiply, it’s important to recognize that the two versions of WCF 23:3 represent two different and irreconcilable views of the civil magistrate.”

Dr. Kevin DeYoung
Presbyterian “Minister”

In DeYoung’s pursuit of revising the 23:3 WCF revision so that it is interpreted in a more Anabaptist/polytheistic fashion DeYoung is staking out the territory that disallows 23:3 to be read in such a way wherein the civil Magistrate is to be uniquely committed to upholding the first table of the law, while requiring the Magistrate to be more of a Pontifex Maximus putatively representing the interests of all the religions in the Republic. Of course we know that such a Pontifex Maximus doesn’t really represent the interest of all religions in the Republic because such a Magistrate could not represent the religion that said all the religions in the Republic except Christianity must, in light of the 1st commandment, be abominated by the Christian Magistrate.

One humorous aspect of this debate is that the American WCF, even as revised in 23:3 clearly still supports Christian Magistrates as we see in the Westminster Larger Catechism 191 where the Catechism answers “What does thy Kingdom come mean,” answering, in part with the statement that, “the church be … countenanced and maintained by the civil magistrate.” My friends, the Christian church can not be countenanced and maintained by the Christian civil magistrate if he, at the same time, is countenancing and maintaining all other pagan religions, for to countenance and maintain a pagan religion would be at the same time to discountenance and pull down the Christian church. Caesar can not serve two or more masters.

Pertaining to the WLC the above is not all. Previously, in teaching on the 5th commandment the WLC states that our superiors include not only “father and mother” but also those superiors as located in church and commonwealth, and then goes on to teach that all these superiors must provide “all things necessary for body and soul (Q. 124, 129).” This must as a shock to Rev. DeYoung, to think that the Magistrate must, as in their defined role as Magistrate, provide all things necessary for the soul, since for DeYoung the Magistrate is to be the Polytheistic Pontifex Maximus.

If humor is part of the landscape for this discussion nobody did a better stand up routine then when R2K guru, R. Scott Clark — he of “Recovering the Reformed Confessions” fame — recently offered on X that DeYoung is correct about the WCF being a complete revision of the WCF 1646 in an anti-Establishmentarian direction and that the inconsistencies of the WCF with the WLC could be explained by the fact that the Americans in 1788 just forgot to go ahead and change the WLC so as to be consistent with the 1788 WCF change. As we all know … remembering details can be a tricky thing.

Of course all this is being driven by the push in Reformed circles, since the days of Meredith Kline, to turn the Reformed faith into a R2K playground. Increasingly the Seminaries are embracing R2K and this sudden pursuit to officially change the WCF, in a Anabaptist/Libertarian direction, is just one more expression of Radical Two Kingdom “theology.” By insisting that the Magistrate has no obligation to the Christian church to be unto the Christian church a uniquely nursing father, R2K succeeds in their ongoing attempt to make all of life, in the words of D. G. Hart, a hyphenated life. If DeYoung’s effort succeeds to reinterpret 23:3 of the WCF the result will be an even more retreatist Christianity. Reformed Christianity will more and more be a religion that belongs to the catacombs. If DeYoung is successful Christianity will increasingly retreat from the public square.

DeYoung’s Christianity is the Christianity cherished by every polytheist in the public square. If Michael Servetus were alive today he might have taken DeYoung’s methodology to make room for his Socinianism in Geneva. The Mooselimbs, Talmudists, Hindus, etc. in America are all cheering on Dr. Kevin DeYoung’s attempt to officially strip the WCF of any notion that it might support Christian Nationalism. After all, if the 1646 WCF is correct then, by necessity Christian Nationalism is true. If Christian Magistrates are required by the WCF then of course that can not be apart from a Christian nation.

We should end by noting what a nation looks like if Dr. Rev. Kevin DeYoung gets his way. Such a nation would by definition have to be polytheistic. The kind of pluralism that DeYoung envisions cannot exist apart from the religious polytheism that drives political/sociological pluralism. It is an odd position to take when we are increasingly seeing what pluralism looks like in these united States. For example, recently in Minneapolis, a city ordinance was passed that allows for the public Mooslimb call to prayer 5 times a day regardless of the time that the call to prayer is required. Another example is found in Dearborn, Michigan where the Mooselimb Mayor hired a Mooselimb Chief of police who has recently arrested a non-Mooselimb for posting something on social media that was foolishly threatening in a vague manner Mooselimbs who were marching in Dearborn shouting “Death to America.” Another example of the implications of Rev. Dr. DeYoung’s heretical war against the 1st commandment would be the requirement of a state to allow Baphomet statues in state capitals such as was the case in Iowa in 2023. In Rev. Dr. DeYoung’s world such realities would not only have to be tolerated by Christians but they would also have to be applauded as part of the doctrinal foundation upon which Christianity is based.

If Benedict Arnolds like Kevin DeYoung are successful there will be no public roadblock to blasphemies of every shape and size. DeYoung’s views institutionalize Polytheism in the Westminster Confession and institutionalize polytheism in formerly Christian America. It is one more nail in the coffin of any notion of Christendom.

Keep in mind that Kevin DeYoung is the chap who is heading up the committee in the PCA taking up the subject of Christian Nationalism. Given this “man’s” views what do you think that PCA committee is going to produce as it speaks to the issue of Christian Nationalism?

McAtee Contra Justice On His Rant Against Presuppositionalism/Biblicism/Theonomy I

“but to the extent that it (Presuppositionalism/Biblicism) has replaced or removed rational argument and empirical observations, to the extent that it has eviscerated the category and utility of common notions, to the extent that it has functionally displaced or even, for some, denigrated the place of nature and natural law and natural theology, and, to the extent that all of this is embraced by professing Christians as an unassailable bulwark of “biblical” intellectual potency, it is not to be commended but to be condemned as an utter usurper.”

Mr. Cody Justice
American Mantle.

You know I’ve tried to play nice with this Natural Law crowd but they keep digging at Presuppositionalism, Biblicism, and Theonomy and as a result there is nothing left to do but to continue to do what we have done here before and that is to repudiate their accusations. I will have to say though, that it was brave of them some time ago to have Rev. David Reece debate Dr. Stephen Wolfe on the issue of Natural Law vs. Presuppositionalism /Biblicism. I highly recommend this debate because, while collegial and congenial, frankly David Reece bested Dr. Wolfe in this debate. It wasn’t even close. I suspect that Reece or any other Theonomist will not be asked back again to debate Dr. Wolfe on this subject.

As to the above quote;

1.) Presuppositionalism/Biblicism (hereafter P/B) has never sought to replace or remove rational argument and empirical observations. A read of the small book by Thom Notaro, titled, “Van Til’s Use Of Evidence” puts such calumny to death and reveals a profound misunderstanding on Mr. Justice’s part on P/B. This accusation rests on the old canard, long disproven, that P/B = Fideism. The P/B advocate is no more or less Fideistic than Mr. Justice or any other Natural Law warrior. The only difference is that Mr. Justice has a fideistic faith that presupposes man as man’s own beginning point while P/B fideistic faith that presupposes God as man’s beginning point. Both then use rational argument and empirical observation that winds out of those beginning points.

2.) Now, quite to the chagrin of Mr. Justice, we have to ask by what standard do we arrive at his idea of “common notions?” Common notions by what standard? Already here in Michigan I can hear the wailing of Mr. Justice and his gnashing of teeth because in the article that this above snippet is from grinds against the question of “by what standard.” It stands to reason that Mr. Justice would grind over this because that question puts the end to the whole notion of Natural Law. Now, I am not denying that Natural Law exists but, unlike Mr. Justice, I believe that fallen man’s mind is at enmity with God. I also believe in the Reformed doctrine called “Total Depravity.” Finally, I believe because the mind of fallen man is at enmity with God, thus revealing the truth of a total depravity that affected the whole man (including his intellect – sans Aquinas) yielding the truth found in Scripture that fallen man suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. In the face of all these long accepted Reformed doctrines (Total Depravity, Noetic effects of the fall, A suppressing of the truth in unrighteousness) Mr. Justice and the Natural Law fanboys continue to thump for Aristotelian Natural Law theories.

In pursuit of clarity, I do not deny that all ground is common ground but I do deny that any ground is neutral ground. All ground is common ground because it is God’s ground and that never changes. However, all ground is not neutral ground because fallen man denies the fact that the ground is common ground because it belongs to God. The fallen man is seeking to usurp God’s claim and so suppresses the truth of what he can’t evade knowing. Hence, the idea of common notions is turkey offal.

3.) In light of all this we must ask Mr. Justice… “Who is the usurper?” It is true that the P/B has long usurped the Aristotle / Aquinas tradition but it is they who usurped Scripture. So, despite Mr. Justice’s cavailing we will continue to be glad to play the usurpers, to his tradition of usurping. I am glad to match Mr. Justice’s condemning of P/B by consigning to the depths of utter hell the whole idea of Natural Law/ Natural theology as it comes to us from the hand of Aquinas and Aristotle. It was one of those areas where the Reformation still had Reforming to do once it picked it up to “advance” the cause of Reformation.

4.) Just to be clear here … I do, as a advocate of P/B denigrate the place of nature and natural law and natural theology. I do so proudly and with all the cheekiness I can generate. It is an abomination. It is a blemish on the Reformed tradition and you can imagine the delight that I find in the fact that both R2k and this Wolfe Natural Law school both appeal to this same Natural Law to come to conclusions that are 180 degrees different. Where now your Natural Law Mr. Justice that is so obvious to be understood that we find Christian Ph.D’s at each other’s throats regarding how it should be interpreted?

5.) Mr. Justice assails P/B but, alas, his assailing is like so many BB’s off a battleship. Both Van Til and Gordon H. Clark refuted over and over again this whole Natural Law stand up comic routine. Their arguments remain as valid and cogent now as they were when they first made them. If people want to read a quick rebuttal I would recommend, Dr. Robert A. Morey’s book, “The Bible, Natural Theology, And Natural Law; Conflict or Compromise?”

Are Our Meaning Problems Derivative of Darwin … or Derivative of Franz Boas? Wilson’s Errant Analysis

In a recent clip Doug Wilson effectively demolishes Russell Moore’s belly aching about Wilson. There is plenty to belly ache about Wilson but all of what Moore was belly-aching about is exactly the opposite of what the problems with Wilson are. Moore was critiquing Wilson from the Cultural Marxist non-Christian Left. My problems with Wilson are from the Dissident Christian right. Still, how can I not rejoice whenever the right side of the left (Doug Wilson) demolishes the left side of the left (Russell Moore)?

So, a tip of the cap and three “Huzzahs” for Doug here!

(10:23-10:43)

There was a major insight though from Wilson as he aptly and ablely picked apart Moore. Wilson said, in the course of his righteous screed against Russell Moore, that where we, as a culture, are at is “All downstream of Darwin.”

Now, that is a major analysis error on Wilson’s part. It demonstrates that he doesn’t really know the times. Indeed, because of this analysis we can begin to locate why Wilson is so often wrong the way he is. It is absolutely false that where we are at as a culture is all downstream of Darwin. In point of fact, the person we are all downstream of held the exact opposite views of Darwin. I would insist that where we’re now is “all downstream of Franz Boas.”

Franz Boas was the anti-Darwinists of his age and perhaps is one of the least known persons today whose thinking has had monumental impact on our current zeitgeist. Boas abominated Darwin and it is Boas’ worldview that has gained the ascendency. Boas was a cultural anthropologist who argued against Darwin’s “biological determinism,” opting instead for a cultural relativism that allowed for an egalitarian view of all cultures. Further, Boas argued against Darwin’s “scientific racism” by emphasizing nurture over Darwin’s nature argument.

This inability of Wilson’s to see that the battle we are now fighting in the West is not against Darwinism so much as it is against Boasianism explains a good deal about some of the things that Wilson says about race and culture.

The significance of this error on Wilson’s part is monumental.

Now, certainly there remains a good deal of Darwinism extant. It’s not as if Darwinism has gone away. However, the real fight in the trenches is not with Darwinism but is with the exact opposite mirror error of Boasianism. The lost of meaning that we are suffering from as a culture has more to do with the success of (((Franz Boas))) worldview winning out than it has to do with Darwin’s worldview winning out.

Revolutionary Marxism & Biblical Christianity

“Mao barely knew the German philosopher Hegel, and had only a limited understanding of the concept of the dialectic which Marx had derived from Hegel. But his mind ran in the same channels as Hegel’s and Marx’s and Lenin’s, for all the vast difference in his cultural background. Like them, he saw a universe in which conflict was not temporary disharmony, but the esse — the supreme fact and law of existence. Mao said: ‘Balance, qualitative change and unity are absolute and permanent.’ ‘If there were not contradiction and no struggle, there would be no world, no progress, no life, there would be nothing at all.”

What did this mean for communism, his dream and his goal?

‘The universe, too, undergoes transformation, it is not eternal. Capitalism leads to socialism leads to communism, and communist society must still be transformed, it will also have a beginning and end…. Monkeys turned into men, mankind arose; in the end the whole human race will disappear, it may turn into something else, at that time the earth itself will also cease to exist. The earth must certainly be extinguished, the sun too will grow cold.’ – Mao

So, even a communist society must have its revolutions; and he, Mao Tse-Tung, the supreme revolution maker, would keep on making them.”

Warren H. Carroll
The Rise and Fall of the Communist Revolution – p. 462

A few observations

1.) Note that a major foundation for Marxist thought is the idea of conflict of interests. This is what is taught with the Hegelian dialectic. Communist Revolution is never final. It always progresses to the next thing. This explains in the West the movement of accepting adultery, to accepting sodomy, to accepting Trannie-ism. It is how the progressive nature of Revolution works. Revolution is always restless and never complete. The result of one Revolution is the necessity of the next Revolution.

2.) This in turn underscore the Marxist core theme of always returning to chaos. Because the Marxist Revolutionary believes in the necessity of the conflict of interest there is a constant pursuit away from whatever order might initially be established and towards absolute chaos because it is the Marxist Revolutionary faith that out of chaos order comes. As such whenever any order is established in any society given to Marxist emphasis there will always be a vanguard who is pushing for chaos. This explains the constant rioting that we found in the “Black Lives Matter” movement and the whole George Floyd affair in Minneapolis. In a social order where there is an overwhelming presence of just a significant minority of Revolutionary Marxists there will always be a drive to chaos. The pursuit of chaos is in keeping with their religion.

3.) Notice how the biological presuppositions of Darwinism twined their way into social theory. This explains why Marx and Engels rejoiced to see Darwin’s book. They knew that once Darwinism was accepted in biology that Marxism would be accepted in social theory. Sociologist Herbert Spencer was the great mind that took biological Darwinism and translated it into a full world and life view through his writing.

4.) Only Christianity can put an end to Revolution making and the Marxist thought that drives it because, unlike Marxism, Christianity presupposes not a conflict of interest but a harmony of interest. Also, Christianity, unlike Revolutionary Marxist thought does not believe that man is just matter in motion. For the Marxist, because man is merely matter in motion, man has no significance and having no real significance man is something that can be slaughtered in order to make the better if indeed not perfect social order. After all, in the words of Stalin, “If you want to make an omelette you have to break a few eggs.” For the Marxist Revolutionary the individual man is of no consequence. Christianity challenges this and opposes Marxism because Christianity teaches that man is made as an image bearer of God.

5.) For Revolutionary Marxism the State / Party is God. “All within the state and nothing outside the state” is its Maxim. The State/Party thus becomes God walking on the earth. The Revolutionary Marxist understood that Christianity was his enemy because he was self aware enough to know that Christianity has always opposed, throughout its existence, any institutional structure that takes itself as the ultimate meaning maker. In order for Marxist Revolutionary thinking to gain traction real and serious Christianity and Christians must be wiped out.

McAtee & Lusk Disagree On Whether Or Not Dabney Would Repent If He Were Alive Today

“I fully believe that if Dabney were around today, he would repent of some of his racial views expressed in his writings. When contemporary racists say things like, “You’d excommunicate Dabney if he were around today,’ they are not saying anything useful. I usually counter, ‘If Dabney were around today, he’d repent.’ Why assume that Dabney would not be willing or capable of receiving greater light on the issue of race?… Yes, I think many 19th century Southern theologians (some of the first theologians in history to have to deal with the issue of race in such an experiential way) would gladly receive further light from the Scriptures on the issue. There is no reason to assume their views are frozen in time or that they’d be unwilling to reconsider. I’d like to think that I’d be open to reassessing my views if strong Biblical arguments can be made against something I currently believe. Why not grant Dabney the benefit of the doubt as well?”

Rev. Rich Lusk

It’s hard to fathom how utterly subjective the above quote is. However, we will start by linking to a web page that doubtlessly Dabney, were he alive today, would be familiar with if only because it so thoroughly supports his convictions on race when he was alive.

The Color of Crime, 2016 Revised Edition

The Shade of Dabney, being the education man that he was would have pointed Rev. Lusk to this link and asked, “Rev. Lusk, based on the information provided by this study and by these statistics whatever would prompt you to think that I would change my views were I still alive today?”

A Dabney revivified from the dead would have asked Rev. Lusk, given that;

a.) In 2013, a black was six times more likely than a non-black to commit murder, and 12 times more likely to murder someone of another race than to be murdered by someone of another race.

b.) In 2013, of the approximately 660,000 crimes of interracial violence that involved blacks and whites, blacks were the perpetrators 85 percent of the time. This meant a black person was 27 times more likely to attack a white person than vice versa. A Hispanic was eight times more likely to attack a white person than vice versa.

Why would you ever think that being revivified I would not repent of my views at my death but would instead say, “Rev. Lusk, I rest my case that I was right then and you are wrong now and indeed you are the one who is need of repenting.”

Clearly, what Lusk is doing in his quote above is called “projecting.” I mean I can imagine someone writing 130 years after Lusk is dead and buried;

“I fully believe that if Lusk were around today, he would repent of some of his egalitarian and globalist views expressed in his writings.”

Such a statement would be pure projection. Lusk, being a card carrying egalitarian on the issue of race will not repent today and if you could dig him up in the year 2255 and revivify him he would still not repent, even if being presented with a postmillennial culture that is once again Kinist and so Christian. Lusk, is doing the same with Dabney when he, by the way of projection, insists that Dabney would repent were he alive today because he would know better. And this in spite of the fact that all the evidence would give Dabney the ability to say to Lusk and his ilk; “Dude, I told you so. I tried to warn you.”

Also, Lusk seems to assume here that there has been no further light to break out of the Scripture on this subject since this subject was exhaustively debated repeatedly in the 19th century. Has Lusk never read any of those debates? There is nothing being said now that wasn’t being said by the Christian clergy in those debates as they debated the abolitionists, Transcendentalists, and Jacobins. Does Lusk think that merely because today’s clergy like himself are mouthing Jacobin debating points on race as covered in a patina of Christian-speak that therefore Dabney would be convinced and so repent? If so, Lusk severely underestimates the intellect of R. L. Dabney and the work of the Holy Spirit to keep Dabney from wrongly repenting of the truth.

Doubtless Dabney would have presented to Lusk a copy of the slave narratives that were sponsored by the US Government completed some 35 years after his death and would have said to Lusk; “Many of these slaves agree with me and yearn for the days when they were treated so well as slaves.”

I don’t doubt for a skinny minute that any saint gone to be with the Lord, if they could return, might well repent of matters they held while still alive. However, Dabney, with his views on race isn’t one of them. Now, Dabney might well repent over his embrace of Scottish Common Sense realism and agree with me that presuppositionalism is the better way, but on the issue of race Dabney would say, “130 years later my views on race have been substantiated, however given the civil rights revolution that began with the loss of my beloved South continuing through to this day in 2o25 upon my re-visitation, it clearly is the case that my views are even more unacceptable now by Christian clergy than they were when I spoke them in the face of Yankee and Abolitionist Reconstruction. Today it is even more unacceptable to commit the sin of noticing than it was in the days before I left off this mortal coil.”

On this matter it is Rev. Lusk who needs to be pursuing repentance and not Dabney.