Category: R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology)

RSC writes on the R2K (Thomistic) theory of Nature & Grace;

The distinction between nature and grace is a Christian basic. It is, however, one of the many distinctions that we seem to have lost during the theological chaos of the twentieth century. Christians have distinguished between nature and grace since the beginning of the post-apostolic age and the Apostle Paul assumes it through the book of Romans as a basic, evident truth. There are some things we know by nature, e.g., that God is (Rom 1:19–20) and his moral, natural law (Rom 2:12–15).

Bret responds,

I have written so much on Natural Law theory on Iron Ink that my finger tip pads are worn out on the subject. Briefly let it be said here again,

1.) Natural law was popular among the pagan Stoics and other philosophers.
2.) They in turn picked it up from Aristotle. Aristotle was a pagan.
3.) Natural law is an especially peculiarly Roman Catholic method of reasoning
4.) Thomas Aquinas refined Natural Law providing a unbiblical synthesis between Natural Law and Gods Law.
5.) Natural Law has come in hot and heavy in R2K as a result of the Jesuit trained Dr. David Van Drunen being the R2K guru.

A good book that demolishes R2K’s love affair with Natural Law is Dr. Robert A. Morey’s, “The Bible, Natural Theology and Natural Law: Conflict or Compromise?”

Below is just one piece on Iron Ink that labors to demonstrate the theory of Natural Law the way R2K develops it. Plugging “Natural Law” into the Iron Ink search mechanism will provide many more entries on Natural law.

Observations On Natural Law Theory

RSC writes more on Nature and Grace;

From nature, we learn the arts (e.g., grammar), arithmetic, and science. We learn the doctrines of the Trinity, Christology, salvation, and the church from grace (i.e., Holy Scripture). When we fail to acknowledge this basic distinction, confusion follows.

Bret responds,

R2Kt Virus, Natural Law, And Attacks On Biblical Christianity — Part I

R2Kt Virus, Natural Law, And Attacks On Biblical Christianity — Part II

Let it be said here that the Three Forms of Unity do not allow someone who subscribes to them to teach Natural Law the way that R2K teaches Natural Law. I am not dismissing the reality of Natural Law. I am dismissing Natural Law the way that R2K advocates for Natural Law.

RSC writes,

One of the reasons the church taught this distinction was to combat the Pelagian heresy. Pelagius was a British monk who appears on the historical radar, in Rome, in the AD 380s. He was worried about the state of Christian morality. He was offended by Augustine’s emphasis on divine grace. In reaction, he denied that Paul taught a federal theology (wherein Adam and Christ are the heads of humanity). He held that we are not born sinners, but we become sinners when we sin. When we sin we imitate Adam. Pelagius denied the necessity of grace and he taught the possibility of perfection before death. Perhaps his most fundamental error was confusing nature and grace. Arminius and the Remonstrants did the same. Thus, the Reformed were traditionally quite clear about this distinction.

Bret responds,

The implication that only Thomists/Natural Law types get the above paragraph is so ridiculous that it is not worthy of a response. Is Clark saying that all presuppositionalists have been latent Remonstrants?

I’m fine with making a distinction between nature and grace. I am not find divorcing nature from grace so that we are forced to live the “hyphenated-life” (Dualistic) such as some in the R2K school have advocated for repeatedly.

RSC writes,

The Kinists seek to leverage grace with nature. They claim that people naturally congregate in ethnic/racial people groups, and they seek to use their analysis of nature to leverage grace. This is flatly contrary to the plain teaching of God’s Word.

Bret responds,

The Kinists teach that grace restores/renews nature, just like the Reformed have taught through the centuries. As such, since race/ethnicity is a part of nature Kinists understand that when men are visited with grace, that grace does not destroy their nature so that upon redemption they are cleansed of their race/ethnicity just as they are not cleansed of their biological gender. Being rooted and grounded in Christ does not mean I cease being WASP.

Unlike Scott, I actually read and learned from my Calvin;

“Regarding our eternal salvation, it is true that one must not distinguish between man and woman, or between king and a shepherd, or between a German and a Frenchman. Regarding policy, however, we have what St. Paul declares here; for our, Lord Jesus Christ did not come to mix up nature, or to abolish what belongs to the preservation of decency and peace among us….Regarding the kingdom of God (which is spiritual) there is no distinction or difference between man and woman, servant and master, poor and rich, great and small. Nevertheless, there does have to be some order among us, and Jesus Christ did not mean to eliminate it, as some flighty and scatterbrained dreamers [believe].”

John Calvin
Sermon on 1 Corinthians 11:2-3

When Calvin impugns the “flighty and scatterbrained dreamers” he is impugning the Anabaptists. I think (as I suggested in my book) that R2K is latent Anabaptist.

Matthew Henry also agrees with me;

“Note, It is the will of God that mutual love and affection, converse and communion, should be kept up among relations. Those that are of kin to each other should, as much as they can, be acquainted with each other; and the bonds of nature should be improved for the strengthening of the bonds of Christian communion.”

Matthew Henry Commentary
Numbers Chapter 2:1-2

Charles Hodge agrees with me too;

“The Bible recognizes the validity and rightness of all the constitutional principles and impulses of our nature. It therefore approves of parental and filial affection, and, as is plain from this and other passages, of peculiar love for the people of our own race and country.”

Charles Hodge
Commentary Romans 9

RSC writes;

Under the Mosaic law, there was a clear distinction between Jew and Gentile. The latter were to be regarded as ritually unclean. For Christians, however, that “dividing wall” (Eph 2:14) has been broken down by the death of Christ. Paul writes:

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility (Eph 2:11–16; ESV).

According to Paul, the Gentiles (that’s everyone but the Jews), who have trusted Christ are no longer separated from Jews who have trusted Christ. The old ethnic and religious barriers that had separated them are done away with in the body of Christ. This is true in two senses. The church of the body of Christ no longer observes such distinctions but second and more profoundly, Christ literally broke down those barriers when his body was, as he said at the institution of the Holy Supper, “broken for” us. He abolished the ceremonial laws that separated Christian Jews and Gentiles. The old enmity is gone—it must be. Our enmity with God is abolished in and by the crucified body of Christ.

Bret responds,

Sigh… that a teacher of Israel could read Ephesians 2 through a Cultural-Marxist grid like Red Scott does is just breath-taking. When I read stuff like this I’m reminded of the old Bobby Goldsboro song, “Watching Scotty Grow;”

There he sits with a pen and a yellow pad,
What a confusing lad, that’s our boy
BRLFQ spells mom and dad,
Well that ain’t too bad, ’cause that’s our boy

Let me help you out Scotty on Ephesians 2;

Labels in war are important. One should desire to smear the enemy with a handle that is both accurate, insulting, and demeaning.

For example during the War of Northern aggression the North got away with labeling those who were faithful to the Constitution as “the Rebels.” During the English Civil war the Cavaliers, who were supporters of the Monarchy successfully stuck the label of “Roundhead” on their opponents.
You must understand that during the English Civil war and for a time afterwards, Roundhead was a term of derision, and in the New Model Army it was a punishable offence to call a fellow soldier a Roundhead. The Jews call their enemy “goyim” which is a smear, while at the same time being a accurate level from the Jewish perspective. The word “goy” has so much historical and linguistic baggage that it is obvious that it is a weaponized word. Goy exists in all kinds of combinations that it obvious that it is a slur label put on Jewish gentile enemies.  For example there are the obvious slurs – like “goyishe kopf,” or gentile brains, which suggests (generously) a dullard, or “shikker iz a goy,” a gentile is a drunkard. “Goyishe naches” describes the kinds of things that a Jew mockingly presumes only a gentile would enjoy, like hunting, sailing and eating white bread. Examples of the necessity to properly label one’s enemy with a pejorative handle in order to better reveal who they are and why they should be opposed are ubiquitous throughout history (Japs, Krauts, Jacobins, etc).

Now, I have no beef with this. It is what the lovers of their cause should do in order to demonize as much as possible the demonic enemy that is being faced. Jesus Himself did it when he called His enemies “White Washed Sepulchers full of dead men’s bones.” Further, I fully expect my enemy to try and do it to me and that is exactly what they have tried to do by calling me “racist,” or by trying to morph the words “Kinist” and “Racist” to mean the same thing.

Given all this it is not surprising that I do the same thing. When I came up with “R2K” once upon a time it was not meant as a compliment. It has become the short handle to refer to an extreme movement that while claiming to be Reformed because of its appeal to two Kingdom thinking is in all actually not Reformed because it has radicalized Reformed  two kingdom thinking into something that nobody Reformed throughout history would have ever recognized.

There have been other attempts to label R2K in a slurred but accurate fashion.

1.) E2K — For awhile people were using this to identify Radical Two Kingdom theology. It stands for Escondido Two Kingdom and its purpose is to hang around the neck of Westminster-Cal (located in Escondido, California) the dubious honor of having invented out of whole cloth Radical Two Kingdom “theology.” E2K, in my opinion, was a gentler and nicer way to say “Radical Two Kingdom,” and so in my opinion did not work as well as R2K, though it did have the advantage of screaming the location of the viper’s den every time it was used. Used enough it is possible that it would cause people to eventually say, “Can anything good come out of Escondido.” And of course, exceptions notwithstanding, the answer is “no.”

2.) Another attempt that has been floated in order to label R2K is “NL2K.” This stands for “Natural Law Two Kingdom,” and gets at the reality that Radical Two Kingdom is Thomistic in its origins and relies on Natural Law to get its Christ denying project off the ground. The problem is that most people don’t understand how wicked Natural Law is when it has gone to seed and so NL2K doesn’t pack enough pejorative punch.

Having said the above, I am not opposed to a better handle on Radical Two Kingdom than R2K if one can be found. Yesterday, a comment was left on Iron Ink hoping to advance just that idea. The beauty of “R2K” is that it is pithy, memorable, and accurate. The lack of the label “R2K” is that it fails somewhat as a entry level insult. Being the person I am, the pejorative side of things is always a stretch for me.

The chap who commented on Iron Ink angling for a new handle for “R2K” used the following admirable reasoning in order to advocate for a more razor edged handle to attach to R2K.  I cut and pasted his reasoning for your consideration below. If we can find a better handle to stick on R2K in order to better communicate their heretical and dangerous nature, I’m all for it. I have no pride when it comes to defeating this enemy.

Here is my commenter’s reasoning;

“At some level, Protestantism is fundamentally about wrestling for control of the state. Taking control of the state from Catholics was what made Protestantism.

The best way to undermine R2K is to start alluding to the state as Catholic. “Cathedral” , “Babylon”. As well as smearing R2K proponents with the association.

(Here the idea may be to refer to R2K as B2K {Babylon Two Kingdom} or C2K {Cathedral Two Kingdom}. {B2K = Babylon Two Kingdom has a nice ring to it} — BLM) 

Don’t let them call themselves Protestants. Real Protestants seek to control the “state”. Whether, it’s the Armish nation within a nation, or Christian Nationalists changing state law. We need a new label.

There’s been a failure to win the war for the dictionary. Young men filled with hormones create the vocabulary to control the conversation.”

I wonder if since I am willing to let go of R2K if that means I can consider myself a “Young man filled with hormones?”

I finish this entry by offering a few ideas of my own to replace R2K;

1.) Dumb sons of Bitches Two Kingdom = DSOB2K (probably too unwieldy & sexist, after all women can be DSOB2K also.)
2.) Heretical Two Kingdom = H2K
3.) Enemies of Christ Two Kingdom = EOC2K
4.) Retarded Two Kingdom = R2K (Nope … that would be confused w/ R2K)
5.) Anti-Christ Two Kingdom = AC2K

Anyway, were I a rich man, I’d turn this into a contest where someone could win a grand prize for coming up with the perfect language to label R2K and the whole movement.