Law – Juridicial

From The Mailbag; “Pastor, Aren’t You Being Unreasonable?”

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.

A Few Distinctions on Christian Nationalism Concerning R2K, 2K Christian Nationalism & Theonomic Christian Nationalism

Below find an example of how there are a myriad of different readings of what exactly Christian Nationalism is. The below is correct as far as it goes but it fails inasmuch as it suggests that all Christian Nationalism is the Christian Nationalism that is described below by Doyle Matthews.

This from a chap (Doyle Matthews) who is correct on Presuppositionalism but is thorough-going hard core Alienist, which is to say that he is an inconsistent Presuppositionalist.

DM writes,

What do Christian Nationalists and R2K have in common?

1. They are both two-kingdom advocates.

BLMc responds

First, a wise person would understand that the very term “Christian Nationalist” has as many definitions as Carter’s has liver pills. As such making these kind of categorical unqualified statements is not profitable in the least.

It is true of the Stephen Wolfe / Michael Spangler school of Christian Nationalism that it is two-kingdom (2K). It is definitely NOT true of the Christian Nationalism that have been championed by Theonomist / Reconstructionist school of thought that began its strong rise in the 20th century.

Theonomists / Recons tend to talk about God’s complete sovereignty over every area of life while acknowledging that God has ordained different Jurisdictions (typically Church, State, Family – though other areas have been designated as well) and in those different Jurisdictions God has appointed Stewards in order to govern in the name of the great King of Kings, Jesus Christ. Those Stewards over the respective Jurisdictions have been Fathers over families, Elders over Churches, and Magistrates over Civil Order offices. The governance of these stewards of these different Jurisdictions must be consistent with God’s revealed Word.

So, it is just not true, as Mr. Matthews wrongly asserts that all Christian Nationalism is 2K. It is not even close to being true.

DM writes,

2. They are both natural law advocates.

BLMc responds,

It is true that both 2K and Christian Nationalism, as it falls from the hands of 2K advocates that their version of Christian Nationalism is based on Natural law. However, again, 2K doesn’t own the idea of Christian Nationalism. Theonomy/Reconstructionism has long advocated for Christian Nationalism before the recent revival of Thomistic Natural Law Christian Nationalism.

So, Christian Nationalism of the Theonomy/Recon schools abominates the methodology of 2K Christian Nationalism though at the same time it is certainly the case that there are conclusions that 2K and Theonomy can agree upon in their mutual but distinct advocacy of Christian Nationalism. Whether or not there can be some kind of rapprochement between these two schools of thought as pursuing the same goal is yet to be seen.

DM writes,

3. They both believe that “right reason” is how one arrives at natural law.

BLMc responds;

Again, it is true that the Thomistic Natural Law school that is informing the 2K version of Christian Nationalism does indeed insist upon the fatuous idea of “right reason.” However, all because 2K Christian Nationalism is Thomistic does not mean that all Christian Nationalism is dependent upon the idea of “right reason” as dependent on Natural Law categories. The theonomic understanding of Christian Nationalism looks to God’s Law-Word to inform of laws that should govern a social order. The theonomic understanding of Christian Nationalism realizes that fallen men starting from himself as his own point of reference in order to name and understand the very real reality of Natural Law (Psalm 19) will always twist Natural Law in order for it to reveal his beginning presuppositions. This is because the Natural man following natural law is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1) and due to the fact that his carnal mind is at enmity (warfare) with God (Romans 8). The presuppositions of 2K Christian Nationalism are extremely flawed but those presuppositions of 2K Christian Nationalism does not define the Christian Nationalism movement as a whole. (And there are many more disagreements to hash out besides this one we are concentrating on in this thread.)

So, one can advocate for Christian Nationalism while not advocating for 2K Thomism.

DM writes,

4. They both reject Biblical law as the standard for civil law.

BLMc responds,

This one corresponds to #3 above. Natural Law Christian Nationalists are just terrible on the issue of what the standard for civil law is or will be. The Christian Nationalism is shut up to their subjectively arrived at conclusions about the standard for civil law as based on their subjective beginning point presuppositions. Natural Law Christian Nationalists have no “thus saith the Lord” for their positions, though admittedly some of them will try to stitch together premise upon premise from one of the Ten commandments in order to arrive at legality and illegality, or in order to arrive at the penalty that should be declared upon for crimes committed.

However, Christian Nationalism doesn’t need 2K Natural Law theory in order to get off the ground.

DM writes,

So when you come right down to it, there isn’t much difference between Christian Nationalism and R2K advocates.

BLMc responds,

This is monumentally jejune. R2K anti-Christian Nationalists and 2K Christian Nationalists fight like dogs and cats on the issue of Christian Nationalism. My desire is for a pox to fall upon both houses (though I pray daily for a more destructive pox to fall on R2K) but despite that there are vast differences between 2K Christian Nationalists and R2K anti-Christian Nationalism.

Mr. Matthews is really exposing his ignorance with the last statement.

As bad as a Wolfean 2K Christian Nationalism would be it shines as beautiful in comparison to the R2K vision of social order.

So to be clear here …. there are three categories in this small slice of debate

1.) 2K Nationalism following Stephen Wolfe who has resurrected the errant thinking of Thomism and many Reformed lights who quit Reforming when it came to epistemology.

2.) Theonomic/Reconstruction Nationalism following Van Til, Gordon Clark, Bahnsen, Rushdoony and others who championed for God’s law being the standard in the Law-Order realm as being the norm that norms all norms.

3.) R2K Anti-Christian Nationalism following the heretical Escondido Westminster-West Seminary school. Westminster-West features chaps like David Van Drunen, R. Scott Clark, Michael Horton, and other historical misfits. (I say historical misfits because nobody until these descendants of Meredith Kline ever suggested the kinds of things these blokes champion in terms of Christianity and social order.)

Societal Law-Order & Cultural Evangelism

If you want the advancement of the Gospel and the growth of the Church to get significantly smothered in your state or your city all you have to do is to let your state go blue. This is not my opinion. This is what the data shows. If you show me a map of the most progressive areas of our nation followed by showing me a map of the regions in our nation that have the fewest churches you’ll discover quickly that you’re looking at the same exact map.

What this teaches us is that a Red State that has a law order structure that reflects to one degree or another a Biblical ethic/morality will be a State whose law order is serving as a significant and powerful tool for for what we might call pre-evangelism. In such states the laws of the state are creating in people what might be called a “plausibility structure” that serves the purpose of creating a context wherein Christianity is intuitively understood — because of the law order context — to be the carrier of the good, the true, and the beautiful.

This should not be difficult to understand nor controversial. If a child is reared in a societal Sharia law-order context, then Islam is going to be the religion that the child is pushed towards. If a child is reared in a societal Talmudic law-order context, then Judaism is going to be the religion that the child is pushed toward. If a child is reared in a societal Marxist law-order context then Marxism is going to be the religion that most readily makes sense to the child. Finally, if a child is reared in a Christian societal law-order context then the Christian faith is going to be that religion that the child is going to be pre-evangelized by.

None of this is to say that a societal Christian law order will automatically make converts to Jesus Christ. It is only being said that a societal Christian law-order will saturate the citizenry in the parameters of a Christian world and life view thus resulting in the Gospel proclamation having a Christian societal context that will serve the end of making the Gospel more readily understood.

Now, there are dangers here to be sure. The chief danger in having a societal Christian law order is that the citizenry may well think that this cultural Christianity that is driving the societal Christian law order will be the very definition of being a Christian. It is possible that citizens dwelling in a society shaped by a Christian law order will be satisfied with their own righteousness resulting in the refusal to own their own personal rebellion against a Holy God. However, that rebels might continue to rebel is no reason to be opposed to the building of a societal Christian law order.

This leads us to suggest that if we are serious about the Great Commission we need to understand that part of what it means to “disciple the nations” is to not only to do the work of Evangelism but also it means to do the work of advocating for a societal Christian Law order that will reflect the beauty and justice of Christianity in the larger social order. This reflection of Christ in the Law order will itself have the effect of doing the work of pre-evangelism.

This explains, why I hate R2K so thoroughly because R2K is opposed to Christian clergy, as God’s spokesman in the pulpit, advocating for a societal Christian Law order. R2K insists that the clergy be silent about such issues, arguing instead that only Christian laymen can be involved in such advocacy as members of organizations that may well push for Christian laws in this or that area. The problem here though is that R2K will then allow that theoretically they could also have laymen who are members of their churches who belong to organizations that advocate for “Christian” Marxism. As another example R2K churches could have laymen in their churches who are members of organizations that advocate for the 2nd amendment and as well as those who advocate for stricter gun laws. All of these people could exist in one R2K congregation because the clergy never gives a “thus saith the Lord” from the pulpit on the issues that have been used as examples. R2K, by ignoring cultural issues promotes the de-Christianization of the social order.

So, the real live data is showing us that when political conservatism spreads more people become Christians and when political progressivism spreads more people become adamantly opposed to Christianity.

This really isn’t that difficult to understand since Christians have always understood that law has a tutorial role in shaping the way people think and act. Christians have always understood that the law has a didactic function. The legislating of laws, in marking out right and wrong, in any social order, also teach the citizenry what is good and evil. A nations Law-order, therefore, is a tuning-fork that will work to resonate in the citizenry to the end of fine-tuning their conscience(s).

A Biblical Law-order provides the opportunity for the citizenry to reverse engineer that Law-order and so arrive at the person who is the ultimate foundation of that Law-order – The Lord Jesus Christ. So, a Biblical Law-Order calibrates the mindset of the citizens of a nation by saturating that citizenry via its laws with a Christian content and context. By providing this plausibility paradigm pre-evangelism occurs.

Of course the opposite is true as well. If a conservatism that is anchored in Biblical principles pushes people towards the God of the Bible, then a Progressivism that is anchored in cultural Marxist principles pushes people away from the God of the Bible. The truth of this is seen in the people that our Government schools produce. Because our Government schools are built upon a Cultural Marxist paradigm students are inclined to hate the sound of Christianity.

Because there is no such thing as neutrality, as Christians we must either support Law-Order systems that are explicitly Christian are we will support Law-Order systems that are explicitly anti-Christ. We will either prime the pump of the conscience(s) of the people towards Christ or we will prime the pump of the consciencs(s) of the people towards anti-Christ.

That this same principle applies to not only questions surrounding Law-Order but other areas as well is readily seen. The way we educate, the Art we put forth, our family structures, etc. will either push people towards Christ or push people away from Christ. The whole cultural apparatus is pre-evangelism and either we pre-evangelize people towards Christ and His Gospel or we pre-evangelize people towards anti-Christ and that damnable anti-Gospel.

All of this begins to explain why evangelism cannot be solely individualist and atomistic. Evangelism does have to set forth to all men everywhere but evangelism also must be done as “discipling the nations.”

Stubborn Courts

“When the Court leans Right we are told it is “runaway”, illegitimate, and criminal. When the Court leans Left, it is sacrosanct, absolute, and inviolable. This despite the fact that the Left’s theory of law is Positivism, and therefore, arbitrary by definition.”

Dan Brannan

There is no way to fix our political order or our social order if we cannot find a way to fix our law order. This demonstrates that Reformation is organic. One cannot have partial Reformation. It is either all or nothing. One cannot serve two masters.

Liberal/Marxist judges overturning Trump’s proper actions as the Chief Executive are in danger, by their decisions, of working in the populace a complete disregard for all law. Should the Left keep up with their judge shopping this will lead to social order anarchy. If the majority cannot move the entrenched minority by their ballots as cast in 2024 the only option left to them in order to move the entrenched minority is bullets. This is something that the left understands as seen in their “Swatting” campaign and their actions of terrorizing Tesla outlets.

We are learning that the left owned courts are committed to stopping election 2024, just as state by state cheating stopped election 202o. We are learning that the leftist courts that are weighing in against Trump are the courts that created the current problem to begin with. These courts are demonstrating that they are criminal courts and very soon people are not going to bother listening to these criminal courts.

And when that begins to happen, Katy bar the door.

Natural Law Conversation Continues

“For Christ did not come into the world to teach precepts about (civic) morals, which man already knew by reason, but to forgive sins, in order that he may give the Holy Spirit to those who believe in him.”

Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560)
Commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics

“Reason cannot precede faith or consist of clearer knowledge, and as such, reason cannot be the foundation of faith.”

– Gisbertus Voetius (1589-1676)

Voetius shows that reason comes after faith because reason makes inferences from one proposition to the next, and therefore reasoning cannot get started unless there is already a proposition to reason from. This includes any reasoning about any area of life since any reasoning about all areas of life is a reasoning that is faith conditioned. Once reasoning about Jurisprudence or Education or Art or Politics is a reasoning that comes after some faith commitment. So, this teaches us that Melancthon was just in error.

Now Francis Turretin, who would share Melanchthon’s Aristotelian premises offers;

“If various wicked laws obtained among the heathen, repugnant to the natural law (such as those sanctioning idolatry, human sacrifices, permitting theft, rapine, homicide, incest), they do not prove that no light of reason was granted to men by nature… Rather they prove only that men with *leisure ill employed* have wickedly abused the conceded light and, by struggling against and striving with all their might to extinguish it, were given over to a reprobate mind.”

Turretin
IET 11.1.19

I don’t disagree that Natural Law was against the wicked laws among the heathen. Neither do I disagree that the heathen have wickedly abused the conceded light. What I do disagree with, as pushed by Natural Law afficiandandos, is that the heathen ever do not struggle against and strive with all their might to extinguish what Natural Law teaches. Now in different non-Christian social orders will fluctuate in their opposition to what Natural Law teaches due to the waxing and waning of the salt and light influence of Christianity. However, as the antithesis works itself out ever more consistently Natural Law is interpreted as as to teach the very opposite of what it does indeed teach when read through the lenses of special revelation.

The reality that Natural law is a myth, as an independent tool by which to organize social orders did not hit until the 20th century in the West because prior to that Christendom was largely presupposed. When Christendom is no longer presupposed Turretins can’t and won’t get traction no matter how much they bleat about “the light of reason.”