R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology) – Page 5

Gordon Interview w/ Wolfe – II

“People are Christian by virtue to their connection to the visible Church.”

Rev. Chrissy Gordon

Interview w/ Dr. Stephen Wolfe

We need to note here that this is only true where people are connected to a true Church as defined in the Reformed Confessions. A true church is defined as one that rightly preaches the Word, that rightly administers the Sacraments and that rightly practices Church discipline.

Upon that standard, most people’s connections to most of the visible Church in the West today most definitely does not communicate that they are Christian. For example, given that Rev. Chris Gordon is adamantly R2K I would say the Church he Pastors is not a true Church since R2K denies, in the concrete, the office of “King” to Jesus the Christ. This would mean that the members of the Church he pastors should not be seen as Christian only because they are connected to his heretical church.

That is not to say that many (or even most) of the members of the Church Gordon Pastors are not Christian. They may indeed be. It merely means that I can’t measure their status as Christian by reason of their connection to his false church.

Rev. Gordon’s Interview w/ Dr. Wolfe — I

Rev. Chris Gordon reasons that since a nation as a nation can’t be connected in membership to a visible church therefore it is wrong to use the language of “Christian nation.” Gordon also desires to make the definition of a Christian Nation as something that is uniquely applied to the State. Gordon confuses the nation with the State. It is possible, after all, for a Christian nation to be led by non-Christian magistrates. Such a situation would not last long, I suspect, but it is possible much in the way when a Protestant people would be ruled by a Roman Catholic Monarch.

Gordon’s problem here is that he will not concede that if a nation operates on the basis of Christian law and custom it can therefore legitimately be considered Christian in the sense that it is governed in a way consistent with God’s revelation and mores. Gordon is insisting that since a nation can’t be baptized and become a member of a particular church therefore a nation can’t be Christian. However, on this basis nothing can be Christian except for the individual. Education can’t be considered Christian since Education can’t be be baptized and become a member of a particular visible church. Law or Jurisprudence can’t be considered Christian since Law/Jurisprudence can’t be baptized and required to take membership vows.

Gordon’s problem here is his constrained definition of the word “Christian.” Gordon can’t seem to conceptualize that when individual Christians bring their distinctly Christian convictions with them in their various callings, those callings are injected with a Christian gravitas that was not previously present in those convictions and as a result that cultural byproduct that the Christian individual is creating can indeed by considered “Christian,” in the sense that it is being animated by the truths of Biblical Christianity applied to some public square instantiation.

Gordon seems not to realize the distinction between “structure,” and “direction.” It is true that we have these various “structures” as part of our society/culture (family, education, arts, law, politics, church, etc.) but the structures themselves always are going to be arcing in a particular religious direction. That religious direction could be Mooselimb, Bagel, Christian, Humanist, Marxist, etc. When the direction of a societies/cultures is consistent with God’s special revelation it is arcing in a particularly Christian direction and given that direction it can and should be called “Christian.” If that culture is arcing consistent with another religion it should be called; “Mooselimb” or “Talmudists,” or “Humanist,” or “Marxist,” etc.

Gordon’s failure to see the above results in his creating, at the very least in a defacto sense, a neutral common realm where no religious appellation can be fixed upon the peoples inhabiting and creating that culture. For Gordon, and all R2K, society/culture is by definition irreligious or a-religious.

Gordon Interview W/ Wolfe
Start appx. 16:00

Natural Law & The Image Of God

The fallen man denies that he is the image of God. This is a major revelation of Natural Law and yet fallen man denies this testimony of Natural Law suppressing the truth in unrighteousness and insisting that he most certainly not God’s image bearer.

Now, if the fallen man get this most obvious of Natural Law truths wrong because of his suppression mechanism then how can Natural Law be the fallen man’s guide to life except inasmuch as Natural Law serves fallen man’s to climb up into God’s lap in order to slap God in the face.

Example – The sodomite might agree that Natural Law teaches marriage (climbing up in God’s lap) but only with the purpose of marrying his male consort (slapping God in the face).

So, it may be the case that fallen man will get natural law right from time to time but it always ends up being stolen capital in order to get his Christ denying worldview off the ground. No anti-Christ worldview can ever be perfectly anti-Christ consistent. If it were it could never last since all perfectly anti-Christ worldviews end up in the graveyard. As such all anti-Christ worldviews sneak Christian capital into them in order to be successful enough not to kill themselves.

Contra Cody Justice On Natural Law

Cody Justice writes,

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handywork… their line is gone out through all the earth. God left not himself without witness, in that he gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons. Consider the ravens… consider the lilies, how they grow. Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. After the doings of the land of Egypt… shall ye not do, and after the doings of the land of Canaan… shall ye not do. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made… who changed the natural use… for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature… and the men likewise… receiving in themselves that recompence of their error. Who knowing the judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law… which shew the work of the law written in their hearts… their conscience also bearing witness. Doth not even nature itself teach you…?”

(Psalm 19:1–4; Acts 14:17; Luke 12:24–28; Proverbs 6:6; Leviticus 18:3; Romans 1:20, 26–27, 32; Romans 2:14–15; 1 Corinthians 11:14).

Bret responds,

Once again Cody as a rabid Natural Law advocate shows up to declare what God has made known. No theonomist/presuppositionalist disagrees that God has made Himself known via Natural Law. This is red herring argumentation on Cody’s part. What the Theonomist contends is the even though God has made himself known, fallen man, suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, and having a mind that is at warfare with God, works to the end to insist that he does not know what God has made clear. In order to know what God has made clear fallen man must be regenerated so as to be instructed by Scripture which alone is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training for righteousness.

Here we follow the Synod of Dordt;

The Synod Dort on the effectiveness of Natural Law;

Third & Fourth Head

Article 4

“There remain, however, in man since the fall, the glimmerings of natural light, whereby he retains some knowledge of God, of natural things, and of the differences between good and evil, and discovers some regard for virtue, good order in society, and for maintaining an orderly external deportment. 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. Nay, further, this light, such as it is, man in various ways renders wholly polluted and holds it in unrighteousness, by doing which he becomes inexcusable before God.”

So, we appreciate Cody stepping up the plate here but we see that it is in the words of the great Detroit Tigers play by play man, Ernie Harwell…

“A swing and a miss.”

Cody writes,

Nature is everywhere “presupposed” in the God-breathed Scripture as a moral teacher, both about right and wrong and about God. It is not this because Scripture says so; it is this inherently, and Scripture attests to and confirms it.

Bret

Without presupposing God and His Word we don’t even know what nature is or means. Remember, in Christ all things consist. This includes the idea of “nature,” and the idea of all meaning. Even man the knower cannot know himself apart from presupposing God and the Scriptures, never mind knowing nature. I will say it again for those hard of hearing… “While it is the case that nature has inherent meaning that inherent meaning can not be known who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” To insist otherwise is to deny the Reformed doctrine of total depravity.

Then there is the fact that nature is fallen — red in tooth and claw as some have it. So, you have fallen man, reading fallen nature and coming to un-fallen and proper conclusions?

Cody writes,

Nature does not exist apart from God. It is because God made it, and it, as creation, reflects the Creator. He expects us (believer or not) to use it well, and if we don’t he will hold us accountable.

Bret responds,

1.) God made nature and nature finds its meaning only by the one presupposing God and His Word as the one who created nature.

2.) Fallen man cannot use nature well and that is because he was ruined in Adam and so no experiences total depravity. This total depravity works to the end of twisting everything (including Natural Law) to the end of man serving himself as fallen and not God. After all the carnal mind is at enmity (warfare) against God. It cannot submit (Romans 8:7).

3.) By insisting that fallen man can read fallen nature aright you are doing exactly what Van Til spoke of. You are sneaking stolen Christian capital into your humanist epistemology in order to get it off the ground and operating in order to deny the necessity of presupposing God and His Word to understand real reality. You are climbing up in God’s lap in order to slap Him in the face. You are saying that there is meaningful meaning (climbing up in God’s lap) but that that meaningful meaning can be known even by those who hate God and His Word (slapping God in the face.)

We should also say something here about Cody’s misinterpretation of Romans 2.

Is Thomistic Natural Law … Legitimate? Part II

The Irrationality of R2K & The Impossibility Of R2K Succeeding In A Multicultural Society

R2K insists on the concept of a common realm where no one religion or God concept rules. Instead for R2K Natural Law rules the one unitary common realm. That is a nice theory until you run into a committed Mooselimb or a committed Talmudist or a committed Mormon who believes that Natural Law teaches polygamy. The point here is that the R2K fanboys can forever be talking about their precious “common realm, ruled by Natural Law,” but unless R2K converts a ton of Mooselimbs who now insist that Sharia Law must rule in the public square, or converts a ton of Talmudists who believe that the Noahide laws should rule the public square, or a bunch of Mormons who believe that polygamy as taught by Natural Law the common square is not going to be so common.

The point here is that R2K can blather on and on about a common realm ruled by natural law but all that will mean in the end is that all Christians quit advocating for Biblical Law because the Mooselimbs in the R2K common realm are not going to stop arguing for Sharia and the Talmudists in the R2K common realm are not going to cease advocating for the Noahide law and the Mormons, in the R2K common realm, are going to start collecting wives again like children used to collect beanie babies.

It’s just the height of irrationality for R2K to think that in a multicultural social order, such as what we have, that it is sound policy to create a naked common realm where the Mooselimbs cease advocating for Sharia, and the Talmudists cease advocating for the implementation of the Noahide laws and where the Christians can only be Christian if they advocate that Christian law is not possible and so irreligious law (an oxymoron if there ever was one) should be pursued instead. This is a theology that is tantamount to going to the OK Corral for a shoot-out while insisting Christians leave their weapons at home.

This is why R2K is a theology of defeat and surrender. It requires Christians to give up the notion of a particularly Christian social order (because per R2K Christian social orders are not possible) while not understanding that no other religion is going to play by those same rules. Mooselimbs are going to Sharia. Talmudists are going to Noahide. A common realm ruled by “Natural Law” is never going to happen even if all the Christians agree that should happen because the other faith systems here are going to continue to insist that their law systems rule the pretend R2K common realm. R2K would create a vacuum that would be filled by the law systems of other religions.

R2K is not only not Christian, it is stupid as well. It is only workable in some Escondido classroom as taught by Dr. Dork. In the end all R2K does is disarm the Christian from championing God’s Law in the public square, so allowing Christianity to be utterly defeated. It is a theology that guarantees that Christianity will be pushed back into the catacombs.