Category: R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology)

At this link

http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/flash-reformed-writers-uses-two-kingdoms-categories/#comments

Dr. R. Scott Clark had a bit of conversation on two Kingdom theology. If you want to see the whole context of this conversation I am repeating in an edited form I encourage you to read it there.

Bret,

Of course, as I’ve said many times, the two kingdoms theology was worked out in a theocratic context and yes, some of us are trying to put that theology to use in a post-theocratic context. Why is that wrong?

Dr. R. Scott Clark

Dr. Clark,

The answer is because we don’t live in a post-theocratic context and that it is impossible to live in a post-theocratic context. All cultures or peoples or socieities are organized theocratically, whether in a dejure or defacto sense. Theocracy is an inescapable category and all that.

Lutheran Theology and Reformed Theology are similar only in the sense that Lutheranism partakes of felicitous inconsistency. We may use the same words or phrases but because the systems are different we are using them equivocally when the systems are compared as a whole. This is no different than the similarity one finds between Reformed theology and any other branch you’d like to name. In all branches you can find surface similarities but when you burrow down you realize that you’re not saying the same thing at all.

Thanks for being gentlemanly,

Bret

Bret,

You’ve set up a definition that is inherently circular. It’s one thing to do this with ultimate questions. It’s another to do it with penultimate questions. You’ve rigged the game!

I did not respond to Dr. Clark at his site because I could foresee that this was a conversation where I would be cut off at some point. Therefore I am bringing my response to my site.

Dr. Clark,

Think about it. In your proposed and supposed non-theocratic context there exists a plurality of Gods contending in the marketplace of the culture of society. Now, who will referee how far the competing gods can go? Who will determine in your supposed and proposed non-theocratic context how vigorously the competing gods can walk in the public square? Wherever you locate that institution or person who is setting boundaries on the competing gods in the cultural market place there you find the God of the gods. In our culture, which is the culture that you would contend is “non-theocratic” that referee is the State. Therefore the State is the God in your non-theocratic culture. Another way of saying this is that if in democracy the voice of the people is the voice of God the theocratic arrangement in a democracy is the religion that animates the people which for Americans is a humanism that animates the State.

I therefore, as you can plainly see, most certainly have not “rigged the game” but rather simply recognized the nature of reality. I invite you to join me in embracing reality. It can be quite refreshing.

This is why R2Kt virus theology cannot work. It can not work because there is no such thing as a non-theocratic culture. When the Church refuses to speak to the God State in your putative “non-theocratic” setting what you accomplish is an institutionalizing of the violation of the first commandment.

Finally, because the methodology can be used on ultimate questions it can be used on penultimate questions that depend on the answer given in ultimate question. Because God is an inescapable category, everything that relies on God is likewise inescapable. For example since God is inescapable likewise religion is inescapable. Since some God is inescapable for an individual, God is inescapable for a people. Indeed, it is this shared sense of the Theo in the theocracy that alone makes cohesive culture possible.

By your creation of a non-theocratic realm, you have stated that it is possible to have some realm that isn’t derivative of theology.

I know you think I’ve rigged the game, but I think you’ve not realized what game is being played.

Bret

The Belgic Confession of Faith, Article XXXVI

The Magistracy (Civil Government)

We believe that our gracious God, because of the depravity of mankind, has appointed kings, princes, and magistrates; willing that the world should be governed by certain laws and policies; to the end that the dissoluteness of men might be restrained, and all things carried on among them with good order and decency. For this purpose He has invested the magistracy with the sword for the punishment of evil-doers and for the protection of them that do well.Their office is not only to have regard unto and watch for the welfare of the civil state, but also to protect the sacred ministry, that the kingdom of Christ may thus be promoted. They must therefore countenance the preaching of the Word of the gospel everywhere, that God may be honored and worshiped by every one, as He commands in His Word.

The Scots Confession ““ John Knox

Chapter 24 – The Civil Magistrate

We confess and acknowledge that empires, kingdoms, dominions, and cities are appointed and ordained by God; the powers and authorities in them, emperors in empires, kings in their realms, dukes and princes in their dominions, and magistrates in cities, are ordained by God’s holy ordinance for the manifestation of his own glory and for the good and well being of all men. We hold that any men who conspire to rebel or to overturn the civil powers, as duly established, are not merely enemies to humanity but rebels against God’s will. Further, we confess and acknowledge that such persons as are set in authority are to be loved, honored, feared, and held in the highest respect, because they are the lieutenants of God, and in their councils God himself doth sit and judge. They are the judges and princes to whom God has given the sword for the praise and defense of good men and the punishment of all open evil doers. Moreover, we state the preservation and purification of religion is particularly the duty of kings, princes, rulers, and magistrates. They are not only appointed for civil government but also to maintain true religion and to suppress all idolatry and superstition. This may be seen in David, Jehosaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah, and others highly commended for their zeal in that cause.

A very brief word. This idea of the magistrate maintaining true religion happens today in These United States with the Government school systems. Through, and in, the government school system our Magistrates are maintaining this culture’s true religion and suppressing what it considers idolatry and superstition.

[Second Helvetic Confession on magistrates]

” In like manner, let him (Magistrate) govern the people, committed to him of God, with good laws, made according to the word of God in his hands, and look that nothing be taught contrary thereto. … Therefore let him draw forth this sword of God against all malefactors, seditious persons, thieves, murderers, oppressors, blasphemers, perjured persons, and all those whom God has commanded him to punish or even to execute. Let him suppress stubborn heretics (who are heretics indeed), who cease not to blaspheme the majesty of God, and to trouble the Church, yea, and finally to destroy it.”

“And agreeably to this supposition, we find that Paul argues the usefulness of the civil government in general, its agreeableness to the will and purpose of God, who is over all, and so deduces from hence the obligation of submission to it. But it will not follow that because civil government is, in general, a good institution, necessary to the peace and happiness of human society, therefore there are no supposable cases in which resistance to it can be innocent. So the duty of unlimited obedience, whether active or passive, can be argued neither from the manner of expression here (I Peter 2:13, Romans 13:1-7) nor from the general scope or design of the passage.

And if we attend to the nature of the argument with which the apostles enforces the duty of submission to the higher powers, we shall find it to be such a one as concludes not in favor of submission to all who bear the title of rulers in common, but only those who actually preform the duty of rulers by exercising a reasonable and just authority for the good of human society. This is a point which it will be proper to enlarge upon, because the question before us turns very much upon the truth or falsehood of this position. It is obvious, then, in general that the civil rulers whom the apostle here speaks of, and the obedience to whom he presses upon Christians as a duty, are good rulers, such as are, in the exercise of their office and power, benefactors to society. Such they are described throughout this passage. Thus it is said that they are not a ‘terror to good works, but to the evil;’ that ‘they are God’s ministers for good, revengers to execute wrath upon him that does evil;’ and that ‘they attend continually upon this very thing.’ St. Peter give the same account of rulers: They are ‘for a praise to them that do well, and the punishment of evildoers’ (I Peter 2:14). It is manifest that this character and description of rulers agrees only to such as are rulers in fact as well as in name: to such as govern well and act agreeably to their office. And the Apostle’s argument for submission to rulers is wholly built and grounded upon a presumption that they do in fact answer this character, and is of no force at all upon supposition of the contrary. If ‘rulers are a terror to good works, and not to evil’; if they are not ‘ministers for good to society,’ but for evil and distress, by violence and oppression; if they execute wrath upon sober, peaceable persons who do their duty as members of society, and suffer rich and honorable knaves to escape with impunity; if, instead of attending continually upon the good work of advancing the public welfare, they attend only upon the gratification of their own lust and pride and ambition, to the destruction of the public welfare — if this is the case, it is plain that the apostle’s argument for submission does not reach them; they are not the same, but different persons from those whom he characterizes and must be obeyed according to his reasoning….

If those who bear the title of civil rulers do no preform the duty of civil rulers, but act directly counter to the sole end and design of their office, if they injure and oppress their subjects instead of defending their rights and doing them good, they have not the least pretense to be honored, obeyed and rewarded, according to the apostle’s argument. For his reasoning, in order to show the duty of subjection to the higher powers, is, as was before observed, built wholly upon the supposition that they do in fact perform the duty of rulers….

Rulers have no authority from God to do mischief. They are not God’s ordinance or God’s minsters in any other sense than as it is by his permission and providence that they are exalted to bear rule, and as magistracy duly exercised and authority rightly applied in the enacting and executing good laws. Laws tempered and accommodated to the common welfare of the subjects must be supposed to be agreeable to the will of the beneficent author and supreme Lord of the universe, whose ‘Kingdom rules over all’ (Ps. 103:19) and whose ‘tender mercies are all over His works’ (Ps. 145:9). It is blasphemy to call tyrants and oppressors God’s ministers. They are more properly called ‘the messengers of Satan to buffet us’ (II Cor. 12:7). No rulers are properly God’s ministers but such as are ‘just, ruling in the fear of God’ (II Sam. 23:3).When once magistrates act contrary to their office and the end of their institution, when they rob and ruin in the public instead of being guardians of its peace and welfare, they immediately cease to be the ordinance and ministers of God and no more deserve that glorious character than common pirates and highwaymen. So that whenever that argument for submission fails, which is grounded upon the usefulness of magistracy to civil society (as it always does when magistrates do hurt to society instead of good), the other argument, which is taken from their being the ordinance of God, must necessarily fail also, no person or civil character being God’s minister, in the sense of the apostle, any further than he performs God’s will by exercising a just and reasonable authority and ruling for the good of the subject.”

Jonathan Mayhew — Reformed Minister
Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers