McAtee Contra Dr. Walker & the Godless Coalition — Part VI

This is part VI of one of the dumbest articles ever written by a Seminary prof. His name is Andrew Walker. The reason it is so dumb is that all of this has been answered in the past and yet he puts pen to paper to recycle all this again. This article is posted on “The Godless Coalition” Platform.

AW wrote,

While revelation is indeed supreme, the arena where those norms are proclaimed and the method for how they’re proclaimed needs careful attention. Expecting leaders to mediate divine commands sounds nice where there is cultural homogeneity, but that is not the world in which we live. Theonomy rests on the assumption of religious minorities being made second-class citizens. Nowhere in the New Testament are the governing authorities tasked with expounding God’s Word as the source of judicial standards.

BLMc responds,

1.) We agree that the method for how the norms are proclaimed needs careful attention. When is Walker going to start giving careful attention to this calling? What the man is offering is reckless methodological antinomianism.

2.) Note that what Walker is saying above. If we had cultural homogeneity then Christian leaders could mediate divine commands but since we don’t have cultural homogeneity we have to give God’s commands the whole heave-ho because after all, we have to accommodate cultural heterogeneity – we have to accommodate the gods of the non-Christians among us.

3.) So the world in which we live dictates whether or not we will own God and His Law-Word as sovereign?

4.) If religious minorities being second-class citizens in Muslim Saudi Arabia is not a problem why must it be a problem here? At the very least there is a rabid pursuit here to make Christians a religious minority and so second class citizens in America and that because America is increasingly embracing the theonomic law of pagan gods. It is simply the case that religious minorities are always second-class citizens in every social order. For example, when the Christian definition of marriage was tossed out in Obergefell v. Hodges Christians were made second-class citizens. Sodomite marriage makes me a second-class citizen because I believe that only men and women should be married. My convictions are being made second class and so I am as a Christian am being made second-class.

5.) What we see here is that Walker is in love with pluralism (so-called). Walker can’t imagine any social order that doesn’t embrace pluralism. But pluralism is not possible for social-orders since pluralism doesn’t allow for those convictions in their putative pluralistic society that does not allow for pluralism. All people who don’t allow for pluralism are second-class citizens.

6.) Notice how for Walker the NT makes the OT null and void. It it is not in the NT it doesn’t count. This is classic Baptist and now Reformed R2K hermeneutic and so not Biblical.

AW wrote,

No state can long persist in moral rebellion; nor does the New Testament’s pattern for the state rely on special revelation for its legitimacy. Christians must inhabit this uncomfortable tension. Government is a legitimate enterprise that can yield justice even apart from its leaders submitting to special revelation. Paul suggests this is attainable in Romans 13—and he does so without relying on the Mosaic covenant. Speaking biblically and even historically, it is possible for pagan rulers to rule justly (even if their understanding of justice lacks full coherence). Where this occurs, we should be grateful and see this as evidence of God’s common grace in the world.

BLMc responds

1.) As we have noted Walker’s paradigm guarantees the rise of moral rebellion. Indeed, Walker’s paradigm is rooted and grounded in moral rebellion.

2.) In terms of Magistrates and special Revelation let us consult Calvin;

“And for proof thereof, what is the cause that the heathen are so hardened in their own dotages? It is for that they never knew God’s Law, and therefore they never compared the truth with the untruth. But when God’s law come in place, then doth it appear that all the rest is but smoke insomuch that they which took themselves to be marvelous witty, are found to have been no better than besotted in their own beastliness. This is apparent. Wherefore let us mark well, that to discern that there is nothing but vanity in all worldly devices, we must know the Laws and ordinances of God. But if we rest upon men’s laws, surely it is not possible for us to judge rightly. Then must we need to first go to God’s school, and that will show us that when we have once profited under Him, it will be enough. That is all our perfection. And on the other side, we may despise all that is ever invented by man, seeing there is nothing but *fondness and uncertainty in them. And that is the cause why Moses terms them rightful ordinances. As if he should say, it is true indeed that other people have store of Laws: but there is no right all all in them, all is awry, all is crooked.”

* fondness = foolishness, weakness, want of sense and judgment

John Calvin
Sermons on Deuteronomy, sermon 21 on Deut. 4:6-9

We could provide numerous quotes from the Reformers that belie the reality that they think that Walker is all wet when it comes to his statement that justice can be had apart from God’s law as revealed in Scripture.

3.) Paul does not do in Romans 13 what Walker claims he did. In point of fact, if “good” and “evil” in Romans 13 can only be known by God’s Law-Word then Paul is teaching that Magistrates do need God’s Law Word in order to get “good” and “evil” correct.

4.) It is much more likely that apart from God’s revealed Law-Word that magistrates will rule unjustly as history repeatedly demonstrates. All because Magistrates are not as wicked and unjust as they might be that doesn’t mean that they are giving “justice.”

The Worldview Progression of Western Civilization — The Next Step

“Western civilization is turning back. No, this is not a return to Christianity with its message of sin and salvation, nor to materialism with its hollowing of life and spirit, and not Postmodernism w/ its intellectual quicksand.

Pushing past rationality and facts, the next phase of civilization will gravitate to imagination and myth. In the search for wisdom and cohesion and meaning, humanity will acknowledge the primal and seek the archaic. Ritual will emerge and celebration will have a magical quality; experience will be super-charged. Spiritual technology will promise connection and purpose, and occulture will constantly feed our dreams and stories. We will be enamored with Mystery and solicit its communion. Nature and non-human intelligences will be embraced as kin.”

Carl Teichrib
Games of Gods — p. 166

44 year ago now, I met my mentor, Dr. Glenn E. Martin at Marion College (now Indiana Wesleyan University). Martin’s speciality was Intellectual and Social History. He was a master on the discipline of the history of ideas; the progress of worldview shifts in Western civilization. For four years I ate, drank and slept Worldview with Dr. Martin.

Martin would trace out the history of ideas and demonstrate the shift in worldview thinking and the implications of those shift for Western civilization. His method was to establish the Biblical Worldview and then compare and contrast all subsequent world and life views to the Biblical worldview. We traversed through Deism, Rationalism, Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Darwinianism. Nihilism, and Existentialism as well as other lesser-known worldviews. We were taught the ability to identify and locate the worldview of a person and a people.  We were taught the different levels of worldview thinking that one could expect to find in people in any given culture. (Not very many people are epistemologically self-conscious about their worldview.) We were taught the components in every worldview that are never absent from any worldview. (All worldviews must answer the larger questions, provide meaning, and be — at least on the surface — plausible). We were taught to analyze everything for its worldview implications. Those who stuck with the theme through life learned from others besides Martin on the subject. They became human worldview detectors.

Martin routinely taught in this Worldview classes that the next progression in worldview and philosophy in the West would move from (at that time) the current existentialism (which was really a forerunner of postmodernism) to Occultism. Martin insisted that there was no place else for the West to go if it was not visited with Reformation.

The quote above proves how prescient Martin was.

Romberg on the Existence of Races

Salvation changes fallen men’s standing with God but it does not and can not change men’s earthly physiognomy. Not only does the Bible identify the beginnings of races, languages, and nations prior to Christ’s redemption, but it also reveals that these distinctions are maintained after redemption. There are many texts which evidence this truth (some examples are Rev. 7:9; 5:9; 11:9; 14:6; 20:3,8). Christ Jesus maintained this distinction for He sent His disciples to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and later sent Paul to the Gentiles. The distinction is maintained in the person of Christ, for He is the same race or nationality in eternity as He was during His incarnation. The New Jerusalem was let down out of heaven upon the new earth (Rev. 21:1-3) ‘And the nations (ethne) of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it; ‘And the Kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it…. And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the Nations (ton ethnon) into it’ (Rev. 21:24, 26) ‘The nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it’ show that the distinction is maintained or perpetuated into eternity. God was the one who divided the lands, languages, races, and nations (Gen. 10:5; Dt. 32:8; Acts 17:26). God condemned those who would remove these distinctions (Dt. 7:3; Ezra 9:10; Neh. 9:2; 13:3, 23ff [see Neh. 9-13]. What of those who reject the distinctions God made relative to the races? His Word bears out the results in the passages just mentioned and others (Jud. 6:5-7; Num. 5:1-9; Dt. 7:1-6). Abraham and Isaac forbade that their sons should marry Canaanites (Gen. 24; 27). Some would say that the point is Canaanites were unbelievers. Is that the only factor? Esau’s rebellion was seen in his miscegenation (Gen. 25-28). Is Esau considered a believer? Was Esau, an unbeliever marrying unbelievers? Then what was the factor in his wrongdoing? The Lord did not even teach the amalgamation of fabrics, seeds, creatures, etc. (Lev. 19:19). Certainly, God cannot be charged with racism when He made Israel a chosen nation…. Modern men have so perverted language that racism is a word without a proper denotation and its connotations match the meaning given by the user of the word at that moment in time. Today’s men find it an inconvenience to submit to God’s standards, and thus man lives in a world of flux. Therefore men reject God’s order.

H. Rondell Romberg

One Blood, Many Races — p. 40-42

McAtee Contra Dr. Walker & the Godless Coalition — Part V

This is part V of one of the dumbest articles ever written by a Seminary prof. His name is Andrew Walker. The reason it is so dumb is that all of this has been answered in the past and yet he puts pen to paper to recycle all this again. This article is posted on “The Godless Coalition” Platform.

AW wrote,

As J. Budziszewski writes, “Government enforces those parts of the divine law that are also included in the natural law, such as the prohibition of murder.” The argument for overcoming moral lawlessness is not Theonomy, but arrangements that better accord with the creation pattern God has ordered and continues to uphold in the Noahic covenant, natural law, and Scripture (2 Tim. 3:15–17).

1.) Really? Government does that? Does our government enforce the part of divine law that is also included in the natural law, such as the prohibition of murder committed against babies in the womb? Or is murder not a crime according to natural law? Or maybe, natural law doesn’t cover that because there is no such thing as the kind of natural law that Walker is championing since all natural law is, is the projection of the presuppositions of those who champion their versions of natural law? If governments followed God’s law instead of natural law then people guilty of murdering unborn babies would receive capital punishment. So much for natural law.

2.) How can we interpret the creation pattern God has ordered unless we interpret it through God’s Law-Word? Fallen man, left to himself, apart from God’s inscripturated law will misinterpret the creation pattern God has ordered and make laws that are grounded in a humanist theonomy. When natural law worked in Christendom it worked because those who were “reading” natural law were reading it through their Christian presuppositions. Natural law doesn’t work now because pagans are reading natural-law through pagan presuppositions. Walker expects that if fallen men in the West just give muscle to natural law again that all will be fine. That is ridiculous on steroids. As long as social orders are comprised of men with different faith commitments (religions) the best natural law can do is to be fought over in terms of which faith commitment will be in charge in order to read it the way their faith informs them. We will never have a workable social order/legal order until men are converted, own Christ, and engage the politicus usus of God’s law to make law in their societies.

AW wrote,

God’s Word is indeed supreme—every person and culture owes it ultimate allegiance. To make that declaration, though, we must understand how God’s Word functions in the civil sphere outside the church’s direct jurisdiction. Rather than the Mosaic covenant, a better starting ground for political reflection is the covenant of creation and the Noahic covenant as upheld in the full witness of Scripture. And given what these covenants offer, Scripture highlights the intelligibility of nature and reason as self-attesting witnesses to God’s authority in the structure and design of his world. This necessarily includes the moral law (Ps. 19:1–3; Rom. 1:32; 2:15).

BLMc responds,

1.) Understand that Walker is introducing a dualism here. God’s inscripturated law functions as normative in the realm of grace (Church) but in the realm of nature (Civil) where God’s jurisdiction does not apply we use a different law (natural law). In the civil realm, it is wrong to appeal to God’s word as the norm that norms all norms. Instead, we appeal to the generic norm of natural law to norm all norms. Now Walker may respond with his nonsense that natural-law, eternal law, and inscripturated law all contain the same content but if they all contain the same content then why do we need any of them except the law that is written down in Scripture? In order for Walker’s system to work, he has to introduce a dualism between the realm of grace and the realm of nature. I wonder where in Scripture dualism is taught?

2.) Walker insists that going by God’s inscripturated law in the civil realm would be the “church’s jurisdiction.” This is nonsense. Theonomy never argues for ecclesiocracy. Theonomy merely insists that God rules over all and that if God rules over all then the civil realm should be ruled by God’s inscripturated Law-Word.

3.) Scripture teaches that the magistrate is God’s servant (Romans 13:1). If the magistrate, as serving in the civil realm, is God’s servant then the magistrate should rule by God’s law and not an amorphous “pin the tail on the donkey” natural law.

4.) Walker talks about the intelligibility of nature. Nature is indeed intelligible. However, fallen man works his damnedest to suppress in unrighteousness the intelligibility of nature and succeeds in doing so because of the noetic effects of the fall. See installment IV and the Belgic Confession of faith.

AW wrote,

Fallen reason, however, obscures our understanding of the moral law and obscures God’s creation ordinances—which is why revelation is required for true moral righteousness to surface in society. What’s necessary is special revelation in the form of understanding creation ordinances, not the application of the Mosaic covenant.

BLMc responds,

Here Walker appeals to special revelation in the creation ordinances. However only special revelation as it pertains to the creation ordinances. Application of the Mosaic covenant is not allowed.

1.) There is nowhere in Scripture where God says the civil law found in the Mosaic covenant does not apply in principle. The Westminster Confession teaches that the judicial law does apply in its general equity. So, Walker has the Westminster Confession against him.

2.) Jesus said,

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Matt. 23:23

Here the Jews are not living in their OT social order and yet Jesus himself states the requirement in the civil law to tithe on all the produce from the land (Lev. 27:30). Jesus says the civil law did apply.

Jesus also said,

For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. (Matthew 5:18)

Sounds like Jesus and the Church Fathers thought differently about the civil law then Andrew Walker thinks about it.

McAtee Contra Dr. Walker & The Godless Coalition — IV

Continuing to fisk one of the dumbest articles ever written by a Seminary prof named Andrew Walker. This article is posted on “The Godless Coalition” Platform.
 
AW wrote,
 
Theonomy Cannot Build a Just Society
But what about standards of morality for society? How can society continue unless God’s Word receives the respect it is due?
 
BLMc responds,
 
Here it comes … wait for it … the entry of Natural Law as above God’s inscripturated Law for social orders.
 
AW wrote,
 
On the one hand, no society can obtain this level of regeneracy, since all societies are penultimate and face judgment. Aside from the kingdom of God, no culture lives up to the standards of God’s Word.
 
BLMc responds,
 
1.) Walker is just giving us his pessimistic eschatology here. Scripture nowhere teaches that societies cannot become Christian because ‘no society can obtain this level of regeneracy.’ Jesus never says, “You have heard it said Cephas, that societies can be Christian but I say unto you that no society can obtain this level of regeneracy.’ Walker is just spit-balling here and making it up as he goes. Walker’s eschatology is under-realized.
 
2.) Scripture teaches that Walker is wrong.
 
I Corinthians 15:25 For He (Jesus) must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. 26 The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. 27 For “He has put all things under His feet.” But when He says “all things are put under Him,” it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted. 28 Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.
 
Notice Paul says here that,
 
a.) Jesus is reigning now
b.) In this reign of Jesus future enemies must yet be put under his feet
c.) In the future when all enemies are finally defeated in space and time history then the final day occurs
d.) God is all in all at that point
 
This passage teaches that even though all societies are penultimate and will be judged at some point in the future the world will be converted and so all be under Christ’s feet. This doctrine is the heart of postmillennialism and was championed by no less of a personage than B. B. Warfield;
 
“If you wish, as you lift your eyes to the far horizon of the future, to see looming on the edge of time the glory of a saved world…and that in His own good time and way [God] will bring the world in its entirety to the feet of Him whom He has not hesitated to present to our adoring love not merely as the Saviour of our own souls but as the Saviour of the world….The scriptures teach an eschatological universalism, not an each and every universalism. When the Scriptures say that Christ came to save the world, that He does save the world, and that the world shall be saved by Him….They mean that He came to save and does save the human race; and that the human race is being led by God into a racial salvation: that in the age-long development of the race of men, it will attain at last unto a complete salvation, and our eyes will be greeted with the glorious spectacle of a saved world. “
 
This is consistent with passages like Isaiah 2 and Micah 4 and Ezekiel 47:9
 
And it shall come to pass, that everything that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and everything shall live whither the river cometh
 
Pessimistic theologians cannot allow for worldwide conversion. Their theology does not allow for it. They can’t accept that the second coming finishes God plan from eternity for His creation. In the death of Christ, Christ legally secured the defeat of sin, death, and the devil in the first century in space and time history. Yet, all three evils remain with us (Rom. 7:18–25; 1 Peter 5:8–9). Postmillennialism teaches in the face of Walker’s pessimism that sin, death and the devil have been vanquished legally before the judgment bar of God (Col. 1:13–14; 2:13–15). They are being vanquished in space and time history through the continuing progress of the Gospel (Acts 26:18; 1 Cor. 15:20–23). They will be vanquished eternally at the second advent of Christ (Rom. 8:18–25; Rev. 20:10–15).
 
Walker is just wrong which is bad enough but this error is so monumental that it warps the rest of his theology into something that is not recognizable to the Bible. Per Walker, the Gospel will not flourish and Christ will be defeated in space and time by rebellion. Per Walker, a little yeast will not leaven the whole lump, the stone in Daniel does not crush in space and time all Kingdoms that compete with Christ’s Kingdom, and the mustard seed does not become a tree that can house all the birds (nations).
 
Understand here… Walker needs defeat of the Church in order for his theology to work.
 
AW writes,
 
Does this mean we’re left with autonomy and human reason alone to guide our lawmaking? No. Every sound principle emanating from just human law participates, unwittingly, in both the natural law and also the eternal law. Rejecting Theonomy does not discount the fact that rightly ordered secular law can overlap with divine law.
 
BLMc responds,
 
1.) Actually Walker’s “theology” does mean we are left with autonomy and human reason alone to guide our lawmaking. Walker has rejected God’s revelational law Word and there is nowhere else to go except to some form of humanistic theonomy or the theonomy of some other human-made god.
 
2.) Walker writes about “Every sound principle.” This forces me to ask… “Sound by what standard Andy?” Walker wants to invoke the idea of sound principles emanating from just human law but at this point, he has to answer; “sound by what standard” and by what standard do we measure “just human law?”
 
The answer Walker gives is “Natural Law.” Does Walker realize that there are as many “Natural Laws” as there are different philosophical schools of thought? Does Walker realize that the second he invokes Natural Law that every pagan society that was built up until the dismissal of Natural Law with the advent of Legal Positivism embraced natural law? Natural law stood behind the pagan idea of social contract theory. Natural law provided the bedrock of Marx’s and Engels’s view of the law. Natural law sustained the Roman abandonment of babies they did not want. Natural law has been invoked for just about every societal malfeasance one can name. This is because Natural Law is a wax nose. Natural law thinking is a “blank check” that can be used to justify any legal system that is supported by one’s ideals and beginning presuppositions.
 
Natural law doctrine can only deduce from nature what it has first projected into nature. The putative deductions derived from Natural law are only there because the “Natural Law thinkers” have first, on the basis of their own beginning presuppositions, projected their discoveries on to Natural Law. As such Natural law only yields up what was first in the consciousness of the one making deductions from Natural law. In brief, Natural Law is a myth in terms of providing the information out of which a social order can be legally ordered.
 
Natural Law exists because this is my Father’s world but fallen man, being fallen, does everything he can to tune into any radio station except the radio station that feature’s God’s Natural Law on it.
 
The Belgic Confession of Faith teaches that Natural law exists but that its work is very circumscribed because of man’s fall;
 
“Since man became wicked and perverse, corrupt in all his ways, he
has lost all his excellent gifts which he had once received from God.5
He has nothing left but some small traces, which are sufficient to make man inexcusable.6 For whatever light is in us has changed into darkness,7 as Scripture teaches us, The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it (Jn 1:5); where the apostle John calls mankind darkness.”
 
Because of the fall and its noetic effects on man, it is not possible for fallen man to gain anything from Natural Law except to be convicted as a sinner before God — and even that truth man suppresses in unrighteousness. Walker wants to make Natural Law into this high beam light yet the BCF, following Scripture, teaches us that any light we have has been changed into darkness.
 
A pox upon all those who invoke Natural Law as a means of ordering society.