Social Theory and Assorted Musings

“There are three, and only three, fundamental views of the underlying nature of the social bond. Each of them reflects a particular view of the cosmos, which in turn undergirds the particular view of society. These views are organicism, contractualism and covenantalism. The first two have been dominant in Western philosophical and social thought. The third, being uniquely Biblical, has been ignored.

Organicism. This is by far the most widespread view on man’s history, though not in the modern West. Society is viewed as an organism, just as the cosmos is: a growing thing that has the characteristic features of life. The model institution of the organic society is the family, which is closely associated with physical birth, culture, and physical nurturing, and death. This organic view of society is often associated with the concept of a hierarchical chain of being that links God, man, and the cosmos. It is also associated with magic and with magic’s fundamental princple: ‘As above, so below.’ Man supposedly can manipulate any aspect of the cosmos (macrocosm) by manipulating representative features (microcosm)…. Philosophically, this view of society is associated with realism: an underlying metaphysical unity transcendent to mere individuals ….

Contractualism. This is the dominant view in the modern world, although its philosophical roots go back to the Middle Ages (e.g. — William of Occam). Society is based either on a hypothetical original contract among men in pre-historic or on a constitution of some kind. The primary model is the State, not the family, although in some modern social philosophies, the free market is the model. The familiar phrase associated with this outlook is ‘social contract.’ Men in the distant past voluntarily transferred their individually held politically sovereignty to the State, which now maintains the social order. Each social institution is governed by the terms of an original contract, whether mythical or historical….Philosophically, this view of society is associated with nominalism: the denial of any underlying metaphysical reality or transcendent social unity apart from the thoughts and decisions of individual men. Contracutalism is divined into two major historical streams: individualism (right wing Enlightenment) and collectivism (left wing Enlightenment). The former is evolutionary in its view of society; the latter is more revolutionary.

Covenantalsm. This is not a fusion of organicism and contractualism; it is a separate system. It views society as a complex system of legal bonds, with God as the ultimate Enforcer of these covenants and contracts. There are only four covenants: personal (God and the individual); ecclesiastical (sacramental), familial, and civil. These final three are monopoly institutions founded directly under God’s explicit sovereignty. Covenants alone are lawfully established by a self-maledictory oath under God. The oath-taker calls down God’s wrath upon himself if he ever violates the stipulations (laws) of the covenant document. All other relationships are either personal (e.g., friendship) or contractual (e.g., a legal business arrangement). God is the final Judge because He is the Creator, and He brings His judgments, in time and eternity, in terms of His permanent ethical standards (i.e., biblical law). Covenantalism has developed no separate philosophical tradition in Western history, for Christian philosophers, including those interested in society, prior to Cornelius Van Til (1885- 1988) virtually always adopted in the name of Christ some version of either realism or nominalism. The biblical covenant model is based on creationism, not realism or nominalism. This philosophy asserts an absolute separation of being between God and any aspect of the creation: the Creator-creature distinction. This concept, so fundamental to Van Til’s philosophy, categorically denies the existence of a chain of being linking God to the cosmos (realism). Creationism leads to providentialism, which affirms the absolute authority of God and His sovereign control over all things in history (i.e., His decree), thereby denying the autonomous power of man to name any aspect of the cosmos authoritatively (nominalism). Covenantalism is a separate philosophical system.

Dr. Gary North
Millennialism & Social Theory

Note that Roman Catholicism is more beholden to Organicism types of Social theory. Roman Catholicism promotes the chain of being between God and man. For RC the fall resulted in a loss of being and regeneration includes the recouping of being. Also in RC you find the classical idea magic in the handling a representative aspect of creation in order to manipulate the underlying reality that the representative is representing. (This is what the Mass is all about.)

Protestantism is much more closely aligned with social contract types of social theory, although I would suggest that the Puritan Commonwealth was a precursor to what North labels covenantalism.

It is interesting to note that if Organicism is pushed to far what you will get is pantheistic views of social theory. In Organicism the distinctions between man and God tend to get lost in the chain of being so that heaven and earth become fused and God and man become indistinguishable (at least man at the top of the hierarchical food chain). In Organicism God and man become identified as one so that man becomes God and earth becomes heaven. On the other hand we should note that in Contractualism the tendency is toward Deism. God is really an after thought and the emphasis falls on man. In Contractualism the emphasis falls not on the continuity between God and man as in Organicism but in the discontinuity between God and man. In Contractualism man and God become divorced so that man becomes God and earth becomes heaven.

What is interesting here is that despite the opposite movements of these two grand social theories they end up in the same place with God and Man being identified as essentially the same and as heaven and earth being identified together — either in the earth losing its earthiness in the chain of being or in earth needing to become heaven because heaven as been lost in Contractualism’s nominalism. This is another example of Van Til’s rational and irrational wash-women taking in each others laundry. It is also an example of how opposite worldviews come around and kiss. The argument between Contractualism and Organicism is not really over where they end up but rather whether one should go West in order to get to the East or whether one should go East in order to get to the West.

Finally, I am becoming convinced that the philosphical issue of continuity vs. discontinuity is THE philosophical issue. Just think of all the places where that issue raises its head over and over again.

Continuity vs. Discontinuity of Old and New Testaments
Continuity vs. Discontinuity between the Old and New Covenant
Continuity vs. Discontinuity of God with His creation
Continuity vs. Discontinuity of Justification & Sanctificatioun
Continuity vs. Discontinuity in Social Theory
Continuity vs. Discontinuity in the Incarnation
Continuity vs. Discontinuity in the Eucharist
Continuity vs. Discontinuity between our present bodies and our glorified bodies
Continuity vs. Discontinuity in the Nature of the Eschatological age & the Millennium
Continuity vs. Discontinuity in the the abilities of fallen man (think Natural Law)

The Coming White Minority Status

“Yet where is the evidence that minorities will be willing to give up their traditional affirmative action privileges as they become majorities and gain the votes so they no longer have to rely politically upon the goodwill of whites for their privileges?”

Steven Sailer
Columnist

The arrangement for the last 70 years or so is that white majority culture, in order to atone for their putative racist past, have paid by way of affirmative action and welfare policies a ransom to mollify the minority culture who have constantly played their victim status. Now however, the game is changing. Reports suggest that whites will no longer be the majority ethnic culture by 2042.

Now how will this change the game? Well, the question is whether or not minority cultures will be as proficient at production as white culture was in the hay day of America being an economic powerhouse. Sailer gives a glimpse on how that arrangement is working out in California where whites comprise only 43% of the population.

” Fortunately, we already have a gigantic test case: California, which is now only 43 percent non-Hispanic white.

So what can we learn about the future of America from California, where the state government may run out of money next month without a federal bailout?

For most of this decade, the financial wizards poured hundreds of billions of dollars into mortgage-backed securities originating in California. In other words, they made a colossal bet on diversity.

And lost.

In 2007, it suddenly dawned on the bright boys of Wall Street that a huge fraction of the subprime borrowers of California (and the other three similar “sand states”—Arizona, Nevada, and Florida) weren’t ever going to earn enough to pay off their huge new mortgages. Nor would California’s “post-white” populace find Greater Fools to upon whom to unload their dumpy half-million dollar houses.

This triggered the end of the global economy as we know it.

It turned out that, while California’s new diverse population could certainly consume and speculate like old-fashioned white Americans, they couldn’t produce like them.”

The question thus arises; ‘How will the minority population with an addiction to the drugs of affirmative action and welfare programs respond in a culture that no longer has produced an excess to the point that they can easily get their fix?’

The whole Sailer article can be found here,

http://www.vdare.com/index.asp

A Small Glimpse Inside

Recently, I had a local evangelical military wife inform me that “I ignore people with my constant reading and that the only time I interact is to fight.” Now in fairness to her I was getting in her kitchen about the sagacity of our youth signing up to go into the military after they graduate high school, and I was making the case that Biblical Christians serving in the US military struck me as more than a bit oxymoronic and so her words hurled at me were hurled out of defensiveness on her part. Still, three days later I am musing over her words and I must admit there is some truth in her words. And so for those who have come to similar conclusions about “the pastor who always ignores people with his reading and only interacts in order to fight” allow me a small apologetic for my idiosyncrasies.

First, I am not a particularly bright person by nature. Consequently, if I desire to have anything at all interesting to say in my role as Preacher and counselor I have to read, and I have to read with a vengeance. Inherently brighter men might be able to be in the ministry and not read and be successful but if I am going to be worth my wage and keep I have to read.

Second, we live in a culture that is stupid. This is not a malicious opinion. This is a fact. I struggle with that residue clinging to me as much as the next person. If I wish to rise out of the stream of this culture that is carrying so many of its sons and daughters along to destruction then I have to read. If I want to be an answer for the culture that I love and hate at the same time then I have to offer it something better then what it is offering. The only way I can do that is to read till I bleed. I read not in order to ignore people but to be a boon to them (even if they just wish I’d shut up).

Third, if I don’t read I’ll be a captive to this zeitgeist, and as I am convinced that this zeitgeist is from its father the devil I have to do all I can to saturate myself in the wisdom of other times. So, when I read, I try to read old books and old authors and the reason I do so is that I have hopes, as silly as they might be given our zeitgeist, that Christian men and women alive today might tire of the wickedness of this age and long for something other — a something other that I might be able to offer because of my reading of old authors, old books and of times and wisdom now forgotten.

Fourth, to be perfectly honest, the people I meet in my books are usually 100 times more interesting than the people who are walking expressions of this culture. If I have to choose between Charlemagne and Joe the Dispensationalist, my tendency is to choose Charlemagne’s company every time. If I have to choose between the insights of Robert Nisbet or the wisdom of Daphney the Government school teacher it’s Nisbet every time. Now, I realize that this is a weakness and even a sin. Joe and Daphney still need Jesus and Charlemagne and Nisbet don’t and so I should expend more effort with Joe and Daphney, but I have to tell you when Joe and Daphney insist that I’m an idiot or respond with strained silence when I bring up conversation that goes beyond conversational pleasantries Nisbet and Charlemagne look more and more attractive.

This is why I read. I make no apology for it. If you see me reading try to keep in mind that at least somewhere in this vessel of clay — despite all the sin that still clings to me, there is a small motive of love for God, people, and the desire for Reformation that has me turning page after page in book after book.

Now as to the fighting part of my interlocutor’s accusatory words I must once again plead guilty. But, please, I ask that you would once again hear me out.

First, understand that I wear myself out resisting fighting. I doubt that there are more people who chew more holes in their tongues then I do. I literally, bite my tongue. I literally pinch myself. I literally walk away in order to allow for conversational and relational bonhomie. A little credit where credit is due if you please.

Second, y’all have to realize that I am convinced that this culture needs Reformation. Allow me to suggest that Reformation isn’t going to come without fighting. So, yes, I’m often in the midst of intense conversation. In the Lansing area I’ve warred with the Evangelicals about their love for America and civil religion that is above their love for Jesus. I’ve argued the doctrines of grace vs. the doctrines of self-salvation that most evangelicals embrace. I’ve debated with them about their constant need to plight their fidelity to the flag. I’ve debated with them about the wisdom of sending their children into the Military of a country that is doing its utmost to destroy Christianity. I’ve debated with them about the density of Dispensationalism, trying to get them to take my standing wager that my great grandchildren will die of natural causes before Jesus comes back. I’ve debated with them about their happy clappy churches and their “God is my girl-friend” church hymns. I’ve debated with them their strange notion that their covenant seed shouldn’t be Baptized and the notion that the important decision is not God’s decision for their seed as proclaimed in the waters of Baptism, but rater their seeds decision for God when they reach the age of accountability. I’ve debated with them about the utter nonsense that we should care about Red Heifer’s being born in Israel, or that Israel has anything more to do with God’s eschatological intentions or timetable then any other nation. I’ve argue with them about the advisability of sending their children to “youth-groups.” I’ve argued with them about the propriety of holding Church in their “living rooms,” where the blind lead the blind. So, yes I have fought — I have fought about these things and a million more — but don’t you see that unless someone fights this culture is going to go the way of Rome. Listen, my evangelical friends — the problem isn’t with the pornographers, or the homosexuals, or the abortionists, the problem is with us and our twisted theology and thinking. Somebody has to fight to try and set these things straight.

Hey, I’m not any different, instinctively speaking, then the next guy. I’d love to go along to get along. I’d love to glide along with the cultural current. It sure would be a lot easier to float downstream then swim against the tide. But until God grants Reformation and Awakening, I will continue to be “the pastor who always ignores people with his reading and only interacts in order to fight.”

Won’t you join me?

There is always room for one more.

1865 & 2009

“Madam, do not train up your children in hostility to the government of the United States. Remember, we are all one country now. Dismiss from your mind all sectional feelings, and bring them up to be Americans.”

Robert E. Lee
Letter To Confederate Widow

Robert E. Lee had spent four years leading a Army in hostility to the government of the United States but upon defeat he realized that what the war had largely been about was the destruction of regional identities in favor of the creation of monolithic nation-state America that demanded that all of its citizens find their identities as Americans. Lee understood that loyalties that had once been regional and sectional were now to be loyalties that were national. Whereas a child in the 1840’s might be raised to think of himself as first and foremost Virginian, a child raised in the 1870’s must be raised to think of himself as first and foremost American. And so Lee, seeking to help his beloved South integrate into the new national reality, urged his people to accept and live in light of the consequences of the War of Northern aggression.

This might be simply interesting history if it were not the case that I believe we are living in similar times where there is a vast push in place to reorient people into how they think about sovereignty. Whereas in the 19th century the shift was accomplished where people moved from thinking about the sovereignty they lived under and were loyal to from regional or sectional considerations to National considerations, now in the 21st century I believe we are being pushed into thinking about sovereignty we live under and are loyal to from National considerations to international considerations. If the War of Northern aggression accomplished destroying regional sovereignty (and so regional citizen identity) thinking for National sovereignty thinking what is being pursued in our lifetime is the pursuit of destroying concepts of National sovereignty (and so national citizen identity) in favor of One world sovereignty where people think of themselves as citizens of the planet.

It is interesting that in both pursuits race has been used as a fulcrum on the part of those who desire to increasingly centralize power. Whereas in the 1860’s the issue was ostensibly slavery, the issue today is illegal immigration. The putative sin of slavery was used by those who desired a federalized nation state to give excuse for destroying the concept of regionalism and sectionalism. Similarly today the ill defined sin of racism is being used by those who desire America to become part of a centralized world state. As the elimination of slavery was used as the moral excuse to achieve great heights of immorality in the name of the State conquering all, so the need to eliminate immoral racism against illegal immigration becomes the excuse for erasing borders in pursuit of the building of a world wide Babel.

In both cases traditional understandings of family and ethnicity were and must be demolished in order for new understandings of family and ethnicity to take root. The reason for this is that any organizational unit (familial or ecclesiastical) that can possibly create and demand a loyalty that rivals loyalty to the ever expanding State is a loyalty that must be exterminated by those seeking to create a world state. Just as a nation cannot have a citizenry that thinks of itself primarily according to its regional roots so a state that is seeking to be one world cannot have a citizenry that thinks of itself primarily in terms of ethnic or familial or faith terms. Just as the North crushed Southern identity in order to build a new centralized nation state, so the one worlders will have to crush any who hold on to an American identity in order to build a new centralized World state. What is interesting to observe here is that both in the 1860’s and today it is people with a shared mindset and ethos who were and will be crushed.

The evidence of the push to one world government is everywhere. From the North American Union to the current financial crisis to the education that is pursued in the government schools, to the multicultural and politically correct agenda what is being attacked is not only American sovereignty but also the idea that America means something that should not be allowed to be put in a one world blender.

If you love your children you will first investigate what America means. You can hardly defend them from the ubiquitous one world clap trap if you don’t realize what America means. In order to find that out you will have to go behind the recreation in America in 1865 to original sources — Federalist papers, anti-federalists papers, speeches by Patrick Henry, Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, Fairfax resolves, original state constitutions, etc. — and read for yourself what our founders were doing when they made America.

Unfortunately, I can see another day coming when somebody writes a letter to a widow of somebody who died defending America saying,

“Madam, do not train up your children in hostility to the government of the New World order. Remember, we are all one country now. Dismiss from your mind all Nationalistic feelings, and bring them up to be Worlders.”