The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Towards a Theology of the State

I have moved this post from the "Compatibilism" thread because it has really gotten into a topic all its own. --Kyle

Recapitulation: Since my flippant first post in this thread was rightly rebuffed, I’ve tried to argue on the side of compatibilism while simultaneously defending the apparent motivation of some who either dilute the doctrine of compatibilism or deny it entirely. I’ve contended, based on my understanding of Scripture, that the dilution and denial of compatibilism is wrong, while the concern about the “timeless[-ness]” of traditional Calvinistic theology is legitimate, because failure to find a scriptural bridge between the timeless and the temporal is an impediment to development of a viable Christian “theology of the state”. In agreement with other posts in this thread, I see Terrence Tiessen’s rendition of compatibilism as defective. In apparent disagreement with all posts but mine in this thread, I see the motivation that he claims -- “timeless[-ness]” -- as valid. In this post I hope to develop these ideas further by responding to the most recent posts by Pilgrim and J_Edwards.

To carry on the linkage between (i)the doctrine of compatibilism, (ii)the problem that Terrence Tiessen sees in the “timeless[-ness]” of traditional Calvinistic theology, and (iii)my claim that solving this “timeless[-ness]” problem is crucial to a “Hermeneutical Prolegomena” aimed at discovering a “theology of the state”:

In posts above, I've claimed that discovering a scriptural bridge between the eternal and the temporal is aided by recognizing four different kinds of laws in Scripture, and in life generally: (i)eternal law; (ii)natural law; (iii)divine law; and (iv)positive law. One of these is eternal while the other three are temporal. This relates to compatibilism via the fact that God's Will can be said to be eternal, while human “freedom of the will” (moral free agency) is temporal. Pilgrim indicated that he considered my use of these terms as “self-determined and self-imposed”. I'd like to explain my use of these terms, but first I'd like to address issues relating to the first few chapters of Genesis.

I agree that “God ... put a mark on Cain ... because it was part of His plan from the very beginning”. This is not inconsistent with God allowing a period of anarchy “because it was part of His plan from the very beginning”. God foreordaining a period of anarchy is also not inconsistent with his doing so “reluctantly”. If it makes sense for God to be “sorry that I have made them” (Genesis 6:7) at the end of this period that He foreordained, then it makes equally as much sense that He was perhaps reluctant at the beginning of this period that He foreordained. And if He ended the foreordained period of anarchy with sorrow, then it’s not inconsistent with His foreordination for Him to start a law enforcement epoch after the flood, reluctantly. God’s human emotions of sorrow and reluctance take nothing away from his Divinity and power to foreordain. If it did, then the Human, Jesus Christ, could not be God, because He had emotions. Those of us who are Trinitarian will not tolerate this conclusion, and we will therefore not tolerate the premise that the God Who foreordains everything is not capable of emotions like sorrow and reluctance.

When I said that the Genesis 9:6 “mandate is positive law”, I was taking a verbal shortcut which, for the sake of clarity, I should not have taken. So I’ll try to say the same thing again, but this time without the shortcut: Genesis 9:6 is a command from God. This is clear to anyone who looks at the Hebrew in this verse. All commands of God that are recorded in the Bible are part of the divine law. They therefore fall within the purview of Deuteronomy 29:29 (NASB): When the “sons ... observe” the divine law, they might translate observation of such divine law into positive law, and they might not. When a passage from the divine law is a God-given command to establish positive law, as Genesis 9:6 clearly is, the “sons” who wish to “observe” such passage are under an especially strong calling to translate such passage into positive law. The Genesis 9:6 mandate is NOT positive law, and I'm sorry that I said it is. It is a mandate to promulgate and execute positive law. The existence of a law as eternal law, or as divine law, is not equivalent to promulgation of that law as positive law. I don't believe I'm making such claims arbitrarily, because I'm convinced that there is logic behind such statements that deserves notice.

In Genesis 4:15, as you indicate, J_Edwards, “the Lord appointed a sign for Cain”, saying to him, “whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.”. It doesn’t say here, and I can’t find anywhere else in Scripture where it says, whether this sevenfold vengeance will be executed directly by God, or by way of human free-agency. If it’s by way of human free agency, then this sevenfold vengeance is certainly a form of positive law. But since I see no clear indication that the sevenfold vengeance is to be executed via human free agency, I see no reason to assume that it’s positive law.

The same basic argument applies to Adam. I agree that Adam was “the covenant head”. But, “in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17), doesn’t clearly indicate who will execute the penalty of death. I suspect that most people reading this believe that death will come on these people because God’s wrath will come on these people. Even though I haven’t read all of it, I suspect that if I claimed that virtually all historically reliable covenant theology posits that the penalty of death comes on these people by way of God’s wrath, not by way of human free agency, virtually no one would argue. So the lack of human free agency in the execution of the penalty in Genesis 2:16-17 means that this is also an unlikely instance of God-mandated positive law.

If Noah refused to impose this law upon his progeny, even though God commanded him to impose it upon his progeny, then the law would certainly exist as “revealed” knowledge, but it would not exist as positive law. The chronicles of the Old Testament are full of instances in which God’s people refused or neglected to translate His commandments into positive law. These stiffnecked people were operating within their nature as fallen creatures, exercising their moral free agency. Since Noah was a moral free agent, he could have done the same. --- When a biblical mandate to establish positive law is actually promulgated as positive law, the act of promulgation is the act of translating the divine law commandment into positive law. As far as human beings are concerned, a law that is not promulgated lacks the force and effect of law, and is therefore not law at all. In the words of Thomas Aquinas, “promulgation is necessary for the law to obtain its force.” (Summa Theologica, “Treatise on Law”, Question 90).

Deuteronomy 29:29 points to a process of revelation. I don’t know of any real Bible-believer who would argue with the claim that eternal law applies to everything and everyone for all times. But like you say, Pilgrim, human nature is so corrupted that we find it difficult to discern what eternal law is. God has condescended to have mercy on our plight by revealing the truth to His people and having them write such revelations for posterity. I agree, “That men were obligated and held accountable to apply God’s law among themselves is indisputable.”. The way you use “God’s law” here I’m taking as synonymous with what I call eternal law. Eternal law is clearly not the same thing as divine law, which is clearly not the same as positive law. The better we understand divine law, the better we understand eternal law. The better we understand eternal law, the better we’re able to implement it as positive law.

I agree that “man’s failure to conform to the ‘Eternal Law’ of God does not negate its existence nor relegate it to some form of ‘Positive Law’.” It appears to me that the sequence of events in the first eleven chapters of Genesis shows clearly that God enforced His eternal law by wiping out everyone but Noah and his family. But humans enforcing such eternal law is extremely problematic, because humans are so flawed that if we attempt to enforce such eternal law, thereby translating such eternal law into positive law, we are likely to become perpetrators ourselves. This is not an argument for anarchy. It’s an argument for meticulous care in the manner in which we see how eternal law is translated into divine law, and how divine law is translated into positive law.

Pilgrim said that my use of these terms, “eternal law”, “natural law”, “divine law”, and “positive law”, is “self-determined and self-imposed”: (i)Regarding induction --- I made a claim that an inductive reading of Scripture makes the distinction between eternal law and positive law undeniable. When I stated that the distinction between eternal law and positive law is readily apparent in an inductive reading of Scripture, I did not mean to imply that inductive readings should be separated from deductive readings. On the contrary, I agree with Roger Nicole that “we cannot accept a challenge to choose between induction and deduction”. I was trying to indicate that their existence in Scripture is evident through induction, i.e., by starting with biblical facts and correlating them into common principles. (ii)I'm not alone --- Each of these terms is used by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica. I’m convinced that at the final Judgment, God will not ask me if I was diligent to follow Aquinas, Augustine, Calvin, or any other fallible being. But He will ask me if I was diligent to follow His Holy Word. If Thomas Aquinas points things out in Scripture that make sense to me, then as one of the observant sons (Deut. 29:29), I’ll do my best to incorporate these things as my own conscientious inductions from God’s Word. In fact, my use of “eternal law” and “natural law” is pretty close to Aquinas’s. Differences with respect to “divine law” and “positive law” are bigger.

Substantiation that these types of law are NOT merely “self-determined and self-imposed”: [Disclaimer: Aquinas's presentation of these laws is clothed in Aristotelian garb that I don't recommend. Even so, putting his presentation through a reformed filter can still yield valuable insights.]

• eternal law --- Augustine said, “That Law which is the Supreme Reason cannot be understood to be otherwise than unchangeable and eternal.” (De Lib. Arb. i, 6; quoted by Aquinas at Summa Theologica, First Part of the Second Part, Question 91). As Aquinas notes, see Proverbs 8:22-30 for biblical proof that eternal law exists. The definition that I use (from bjp-tiaj.net) is largely the same.
• natural law --- According to Aquinas (Summa Theologica, First Part of the Second Part, Question 91)
  Quote

  this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law. Hence the Psalmist after saying (Ps. 4:6): “Offer up the sacrifice of justice,” as though someone asked what the works of justice are, adds: “Many say, Who showeth us good things?” in answer to which question he says: “The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us”: thus implying that the light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function of the natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the Divine light. It is therefore evident that the natural law is nothing else than the rational creature's participation of the eternal law.
  This is a valuable term, but it has a huge amount of historical baggage. To use it without all the baggage, I use this definition: bjp-tiaj.net.
• divine law --- Aquinas gives a reasonable argument for why “Divine law” exists, but he goes on to claim that there are two divine laws, one based on the Old Testament and one based on the New Testament. I believe there is one divine law that's accompanied by a failure by all of us to grasp it completely, and a failure by many to adopt the reliable canon. So I'm forced to use a different definition: bjp-tiaj.net.
• positive law --- Aquinas apparently uses “human law”, “positive human law”, and “positive law” as being largely synonymous. I induce from Scripture that positive law is law imposed by humans upon other humans. Regardless of what nomenclature anyone may use (“man’s law”, “human law”, “positive law”, or whatever), I'm convinced that the concept is valid and consistent with Scripture. It's also largely consistent with Thomas Aquinas, and with modern American law.

Given that the church has generally been abdicating authority to secular governments for many decades, and given that secular governments now encroach on the domain of the church, and into private Christian lives, a reliable “theology of the state” is more needed now than ever. Does this mean that a reliable “theology of the state” will automatically be a “Theocracy”? IMHO, not necessarily. It depends on how “Theocracy” is defined. If theocracy is defined in a way that allows or encourages Christians to cram their “biblical standards of morality” down the throats of non-Christians, then the “theology of the state” that gives rise to such a theocracy, IMHO, is deeply wrong. “[A]s Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. i, 5, 6), human law cannot punish or forbid all evil deeds: since while aiming at doing away with all evils, it would do away with many good things, and would hinder the advance of the common good” (Aquinas). But if theocracy is defined in a way that rigorously honors jurisdictions that already exist in Scripture, then many violations of “biblical standards of morality” would be outside the purview of the State’s iron fist, and would instead need to be addressed by Christian ministries.

This looks like a radical (“radical” in the sense of going to the root of a matter) statement to me, one with which I agree, if I understand it correctly. If one’s study of God’s Holy Word leads one to conclude that the secular governments of the world are overwhelmingly the product of “vain ... imaginations”, and not the product of seeking “accord with God’s ‘Eternal Law’”, then this could clearly lead one into civil disobedience.