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

Charles,

Methinks that this is a definite possibility since I too do not agree with your working definition of "Positive Law", which you evidently adopted from Thomas Aquinas, among other ideas. Further, I find a serious problem in your application of "Positive Law" as defined by yourself. For example, (sorry for not wanting to take the time to copy/paste an exact quote), in the matter of Cain who lamented that if caught by other men, he would surely be put to death. You expanded on this and wrote that the death of Cain by the hands of other men would be necessarily a carrying out of a "Positive Law" by virtue of "human free agency". To this I was voice two objections: 1) According to your definition of "Positive Law", assuming I have understood you correctly, "Positive Law" is any law which men may make and then execute upon other men. But the punishment of death upon murderers did not originate with men but with God. Men simply were and are under divine obligation to obey, i.e., to execute that punishment upon murderers according to that Eternal law which God imposed upon all mankind.

I am another among many, both past and present who firmly holds that the Ten Commandments were applicable to all mankind from the very beginning and simply iterated on Mt. Sinai and put into writing; applied to a specific people in a clear and cogent fashion for those present and posterity. None of those Commandments were the product of human cognition, aka: "human free agency". Again, all of God's laws are "Eternal", i.e., they are boundless as to time and as they apply to man, unless they are abrogated and/or fulfilled having served a specific purpose. That these Ten Laws were written on men's hearts before they appeared on tablets of stone does not negate either their pre-existence nor application before Moses. The fact that Cain was concerned that he would be killed by men on account of his murdering his brother speaks clearly of a known law and punishment of that capital crime. To suggest that what Cain feared at the hands of men was simply "human free agency" reacting for some indiscernible reason against murder is sheer speculation and without foundation.

2) I cannot accept your use of the phrase/term "human free agency". The accepted working definition of that phrase is the freedom of man to choose that which is most pressing/desirable to him at any given moment within the bounds of his nature. Your use of this phrase in your argument(s) simply doesn't fit.

Okay... carry on! <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

In His grace,