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

Pilgrim, where have I gone wrong in these beliefs?
I believe that ...

• All of creation, including all human beings, human laws, and human cognition, are first and foremost the product of God’s will, i.e., His “eternal law”. God is both transcendent and immanent. Nothing happens in the universe unless it has been foreordained by Him.
• (based on biblical evidence and evidence from traditional covenant theology) A “covenant of redemption” exists. It is a covenant between the Persons of the Trinity in which the Son agreed to become a man. This means that Christ agreed with the other Persons of the Trinity to descend from the realm of the eternal into the realm of the time-bound, from the realm in which death does not exist because sin does not exist, into the realm in which death is the norm because sin is the norm.
• “God has a purpose in all that he does in the world and he providentially governs or directs all things in order that they accomplish his purposes.” (Grudem’s Systematic Theology, p. 331)
• “Though in God his will {(His ‘eternal law’)} is unified, and not divided or contradictory, we cannot begin to understand the depths of God’s will, and only in a small part is it revealed to us {(sometimes called ‘natural law’ when revealed in our hearts and minds, and ‘divine law’ when acknowledged as written into the Book)}. ... On one hand, there is God’s moral will (sometimes called his ‘revealed’ will). This includes the moral standards of Scripture, such as the Ten Commandments and the moral commands of the New Testament. God’s moral commands are given as descriptions of how we should conduct ourselves if we would act rightly before him. On the other hand, another aspect of God’s will is his providential government of all things (sometimes called his ‘secret will’). This includes all the events of history that God has ordained to come about”. (Grudem’s Systematic Theology, p. 332)
• “The decrees of God are the eternal plans of God {(included in the ‘eternal law’)} whereby, before the creation of the world, he determined to bring about everything that happens. This doctrine is similar to the doctrine of providence, but here we are thinking about God’s decisions before the world was created, rather than his providential actions in time. His providential actions are the outworking of the eternal decrees”. (Grudem’s Systematic Theology, p. 332)
• “None of those {Ten} Commandments were the product of human cognition, aka: ‘human free agency’.” I agree with you about this, because the Ten Commandments were “written by the finger of God” (Ex. 31:18; Deut. 9:10). Even so, as expressed on stone tablets, they were “providential ... outworking{s} of the eternal decrees”. As such, they were eternal decrees moving from the eternal into the time-bound. They were moving from a realm in which they are perfectly understood and obeyed into a realm in which they are imperfectly understood and imperfectly obeyed. They were moving from a realm in which they are not subjected to the flawed perceptual skills of flawed human beings, into a realm in which they are most emphatically subjected to the flawed perception of flawed beings. We are such flawed beings that it’s imperative for us to pay close attention to the time-sequence of events. Even in something as simple as boiling an egg, if we don’t pay close attention to following the proper sequence of events, we could end up with a burned-down house. I see nothing in Scripture that indicates that we have somehow graduated from being so flawed, that we no longer need to concern ourselves with chronological order, making it a crucial element in our understanding of everything from the Bible to boiling eggs.
• Prior to the events on Mt. Sinai, the Ten Commandments had the status of eternal decrees. They had not yet undergone the providential outworking that took place on Mt. Sinai. The Persons of the Trinity had not yet translated them, through the covenant of redemption, from their status as eternal decrees, into their status not only as eternal decrees but also as “providential ... outworking{s} of eternal decrees”. They had been promulgated as eternal law, but they had not been promulgated as “providential ... outworking{s} of eternal decrees”.
• Prior to the events on Mt. Sinai, since the Ten Commandments existed as eternal decrees, they existed as embedded in creation. They therefore existed as eternal law, and the people who lived before the events on Mt. Sinai were subject to Paul’s description in Romans 1:18-25. Some people, the elect, were necessarily conscious of such eternal law -- the eternal decrees of the Ten Commandments -- and therefore understood it as natural law, and obeyed it. For example, there’s a possible christophany in Genesis 15 through which Abraham was possibly regenerated, and obedience to the Ten Commandments, as natural law, is certainly required of anyone who is regenerated.
• There are certainly penalties accompanying violations of the Ten Commandments. But the penalties appearing in both the Exodus and Deuteronomy versions of the Decalogue are penalties executed by God. In neither version of the Decalogue is there mention of penalties to be executed by humans. There are certainly penalties to be executed by humans that are indicated in the Pentateuch AFTER God’s giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai. The point at which humans are required to enforce laws with penalties is the point at which human cognition, aka “human free agency”, becomes crucial to the enforcement of such law. And it’s the point at which such law becomes promulgated as positive law (or “human law”, or “man’s law”, or whatever one may want to call it).
• Summarizing: (i)God’s eternal decrees were promulgated as eternal law in the act of Creation. (ii)Because humans are so depraved, the Triune God implemented a plan through the covenant of redemption to promulgate the eternal decrees through “providential ... outworking{s}”. In other words, God implemented a millennia-long, chronology-dependent plan for the redemption of His elect. Because divine law, natural law, and positive law (or whatever you may want to call it) are each time-bound, they are heavily dependent upon this chronological, providential outworking. (iii)Positive law is promulgated when people are made aware of it. (For example, in the “United States”, “federal” laws are promulgated through publication in the “Federal Register”.) Without human cognition, “human free agency”, it’s impossible for positive law to exist, because positive law, “human law”, or whatever one may want to call it, requires at least one human being who is willing, able, and cognizant enough to enforce it. To be implemented as “human law”, the Ten Commandments require human cognition as much as the “federal” statutes of the “United States” require human cognition.

In previous posts I’ve tried to use “human free agency” and “positive law” consistently with these beliefs. If I’ve used these terms inconsistently, then please let me know. If any of these beliefs is wrong, please don’t leave me in the dark.