To begin with a parenthesis<br><br>Colin noted<br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"] However, J. Ligon Duncan is someone close to Bahnsen's level of Christian scholarship. Therefore, I have been busy composing a reply to his article on Reconstructionism which is posted on the Highway forum. Duncan's article is a bit difficult to answer only because of the lack of footnotes which presumably has the supporting evidence for his numerous assertions. So I've been making my own footnotes for it, such as for his citations of DeMar and Bahnsen.</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>Tp-No need to compile the footnotes. The article is posted on the web
http://capo.org/premise/95/may/ssha2.html and Duncan's email address is given with a note saying that footnotes can be obtained from him at J. Ligon Duncan, III, E-mail:
74604.1331@compuserve.com. Another address that reached him recently is at
http://jld3@compuserve.com <br><br>And now, to begin the main theme.<br><br>Some years ago, in response to writings against Theonomy and actions taken by anti - theonomists, Gary North issued the following challenge which is worth taking very seriously indeed by anybody participating in the theoonomy debate. He wrote<br><br>[color:red] It is time for the critics of Bahnsen’s theological position to explain in detail<br>just what it is that they are offering in its place as a biblical ideal.<br>It is time for them to fight something very specific with something<br>equally specific and equally biblical. …<br>They need to show why Bahnsen’s replies to all of them, one by one, are inaccurate. <br>Then they need to tell us what is correct biblically. If they refuse, they are admitting by<br>their silence that they have no biblical answers to his position, and have had none since 1977.<br>Gentlemen, if any of you believe that I have overstated the<br>case, you can prove me wrong. Just get a book out in reply. Then<br>Dr. Bahnsen will have another opportunity to clarify his position<br>in a book aimed specifically at yours. What will it be: Your<br>prudent but deafening silence or the next phase of the theonomy<br>debate? It is now your decision. A lot of people are waiting to<br>hear from you. Please, no more hit-and-run attacks.<br>(Gary North, Publishers Preface,
No Other Standard, pp. xiv, xv) </font color=red><br><br>One might think that theonomists would welcome articles such as my "Theonomy versus Westminster" or my online critique of certain aspects of Bahnsen's exegesis of Matt. 5:17 found at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theexperiencemeeting/messages (See messages 78-108) because they are attempts to meet North's challenge on his terms. Then, one might expect that Theonomists would attempt to demonstrate why these articles are inaccurate, since this is the challenge North set for his critics. This is not, however, what Colin has done. What he has done is given in blue:<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"] And of course, "Timmopussycat" who is a deacon in a Baptist church, has not addressed the Timmopussycat verses the Westminster Confession issue on the topic of Infant Baptism. The WCF says that it is a great sin to neglect infant baptism. Thus, every baptist parent is sinning according to the Bible and the WCF. <br><br>So if neither Timmo or the Highway Staff are in full agreement with the WCF, then they have no right to judge Theonomists by a creedal standard that even they themselves do not hold to on all points. </font><hr></blockquote><p>Tp - Unfortuately Colin, if you think that only those who agree at all points with a standard can measure conformance with that standard, then you are engaging in ad hominem arguement. You are claiming that my thoughts are tainted at the source by an antecedent prejudice and therefore must be considered incorrect. However the counterargument can be equally made that the thoughts of a theonomist are also tainted at their source by the theonomists antecedent commitment to theonomy. The question now becomes whose thoughts are tainted and why. The possibilities are neither, one thinker, the other thinker or both. But one cannot merely claim that another's thoughts are tainted at the source. It is insufficient to try to explain why a critic is wrong before showing where and how he is wrong. One must first demonstrate that there are errors of logic or fact in the opposing arguments, something you have to date failed to do.<br><br>And here is a major error of fact that you have made. In asserting that my arguments need no reply because a Baptist made them, you are either forgetting, carelessly overlooking or concealing the fact that the vast majority of the arguments I cite in "T v. W" were originally made by either Ferguson, Wallace, Duncan, and Logan all of whom are Calviinists and WCF subscribers. So your answer is plainly insufficient: if you don't want to answer me because I am a Baptist you must answer them because they are reformed. <blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"] And since I do not believe that Theonomy is in opposition to the WCF, then there's no point in me addressing a Thread whose very title falsely claims that Theonomy contradicts the WCF. And the thread title was composed by someone who personally contradicts the WCF on the issue of Infant Baptism as I said earlier. </font><hr></blockquote><p>Tp - The only way you can prove the title false to fact is to refute the arguments.<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"] Besides, I have previously discussed Theonomy with Timmo, and I found that further interaction with him on it is redundant.[/quote ]Tp - Because you have yet to win a point, you try to dodge the argument. Shall I post the relevant sites so readers can judge for themselves?[quote]Until someone with sufficient scholarly reformed credentials equal to Greg Bahnsen publishes a full rebuttal to Bahnsen's Theonomy in Christian Ethics (still waiting after 25 years), then the onus remains on the critics to justify their opposition. Theonomy needs no justification because it has answered almost all their critics. And Timmopussycat is no where near a scholarly critic of Bahnsen's Theonomy position. </font><hr></blockquote><p>Tp - If the thread title is a false claim prove me wrong. And if you can demonstrate a single error of fact or logic in my writings about theonomy why not tell everyone? I notice that you have not even attempted to reply to my online critique of some of Bahnsen's exegetical errors, (and those are only a fraction of the mistakes Bahnsen made) nor my answer to the theonomist who did - cf. a debate found at "my online essay" here:
'The Failure of No Other Standard'.<br><br>And no theonomist, to my knowledge, has interacted with, let alone answered the cases against theonomy presented by the review of Bahnsen's exegesis of Matt 5:17 given in Steven Hodge's Master's Thesis "An Exegetical Response to Greg Bahnsen's use of Matt. 5:17-20 in Theonomy in Christian Ethics", the main chapters of Greg Durand's "Judicial Warfare: The Christian Reconstruction Movement and its Blueprints For Dominion" found online at
http://www.crownrights.com/reconstruction. Until these are answered, you cannot truthfully claim that Theonomy needs no justification because it has answered almost all [the] critics.<br><br>In fact all of your arguments here only echo an unsound form of argumentation that some anti theonomists stupidly tried to use to discredit theonomy in its early days. Now you are trying to use it to avoid coming to grips with anti theonomic issues presented to you.<br><br>Until you change your ways, you will be only discrediting theonomy by following the example of the incompetent anti theonomic critics whom Gary North has correctly castigated. Notice how well the shoe fits when it is applied to you.<br><br>But [instead of name calling, Colin] now … need[s] to respond to the Westminster vs. Theonomy and the series "The Failure of No Other Standard." He need[s] to show why [Cunningham's points] all of them, one by one, are inaccurate….. If [he refuses, he is] admitting by [his] silence that [he has] no biblical answers to [Cunningham's] position, and [has] had none [for almost a year.]<br><br>Gentlemen, if any of you believe that I have overstated the case, you can prove me wrong. Just get a book out in reply. Then I will have another opportunity to clarify [my] position in a book aimed specifically at yours. What will it be: Your prudent but deafening silence or the next phase of the theonomy debate? It is now your decision. A lot of people are waiting to hear from you. Please, no more hit-and-run attacks.<br>(Gary North, Publishers Preface,
No Other Standard, pp. xiv, xv)<br><br>I, for one, will be very grateful if theonomists would stop acting as if they have a double standard. One for their critics and a lesser one for themselves. <br><br><br>
Edited: Finally fixed all the bad tags for the links provided. -
Pilgrim<br>
