As readers of this board well know, the debate over theonomy has extended to questioning the conventional Reformed understanding of the Westminster Confession. Some of the major arguments in favour of theonomy were put forward by Colin Tayler in the thread Old Testament laws under New Testament grace. I have taken issue with Mr. Tayler before on some of these issues and my research continues.
Colin
In reply to:[color:"blue"] The Meaning of "General Equity" in the Standards
The initial text of the Westminster Confession of Faith was presented to the English-speaking people in 1646. This occurred only thirty-five years after the publication of the King James version of the Bible in 1611. Consequently, its original grammar and vocabulary reflect a mode of communication long dated and 'foreign' to contemporary forms and styles of English usage.
The Assembly wrote the Confession of Faith in Elizabethan English identical with the KJV, even (1) employing its phraseology and (2) using it as the text for the Scripture proof texts. It may be reasonably concluded that the employment of the term "equity" in WCF 19:4 would have the same linguistic function as when it appeared in the KJV. The word "equity" appears ten times in the KJV:
Tp
You have correctly defined the term "equity" as it is used in many Scriptures in the sense of uprightness, justice, wisdom and righteousness. But have you not noticed that in the context of WCF 19:4, which says that the civil laws are expired and do not oblige any other now further than the general equity doth require, taking equity as uprightness righteousness, justice or wisdom, begs the question by using terms which speak of justice as a unified quality, not as a particular aspect of a law or laws which can continue when other aspects of the laws have expired. In other words if the Divines meant equity in the sense of "uprightness" etc. they were not telling us how and in what ways aspects of the laws continued, something the words "further than…therof may require" tells us that they were doing. Uprightness etc. is therefore not the likely sense in which the Divines meant us to understand the term. The term equity is known to have had more than one meaning in the period, and one of its meanings does have specific reference to a particular aspect of laws that continue when given laws end. It is therefore the likely way in which the Divines meant us to understand equity in 19:4. As Sinclair Ferguson writes in his "An Assembly of Theonomists?" in Theonomy: A Reformed Critique (TARC):
“…when used in relation to the law, as it is here by the Divines [it] has a lengthy pedigree stretching back to …Plato and Aristotle [By way of] Roman…Anglo – Saxon, and early Norman [laws the concept of equity thus entered] the English system of jsutice [where] it became an important element in the legal system itself…in the Confession [the expression “general equity” is] a terminus technicas, a well-defined concept in English jurisprudence. Implicit in the idea of equity is the recognition that the creation of a series of laws does not in and of itself guarantee that justice will be appropriately administered. It involves the recognition that laws must be applied existentially, since the application of “the letter of the law” may in fact distort the real purpose of the law and ignore the individuality and particularity of circumstances. The legal principal of equity, therefore, meant… answering the question, How would the law-giver apply his law in this situation. It is this principle that lies behind what otherwise might seem to be Calvin’s apparent indifference to the multiplicity of penal systems in his contemporary world" (TARC p.330).
In the late middle ages, the English court system had become separated into two types of courts: law courts and equity courts. The law courts decided cases according to the Common Law. If no statute law clearly applied, the common law judge was required to make his decision according to the nearest applicable law. No discretion was permitted to the common law judge. Obviously, this frequently led to injustice-especially when the law was not intended to be used for such cases. But if a man believed himself to be wronged, he could appeal to the Court of Chancery, where the Chancellor would decide his case (other equity courts included the Mayor's Court in London and courts of request throughout England). In fact, as Plucknett puts it, "The judges had to admit in several cases that their rules actually favoured iniquity at the expense of the righteous, and themselves advised the chancellor to give equitable relief." The Chancellor was not bound by the Common Law. He was bound merely by equity-a system of principles of justice that enabled him to decide a case when the law did not directly apply. A good Chancellor had to train his conscience in these principles so that he could make wise and equitable decisions. Naturally his decisions would often be controversial (and he would frequently be accused of twisting the law), but few people objected to the system itself because all agreed that there had to be some place for equity. Invariably there are times when the law does not directly apply, because no law has ever been devised that covers every conceivable situation. Indeed, this understanding of equity was applied by the reformers to the relationship between the Mosaic judicial law and the laws of modern nations. With respect to the Old Testament judicial laws, Calvin declares that they impart "certain formulas of equity and justice," but that just as ceremonial laws could be abrogated while piety remained safe and unharmed, so too, when these judicial laws were taken away, the perpetual duties and precepts of love could still remain. But if this is true, surely every nation is left free to make such laws as it foresees to be profitable for itself. Yet these must be in conformity to that perpetual rule of love, so that they indeed vary in form but have the same purpose. (The passage in Calvin that Wallace is referring to is "Institutes of the Christian Religion book iv ch. xx pp. 14-16.).
And as Colin himself noticed
In reply to:[color:"blue"] In the Oxford English Dictionary the word "equity" is dealt with thus: "equity of a statute according to its reason and spirit so as to make it apply to cases for which it does not expressly provide."
The Mosaic civil laws certainly expressly provided for all manner of crimes but in some sense the divines saw that they did "not expressly provide" for the situation of the contemporary English commonwealth. In what sense did they not do so? The crimes were the same, but the jurisdiction was different. By applying the term equity to the sense in which the civil laws remained valid, the Divines were implicitly stating that they did not see that the Mosaic civil laws were automatically valid for their situation.
And although Bahnsen believed that Ferguson “exegetically confuses the notion of an "equity" found in the law with the logically distinct and philosophically different notion of "the equity of the law" http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pe170.htm (addressing TARC pp. 330-331)….” he nowhere defined which of these “equities” is the one he thinks Ferguson is advocating and the differing one he thinks the Divines used. Nor, for that matter, did Martin Foulner in his book "Theonomy and the Westminster Confession."
Colin
In reply to:[color:"blue"] Without equivocation the ceremonial law is declared "abrogated" (19:3). But the judicial law is said to have "expired," except for the "general equity." Why was it not declared "abrogated"
Tp - Because the judicial laws did not cease to be in force in the same sense as the ceremonial laws did. With the change of covenant the ceremonial laws ended entirely as they were fulfilled in Christ's sacrifice. But the judicials although expiring with the state of that people were recognized as standing in a particular relationship to the moral law which the ceremonial laws did not. They had an inherent "general equity" "a system of principles of justice that enabled the judges to decide a case when the law did not directly apply." What were these principles of justice? For the Westminster Divines the underlying general equity was the moral law which they saw as being delivered to Adam well before the Mosaic judicials, and which they identified as the ten commandments (WCF 19:1, 3). Upon examination of the civil laws it can be seen that each one of them addresses violations of one or more of the 10.
Although Bahnsen, in the above cited article, argued that …
"For the Westminster Puritans, the substance of the judicial laws was just as binding as the Ten Commandments. The judicial laws served to give definition to the Ten Commandments; to invalidate the former would therefore be to invalidate (or alter) the former. That is why we read that, according to the Westminster standards, the Decalogue is not the full extent of the moral law, but rather the "summary" of the moral law (Larger Catechism #98). We are bound to the whole moral law and not simply its summary expression.”
Tp
… he is incorrect. First of all his understanding of LC #98 contradicts the plain statement of the Confession at 19:2 that the moral law of 19:1 and 19:3 was delivered to Moses in the ten commandments. This is bad exegesis. To borrow a remark Bahnsen made in another context, it accuses “…the Divines of blatant self contradiction (even though the Confession is recognized as the most cautiously worked out and carefully worded creed of the Evangelical Church.)” (Theonomy in Christian Ethics, 2nd ed. p.540). Second, Bahnsen overlooks the significant role of LC #92 which asks "What did God at first reveal unto man as the rule of his obedience?" while expecting the answer, "The rule of obedience revealed to Adam…, and to all mankind in him, …was the moral law." Finally Question 98 does not state that the Decalogue is the summary of the Moral law, thus specifically limiting the term moral law. Instead as the answer to LC#98 states “the moral law is “summarily comprehended” in the ten commandments” something quite different. “Summarily” means giving the essentials; “comprehended” in such a context means either "understood" or "included" (as in "education comprehends the training of many kinds of ability (from the Latin comprehendere). Which means when WCF states that the moral law is "summarily comprehended in the ten commandments," it is teaching that anything not in the ten commandments is either not understood to be part of, or not included in, the essential moral will of God. Finally Questions 99 through 148 deal specifically with the 10 commandments and not the penal laws. One cannot, therefore, assert, as Bahnsen does that “For the Westminster Puritans, the substance of the judicial laws was just as binding as the Ten Commandments” For that is not correct.
Colin
In reply to:[color:"blue"] Why was it not declared "abrogated" and reference made to the New Testament for judicial principles? Or to pre-Mosaic directives, such as the Noahic Covenant? "
There was no reason to. The divines well understood that the moral law which they saw as synonymous with the general equity of the civil laws originated before the Mosaic judicials and remained binding when those judicials expired. And some Divines do mention the Noahic covenant. For instance, Anthony Burgess, who was on the committee that drafted WCF 19:4, and whose views on issues surrounding that clause must therefore be granted to be highly significant if not determinative for our understanding of it, argued in his 1646 book Vindicae Legis "that the lex talionis was given to restrain private vengeance in the first place and (thus is fulfilled by turning the other cheek) a view which explains why the proof texts give the otherwise mysterious coupling of Matt. 5:17 with 5:38,9 at this point). [Yet] Burgess holds that capital punishment may still be inflicted. But…he appeals back, beyond the Mosaic law to the Noahic provision in Genesis 9:6…Burgess approach (which may well form the basis for the Confession's logic) differs from that of Theonomy…. he appeals to the Noahic revelation to demonstrate that which is permanent in the Mosaic provision (essentially understanding this as general equity)." (Ferguson, "Assembly" p. 337 referencing Vindicae Legis p. 180). Burgess thereby argues that while the Mosaic law was temporary and for a particular people, the eternal moral law of which the Noahic covenant was a restatement was still in force.
In reply to:[color:"blue"] And why do the judicial laws appear in the proof-texts for the Larger Catechism exposition of the Ten Commandments?
As illustrations of what the Divines believed general equity requires. Please remember the general rule of exegesis: interpret the unknown or the unclear by the clear. When the Divines tell us that the civil laws have expired not obliging any other now further than the general equity thereof doth require, to interpret their use of the case laws in the proof texts as a proof that they believed that the case laws themselves remained valid in themselves rather than as illustrations of general equity is to accuse them of blatant self contradiction.
Colin:
In reply to:[color:"blue"] At WCF 20:1 we read: "But, under the new testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged, in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, to which the Jewish Church was subjected...." No mention of the moral or judicial divisions of the law are noted here.
There are two reasons why the civil laws are not mentioned here. First, the subject has already been dealt with in chapter 19. Second, while Christians are totally freed from the yoke of the ceremonial law in the New Testament, we are not freed from Civil laws and it would have been an error in the Confession had it said so. For under the New Covenant we are required to obey the civil laws of the states in which we dwell.
Colin:
In reply to:[color:"blue"] In the original WCF 23:3 we read: "all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed" and they cited Lev. 24:16 and Deut. 13:5 as proof-texts. How could "general equity" exclude the notion?
First of all nobody should deny that the Divines who wrote the proof texts thought the magistrates duty did not include suppression of blasphemies and heresies. They did, and some of them did advocate Mosaic punishments for such offenses. Nor can one automatically presume whether "general equity" necessarily excludes such.
But the question is whether their interpretation of how those laws apply in the new covenant is correct. Does the applicable general equity of those Scriptures given in a context where the state was co-extenive with the church necessarily lead to a judgement that the magistrate has the same duty when the state is not co-extensive with the church, as is the case in the New Covenant. While Bahnsen never allowed that the covenantal shift alone had created any changes in applicable civil laws, none of the Westminster Divines agree with him on that point. As we shall see in a moment even George Gillespie who was the Divine nearest in principles to the modern theonomist, recognized that under the New Covenant the magistrate could temper justice with mercy in a way nowhere allowed for in the OT.
Colin:
In reply to:[color:"blue"] For instance, Puritan Thomas Cartwright his Second Reply (cited in Works of John Whitgift [Parker Society ed., Cambridge: University Press, 1851], I:270):
And, as for the judicial law, forasmuch as there are some of them made in regard of the region where they were given, and of the people to whom they were given, the prince and magistrate, keeping the substance and equity of them (as it were the marrow), may change the circumstance of them, as the times and places and manners of the people shall require. But to say that any magistrate can save the life of blasphemers, contemptuous and stubborn idolaters, … which God be his judicial law hath commanded to be put to death, I do utterly deny, and am ready to prove, if that pertained to this question.
The single most influential Westminster Divine, George Gillespie disagreed with Cartwright. He argued in a pamphlet (available online at http://www.naphtali.com/severity.htm " target="_blank">http:// http://www.naphtali.com/severity.htm ) that certain kinds of toleration are acceptable, among which is
“… that kind of toleration whereby the Magistrate when it is in the power of his hand to punish and extirpate, yet having to do with such of whom there is good hope either of reducing them by convincing their judgments, or of uniting them to the Church by a safe accommodation of differences, he grants them a supersedeas [forbearance]; or though there be no such ground of hope concerning them, yet while he might crush them with the foot of power, in Christian piety and moderation, he forbears so far as may not be destructive to the peace and right government of the Church, using his coercive power with such a mixture of mercy as creates no mischief to the rest of the Church. I speak not only of bearing with those who are weak in faith (Rom. 15:1), but of sparing even those who have perverted the faith, so far as the word of God and rules of Christian moderation would have severity tempered with mercy: that is (as has been said) so far as is not destructive to the Church's peace, nor shakes the foundations of the established form of church government, and no further…”
Notice that Gillespie is dealing specifically with a case which biblically calls for the death penalty "in the power of his hand to… extirpate" (i.e. utterly destroy), yet he says the magistrate may forbear punishment. Since Gillespie allows for this exception, nowhere found in Moses or the NT, he cannot be called a theonomist.
Colin:
In reply to:[color:"blue"] English theologian Thomas Scott (1747-1821) in his Holy Bible with Notes (at Ex. 21:1) wrote:
"Making some allowance for the circumstances varying in different ages and nations, there is a spirit of equity in these laws, which is well worthy of being transfused into those of any state.... A full investigation of the subject would evince, that the laws enacted by [Moses] were uniformly more wise, equitable, humane, mild, and salutary in their tendency, than the complex body of laws, even of the most civilized nations...."
Robert L. Dabney, The Practical Theology, p. 513:
"The application of the lex talionis made by Moses against false witnesses was the most appropriate and equitable ever invented."
Many Calvinists would agree with the above. The real difference between Theonomist and Classical Calvinist is not over whether or not any or all of the Mosaic civil laws should be the laws of the land today. I, together with many who have written on the question (such as Vern Poythress, 'The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses"), would argue for many Mosaic laws. The question is by what hermeneutical principles do we determine that they apply today and by what reasons do we advocate for their adoption. Theonomists argue for the abiding validity of the law in exhaustive detail except where amended by the Lawgiver: Calvinists argue for the continuing validity of the decalogue and the measurement of civil laws by their inherent equity or lack of it as measured by the decalogue, when applied to the particular circumstances in which they are promulgated.
In reply to:[color:"blue"] A leading criticism of the Puritans of the Westminster Assembly and of the 1600s is their endorsement of the application of capital punishment in accordance with the Old Testament law. The 1640 Massachusetts Civil Bay Code in America is an example of the Puritan view, and it applies the specifics of God's penal codes.
[and]
...in 1636, the well known American Puritan theologian, John Cotton prepared an explicit essay, entitled How Far Moses' Judicials Bind Massachusetts, in which he addresses the question, "whether we as Christians or as a people of God are not bound to establish laws and penalties set down in the Scripture as they were given to the Jews," and then offers nine supporting reasons why the answer must be affirmative. That same year Cotton produced a model civil code for his colony entitled Moses His Judicials, which contained entire sections verbatim from the Mosaic law. In his 1663 publication, A discourse about Civil Government, Cotton wrote that the best form of government for Christians to endorse was one where the laws by which men rule are the laws of God.
Whoever taught you your history is incorrect. Cotton's essay was specifically rejected from becoming law in the colony (twice!). In 1640 there was no written law civil code in Massachusetts. It was only in October 1641 that the general court ruled that Nathaniel Ward's "The Body of Liberties" was to be established for a trial period of three years. But it was not regarded as definitive and in 1648 the first official legal code of the colony "The Book of the Lawes and Libertyes…" appeared, which states in its preface that the earlier work of "some of our Elders [i.e. Cotton and Ward] "…was not published as Lawes of this jurisdiction, nor were they voted in court." And it is highly unlikely that Ward was a theonomist in the sense of holding only to Mosaic punishments for Mosaic crimes. For the code eventually adopted, and on which Ward not Cotton, was the major influence, was clearly not theonomic in that it does not always mandate Mosaic penalties for Mosaic crimes (kidnapping was a capital offense in Moses, not Massachusetts), nor does it leave unchanged Mosaic definitions of crimes. Moses prohibits lending to a brother at interest: Massachusetts sets a rate ceiling of 8%. (See Samuel T. Logan, "New England Puritans and the State" in TARC)
One of Colin's critics wrote
In reply to:[color:"blue"] And again I ask, Can you cite any records of the Puritans which show that they practiced, upon political polity, by virtue of "General Equity", the execution of homosexuals, adulterers, errant children, etc.?
(Note to all would-be critics of theonomy. Be sure you know your facts before you write. Theonomists have endured much ignorant criticism such as the above. Experiencing criticism that is incorrect makes it much harder for the theonomist to hear criticisms that are correct. Let us take care not to drive them further into their error. The real question is not: did the Puritans practice the execution of homosexuals adulterers errant children etc. on grounds of general equity. They did. But general equity for the Westminster Divines did not extend to the automatic abiding validity of all unamended Mosaic laws in exhaustive detail due to a supposed inter-covenantal continuity which is where the Theonomic thesis takes us. The Westminster Divines, as we have seen in the above cited excerpts from Burgess and Gillespie clearly did not agree. And one could include with Burgess and Gillespie those Divines who did not hold that the Mosaic judicials were at all valid in the New Covenant church such as Godwin and Nye. (It is Martin Foulner's failure to document the full range of all the Divines' opinions on this question that fatally mars his book). As Samuel Rutherford, the second most influential Westminster Divine next to Gillespie wrote:
" But sure Erastus erreth, who will have all such to be killed by the magistrate under the New Testament, because they were killed by in the Old: …Why, but then the whole judicial law of God shall oblige us Christians as Carolostadius and others teach? I humbly conceive that the putting of some to death in the Old Testament, as it was a punishment to them, so was it a mysterious teaching of us, how God hated such and such sins, and mysteries of that kind are gone with other shadows. `But we read not' (saith Erastus) `where Christ hath changed those laws in the New Testament.' It is true, Christ hath not said in particular, I abolish the debarring of the leper seven days, and he that is thus and thus unclean shall be separated till the evening; nor hath he said particularly of every carnal ordinance and judicial law, it is abolished. But we conceive, the whole bulk of the judicial law, as judicial, and as it concerned the Republic of the Jews only, is abolished, though the moral equity of all those be not abolished; also some punishments were merely symbolical, to teach the detestation of such a vice, as the boring with an aul the ear of him that loved his master, and desired still to serve him, and the making of him his perpetual servant. I should think the punishing with death the man that gathered sticks on the Sabbath was such; and in all these, the punishing of a sin against the Moral Law by the magistrate, is moral and perpetual; but the punishing of every sin against the Moral Law, tali modo, so and so, with death, with spitting on the face: I much doubt if these punishments in particular, and in their positive determination to the people of the Jews, be moral and perpetual: As he that would marry a captive woman of another religion, is to cause her first to pare her nails, and wash herself, and give her a month, or less time to mourn the death of her parents, which was a judicial, not a ceremonial law; that this should be perpetual because Christ in particular hath not abolished it, to me seems most unjust; for as Paul saith, He that is circumcised becomes debtor to the whole law, sure to all the ceremonies of Moses his law: So I argue, a peri, from the like He that will keep one judicial law, because judicial and given by Moses, becometh debtor to keep the whole judicial law under pain of God's eternal wrath." (Samuel Rutherford, Divine Right of Church Government: 1646 pgs 493-494).
Rutherford's last sentence is, I believe, the key to why the Assembly adopted the approach it did in 19:4. Bringing the civil laws over entire into the New Covenant brings a specific Mosaic ordinance into the church and runs afoul, by parity of reasoning, of Paul's prohibition of circumcision. By recognizing that the ten commandments were the eternal moral law written on men's hearts and were thus pre Mosaic, and recognizing them as the fundamental principles of equity, the Divines left the way open for Christian princes then, and Christian voters now to learn wisdom from God's civil laws and to apply them to our own settings as needed.
Colin:
In reply to:[color:"blue"] But perhaps your lack of knowledge is due in part to the neo-puritan publishers like The Banner of Truth who have systematically suppressed this historical aspect of the Puritans in order so that potential readers like yourself would not be scared off from the so called "extremism" of the Puritan's view of civil law.
One wonders if you have even read Ferguson's paper after a remark like that. He is one of the major "Banner men" and he has no qualms discussing the puritan use of the God's law, several times noting in detail how "many of the seventeenth-century writers did uphold many (but,…not necessarily all) of the Mosaic judicial penalties" (TARC p.344), a thesis he documents in some detail throughout the essay. (TARC p.317: 327,8: 332,3: 334, 337,8: 344: 348)
Colin:
In reply to:[color:"blue"] And how can you read WCF XXIII:3 and its proof texts used? Or for example, the proof texts used to the Larger Catechism and Deut 21:18-21 (Q128) and Deut 22:8 (Q135) and Exodus 22:2-3 (Q136) and LC Questions 139 which cites Lev 18:1-21 and Lev 20:15-16?
Using the proof texts to chapter 23 to argue for theonomy falls into a problem. In this setting "one cannot reason by synedoche as though holding to capital punishment for some serious crimes implied holding to the entire Mosaic judicial system." For many writers before and during the period held that sins against the so-called first table of the law were capital offenses, yet they also believed that the Mosaic judicial law as such was no longer binding." (Ferguson, TARC p.337, 338) As an example of such men Ferguson names Bullinger, he could have added both Calvin and Bucer who hold the same position.
Colin:
In reply to:[color:"blue"] John Winthrop was hardly an "obscure" figure. He was a major puritan leader in New England and the first puritan Governor of Massachusetts in the early 17th century. His Journal is a major primary source document for New England puritan studies. Your cavaliar attempt to dismiss his weighty testimony amounts to not wanting to be honest with historical facts. And I have also previously cited the Works of John Cotton and Samuel Willard and Nathaniel Ward whom you have totally ignored.
But as we have seen, Winthrop was not a theonomist as the Book of Lawes and Libertyes makes clear.
Colin:
In reply to:[color:"blue"] No Reconstructionist has ever "ignored the uniqueness of the nation of Israel". That is a typical strawman accusation no different than the one raised by the typical Arminian who falsely claims that Calvinism "ignores" evangelism or human responsibility.
But what theonomists have refused to admit is that the change of covenant from one where the church and state were co-extensive to one where they were not could have a significant impact on whether a particular case law is or is not valid today.
Colin:
In reply to:[color:"blue"] Chapter XXIII:3 is a theonomic chapter that even goes further than what Theonomists themselves will allow (ie. State sanctions against heresy).
Please supply a scriptural proof for the your assertion that state sanctions against heresy have no place in the New Covenant. Note: since Bahnsen (whose views I am critiquing) refuses to allow the covenantal shift to invalidate any case laws, please limit the grounds of your reasoning to either explicit Scriptural statements or theological deductions that do not have the covenantal shift either inherent in or underlying them.
Colin:
In reply to:[color:"blue"] And the new Ligon Duncan article can be answered by the fact that he accuses all theonomists of being "anti-Confessional". This accusation is contrary to the PCA's own 25 year old official position on Theonomy which forbids using the WCF to settle the Theonomy issue. [/quote}
Are you saying that a PCA church policy is inerrant? Or that a minister of the PCA may not present reasons why a policy should be reconsidered? Colin: [quote]Nor has any ordained Elder in the OPC been charged either.
No but at least one, Bahnsen, had his ordination delayed two years.
Colin:
In reply to:[color:"blue"] If Ligon Duncan truly believes in what he writes, then he ought to do the moral thing and bring charges against Theonomists in the PCA for being "anti-Confessional". A failure to do so would be a violation of his own vows as an Elder.
Perhaps he is even now filing charges. After all, his paper came out only a few weeks ago.
Colin:
In reply to:[color:"blue"] Furthermore, Duncan relies heavily on Ferguson's 1990 Anti-Theonomy Essay without interacting or acknowledging Greg Bahnsen's 1993 Response to Ferguson or Martin Foulner's 1997 book on Theonomy and the Westminster Confession. This is a scholarly lapse on Duncan's part.
Bahnsen's responses to Ferguson essay ignore a number of the points Ferguson made. To say that Duncan needed to refer to Bahnsen's responses to justify his use of Ferguson's article would be correct only if Bahnsen had adequately answered Ferguson on those points. But in every case where Duncan cites Ferguson we find Bahnsen making either no responses or an inadequate response to Ferguson's point. Bahnsen does not answer Ferguson on his argument that one may not argue from synodoche from the proof texts of 23:3, he nowhere answers Ferguson's point that
"it is difficult, to the point of impossibility—in this context in which the question of the continuation of the Mosaic judicial system had been long and heatedly discussed—to believe that the Westminster Divines would attempt to express a theonomic viewpoint by the wording we actually find in the Confession." (Ferguson, Assembly pp. 328,9)
While Bahnsen's response to Ferguson's demonstration "that the theonomic interpretation of the principle of general equity is not identical with that adopted by the Puritan writers" is to argue that Ferguson
“exegetically confuses the notion of an "equity" found in the law with the logically distinct and philosophically different notion of "the equity of the law ” http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pe170.htm " target="_blank">http:// http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pe170.htm
But Bahnsen fails to provide the necessary definitions of which of these “equities” is the one he thinks Ferguson is advocating and the differing one he thinks the Divines used. Nor does he supply any supporting evidence, such as a statement wherein the term “general equity” is differently defined by a Divine. Neither does Foulner provide such a definition. This is the first blow to his argument. He himself inflicts upon his argument the major blow when he goes on to claim
“When the Westminster theologians spoke of the "general equity of" the judicial laws, they referred to the underlying moral principle which is illustrated by the particular cases mentioned in the judicial laws. Thus in Confessional context we find that they offered as a proof text the example of 1 Cor. 9:8-10 -- which applies the illustration of the muzzled ox (via the underlying principle) to the case of the unpaid pastor….”
Tp - Bahnsen does not seem to realize that by applying the reference to the unmuzzled ox to the case of the unpaid pastor in 1 Cor. 9:8-10, he is supplying a perfect illustration of the doctrine of equity as practiced in the English legal system at the time of the Divines or, as Ferguson put it when discussing the same Scripture, “answering the question how would the law-giver apply his law in this situation.” Old Testament law did not specifically provide for the maintenance of non-priestly religious teachers. How would the lawgiver answer this question? Paul’s answer’s from the general moral principle of the labourer is worthy of his hire illustrated in the case of the oxen. In other words, Bahnsen has provided the perfect illustration of the concept of equity that Ferguson, who used the same Scripture to make the same point, believes the Divines were using. In so doing, Bahnsen has only proved that he and Ferguson share the same root concept of general equity and inadvertently refuted his misunderstanding of Ferguson’s position.
Bahnsen also made the following errors in his response to Ferguson. He misunderstands the confessional definition of the term "moral law" (see above), misrepresented Gillespie and Rutherford as theonomists when both of them as shown above denied the theonomic thesis, the former with respect to Mosaic punishments and the latter with respect to Mosaic crimes. He nowhere counters Ferguson's observation that the divines can be shown not to have been of one mind on the question of if or how the civil laws remained valid for the New Covenant, and Ferguson's demonstration that the WCF was deliberately designed as a consensus document, not one that would settle every question. Nor does he deal with Ferguson's argument that the particular proof texts chosen to support the assertions of Chapter 19 demonstrate the correctness of the usual Calvinist view over against the theonomic understanding of this passage. It is particularly significant that Bahnsen ignores the above mentioned Burgess citation despite the fact that Burgess may have been the key player in the drafting of 19:4. In view of his failures to deal with the fundamental points in Ferguson's argument Bahnsen in is no position to challenge Ferguson's conclusion.
" But theoretical theonomy as such is not the teaching of the Westminster Confession of Faith.” (p. 348).
Therefore Duncan did not need to bother referring to Bahnsen's article since, on the points Duncan had referenced Ferguson, Bahnsen has failed to overturn Ferguson's arguments. And, as noted above, since Foulner's book is demonstrably one sided, there was no need for Duncan to refer to it either especially the sources he references nowhere counter Dumcan's analysis of the Confession. Colin:
In reply to:[color:"blue"] But Duncan's entire comments on WCF XIX:4 can easily be rendered moot by simply borrowing your own response to Chapter XXIII:3 (i.e. Erroneous)
No they can't. Just because somebody does not provide grounds for his assertion does not necessarily mean your different and equally unsupported assertion is equally valid. Lacking reasons both assertions may be wrong, one may be right or both may be right. The proof of the pudding is in the eating i.e. the reasons behind the assertions. Since Bahnsen's reply fails to overturn the arguments by Ferguson the Duncan rests on, the Duncan/Ferguson case needs to be answered by theonomists not name -called.
Gentlemen must we go through this again? I think I speak for a majority of people here who are tired of the Theonomy Debates. they're not at all edifying. Can we but return to our study of the scriptures and leave this debate once and for all?
Here here Prestor[img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/bravo.gif" alt="bravo" title="bravo[/img], I think the time has come where it is fruitless to debate Theonomy.<br>That doesn't mean that the topic isn't important, but enough has been said on the issue already.
