Satanic Epistemology, Part 1 | Ep. 5

Government as God’s Servant and the Question of Epistemology

The first thing that needs to be said is that government is God's servant. And welcome to off the cuff. My name is Joe Gormley. I'm here with pastor Jeff Klee. We're and we are here again to bring you culturally relevant Isagesis or exegesis, what are we doing?

Okay, so we're gonna exegete the culture draw out from what's happening and rightly diagnose. And then we're gonna take our Exegesis of the text. Okay, and see that through the biblical lens good. I'm glad you explained that because we had some questions actually very excited that we did last week.

We got everything out there. We put out four podcasts and we've got more Recorded and but we're probably gonna put this one out because of the timing we have Things going on in the in the culture that we want to discuss specifically something that happened in Iowa, right?

There was a few Satanists if you want to call them Satanists, they're Satanists that don't want to be called Satan. They do their social justice warriors that are pretending to worship a Satan. They don't believe in right in order to do something like say hey We can have our statue to be kind of thing because they want to have because they want to have a positive Impact they don't want to be negative.

They don't want to be a theist, right? Not theist because it's obvious. I mean, no, no and theist meaning God so they don't want to be no God. Yeah, so they want to be something. Yeah, because if they're just atheists, that's boring.

They're just like against something that they don't even believe in right, but if they could be Satanists, then they have some crazy agenda or some rituals and traditions and Incantations or whatever they're gonna do.

Yeah, so that brings some kind of positivity to their yeah their platform because they want to be I say 520 up is down down is up. That's positive. There you go. Yeah, there you go so apparently they put up a statue in Iowa and We had a man by the name of Michael Cassidy who said no.

No, that is that is not allowed in my town and he tore the things head off and stuffed it in a trash can. How about that? What do you think about that? Was he was he doing God's will or was he going against God's will so I think the Intuition of every Christian just rightly Identifies that is good.

Okay, like I think you just know right like when when you know that there's a Satan statue In the statehouse, right and a Christian man tears the head off the thing and stuffs in the trap. How does a Christian not cheer that?

The Christian Case for Tearing Down a Satanic Statue

Yeah, like Intuitively we know that that's not the meaning of freedom right the freedom to erect Satan statues that that's we know that but then you sort of have to back off for a second. What's our epistemology?

Yeah, how do we know how do we know like how do we justify this belief? Yeah, so yeah. And and when we try to apply an epistemology, that's not biblical maybe. Where else do we get epistemologies? Where do we learn how we know something?

Yeah, a lot of people don't think about that. You know epistemology is the study of how we know and for the Christian our conscience is held captive by the Word of God. So we have a standard. Mm-hmm.

This is the our rule of faith now all people have the ability to reason. But that's more or less perverted in the mind of people. So reason actually is. In epistemology, you can't even know what the Bible Says right unless you can read.

Yeah, unless you have the reasoning faculty to understand language. Yeah, so these two things are not against each other. Mm-hmm. And so there's this general revelation which includes Reason. Mm-hmm and that built into man, but then you have the specific revelation of Scripture which will help us answer questions like this.

I love to talk about rabbit trails that we're not going to go down today. Yeah, just for a future thought. So I was watching Bonson and Sproul debate on this is how to do Apologetics, yep, right and I couldn't figure out the difference between them.

This is why I call myself average Joe, right? I don't I mean I listen to this stuff, but yeah, I don't really get it to me presuppositional is apologetics and evidentiary. Apologetics is two birds of the same feather or you know, I think there's differences.

Um, but yeah, I would be on the RC Sproul side of that. Yeah. Yeah in that particular debate I'd probably be on the Bonson side. Yeah, not not necessarily because I disagree with either one of them. I think they're both great, you know, yeah I know with both I'd load both guns, you know.

Yeah, and there's times when I'm witnessing where I will pull the Bonson, you know. And just by what standard, you know, just because I'm gonna deconstruct their worldview and show how incoherent it is right, but that doesn't mean that I'm a full-on.

Right. Well, that's a position and that's a whole other show, which I think will be awesome really great about that. But but it goes back to epistemology and how do you know stuff right? Right. How do we know if tearing down a statue of Satan?

Yeah is wrong, right and we're we're Christians here, right and our audience is is for Christians, right? Nobody's gonna argue that just from a Christian perspective, but right but but how do we? How do we get into a wrong epistemology?

Romans 13, 1 Peter 2, and the Limited Role of Government

Well, let's let's just take this particular case study. Okay, and I'll show you kind of how I think it's objectively Right that he tore that that statue down. You have to begin with your worldview of that there is a God right and from general revelation Romans 1 teaches us you can know that much that there is a God in heaven, right and that he has revealed himself classical apologetics would appeal to the evidence of the resurrection and The prophecies fulfilled and the miracles that Jesus did all these things point that God has revealed himself in the Bible.

But so as far as epistemology goes, this is our standard and we have to ask the question All right, what role has God given government and in the New Testament? You probably have two preeminent texts there, right?

Romans 13 first Peter to write the first thing that needs to be said is That government is God's servant Romans 13 for Romans 13 you said is it? Deacon of God Romans 13 for the government itself a governor is God's deacon.

Mm-hmm his servant. So diakonos in the Greek and this servant of God is Delegated authority from the absolute authority of God. So there's only The absolute authority of God now if you go to this atheistic worldview Where there is no God then what's the highest?

Power in the universe. Well, it defaults to government. Government takes that role as the the highest power, but that that's the wrong worldview, right? It's wrong starting point right puts man humanism man at the center.

We have to have a standard. Yeah, now the second important text is first Peter to Where we're to be subject to these human institutions whether to the Emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him.

To punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. Punish and praise so if they're not doing punishing and praising, right? So they're outside of God's will yeah, and the role of government actually there is very limited.

So we're getting this limited role of government from the Bible and to limit the power of government is to set people free, right? So freedom is actually coming from here. Why is that so limited because the the governor is gonna bear the sword?

Romans 13 right the use of a sword to initiate force to force or compel someone has to reach a very high standard in other words if somebody murders He should fear because The governor will hold a sword against them and and they're gonna take your life for taking someone else's and so the governor Can rightly deter crime that's police.

Military, that's a proper role for government. But can a governor? Say I am going to compel you to pay taxes. In order to meet the need of someone who has less Marxism, right, right. How can you use the sword you have to be willing to back up your taxes with jail time or or whatever?

The punishment is going to be which you can't justify that from the Bible. So you can't justify so much of what the government does in our culture. Because they're backing it up by the sword. You can't compel people with the sword now.

Conversely you say well. Aren't they also supposed to reward the good? It doesn't say in first Peter reward the good. Hmm it says Praise the good praise. That's very different. Yes, then extracting money by the edge of the sword and stealing and and stealing so but we're not actually here getting into like Welfare and whatnot.

I bring it up because the government does have a rightful role to commend what is good and They can say yeah, we're gonna have a Christmas tree in the Iowa Capitol because that's good because it's good.

And where do they get that understanding of good? From the Bible. Yes. Historically we do yeah, but our current culture wants to argue that we don't get right on the Bible that we get that from some sort of social convention or social Agreement some sort of social covenant even if if they really use that language.

But and what's your big word like solopsis or something like that that you taught me? Solipsistic. Solipsistic. That's when you're like looking through the lens of your own time and thinking that's the only standard and because you're so used to it.

Sure, right. So that's how people are today thinking that what we view as Liberty and the role of government is just the way it always Was when it's not that's like the 1950s onward the Supreme Court decisions.

A Christian Nation, the First Amendment, and Iowa’s Constitution

Let's back it up earlier not be solipsistic. Yeah, and say how did the Supreme Court view this nation in? 1892. Yeah, are you familiar with the case know which one Holy Trinity versus the United States all right?

So this there was a law passed a few maybe five years earlier in the late 1880s this was public school. No, this was about bringing in labor. You couldn't contract to bring an immigrant in to work. Well there was a church, Holy Trinity in New York that contracted an Anglican preacher to come and fill their pulpit and The law said no and this got chased all the way up to the Supreme Court.

You can't contract to bring them in and that the ruling the lower court ruling was overturned by the entire Supreme Court on What basis. Well they argued some on intent like it wasn't intended to target like intellectual labor.

It was more for you know manual labor right, but then the second part of the argument was so important. They said this is a Christian nation. Yes, and in explicit terms. They said that this is a religious nation and they cited the oath.

They cited the declaration you know of independence appealing to God they cited the that every Constitution of the states was Decidedly Christian. In fact they the states at the writing of the Constitution all had an Official religion for the state.

Yeah, whether or not they had religious tolerance or religious freedom. What about the First Amendment doesn't that didn't that overturn that well kind of says that the First Amendment is really for that federal that loosely held Federal yeah realism that we so what is the First Amendment?

Congress shall not impose correct so at the national federal level. There's not going to be an establishment of religion, and there's never to be prohibiting the free exercise of religion, right? So in Iowa today, what does their Constitution say I?

Don't know what the Iowa the first line appeals to the Supreme Being. Wow. The Creator and and refers to him as the basis for everything that follows in Iowa to this day. What happened in Iowa the lawlessness was not Michael Cassidy?

Who tore the thing down right it was the lawlessness of? Erecting a bafflement in the house in the state chamber. This was lawlessness on the part of those people who did that the highest authority there is their Constitution and their Constitution specifically cites a dedication to the Supreme Christ.

It the it says supreme being there okay ruler of the universe kind of thing, okay? Yeah, so just and and this was actually dealt with early on in in the states very often. So there was a case that the 1892 decision appeals to which is that?

Pennsylvania I think that might have been involving. Was it that Supreme Court justice knows keen it wasn't we talked about Joseph story. It wasn't he was earlier, but there was the Supreme Court. Recognized in 1892 they recognized that Pennsylvania was a Christian Commonwealth.

And other ones were explicitly, but what they would say is it's generally Christian. So the the whole thing of what if the sectarian concern it was that and they talked about this in in the decision? It wasn't the difference between They'll mention Muhammad ism and the Dalai Lama and say it's it's not to make room for that but for the sectarian differences between Baptists and the Methodists and the Anglicans and Congregationalists that we're not going to have a religious test.

Liberty, Liberalism, and the Limits of the State

Well. It sounds to me like your big concern from a Epistemological standpoint yes, how are we learning these things? Why do we even question? Yeah that pulling down a statue of Satan could be wrong right because so what's happened then in the 1950s like the Supreme Court decisions to throw prayer out of school, and then following along with how do we let that happen?

I wasn't here. Yeah, I don't I wasn't there either and then in 1973 Roe vs. Wade. Yeah, you know just Thank you. They're redefining What was meant by the Constitution and by the early documents to to be this radical liberalism, right?

You know and and that liberalism. There's a difference between Liberty and Liberalism. Yeah, and this liberalism that's come up since the 1950s and 1960s is making the right to be unencumbered completely autonomous as This high value that kind of overrides everything so your right to your own sexual identity or this or to make yourself whatever gender you want to be or to To have any religious thing that you want to do.

All of these things have to have to be protected as the highest value in the culture so we took the Christian definition of Liberty. Yeah, and we imposed maybe the French definition of Liberty on yeah, French Revolution.

Which is what's their definition their definition of Liberty is? Everything it's it's libertarian. Yeah, it's libertine. Yes. It's everything is at your disposal. There are no limits. There are no right standard.

There is no standard by which we live and how much of a problem if we can't have a standard. Yeah, what's gonna happen next in our culture? So the standard that The Constitution recognizes is the biblical standard right that government actually is to be Exceptionally small and do very little it is to bear the sword so to to deter these these major Crimes it's not to to be like this parent Society the Nanny State yeah, the Nanny State.

It's not to be all those things so Christianity gives us this Liberty and It took time because if you think about the Reformation right Martin Luther was very big on Romans 13 because he was cracking down on a peasant's revolt that happened and so the role of government.

Obey your your rulers kind of like in all things. Meanwhile in the time of Martin Luther. They had a Baptist locked up in the tower. An Anabaptist an Anabaptist. Yes, when so Martin Luther is Doing great things, but simultaneously his political theory is very undeveloped at that time in history.

Right this poor man Fritz Erba is locked in the in darkness inside of a tower and just being thrown food and For like seven years. Yeah, that reminds her nothing other than his baptism. He refused to baptize his children.

Calvin, Knox, and the Biblical Roots of American Constitutionalism

So it hadn't developed yet. Let me just follow this train of thought and then I'll don't forget what you want to remind us of but so you have a development of understanding. From Calvin's Institutes in his last section the last aphorisms.

He talks about lesser magistrates interposing when there's tyranny. John Knox takes that to Scotland and the Scottish jurisprudence develops from that you get Blackstone and witherspoon. Witherspoon is the one who trains James Madison.

Who comes up with the separation of powers that you'd have three different government three branches of government and in the legislature? There's this bicameral situation based on population. Where does he get that he's trained at Princeton?

By John Witherspoon. In the Scottish common sense in this biblical ethic. Listen to this there was a study done by Donald Lutz and He went back and traced the quotes of the founding fathers from. I think it's 1760 until 1805 and it's just this vast study of all the literature of their writing and he isolated whenever something was cited quoted from.

One third of all the quotations came from the Bible in their political writings. Wow one third. That's great. The next after that was Montesquieu. But Montesquieu had less quotes than Deuteronomy just the book of Deuteronomy and then John Locke is after Montesquieu, okay, and John Locke has like half as much as the book of Deuteronomy and then after that is you know.

Somebody else. I don't know. I guess Blackstone would probably be the third. But the point is the Bible formed the the jurisprudence of the country. Yeah.