Theonomy Wars! - Some Thoughts From Ole AD

The Difference Between Obstinance and Serious Objections to Theonomy

Hoo boy, there was quite a bit of obstinance on display yesterday on Twitter regarding Theonomy. All right, well before we get into it, I got a funny story. On the weekend, I took my two sons and my wife to the paint store because we're deciding what colors to paint our new house.

And I never told my kids that they could pick the color for their room, but somehow they got it in their minds that they could. Obviously I'm not crazy. But anyway, my toddler instantly was drawn to this color.

This is a very bright, obnoxious orange color. And he seemed to think that this would be a great color for his room. This is exactly why I didn't say that they could pick the color for their room. Obviously, this is not going to be the color of the room.

But what's interesting about this color is that Sherman Williams has titled this color obstinate orange, which is a perfect color for a title for a color that a toddler would choose. Anyway, yesterday was interesting.

There was a mixed bag. Not every argument against theonomy that I saw yesterday is an example of obstinance, but there were some that were. And what I want to do in the video today is respond to some of those that are more serious, that deserve respect, that deserve attention.

And to be quite honest, there are some arguments against theonomy that I feel the weight of. And I think that there are some good points being made, but let me first give you an example of obstinance.

Here's an example of an obstinate argument. Adam, you are inconsistent and you are a hypocrite. And the reason you're a hypocrite is because you don't want to execute yourself for lust of the heart, because Jesus said that if you commit lust in the heart, then you've committed adultery.

And so therefore, if the penalty for adultery is death, you should commit, you should, you should turn yourself in to the civil governing authorities for having lust in your heart towards a woman. You hypocrite.

And of course, the answer to that is pretty easy. Anyone who's thought about theonomy for two seconds would know the answer to that. And there's a difference between a sin and a crime. And obviously the crime of adultery in ancient Israel was punishable by the death penalty.

But the crime of lust, well, it actually isn't a crime. Lust is a sin, but not a crime. And so there's a distinction there. It'd be very difficult to prove a case of lust with two or more witnesses because it's in more of an internal matter that God takes very seriously, but at the same time, it's not a crime.

And I explained this to this guy very carefully, very nicely, very patiently. And he returned, you hypocrite, blah, blah. And that's an obstinate person. Now, not every argument against theonomy is an example of obstinance, and I saw quite a few good ones that deserve respect and deserve an answer.

And so let me give you an example of something that I responded to, and it's not an example of obstinance, even though you might be annoyed at the style of argumentation. This is someone who calls himself Bitcoin Moses, and I did a thread about how I think the just penalty for adultery is the death penalty.

I think God intends the civil magistrate to take adultery very seriously. And Bitcoin Moses here says, God didn't execute all the adulterers in the Old Testament. And I agree. In fact, I don't even think Israel did, and I don't think Israel's intended to.

You see, there's a difference between the Taliban and Sharia law and Christian law. The Sharia has the secret police that goes around, the religious police, and they're just looking for you to slip up.

They set up sting operations, and they're peeking through your windows and checking your computers and checking your cell phones and stuff like that just to find an infraction that they can bring against you.

And see, the law of God doesn't work that way. See, in Israel, there weren't people peeping through your windows and checking your email list and stuff like that. No, in fact, the death penalty could only be given to someone, or someone could only be convicted of a crime, rather, with two or more witnesses.

And so the type of adultery that would have been executable in Israel isn't just any adultery. It's public adultery where the person is just flamboyantly like, yeah, I'm sleeping with this woman, and who cares?

You know what I mean? It's essentially the kind of adultery that is essentially abject rebellion. So people that are kind of keeping it private, that's a serious sin. And God takes that very seriously.

But it wouldn't be prosecutable. Furthermore, again, the idea, and I think a lot of times with God's law, is to drive the evil into the darkness. People often say about abortion, well, if you make abortion illegal, all it's going to do is make people go into the alleyways and do their abortions with a back alley abortion.

And I say, good, that's where evil belongs, not flamboyantly waived in front of everybody, but rather in private, in the back alleys and things like that, where God still sees you, but it's not on display.

We don't tolerate that kind of stuff publicly. And that's what I think was going on with the law of Israel when it comes to adultery and homosexuality and things of that nature. I don't think people were being stoned left and right and willy nilly and stuff like that.

And I don't think that God prescribes any kind of, you know, secret religious police kind of thing like it does in Sharia and the Taliban. Anyway, so I agreed with Bitcoin Moses. But then he, he, he brings the Christian version of Taliban, you know, kind of argumentation, which I find very annoying.

And so what I, what I, what I, what I said to him, he says, this is, you guys sound like the Christian Taliban. You should really take a step back and listen to yourself. And so, again, this is an annoying style of argumentation.

I don't think Christian law is anything like Sharia law. I don't think that, and let me just make sure I'm clear here. I'm not for instituting the law of Israel one-to-one to the modern context. No, I think that there's a general equity.

There's general principles that apply to the civil magistrate today, not the specificity of Israel's law. But even if I did agree with the specificity of Israel's law, it's still nothing like the Taliban.

I think a lot of people kind of picture the old law of Israel almost like a horror show. And it's just really not like that. And I'm not saying this guy's doing that. I don't think he is, but some people seem to.

And I think that's really, it's disrespectful to God's law. God's law to Israel was not like Sharia law, not at all. Anyway, but this is not an obstinate person. You see, what he says was, listen to this, I think this is something that we should consider because on the one hand, I want to have purity in our justice system, in our law, in our morality, but there's a reality we need to deal with.

Sometimes you need to deal with the, you need to play with the hand you've been dealt. Here's what he says. He says, admittedly, I don't know all the issues, but my deep distrust of governments has me leery of giving them more power over non-violent criminals, execute murderers, rapists, pedophiles, kidnappers, traitors, maybe a few others, but adulterers and fornicators.

No, and I totally understand. And I actually agree with him here that the way that our government is now, the way that our people are now, you wouldn't, like, we do have kind of a bit of a police state.

We do set up sting operations and have a police force that I think oversteps its bounds a lot of times. And so would we want people to be investigating your cell phones and stuff like that and setting up sting operations to catch you in an adulterous affair so they get you and stuff like that?

I don't really think we would want that. That strikes me as more similar to what you have in Sharia systems with the religious police and stuff like that. So I understand that. I totally get where he's coming from here.

So this is not an obstinate person. He doesn't think that the old law was like Sharia, but he doesn't want to give the government, who's already overreaching their authority, more power to execute people than they should already have.

I get that. I feel the weight of that, and it is a concern. More about that kind of thing in a minute. I want to talk about, this is from Ezra Dulles, and this is, again, not an obstinate argument against theonomy.

I think we should feel the weight of this. We should take this seriously and be ready to answer when someone talks like this. So I was in a conversation where I was saying that Paul calls the government God's deacon or servant, if you translate it into English.

And Ezra responds, he says, the weakness of this argument, talking to me, is that the Hebrew prophets also called very supremely vile pagan nations the instruments of God's justice. Sorry, A .D., but tasking the church with any geopolitical outcome is seeking alliance with demonic principalities.

And he's right about this, because on the one hand, God says that the government, the civil government, is his servant to punish evil and to promote good. But at the same time, he uses evil governments to accomplish his purposes.

He did this with Babylon, to judge Israel, and things like that. And so what Ezra's saying here is that this is just, Romans 13 is just kind of describing a brute fact about nations. God uses nations to do his will.

And that is definitely true. But I think Romans 13 is not just talking about what is the case. I think there is a prescription in Romans 13 as well. And I'll explain what I mean. So yes, it is just a fact that governments serve God.

They are just servants. They're deacons. That's a fact of life. That's how it is. That's what Paul says. That's a description of the situation. But there's also a prescription here, because when it says they should punish evil, they're there to punish evil and to promote good.

That's actually prescribing a role for the government as well. So it's describing the fact that they are God's servant, but it's also prescribing what those governments ought to be doing. And so it's not necessary that governments are demonic principalities.

It just has worked out that way very often in our history, when our government doesn't do justice according to God's standard. And that's what I told them. I said the point is that a government should be Christian.

A government should embrace its role as God's servant. And when it's promoting good and punishing evil, it should do that according to God's standards of justice. And so we shouldn't want to have a demonic government.

We should want to have a Christian government. And so here's how Ezra responds. And again, this is not obstinance. This is something that a lot of people feel this way about theonomy and all of that. And I understand that.

I think it's worthy of respect. Here's what Ezra says. He says, can the narrow way control a majority rule system? And he quotes from Matthew 7. And then he says, should the church judge those outside of it?

And then he quotes 1 Corinthians. And he says, I realize this leads into a larger pre-mill, post-mill debate, but those texts are pretty big roadblocks for me. And Ezra, it's not just you. They're pretty big roadblocks for a lot of people.

And these aren't the only ones. There's other texts like this that people say, well, look at this. How does this make sense? My kingdom is not of this world. That kind of thing. There's a lot of them like that.

And I think as theonomists, we need to have an answer for this. This is not something that we should just heap scorn upon. This is not something where we say, oh, you just hate God's law. No, this actually does deserve an answer.

A couple of things about the first one, Ezra, and I hope you don't mind if I talk to you directly. Can the narrow way control a majority rule system? There's a couple of things here. Number one, it assumes that a majority rule system is what we ought to have, which I don't think is necessarily a very easy assumption to make.

So that's the first thing. And then the second thing, it also assumes that the narrow way means that Christians will always be the minority. I don't think either of those are necessarily true. And you kind of acknowledge this, Ezra.

You say this kind of brings up a larger kind of pre-mill, post-mill debate. And I think it definitely does. Because as a post-millennial person, I believe that the gospel will go throughout the world and most people will convert to Christ.

I think the Holy Spirit will convert tons of souls. And there will be a time in our future where most people are Christians. And it's going to be awesome because we're going to have regenerate believers.

There's going to be tons of members of churches. And we're going to all talk about the Lord. We're going to all talk about justice and how great God is and all kinds of things from a Christian perspective.

And that's going to be great. We're not there yet. So I don't think the narrow way means that there's not going to be that many Christians in the future. In fact, I think that there's going to be tons of Christians in the future.

And so if we were in a majority rule system, then Christians could control that. But I don't think necessarily that even a majority rule system is ideal. So there's a few things there. Obviously, this is not a full response, but that's kind of where I would start with that, Ezra.

The second thing is, should the church judge those outside of it? And this is, I think there's a confusion here because every theonomist that I know makes a distinction and some of them make it a lot sharper than others.

And I understand the debates there, but there's a distinction between the authority of the civil government and the church. And so when Paul's talking about how, you know, who am I to judge those outside of the church or should judge someone inside the church?

I don't think he's talking as a civil magistrate because in the church, with this church's realm of authority, the keys of the kingdom, you know, the church decides who's in and who's out, you know, that kind of thing.

That's where Paul is and that's where he's talking. It's an instruction for the church. But if you were a Christian judge or a prosecutor or something like that, or maybe a Christian congressman or something like that, I don't think Paul's words in 1 Corinthians apply to you because if somebody were to make the argument that you're a Christian prosecutor, let's say, and the person you're prosecuting is an unbeliever or a Muslim or something, I don't think you would, you would, I think you would instantly see the problem if they said, well, in 1 Corinthians, Paul says not to judge outsiders.

Well, yeah, he's talking about the church, but as a civil governing authority, that is your whole responsibility to execute justice. And you're supposed to do it according to at least the general equity of God's law to sojourners and native born alike.

So you're supposed to do it to believers and unbelievers alike, one law for both sets. And so you kind of see what I'm saying here, that the civil government and the church, they should both submit themselves to God's authority in those specific areas.

So nobody takes authority in an autonomous way, but they have two different realms, two different spheres of authority. And that's something we're going to talk about in a minute. But you see these questions, these aren't obstinate questions.

And so if you're a theonomist or even some flavor of theonomy, whatever it is, because a lot of people think that's a confusing term, and I sort of understand why. We don't want to just say, oh, Ezra, you just hate God's law.

It's not that simple. These are good questions that he's asking. And I think that there are good answers to them that, again, I have just scratched the surface of them. But this deserves respect. This deserves an answer.

It deserves a clear answer too, if there is one. Now, one final thing. Cody Leibolt was asking this question online. He also asked me in a private conversation, and I didn't answer it yet. And I consider Cody a friend.

He hates theonomy, no question about that. But I consider him a friend. There's no, I don't have a problem with him hating theonomy. I'm used to that. But anyway, so he asked this question online. I can't find it right now, but I want to get this recording done.

He basically said, do you agree with Gary North and Bonson and Rush Dooney that we should abolish the First Amendment or at least change it? And that's his question. He wants a yes or no answer. And Cody, I hope you don't mind if I just talk to you directly.

There is a yes or no answer, but it's a little bit more complicated than that. And that's just the reality. Now, before I go into that, let me say, I definitely have been influenced by Gary North and some of these guys and stuff like that.

That being said, I don't agree with everything that they've said. It's just that simple. It's okay for me to say that. I don't think Greg Bonson or Gary North or Rush Dooney is infallible. I got a lot of value from them.

Actually, I got a lot more value. I'm actually more influenced by this guy on the screen right now. This is Brian Schwartley. And I recommend Brian Schwartley to you. I have actually not watched this series that he did on natural law two years ago, but I did watch a previous series he did on natural law, which he believes in, by the way.

He's got his own specific Covenanter view of it. But anyway, he's very critical of Rush Dooney and some of the Christian reconstructionists, and I have gotten a lot of value from that as well. I recommend this guy.

I haven't watched this series, but his previous series on natural law was excellent. He's a little long-winded, and he's kind of an acquired taste, no question about it. But I recommend his stuff very much.

He's a very smart guy, clearly. But anyway, oh, by the way, this is why I don't know whether to call myself a theonomist anymore or not, because some people would say, because I agree with Brian Schwartley on so many things, I'm not a theonomist.

And I'm like, well, I can understand that. I don't know. I don't really care for that. I'm not zealous for the terms, but I believe in the general equity of God's law. Anyway, so as far as the First Amendment is concerned, let me just read it real quick.

It says, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for address of grievances.

Now, there's a mixed bag here. There's some things here that I have no problem with as they're written. But if you want my ideal situation, if I was hypothetically made king of the United States and I could set up whatever government I wanted and people would listen, no, I would definitely alter this.

I would make this more specifically Christian, more specifically Christian. And I don't think it goes far enough. So the answer is, do I want to amend the First Amendment? Would I want to change it? Yes, I would want to change it.

That being said, practically speaking, and from a pragmatic perspective, if you asked me today, should we today change it given our current situation, our current state of the church, our current government structure, everything, as it is, would I change it?

Probably not. Probably not. And I'll explain myself in just a moment. Now, the First Amendment is here and I said what I just said, but I'm a Westminster guy and I'm a Presbyterian. And I pretty much adopt the Westminster confession without exception.

I think it's a very good description of what the Bible teaches. I do take a few exceptions, but they're not really relevant here. But this is what it says about the civil magistrate. I think this is extremely important to hear and to believe because I think I would like a First Amendment that could also incorporate this view of the civil government.

Here it is. It says the civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the word and the sacraments or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven. That's important. So let's just stop there.

These are separate realms of authority. The civil government may not administer the sacraments, baptize people, administer communion. The civil government may not decide who's in the kingdom and who's out of the kingdom.

It may not administer the word, those things. So it's a very different sphere of authority. But listen to this. It says yet he has the authority and it is his duty to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed.

So it can't administer the sacraments itself. It can't use the power of the keys of the kingdom itself, but it has the duty to make sure that peace is preserved in the church, to make sure that the church is actually doing the ordinances of God in a settled way, observing that kind of stuff, and to suppress blasphemies and heresies and corruptions and abuses in the church.

It has the duty to reform or prevent those things. Here's what it says in part two. It says, for the better affecting whereof, he has the power to call synods to be present at them and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God.

You see, the civil government has a lot more authority than I think the First Amendment allows it to have. See, I believe the Westminster Confession is more accurate than the First Amendment, if that makes sense.

So the civil government does have the authority to suppress heresies and blasphemies. I think the way that we often interpret the establishment of religion, prohibiting us free speech and stuff like that, the way that we are in our modern context interpret that, it's a little bit too libertine.

It's a little bit too libertine because I do think the government has the authority to suppress blasphemy and heresy. Whereas most of the time, when we're talking about abridging freedom of speech, we're essentially saying the government does not have that authority.

Now, again, the Westminster Confession is genius. It's very careful to say, it doesn't have the authority to decide what blasphemy and heresy is, but it does have the authority to call a synod to make sure that they decide.

And so the civil magistrate can execute this justice and can execute some of this stuff that the church itself is deciding. So there's a cooperation there, but in separate spheres. And so if you wanted me to just kind of give you a quick yes or no, should the First Amendment be amended?

Yes, I think it should be more explicitly Christian. And I think that there's stuff here in the Westminster Confession that we would want to add to what the First Amendment says to make it more explicit.

Because the way it is now, in my opinion, it's too libertine. It's too libertine. I think we should clearly not establish a denomination of Christianity or something like that. But when it comes to free speech and blasphemy and heresies and stuff like that, I think the civil government does have a role in suppressing that stuff.

I don't think it's just libertine craziness all day long. Muslims in the church and Muslims in the government and all kinds of Zoroastrians and Satanists can be in the government. No, I don't think that's actually the way that it should work.

And I think oftentimes people interpret it to mean that way. I'm not saying anyone in particular is doing that here. I'm not sure. But I would want it to be more explicit. Let's just put it that way. And actually, I hear a lot of good arguments that say, well, when they wrote the First Amendment, it was assumed that it would be talking about Christianity and different denominations and stuff like that.

That's fine, and I'm okay with that argument. But if you're asking me if I would change it, yeah, I would change it to make it more explicit. I've been on record for a long time saying that I wish that the Constitution was more explicitly Christian, acknowledging Christ as King.

That's what I would prefer. Now, do I think we should change this right now given the state of the church? No, I don't think we should. And I could be wrong about that, but I don't think we should. I think the state of the church is in such a sorry state right now that if the government tried to call a synod to decide certain things, that it would just be so chaotic and so impossible.

That's what it seems like. But then again, I don't know. I mean, would God be honored to work through a synod that we were trying to do the right thing, but obviously we've got crazy differences in our denominations and all that kind of stuff?

Well, I don't know. I mean, it's hard to say. It's not quite as easy when you're talking about the hand you've been dealt, the situation we currently find ourselves in. It's not ideal. It's not ideal.

And so that's why I think sometimes people give vague answers to this kind of a question because it's a hard question to answer. But when it comes to the ideals, I don't think it's that difficult a question to answer.

No, I don't think that the First Amendment is the end all be all. I don't think it goes far enough. I would change it if I could. And I do think that the civil governing authority has the authority to suppress blasphemies and heresies like the Westminster Confession says.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful. It sounded a little bit rambly, but let me just say one last thing, fellow theonomists, or whether you're not, even if you're not a theonomist, but you do kind of believe in the general equity of God's law, so you're not an autonomy guy.

You don't think it's just chaos, but you're somewhere along the spectrum of believing that God's law has a place for our civil government as it's written in the Bible. Let me just say this, that just because there are a lot of obstinate people out there when it comes to God's law, a lot of naysayers and people like the guy in the beginning that said, well, you know, you should just, you should, you gotta be consistent.

You gotta kill people that lust in their heart. First of all, you don't gotta kill anybody. First of all. But just because there are people like that doesn't mean that everyone who pushes back in a harsh kind of direct kind of way is obstinate.

I think I gave two good examples here. Ezra, he's not pulling punches. He's talking directly. He thinks this is wrong. He thinks that if I say what I'm saying, that I must be seeking alliance with demonic principalities.

I disagree completely, but he's not being obstinate. He clearly isn't. He's got some serious issues and I think that they are worthy of respect and worthy of answers. Same thing with this guy, Bitcoin Moses.

Yeah, he started with the Taliban thing, but let's not have a hair trigger about this kind of stuff. I get it. I've been there where Bitcoin Moses is. I've said that kind of thing before about Sharia law and stuff like that.

There's no obstinance here though. I mean, the first thing I say to him is, it's not like that at all. I agree with you in your original tweet where you said it wasn't, that law of Israel wasn't like Sharia.

And he responds and he says, here's my issue. I don't trust the government. And I get that. There's no obstinance there. So let's just, when we're talking about God's law, if you're a general equity guy or a theonomy guy, whatever you want to call yourself.

I know you've heard a lot of obstinance out there, but that doesn't mean everybody's like that. And I think that there's a lot of good questions that if we're all honest with ourselves, we've had ourselves.

Let's try to answer with respect and dignity and patience because we know how patient God has been with us. That's my suggestion. Take it or leave it. But I hope you found this video helpful. God bless.