Continuing with my reply to JohnMark Reynolds’ original response, JMR said this:
My view of the forms of government described in the Bible follows this pattern. The Bible gives us no sanctified form of government for this life.
See: I think that JMR has made a somewhat-obvious oversight here: the Bible certainly gives us one form of government which is sanctified “in this life”: the government of the local church. And the really-stunning thing about that form of government is that it is primarily concerned with what? Maximizing the liberty of the individuals who opt in? Prolly not.
Not sure anyone can make that case. But even if that was the only example, and JMR’s response was, “well, I mean ‘civil government.’ We can’t apply how God wants the church run with how God thinks we might run the world,” (which, to be certain to say it, overlooks even the most rudimentary ability to reason on the part of those who might read the Bible) is a full-fledge constitution or political road-map even remotely necessary to apply moral principles in such a way that we can then rightly deduce how to work them out in a political philosophy?
My opinion is that this is the right application of liberty in this context: applying the relevant moral presuppositions necessarily in Scripture in order to obey as we ought to obey.
The government God established on Mount Sinai was for that people, at that place, at that time. Some laws were as shadows for the rest of us (dietary laws) to teach deeper theological truths and have no relevance to me today. (I can eat ham!) Other laws were the best that could be sustained in poor and nomadic cultures. Our much richer and non-nomadic culture can, for example, establish prisons.
It would be good here to make sure we re-establish my original complaint to Dr. Reynolds – because if we do that, and then look at his approach to dismissing it, we will find an instructive lesson.
What I said to him back when this exchange started was:
Let me suggest 3 things:1. Liberty is not, in and of itself, a virtue. Demanding that any government be restricted to minimizing the “loss of liberty” is not a principled requirement — let alone a biblically-principled requirement.
2. It’s interesting what the Bible says about who runs a government and therefore how much lordship over goods they ought to have. I would be interested to see JMR work that out over any period of time he’d like to invest in it.
3. As a convinced member of the vast ring-wing conspiracy (and also the subversive cult inside that conspiracy comprised of right-minded Calvinists), I don’t invest much in what either the right or the left forget daily about politics, economics, and sociology. Since all of these ought to be informed in some way by theology — that is, the right place of God, and the right place of man when compared to God — I expect that the secular left and the secular right will find themselves in the same place quickly since they are excluding the same necessary premise for all things.
The argument track he consistently works toward to responding is this: we have more stuff than they had when the books of the OT were written, so those books don’t speak directly to our experience. That is certainly what he has done here.
Now: what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with saying, as above, that we are not nomadic goat-herders? The problem with this reasoning is that no one is advocating that we need to be nomadic goat-herders. What I am saying, and have said, is that Liberty is not the primary objective or limiting factor of government. Justice is the primary ministry of civil Government. To keep the one-hit wonders from countermanding this thread on church authority, I’ll give a little Luther on this subject rather than the WCF:
You might say: “Why then do we have so many laws of the Church and of the State, and many ceremonies of churches, monastic houses, holy places, which urge and tempt men to good works, if faith does all things through the First Commandment?” I answer: Simply because we do not all have faith or do not heed it. If every man had faith, we would need no more laws, but every one would of himself at all times do good works, as his confidence in God teaches him.But now there are four kinds of men: the first, just mentioned, who need no law, of whom St. Paul says, I. Timothy i, “The law is not made for a righteous man,” that is, for the believer, but believers of themselves do what they know and can do, only because they firmly trust that God’s favor and grace rests upon them in all things. The second class want to abuse this freedom, put a false confidence in it, and grow lazy; of whom St. Peter says, I. Peter ii, “Ye shall live as free men, but not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness,” as if he said: The freedom of faith does not permit sins, nor will it cover them, but it sets us free to do all manner of good works and to endure all things as they happen to us, so that a man is not bound only to one work or to a few. So also St. Paul, Galatians v: “Use not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh.” Such men must be urged by laws and hemmed in by teaching and exhortation. The third class are wicked men, always ready for sins; these must be constrained by spiritual and temporal laws, like wild horses and dogs, and where this does not help, they must be put to death by the worldly sword, as St. Paul says, Romans xiii: “The worldly ruler bears the sword, and serves God with it, not as a terror to the good, but to the evil.” The fourth class, who are still lusty, and childish in their understanding of faith and of the spiritual life, must be coaxed like young children and tempted with external, definite and prescribed decorations, … until they also learn to know the faith. [Treatise on Good Works, XIV]
Note that carefully: Explicitly, Luther says that rules/laws are established to curtail the abuse of freedom. That is: because men are, at best, not followers of their faith in God, Luther appeals to Rom 13 to underscore the work of Government. Luther’s view was that if we live outside of grace and faith, we deserve the law. It is made for us. And it is Government’s cause to make sure this happens.
And we should think carefully about this: this is the model of the government God declared at Sinai, and the first act of the government which will be headed by Christ upon his return. This has nothing to do with agrarian cultures: it has to do with the way God has ordained government for us – and for our own good.
We also have a richer political and philosophical vocabulary. This is partly because we have learned the lessons (however imperfectly) from the wilderness government.
that’s an interesting assertion. I’d like to see up to three lessons we have learned “from the wilderness government” which ought to be useful in the interpretation that more liberty and less government is the right political philosophy.
Of course, the wilderness government did not last . . . and Israel was ruled by judges and later by kings.
I think it’s important to note that “the wilderness government was ruled by the Law from Sinai, and in that respect it was adjudicated by Moses and the men appointed by him to judge according to the law.
That is: the chief social objective of “the wilderness government” was justice. It certainly had the soteriological objective of setting a people apart for God’s purpose, but the way that worked out daily was the civil judgment to settle grievances among the people and the covenantal judgment against sin which was settled at the temple by sacrifice.
Here’s a bit to ponder, though:
There is much to learn in each period from Israel’s sacred history. We get ideas about the nature of man and some ideas about government, but not a full blown political philosophy or anything like it.
Interesting, right? “much to learn”?
What we should do is, again, go back to my original statement to Dr. Reynolds and see if I was pleading for a “full-blown political philosophy”. I was pleading for setting the right thing as first and foremost in our political philosophy. Liberty is not, in and of itself, a virtue. Demanding that any government be restricted to minimizing the “loss of liberty” is not a principled requirement — let alone a biblically-principled requirement. This is my main and central point. Arguing against a demand for a “full blown political philosophy” simply rushes past my point to make sure the philosophy department gets to have its say after all.
There is much of value to glean, but doing so is not simple. Our rulers are not David. They don’t have God’s special promises to David . . . so when our fallen rulers compare themselves to David (as one governor recently did) to justify staying in power, they are wrong. Governors are not monarchs!
I am certain I didn’t say they were. If Dr. Reynolds kept his eye on my actual concern rather than the concern that we should treat elected officials who are established by “we the people” as if they were established by Yahweh’s anointing through the prophet, a lot of the dust-up here would be eliminated.
Liberty is not, in and of itself, a virtue. Demanding that any government be restricted to minimizing the “loss of liberty” is not a principled requirement — let alone a biblically-principled requirement. That is my main point, and it is a wholly-Biblical point. I’d like to talk about that rather than the sins of stupid political panderers who give the Christian faith a bad name.
Again: there are principles, but they must receive modern application.
Let’s talk about one: liberty is not the chief end of government – justice is.
Israel’s sacred history is God’s unfolding plan of redemption, not a political guidebook!
And it happens to speak about the main end of government as God intends it for his people whom he is redeeming. It is an “also”, not the “only”. There’s no way to construe what I have said anywhere ever as saying otherwise.
The last bit will have to wait until Monday for a further treatment; may you all have a good weekend, and spend the Lord’s day in the Lord’s house with the Lord’s people.
March 13th, 2010 | 8:59 am | #1
Frank,
You say:
“the Bible certainly gives us one form of government which is sanctified “in this life”: the government of the local church. And the really-stunning thing about that form of government is that it is primarily concerned with what? Maximizing the liberty of the individuals who opt in? Prolly not.”
Even if the point of church government, whatever its form, is not to maximize liberty, it doesn’t follow that therefore that ought not to be one of the principal aims or methods of civil government.
If church is a Biblical form of government, and if that fact is relevant to civil government methods and polity (which is what we are discussing), what form of government ought to govern the church — congregational, episcopal, presbyterian, something else? And if, in some way, church government is a model for civil government (Else why would you invoke it?), how, precisely, do those competing forms of church government translate to politics? That is, what’s the political version of congregational or episcopal church government? And do we cast lots to get new senators and presidents, the way they did to get a new apostle to replace Judas?
Or, if you think the church is a kingdom, with King Jesus at the helm, what shall we do in the meantime, since, under the providence of God, global theocratic rule by Christ seems a very long way away at the moment? What shall we do now with the political institutions that actually exist? I have asked that question of many Christians who claim to be conservatives only to find out that, in fact, they are revolutionaries after all.
I find it odd that you invoke OT law and justice at the same time, as if, for example, slavery were justice. Persons aren’t property. You don’t get to own them. You don’t get to buy them and sell them like wheat or cloth. Sometimes justice and OT laws don’t go well together. In light of the NT, we now know they don’t. In this case, the case of slavery, Philemon is a giant step forward from the OT law. We now know better what love and justice look like than we did in the days of Deuteronomy.
In other words, there’s much in the OT laws that reflect, not the unchanging and perfect righteousness of God, but the hardness of ancient Jewish hearts, just as Jesus said the divorce laws did.
In short, JMR is right: the OT law is a law that is about as good as the ancient Jews could then receive. Much that is in it is not meant for all times and places. We’ll have to do our best to sort out which things in it are or are not enduring. That water is murky, and given the noetic effects of sin, it’s easy for us to be wrong.
March 13th, 2010 | 9:54 am | #2
And it happens to speak about the main end of government as God intends it for his people whom he is redeeming.
But is it the only end? Is Govt limited to only the examples in scripture? Where the authors intending on describing this is civil govt – this and no more? When the authors wrote, was it intended as a description of a Govt at a particular time and place, or was it intended as a normative statement for all govts at all times?
March 13th, 2010 | 10:24 am | #3
Frank Turk:
This is dead-on, Frank. Thank you. That said, however, I think we need to be aware that justice requires that all individual and communal agents within a government’s jurisdiction be protected, which includes that which is conventionally labelled liberty. As I have written before in an earlier post:
I would thus argue that the normative task assigned by God to the state, i.e., doing public justice, requires that it defend and fairly co-ordinate the respective spheres of the variety of authoritative agents in a given society, including the legitimate sphere of personal authority, or what is so often called liberty.
March 13th, 2010 | 1:29 pm | #4
Liberty is the end of justice.
March 13th, 2010 | 2:03 pm | #5
As one who evidently is a “modern,” I would prefer being represented by a steam punk robot. It seems much more appropriate to my Burke/Victorian self.
March 13th, 2010 | 6:26 pm | #6
The church is to maximize liberty when liberty is rightly understood. This assumes the Johannine maxim that truth makes one free. Government then must preserve liberty, and especially religious liberty, so that humans may have the opportunity to pursue the truth.
Thus while liberty is not a virtue in the sense of an acquired pattern of behavior or an infused disposition, liberty is the indispensable ground for the pursuit of virtue. It seems to me that this is why one must read the Bible “with the church” because reading in the sort of way articulated in this post misses so much. In the Middle Ages liberum arbtrium was so important that Bernard of Clairvaux saw it as the very image of God in humans. This is because in the freedom of choice one sees the cognitive and the affective come together.
This is also grounded in the very nature of God in which freedom and truth correspond. As Anselm of Canterbury knew all too well, God can only do what God’s nature allows because truth, wisdom, freedom, love, etc., are commensurate with God’s triune being.
Also, you are operating as though the good, the true, and the beautiful are distinct, but they are not.
Thus one can get a political philosophy out of scripture as read “with the church.”
March 13th, 2010 | 7:12 pm | #7
I forgot to mention one other point. I would prefer to say that the chief end of government is human flourishing, not in the sense that government can bring it about, but in the sense that government must create the minimum conditions within which it can occur. Justice is, of course, one important condition for human flourishing. But liberty is as well, especially when we consider the religious dimension of human flourishing. This is part of what motivated the early apologists.
Civil government and ecclesial government are complementary in this respect. They both provide the conditions for human flourishing. However, in the church human flourishing can occur in a way it cannot in the civil government because “the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”
So, there are parallels. The Catholics have it right about nature and grace, or as Bonaventure so eloquently puts it in the Itinerarium: Faith and reason are the parallel wings that the seraphim use to fly around the throne of God.
March 13th, 2010 | 7:23 pm | #8
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I see your point, that liberty is not in itself a virtue; justice is a virtue, and (if I understand your argument correctly) it is the role of the government to promote justice (not necessarily to maximize liberty).
It strikes me, though, that context is still very important in understanding how to apply this concept, even granted that we agree (which I do, insofar as I understand the argument). In modern American and Western European culture, liberty is increasingly being restricted, but not for the purpose of justice. Rather, liberty is being restricted by increasingly intrusive government to ensure equality of outcome. Individuals are favored or held back so as to promote the leveling of achievement of particular favored groups; the language of “rights” is used to demand that all receive what they want, regardless of merit or effort (or whether what they want is good for them or not).
Crime and bad behavior is increasingly medicalized or psychologized, rather than being viewed as an act by a free moral being.
Here, I think, we have the problem of liberty and justice in a new light: we cannot have justice unless people have liberty to make choices and face the consequences.
I suspect that this is a somewhat different cultural environment than that encountered by the Israelites, and so while human nature remains the same, the situation is different.
On a practical level in this fallen world, liberty requires justice; I am not really free to go about my business if I am afraid of being mugged or beaten on the way to work every day. But at the same time, justice requires a sense of human liberty: that someone could have acted differently than he did, and so can rightly be brought to justice for an action. I tend to think that the Bible generally assumes those two points, or at least the latter one, whereas our culture (I think) no longer truly does.
So, I can agree that liberty is not a virtue in itself, and justice is the function of government, but also add that to effectively communicate that, and apply it, today, we will have to read the Bible with an awareness of the differences in cultural context to be able to apply its teaching in an effective manner.
March 14th, 2010 | 8:55 pm | #9
Mr. Bauman said:
I think you’re missing the point, Mr. Bauman, of me bringing this up: JMR has said there are no forms of sanctified government in the Bible, and he’s flatly wrong about that.
This point does not make my case, but it underscores the fact that JMR is not using all the tools in the toolbox to make his point — and hid loss of this issue as evidence for his point is a significant loss.
The government of the local church does not substantiate any complete political philosophy in and of itself — but it is one piece of evidence which ought to weigh in our understanding of what God thinks is right concerning the government of real human beings.
March 14th, 2010 | 9:07 pm | #10
Mr. Bauman also said:
Aha. See: if every jot and tittle is nor defined (goes the argument) then we are at a loss to define primary principles for the purpose of government.
It seems more than a little less than useful to say what I mean when it gets ignored repeatedly, but I’ll repeat it again here to make sure I can’t be blamed for failing to point it out: Liberty is not, in and of itself, a virtue. Demanding that any government be restricted to minimizing the “loss of liberty” is not a principled requirement — let alone a biblically-principled requirement. My point was, is, and shall be that the idea that the individual’s liberty is the primary boundary-marker for the operation of government is simply not Biblical.
The question of whether church government is episopal, presbyterian, congregational, Imperial, or pastoral is 100% not the question. The question in local church government is, as Paul says in Titus 1, whether or not there are those who are established to set things right, rebuke the false teachers, reprove those falling into sin, and training of the faithful in what adorns the Gospel — and let me say frankly that if this is the only “sanctified” model of government in the Bible, it’s an interesting model which is not so much concerned about liberty as it is about truth and justice.
It seems hard to deny that — and insofar as any of the above methods of implementing church government do that, they are rightly-executed models.
March 14th, 2010 | 9:16 pm | #11
Mr. Bauman also said:
I think you should re-read what I have said about King Jesus in this discussion, Mr. B. Does Jesus rule the world right now? In one sense: yes. But when I referred to King Jesus, I was pretty clear to point out that the government specifically established by God in the Bible run on a spectrum from Israel (which was first ruled by Moses & Judges, then by a King) to the final eschaton where Christ is enthroned and the first act of that rule is the judgment of all men — some to salvation, and some to damnation.
My point in saying this is to point out that all of those governments are primarily concerned with justice and not freedom. JMR says that this is because people back then were sufficiently-free, but insufficiently safe. I suggest that this analysis comes from a perspective that doesn’t give sufficient weight to the role of private safety in the functioning of private freedom.
I have listed my three majors in this very point, but my primary point is, and will be, that the primary role of Government as described by the Bible, is to enforce justice — not to limit itself for the sake of individual freedom.
March 14th, 2010 | 9:21 pm | #12
In what I would call the most-predictable move in his post here, Mr. Bauman also said this:
This is why we reason from the whole Bible and not just the OT, right, Mr. Bauman?
This is a point I have made explicitly in the broader discussion as well. I am sorry I did not make it again in this post.
March 14th, 2010 | 9:30 pm | #13
Finally, Mr. Bauman said this:
It is unquestionably true that the OT Law did not save anyone. It is also unquestionable that the OT law — which included the use of the Tabernacle/Temple — is not for all people at all times, but only for the establishment of the nation of Israel for God’s purpose.
But it is avoiding the actual issue to say that all this is true therefore we cannot use the model of Israel to understand the primary objective of Government.
Jesus himself tells the rulers and priests that they keep the jots and tittles of the Law but have missed the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. Isn’t it sort of missing the point again not to hear what Jesus himself says about the Law given to Israel?
It’s interesting where JMR wants to take this discussion next — which is not to refute the problem that all these forms of government present for his point of view, but to present us with a maxim which, again, cannot be found in the Bible.
Thanks for your input, Mr. B. I hope I was able to clarify and assist you in understanding my point so that you can engage it rather than a caricature of it.
March 14th, 2010 | 9:46 pm | #14
David said this:
Why would this be excluded by what I have said, David? In fact, I have also said elsewhere in this discussion that every man has a responsibility to act in justice — and when man acts unjustly, he has abused his responsibility. The government’s role in that case clearly is to restrain man’s injustice.
The problem I have with what JMR has said (and says here again with his maxim) is that the objective of Government is “liberty” as if “liberty” is the greatest good. Liberty is like dexterity — it’s a trait which is not an objective in and of itself. Having more liberty is not in and of itself a good thing — and this is, btw, the principle which the Bible explains to man over and over by pointing out that submission to God is the right use of responsibility.
At its root, I think one of the problems in this discussion is a tacit acceptance of libertarian views man and government. This is what I think needs to be exposed and really tossed aside as conflicting with Biblical anthropology.
March 14th, 2010 | 9:50 pm | #15
I’m entirely in agreement with you, Frank. Thanks again.
March 14th, 2010 | 9:52 pm | #16
JMR then said:
I am going to take this to mean “Liberty is the objective of justice” and not “Liberty is what puts a stop to justice,” and the latter doesn’t really make any sense.
I’m sorry, but this statement is also simply a-biblical. It may actually be anti-biblical. The end of justice is the fulfillment of God’s holiness and righteousness. It is the right judgment toward the doer of evil and the right compassion toward the victim and/or the innocent. To say that justice is not its own end, its own objective, is to miss the point that righteousness is actually a virtue and a much-praised attribute of God in the Bible — and one God calls for from all his people in all ages.
And I’ll be glad to dig up steam-punk robots for the graphics for the rest of the posts in this series. I like them. A lot.
March 14th, 2010 | 9:54 pm | #17
David –
Sorry to be a little zealous in this. This topic is a pet peeve.
March 14th, 2010 | 11:18 pm | #18
The more I read these posts, the more it seems to me that there are all kinds of false dichotomies at work. It may be that the culprit is a modern definition of liberty, or even mere political definition of liberty.
I may be wrong here, but it seems that Mr. Turk accepts such a political notion grounded in the modern language of rights. Now, Mr. Turk, you have not said this, but I am trying to make sense of how it is you postulate justice, liberty, holiness, etc., as different. If God is absolute justice, holiness, etc., and also perfectly free, then these qualities are commensurate.
Secondly, there is a false dichotomy between righteousness and justice that is dependent upon the terms being different in English. They are not differently in Latin so that the righteousness of God (iustitia dei) is the justice of God (iustus, iustitia). This is also related to justification (iustificare). The same is true of the Greek term dikaiosune, which writers like Plutarch (who lived in the first century) used for justice.
I know, I know, there is a debate between you and JMR, and I’m late to the party. I’m sure that I’m missing a lot along the way. I would simply go at this subject quite differently.
It seems to me that you just don’t like modern notions of political liberty, which is fine. Let’s get back to ancient ones, but if we do, then we need to go all the way and not imply that in the classical world these were such dichotomies.
March 14th, 2010 | 11:49 pm | #19
Wow, Frank. You complain of caricature and then fall into it — quite badly, broadly and flatly — yourself.
I’ll say just this: You and I are Reformed Christians. We share a common background, common education, common culture, common language, common allegiances and common faith. If you can misread me so badly, someone with whom you share so many commonalities, perhaps you should consider how badly you might be misreading the biblical authors, folks with whom you share almost none of these cultural commonalities, and (therefore) hermeneutical advantages.
Just a thought.
March 14th, 2010 | 11:55 pm | #20
Dale, I’m glad I’m not the only one feeling like I’m missing large chunks of this argument, and I think you may have hit the nail on the head with the false dichotomies. “Justice” encompasses quite a lot. What does “liberty” mean? If “liberty” can be taken as meaning “freedom,” in the sense that in Christ’s service we have perfect freedom, perhaps the dichotomies aren’t as dichotomous as they seem.
Mr. Turk, you wrote:
“JMR then said:
Liberty is the end of justice.
I am going to take this to mean “Liberty is the objective of justice” and not “Liberty is what puts a stop to justice,” and the latter doesn’t really make any sense.”
I don’t know how JMR intended it, but there’s one more way to read it, and that is “Liberty is the end result of justice.” That, in fact, is how I interpreted it (after taking a little language-geek joy in the layers of possible meanings.)
That is, when there is true justice, then (and only then) do we have true liberty. I would tie that into my earlier post, which nobody has commented on (sniff). True liberty is freedom TO, not freedom FROM.
In order to have freedom TO do the good things that I wish to do, I must be free FROM the effects of others’ wrong actions (and from my own sin). It is justice that ensures that I have that “freedom from.” But justice alone can’t establish “freedom to,” can it?
My favorite metaphors are athletic, so let me see if one of them works (I am a fencer). In order to be free to compete at a high level, I must be free from interference from others; for example, I must be allowed to freely choose to join an association of like-minded people with whom to train. This would be the purview of justice.
However, justice isn’t enough. In order to be free to excel, I must accept restrictions on my own liberty. I must accept the instruction and guidance of my coach, as binding. I must accept that many hours of my week that I could otherwise spend lolling about are spent in physical training.
Government rightly takes the role of ensuring justice, which makes the conditions for my training possible. However, I would say that the desired end result of that government is not simply justice, but the liberty that comes from being ensured of justice, so that I am able to use God’s gifts to His glory. (By the way, I consider my fencing to be very much something I do to the glory of God.)
If this is tangential to the real argument, as it may well be, please be assured that I am not trying to de-rail it, but to explore the ideas and understand them.
March 15th, 2010 | 12:21 am | #21
Michael,
Perhaps you might provide us the courtesy of explaining or showing how Frank misread you. Thanks.
March 15th, 2010 | 7:03 am | #22
Thanks for the solidarity Holly.
As an aside, I find this intramural warfare among the Reformed to be a little amusing. It reminds me of the good old seminary days at a Reformed seminary. This was when the theonomists were out and about. I recall one OPC prof saying to the PCA’s in the crowd, “Don’t let a theonomist in your church because he’ll split it for sure.” These turf wars over “out-Reforming” one another were a nice reprieve for me. As a Pentecostal, I kept getting hit, well, on just about every point.
Lest I sound unfair, every branch of Christianity has such intramural dogfights. I’m just glad I’m an observer this time.
March 15th, 2010 | 8:03 am | #23
Michael –
Since I have caricatured you, please help me over come my ignorance. Please indicate one example of where I have taken what you said and misread it or abused it.
It would be instructive to me.
March 15th, 2010 | 9:29 am | #24
Dale was kind enough also to comment, and it may seem that I have ignored these comments. That’s not my intention at all, so my apologies for seeming to go there.
Dale said:
I think that this is a root cause of this discussion, and I think JMR thinks so, too. The problem is that one of us has made the mistake, and the one who has can’t see it.
I am actually arguing against the modern language of rights — which is why I have been as circumspect as possible to avoid the word “rights” and have tried to speak instead of “responsibilities”.
If what you mean by saying that God’s attributes or characteristics are “commensurate” that they all work together without working against each other, so be it. That’s simply not true for human beings as we often misuse the motive or love or justice. This is the actual problem with making “Liberty” a primary objective of Government, and it is a cornerstone in my concerns about what JMR has been trying to say.
I do not think these things are opposed: I think they are necessarily concurrent. But I think you are also missing the point that, for example, in Mt 23:23 “κρίσις” is used for right judgment (rightly discerning right from wrong) and in Mt 23:29 “δίκαιος” is used to describe those who have or do such things. That is: one is what is done, and the other is the cause of what is done.
No harm in being late.
It’s not that I “don’t like” them: it’s that I think our faith — because of what the Bible teaches us about our faith — requires we use different categories when we think about authority than Enlightenment political categories.
I don’t think we need to deny individualism entirely, or demand that we have a king rather than a president and legislature. But I do think we need to see that our modern (and post-modern) demand to be “free” or to be pursuing “liberty” is unbalanced away from the primary objectives of government from a Biblical perspective.
March 15th, 2010 | 9:46 am | #25
Holly — not ignoring you. Just running out of free time this morning. Sorry for the delays in response.
March 15th, 2010 | 10:00 am | #26
Frank,
How kind of you to respond. I know you’re engage in a protracted battle with JMR and Mr. Bauman, so I appreciate the acknowledgment.
Let me clarify, respond, and other miscellaneous activities:
1. By “commensurate” with respect to all the divine attributes, I was drawing on the idea of divine simplicity and that God is purus actus. We can conceptually distinguish such attributes, but in God they are one because God is one. Now, I don’t think trinitarianism lends itself to a hard line on simplicity, but I do want to try to uphold this basic point.
2. I think I see more clearly what you want to resist. You correctly pick up on the spot in your response that led me to believe you were falling into dichotomies. Let me quote you since you so graciously quote me (and I have yet to figure out how to italicize so any help would be appreciated):
“The end of justice is the fulfillment of God’s holiness and righteousness. It is the right judgment toward the doer of evil and the right compassion toward the victim and/or the innocent. To say that justice is not its own end, its own objective, is to miss the point that righteousness is actually a virtue and a much-praised attribute of God in the Bible — and one God calls for from all his people in all ages.”
So when you said the end of justice is holiness and righteousness, it just seemed like a false dichotomy. I would prefer to say that justice is righteousness. Holiness is just another way of express the justice, righteousness of God over against the system of life constructed by sin’s dominion.
I do agree with you on the necessity of right judgment, which was rendered in the Middle Ages as prudence or practical wisdom. This is how genuine freedom emerges in concert with truthfulness, precisely through out judgments. I’m not sure how that fits with what I had said, but I do agree with your point as I understand it.
3. Yes, let’s attach false notions of liberty, but are we throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water. Again, OK so liberty is not the “primary” aim, but neither do I think justice is strictly speaking. Here is where I would part company with a more Reformed way to handling this question. In other words, isn’t it both/and, i.e., the promotion of human flourishing. Wouldn’t you agree that to flourish as a human being you need a measure of political liberty and you need civil justice? OK, so not a more extreme emphasis on liberty as THE end because that could, as you rightly intuit, to a loss of justice.
Well, I’ll stop there. We’re close, I think, at least, close enough for me. I don’t want to pick the bones of your argument.
March 15th, 2010 | 10:06 am | #27
I meant “attack” false notions. I should proof my posts but one never has time when posting between classes and meetings and other demands of life.
March 15th, 2010 | 11:47 am | #28
Dale said:
I think intellectually I find myself in sympathy with what you’re saying, but “actus purus” and raw divine simplicity aren’t necessarily attributes of the Triune God of the Bible. I’m not sure they necessarily violate Trinitarian concepts of One God in three persons, and props to Aquinas of course, but I’m concerned that this is one of those things that we arrive at in systematics which isn’t really necessary or very helpful.
That’s because you are determined to express God’s unity. :-)
I don’t want to be too flippant, but: eh. I take you to mean here that the actual chief end of government as established by God is that men may “flourish”. I think I don’t like the word “flourish” here in that it makes the whole thing be primarily for the good of man.
You know: when God gave the law to Moses, and therefore to Israel, he said that it was for their own good. I get that: I agree with that. But when God said it was for their own good, that it may go well with them in the land, he puts that in the context that the way it will go well for them is that they will be in obedience which will be blessed with prosperity, but if they disobey they will be punished and, in some sense, disinherited. God’s view of “their own good” really was not “liberty” or “prosperity” but in fact “obedience” and “faithfulness to God Almighty”.
I have a very hard time framing that in a way which says that somehow God’s view of temporal power is really about making man prosperous. And that’s why I think it’s critical that we talk about what the Bible says and how it says it. We can quote all manner of godly men on this — who would be in good conscience, and would disagree. But somehow our resource has to be the divine source.
Is that fair?
March 15th, 2010 | 11:54 am | #29
For what it’s worth, I am not a theonomist. A key reason not to be a theonomist is that obedience apart from faith is impossible, and demanding that the government be obedient when the governement cannot, in and of itself, have faith or rightly call men to faith is simply a misunderstanding of the Gospel itself.
March 15th, 2010 | 1:11 pm | #30
Dear Frank,
Well, I feel like I’ve pulled you into another conversation that’s going a different direction than the one you’ve been involved in and your post was originally intended to address.
I did not think you were a theonomist, at least, if you were, you would have been hiding it rather well. The debate between two Reformed individuals just reminded me of episodes in a past life.
It was devilish of me to use purus actus, but I could not resist. I won’t bother articulating what I think there because that would be too far afield.
I still think there is a short distance between us that seems primarily related to the different theological frameworks we are employing. You talk about obedience and justice, which strikes me a very Reformed, and I talk about flourishing, which is my nod to the Middle Ages.
You are right to question my use of the term flourishing since I have failed to define it. By flourishing I mean humans achieving their purpose or potential. So, its a teleologically oriented term. I don’t mean economic prosperity although it seems to me that one needs a minimum amount of economic goods to flourish in this life (food, shelter, etc.). If I were to put it in biblical jargon, I would say it is abundant life where abundance is viewed in qualitative terms; a life fully realized; a happy life (in Aristotle’s notion of happiness as a state of being, not a euphoric feeling). I could also say it’s shalom in the sense of wholeness of relations both within and without.
So, it’s fair to use a divine resource, but to encapsulate the many terms within scripture that get at God’s purpose for humanity, sometimes we have to use terms found outside of scripture, which you, of course, know.
God organizes the internal life of Israel as a nation to create the proper context for human flourishing. Thus obedience is in the service of flourishing, it seems to me. I would go with Irenaeus here over a Calvin. Irenaeus sees the original humans as “children” and thus in need of development. To develop one’s potential is to move toward human flourishing. The point of the tree is not to test obedience per se (as Calvin seems to think it is in his commentary on Genesis), but to provide a path to flourishing. As contingent creatures, humans must grow, but that growth must be directed in positive ways, and this is the purpose of the tree.
Is this primarily for the good of humanity? Well, yes. Does it also redound to God’s glory? Well, yes, that too. God’s glory, which is intrinsic to God’s own nature and thus can never be removed, is revealed in the fulfillment of his own creative handiwork. This is why Anselm thinks God must become flesh, because God will not allow his own purposes to fail. Humans were designed for happiness, according to Anselm, and they arrive at happiness by maintaining rectitude/justice (the fundamental order, harmony, balance of life). The fall occurred when humans tried to achieve happiness without justice. Christ scorned happiness to pursue justice and got both, and thus Christ shoes the path to human flourishing (happiness, the good life).
I think all political life is roughly the same, that is, it is designed to create the conditions in which the original purpose of humanity can be achieved. In this sense, Israel, the church, and all government shares the same end. I prefer not merely to say, as many Reformed folks have in history, that government is to hold back sin (and this is what is meant by preserving justice).
My ultimate point here is that humans pursue their purpose by using free choice, and this means that government must allow for political liberty as part of creating the conditions for human flourishing. At minimum, we Christians think religious liberty is an absolute requirement, especially we American Christians, who fled to the new world in pursuit of an opportunity for humans to follow the dictates of their own conscience.
Word and Spirit, Order/pattern and spontaneity/freedom, this is what I’m after.
March 15th, 2010 | 1:15 pm | #31
OK, I said “Christ shoes,” as though he was putting foot apparel on a horse. He obviously shows. Please be charitable.
March 15th, 2010 | 1:55 pm | #32
More from Dale, and apologies to Holly to whom i haven’t responded yet:
So far this one has been, in my estimation, more profitable.
Maybe so — I can’t be convinced that the medieval perspective is the best perspective historically or biblically.
I would say that this puts all the eggs in the basket of human achievement, and this is categorically not the narrative of the Bible. You cannot read the Bible as a narrative which presents the best way to achieve anything by human will of effort — that reading is simply the antithesis of every book of the Bible and somewhat unaware of the goals and outcomes of the eschaton.
March 15th, 2010 | 2:08 pm | #33
Finally to Holly’s comments:
I would point out to you that the freedom often presented in the Bible is, in your terms, “freedom from”: freedom from Egypt; freedom from slavery; freedom from exile; freedom from idols; freedom from sin; freedom from death; freedom from the law even. The way the Bible frames “freedom” is that something which binds or oppresses is removed, and we are delivered and into the authority and presence of God.
I think you have it right, Holly: it is either “freedom from” or “freedom to”. You have simply not seen that the Bible makes this choice for us.
You understand my reasoning perfectly. You have simply not chosen the right answer.
And I am sure this will be a choice I regret, but I am choosing not to deal with your metaphor for freedom. Why? Because it doesn’t define justice properly. Justice is when the competitors play by the rules or, when they do not, the official makes a ruling based on the rules. Scoring is always a matter of justice; assessing fouls is always a matter of justice. Whether you practice or not is not a matter of justice, except in the end when you are scored based on your performance.
March 15th, 2010 | 3:02 pm | #34
I’m with the commenter from one of the JMR-Turk threads who said they’re unsure exactly what the debate is about.
But fwiw, I’m onboard with my fellow Manhattan Declaration co-signer, Pastor Albert Mohler, on the relationship between Bible-believing Christians and the government:
http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/03/15/glenn-beck-social-justice-and-the-limits-of-public-discourse/
Excerpts:
“As an evangelical Christian, my concern is the primacy of the Gospel of Christ — the Gospel that reveals the power of God in the salvation of sinners through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The church’s main message must be that Gospel. The New Testament is stunningly silent on any plan for governmental or social action. The apostles launched no social reform movement. Instead, they preached the Gospel of Christ and planted Gospel churches. Our task is to follow Christ’s command and the example of the apostles.
THERE IS MORE TO THAT STORY, HOWEVER. The church is not to adopt a social reform platform as its message, but the faithful church, wherever it is found, is itself a social reform movement precisely because it is populated by redeemed sinners who are called to faithfulness in following Christ. The Gospel is not a message of social salvation, BUT IT DOES HAVE SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS.
Faithful Christians can debate the proper and most effective means of organizing the political structure and the economic markets. Bringing all these things into submission to Christ is no easy task, and the Gospel must not be tied to any political system, regime, or platform. Justice is our concern because it is God’s concern, but it is no easy task to know how best to seek justice in this fallen world.
…
Until then, the church must preach the Gospel, AND CHRISTIANS MUST LIVE OUT ITS IMPLICATIONS. We must resist and reject every false gospel and tell sinners of salvation in Christ. And, knowing that God’s judgment is coming, we must strive to be on the right side of justice.” [All Caps emphasis mine.]
March 15th, 2010 | 3:18 pm | #35
Well, Frank, I think we’ve reached the limits of this medium and this conversation. However, I appreciate the generosity of spirit by which you kept commenting on my thoughts.
I don’t disagree with your talk of obedience, authority, etc., I just put such talk into a different theological framework, and this would give it a different emphasis and a different set of nuances.
And I was not trying to emphasize human achievement, but, again, there is a different framework behind my statement. For example, we would have to talk about how Reformed you are before I could even begin to think about how to talk through my own understanding of grace.
March 15th, 2010 | 4:48 pm | #36
I might have to go lie down. I think I agree with TUaD.
March 15th, 2010 | 4:50 pm | #37
Frank Turk: “I might have to go lie down. I think I agree with TUaD.”
Sweet dreams, babycakes.
March 15th, 2010 | 6:18 pm | #38
Frank, thanks for the comments. You wrote (and I don’t know how to do indents for formatting):
“I think you have it right, Holly: it is either “freedom from” or “freedom to”. You have simply not seen that the Bible makes this choice for us.
(Holly here) In order to have freedom TO do the good things that I wish to do, I must be free FROM the effects of others’ wrong actions (and from my own sin). It is justice that ensures that I have that “freedom from.” But justice alone can’t establish “freedom to,” can it?
Frank: You understand my reasoning perfectly. You have simply not chosen the right answer.”
Could you please restate exactly what “the right answer” is? I am being quite serious; I have lost track of what you mean.
I think you are saying that justice (defined as “freedom from”) is the primary function of government, as seen from a biblical perspective. Is that correct?
If that is the “right answer” I don’t disagree (nor do I explicitly agree), but that wasn’t precisely what I was trying to say. I was trying to suggest that justice (freedom from) and liberty (freedom to) are inextricably interconnected, so that the one is only truly meaningful in light of the other.
My larger point was that, if we take this to be the case, then a culture can skew too far to either one side or the other, and require attention to the opposite kind of freedom to create the environment that (to borrow from the earlier posts) allows for right human flourishing.
March 15th, 2010 | 8:27 pm | #39
Holly:
I hope it does not bother you, but as far as I can tell . . . we agree.
John Mark
March 15th, 2010 | 9:24 pm | #40
John Mark,
It doesn’t bother me in the least. I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I’m interested in exploring the ideas, so it’s nice to know that my arguments are at least coherent and that I can contribute to the discussion. Thanks!
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