Thank you and your internal wiring for responding. I know you did the only thing you could do, that you could not have chosen otherwise, but I am thanking you anyway.

Wow. That must mean I can now hop the fence and take your ox and your ass. Is this a great country or what?

In essence, you are saying that any being other than God is not free.No. I am saying that the idea that man is “free” in the sense you mean is a fallacy.

For example: if you had truly “free” will, you could choose to walk around naked right now in a public place. In fact, prove to me you have free will by walking around naked in a public place. You simply cannot do it.

That’s not to say no one could do it — but you personally cannot. Why? It’s because while it is an available choice, you are unwilling. The idea probably makes you giggle a little and blush a lot. So your will is not free: it is contrained at least by your inherent modesty.

Why is it then a Calvinist offense to say that in the same way your will constrains your freedom through modesty in this case, in many other cases your will is actually constrained by your incliniation to sin?

I am not worried about God’s freedom: I am worried about the false implication that man somehow has “liberty” in the sense JMR needs to say that liberty should constrain givernment when he has no such thing as a “free” will.

You believe that somehow man is destined (predestined?) to fall no matter what. You say that God made lucifer and cite that as an example of God making something that isn’t good. I know I don’t have to explain to you that Lucifer was once good. By his own will he fell.

You need to follow your own reasoning here.

You’re ultimately saying that because Lucifer fell and became what Jesus calls “the father of all lies and a murderer,” we should constrain government to the limits of man’s liberty.

It seems to me that as an example of something which has to do with government and liberty — since we are not following any Biblical reasoning but some systematic reasoning which cherry-picks facts from the Bible — governement should mind the example of Lucifer and make sure the will is as constrained as possible in order to avoid any future villains of his ilk.

Why is that reasoning inferior to yours? In my view, God intended Lucifer to serve a purpose for God’s glory in what Lucifer actually has done and is doing. In your view, God had to come up with plan “B” and is constantly coming upo with plan “B” because Lucifer is the Universal Newman (a la Seinfeld).

Man, as a category, is good. Individuals may be evil by their own will, but God’s creations are always good in their essence. God CANNOT create evil because evil is not a creatable thing. Evil is defined only in relation to to good, and God cannot be separated from Himself. Therefore God can only do good because He is good, the ultimate standard, where the buck stops.

And then Christ died for … ?

Do I really need to find a verse that says exactly “God made free will”? Somethings are axiomatic. I do not need to find a verse that says “You need to know how to read in order to read this verse and all the other verses”. Nor do I need to find a verse that says “This is the Bible. It has words.” God does not need to say to us “You have free will”. The alternative would be “You do not have free will.”, in which case reading it would be meaningless, anyway.

I say the Bible says:

1.The heart is deceitful above all things,and desperately sick;who can understand it? (Jer 17:9)

2. Every way of a man is right in his own eyes,but the LORD weighs the heart. (Prov 12:2)

3. We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. (Is 64:6)

Can you find 3 verses that clear for your point? How about two?

Since you do not believe in free will, Frank, I now understand that your objections to my arguments are not ontologically rooted in your understanding of what I’m saying and disagreement thereof, but rather in your internal wiring and the destiny you must live.

The sad thing is that this is how you will reason through the rest of Scripture, which is the word of God to save. I can’t imagine how, using your view of the Bible, you think you need a savior and not just a buddy.

Please: think harder about the fact that your view of man’s will is simply absent from the Bible — and then apply that to the question of government and liberty. it may affect you deeper than you think.

As a free moral agent, please enforce a speeding law some time this week.

Notice: I didn;t say “obey”. I said “enforce”. Show us how much of a free moral agent you are.

JMR commented:

The writer of Judges seems to mean something bad (and only bad) by the phrase and something fairly limited. I would suggest he is using it in a fairly restrictive sense. (He does not mean, for example, that everyone chose their favorite style of lamb’s meat during the time of the Judges and that this led to chaos. It seems a rhetorical stand in for: “created their own law that went against the commands of God.”)

I’d be willing to agree without qualification that the quoted text is one aspect of what the text means when this phrase comes up. The problem is that it says what it means a specific way.

For example, let’s look at Deu 12:7-8 [ESV], where this phrase first occurs:

You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the LORD your God is giving you.

It’s odd, isn’t it, that what God says here is that somehow what Israel was doing was, in the first place, what they are doing at that moment, prior to the crossing of the Jordan. In the second place, it’s also odd that Moses has juxtaposed the uninformed willingness of the people against what would be the informed perspective they would have after crossing the Jordan.

The phrase here speaks specifically to what they are willing to do – not merely the problem that they did something God didn’t like. The phrase is chosen to show that these are action man does in spite of God, and that the actions are therefore lawless.

We ought to jump ahead, then, to Proverbs – first to Prov 21:2, which says, “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes,but the LORD weighs the heart.” Think about that: it’s clear here that the proverb is speaking of the problem man has that that everything he thinks of he can justify to himself, but then God has the ability to see the intention of the heart. It’s clear that man does not know what he ought to know about himself, but God does.

The other Proverb particularly telling is Prov 12:15, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,but a wise man listens to advice.” This proverb speaks to the same problem – but points out that the wise man doesn’t take his own judgment at face value.

In the Bible, this phrase it used to make the point clear that man’s ways are not God’s ways – and man’s ways land man in a heap of hurt. It is not just that man disobeyed God, but that man’s intention is to disobey God by doing his own thing rather than God’s thing.

But let me say this to be transparently clear: even if the implication of the phrase is only “make my own law as opposed to God’s law”, that implication speaks to my point rather than JMR’s point. If the only think this phrase means is “my law over God’s law”, then my point – which is that liberty is not an absolute good. Liberty is not an objective for Government in the Biblical view.

Why? Because man, left to his own devices, does what is right in his own eyes, and not what God expects of him.

To give another example of difference: “Agent” is not the same as “man” since many beings are agents who are not men.

The unfortunate problem, of course, is that this is utterly irrelevant to this discussion. To make “Government” an agent is to impersonalize the activities of men and to miss the point that government is an activity God ordains for men to do. In a different example, my dog is also an agent. Government does not apply to my dog: only to me, who owns the dog.

My hope was that it would allow us to proceed with some clarity, but if not we shall try to gain clarity without it. If you want to argue that the Biblical phrase and the phrase in Locke are the same, then I will (for the sake of argument) simply agree . . . though I am dubious that the contextually the Biblical phrase was meant to apply to all types of liberty. (for example, my liberty to choose to eat or not eat meat)

An interesting example. You’re saying gluttony is not an example of liberty? I find that hard to believe.

Frank says my view: “refuses to see that alms are due to the poor in the same way that payment is due to the laborer . . . ”
And I agree that we disagree! Alms are not like wages in some ways.

Brakes on. Alms do not have to be identical to wages for the point to be made. The question you have raised is whether or not alms are a right place for government to enforce justice. The OT says “yes” – alms are actually a requirement for the Jews in Israel, for example, when harvesting the crop. There is also an alms tax in the Mosaic law. Apparently alms can be morally demanded of you.

Alms are my duty, but cannot be demanded by you from me. You have a right to contracted wages and can demand them from me (as an individual).

I suggest you review the Mosaic law. If you fail to pay me, a judge must decide if I have been wronged – and you would be forced to pay restitution. If you refuse to pay alms under the OT moral law, what is the recourse? If it’s “tough luck, schmuck,” then you’re right. If refusal to pay alms and the alms tax is enforceable, you’re simply wrong: the Bible makes it clear that the government can and should have some role in the right-minded collection and distribution of alms.

The man who sees my wealth and assumes I must give it to him, covets, and he may be wrong that my particular wealth is due to him. Not all my wealth must, after all, be turned to alms and I need not give alms to any particular man.

My first thought here is, ‘see above,’ but my second thought is a little more devious.

My second thought is that you cannot distinguish between moral obligation and extortion to say what you have just said. That is: you’d willingly equivocate the moral requirements of the rich to the poor – and the poor’s perception that the rich should, in some way, show mercy – with covetousness in order to make your point.

Tell me: how do you interpret the parable of the Good Samaritan? Where the men who walked past the dying man simply exercising their liberty? If not, then I suggest you have a rather large tooth missing in your cogs of your moral reasoning. That’s the NT application of the OT law, JMR. Those things have to work in your political reasoning somehow. I thing they do not.

Frank says:
Worse still for your case, in Israel, the government collected alms and distributed them. So the example of the government God would establish (that is: which he did establish) contradicts this reasoning.
I say:
The pattern of ancient Israel (as a nation) is not directly applicable to me.

here we go, y’all. This is where JMR’s hermeneutics all come out in full force. That is: this is where we discover if he really reads what’s there or he’s reading what’s convenient for the moment.

Please: carry on:

This was a unique people in a unique circumstance. Because something was good for ancient Israel does not mean it would have been good for all ancient people’s let alone all moderns.

I’ll grant you these premises:

1. Temple worship in Israel was required due to the uniqueness of the constitution for the government. Something is different new which would remove that requirement.
2. The fact which removes the requirements of the temple also removes the ceremonial law associated with the temple.
3. The whole covenantal law is itself a unique item in history because of its source, not because of its object (that is, from whom it came, not to whom it was given)

After that, it’s all an uphill fight for you for one reason only: the mode of government in Israel is explicitly a type of the government Christ will establish in the eschaton. That is: it is meant to point to the greater reality as a type and shadow.

All ancient peoples (for example) did not have God’s unique covenant with the Jews.

Agreed. The question is only this: does that make the covenant with the Jews a lesser form of government, a greater or more important type of government, or merely another, mostly-equal form of Government.

Be careful – because the Bible does give the answer to this question. Make sure you know what that is before you run it down for us “moderns”.

The “people” established under the Mosaic law is not replicable today.

I guess that’s why Jesus said on about the Kingdom of God, eh?

It is not even the state King Jesus will establish on the Earth in the future as His Kingdom will be . . . a Kingdom . . . and the direct rule of God on Earth. Israel was not a “state” in the same sense any modern nation (or even other ancient peoples) could be a state.

This answer speaks directly to the question I have already asked you: does that make the covenant with the Jews a lesser form of government, a greater or more important type of government, or merely another, mostly-equal form of Government.

It seems you want to answer, “None of the above. It wasn’t even a Government.”

That answer is simply illegitimate. It makes no sense in light of, well, all the books from Samuel to Micah.

They were “chosen.”

Careful now – I was going to void that question for the sake of belaying all the anti-Calvinist trumpeting that goes on around here, but if you’re going to bring it up: chose for what purpose?

A Christian state might decided to give out alms in some circumstances, but the example of ancient Israel will not be determinative in making that decisions.

I like that – they’d be following the same God, turning to the model God has already provided, but they wouldn’t so it that way.

I suspect you’re almost right: they wouldn’t do it as a minimalistic compulsion. They would exceed the requirements of the law. The Law would be a tutor rather than a task-master. They would likely give because they were actually generous and not because there was mint and cumin to be tithed upon.

What that doesn’t speak to, however, is how they would know how to run such a thing. You say the Bible doesn’t speak to it, but to say that you have now said that the Bible does speak to it – and we should ignore it because it’s for somebody else.

That’s not the same thing.

The most I am willing to say is that there existed one circumstance where the “government” collecting alms and giving them out was licit . . . but those circumstances no longer exist. (This is not to argue that I therefore know all alms giving by the state is wrong.)

I think you’re doing a fine job of simply demonstrating that “freedom” is not a goal of government: justice is. The more you qualify how the Bible doesn’t help us, it seems to help more and more and point us to the fact that there is a model of government, and a type of ruler/king, which we should really be considering when we think about how we would run things if we had the chance.

Please: keep up the qualifiers. They all minimize your main point.

I do think some questions are best decided by “ends” and not “means,” but this does not mean I think all questions should be so decided.

I think you generally want it both ways, Dr. JMR. That is: you want to say that the Bible is you authority, except when you don’t want to say that at all – when it is inconvenient to say so because it means that there are, for example, political realities that you don’t want to accept or live out.

Some things are wrong in themselves. These should not be done. . . ever. (See the torture of an innocent, for example!) Other things depend on my preference or their outcome. It is good to brush my teeth (I take it), but mostly because of a good outcome. If I could/can get the outcome otherwise, I shall cease to brush my teeth. It turns out (most? many?) things I do are like this.

Most things are utilitarian; a few things are not. And of those few things, I wonder which the Bible instructs “moderns” about …

… wait for it …

Of course, the Bible does not say much about this kind of choice, because that is not a topic that the Bible is written to cover . . . not being a book about such things.

You mean about tooth-brushing? Or about how to live as if God is real and his Son is risen from the dead?

See: if you frame it as the former, the Bible is a completely-useless thing. How can it inform any action? It was written for Israel, then for those for whom Israel waited for for millennia – not me. So the problem of what justice looks like under God is not for me – I have to worry about whether I’m going to brush my teeth of not.

This is the argument JMR is presenting, folks: the Bible is only good for (some) theology, but not, for example, how the injustice of the kings of Israel informs the Christian about how to follow the True King of Israel when they are pilgrims under the rule of other, far-lesser kings and satraps.

Where’s the Evangel in that?

I think it is perfectly consistent with the Bible for me to choose to eat a breath mint or not to eat one, to choose to use this word just now as opposed to another, or do whatever else suits a particular end I have in mind.

I find it informative to note that Dr. JMR has now transitioned his argument entirely away from his original thesis – which is civil government and liberty – to the minutia of modern living. Apparently, if the Bible does not tell me when to buy which tube of tooth-paste, it can’t inform the Christian about how to live as a citizen of a secular state.

Not sure how the first 300 years of Christians made it to Nicea.

I believe in many areas I am entitled to use my will as I see fit. I am Christ’s slave, but He is a liberal master! Just because every thought I have is subject to His will does not mean that He has decided to control every choice.

Does Christ inform you as to how to use the internet, Dr. JMR? If not, then he is an outdated master. If so, then I suggest you have simply lost sight of what we are talking about here for the point of persuading to a political system I suspect you know is (at best) second-best.

My reading of Paul on marriage seems to leave me with the choice between two goods, but let me not insist on the example. I just drank a savory Diet Coke. I think God left it to me decide if I should drink or not drink the Coke. I submitted my will to Him and He said, “Do what pleases you!” That seems the case with most decisions in the average Christian life.

I like it that the decision to marry is governed by the same reasoning choosing to drink a Coke is governed by.

Are you sure that’s how you want to put this? Because it seems to me that the Bible ransacks this kind of superficial equivocation in every way. Is that really how you read 1 Cor and Eph on marriage? Then I suggest you read them again.How is that not compatible with the Biblical revelation? When Jesus gave His disciples bread and fish, did He also have a particular will about how much and in what proportion they ate it?Wow. Again: let’s make sure we keep the fences for the discussion where they belong. You’re now saying that because the Bible doesn’t give out a portion requirement for every meal you will ever eat, we can reason that man’s will is the chief limiter of government?

Really? You’ll have to do the moral calculus on that one for me. If it’s right to say that context is everything in reading Prov 12:15, find the context that tells that story in a way which somehow comes back to government.

Surely this is either nonsense or a view of God’s will that at least one must concede not all Protestants (let alone most Christians) have held.

See above. You’re pretty far afield at this point making the meal at the seaside in John about the boundaries of government and man’s liberty.

Frank says:
It seems to me that you see choice as the ultimate virtue of the human mind, perhaps as an expression of the imago dei.
I say:
I think liberty is a gift of God in some cases. It is an expression of the image of God, but it is not the “ultimate virtue” since it is a power of the soul. Love would seem the ultimate virtue.

So then what does love have to do with liberty or government? See: you are escaping the question actually at stake by changing the subject – and the problem is whether man’s ability to choose is a bounding marker for government, not which virtue is ultimate.

If we say Liberty is a “gift” and not a “virtue”, how does that improve any of your minimization of what the Bible actually says?

Frank says:
But it also seems to me that the Bible tells us that when we are reasoning it out for ourselves rather than obeying God and the authorities he has established — Himself, the church, the state and the family (which you have been kind enough to list for us) — we are simply doing wrong.
I say:
This seems true as far as it goes. Who believes we should “reason by ourselves?” Not Locke and not me. But I will say that in the end, having listened to what I take to be Him, read His Word, listened to His Church, gotten wisdom from my family and the Law, I must decided what I think he is saying.

I am certain it’s an honest mistake, but what I said is, “reasoning it out for ourselves,” which you here argue against as “reason by ourselves”. However, even as an honest mistake, you are pretty much overlooking the Modernism (big “M”) in your own definition of the process. It’s not the minimalistic “cogito ergo sum”, but it’s its red-headed step child: After everyone has taught me, I think for myself.

And that, frankly, is what Deu and Jdges and Proverbs warns us against. So I would argue foundationally that your starting place if anti-Biblical.

The fact that this is always clear means that I must choose myself. Authorities do not all agree, the Bible does not interpret itself infallibly in my head, and the church and state sometimes (in their particular manifestations) miss Him.

{sigh}

So you have to do what is right in your own eyes. Do you really not see how this – even in the classy, suburban, middle-class intellectual party shirt you have dressed it in – is specifically what the Bible warns us against? You can’t see it really?

What did Christ die for, JMR? Seriously – because we sometimes are misinformed? Because sometimes the gap between writer and reader results in differance? It seems to me that this is a significant implication of your reasoning you haven’t worked out.

See: Christ died because that’s the only solution to the problem manifest in “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” That’s not just true in theory: that’s true in reality. It’s true in fact and by example. It’s not a therapeutic model: it’s a governmental model. It talks about how God rules the whole cosmos.

And that applied to how and why a government must rule. Liberty simply does not evnter into it, except to say that it is because of God’s liberty that we have mercy and peace and grace. Our liberty is a car wreck waiting to happen.

Here is a modest argument for liberty being a “good:”
1. Some men prefer one food to another.
2. This preference is compatible with the will of God. He commands no man to eat food in every case of food choice.
3. If God allows it, then men should be loath to forbid it.
4. It is therefore sometimes moral for me to eat or not eat a food depending on my preference.
5. If I can eat or not eat according to my preference, then (based on Locke’s definition) I have liberty in regards to certain food choices.
I derive pleasure from this liberty and so it seems like a “good.” It is not the greatest good (or as in this case a very great liberty or good!), but it is a good.

I stipulate the whole thing. Explain how this has an ounce of relevance to the question of government and liberty.I see nothing incompatible with Sacred Scripture in any of these assertions as most seem implied by it. Great.

I don’t think Scripture is an exhaustive source of political theory.

It’s because you think it’s not very useful for much at all, given what we have read here.

Please: does the Bible inform us regarding how to use the internet? The answer to that question unravels everything you say here – either regarding your view of authority and how it can be gleaned from the Bible, or regarding all the diversions from the actual question you have posted here so far.

In essence, you are saying that any being other than God is not free. You believe that somehow man is destined (predestined?) to fall no matter what. You say that God made lucifer and cite that as an example of God making something that isn’t good. I know I don’t have to explain to you that Lucifer was once good. By his own will he fell.

Man, as a category, is good. Individuals may be evil by their own will, but God’s creations are always good in their essence. God CANNOT create evil because evil is not a creatable thing. Evil is defined only in relation to to good, and God cannot be separated from Himself. Therefore God can only do good because He is good, the ultimate standard, where the buck stops.

Do I really need to find a verse that says exactly “God made free will”? Somethings are axiomatic. I do not need to find a verse that says “You need to know how to read in order to read this verse and all the other verses”. Nor do I need to find a verse that says “This is the Bible. It has words.” God does not need to say to us “You have free will”. The alternative would be “You do not have free will.”, in which case reading it would be meaningless, anyway.

Since you do not believe in free will, Frank, I now understand that your objections to my arguments are not ontologically rooted in your understanding of what I’m saying and disagreement thereof, but rather in your internal wiring and the destiny you must live.

JMNR

“The demand that man has “free will” really doesn’t want man either to be “free” or really to have a “will”. That demand will always — always — be made by a person who is seeking to minimize God’s authority in some sphere of creation for the sake of empowering man to be without God.”

I say:

No. It is not. Man could not exist without God. Man has no freedom without God. Man’s freedom depends on God.

God has all authority.

However, the fact that God has all authority does not mean that He does not delegate any authority.

If man has any authority, it is delegated to man from God. Liberty is God’s gift to mankind.

One example: I am at liberty to will or not to will to drink this Diet Coke. Mmmm . . .

I have chosen . . . wisely.

I am not a member of ancient Israel. I am not a citizen of that nation. While I may become ancient, sadly I can never become an ancient Israeli.

Sigh,

John Mark

My good friend Mr. Turk (I’m feeling all congressy today) has been wrong before, but I can’t recall his being so demonstrably wrong. He makes mistakes, but not category mistakes, as he does here (even while using the term categorical. I love irony). That, it seems to me, is why he is not using the Bible now, as he has demanded of others (note how many times he a) answers a question with a question or, b) demands the other provide this or that quantum of evidence).

The category mistake is very simply equating purpose and value in the realm of description; IOW, the descriptions of the purposes of government do not perforce demand a description of the value behind it.

Indeed, the purpose of government may have everything to do with the goodness of liberty. Here’s how we can start to get at a real answer:

Frank, to whom does the Tenth Commandment apply? Can you discern the purpose of it? We can move on from there.

Mr. Turk has not dealt with the biblical data given up top (which he demanded, I remind you). Methinks that is an admission, the sort that gets cases thrown out of court.

I’m dealing with the little bits first. The part where JMR resorts to decompiling the OT is up next on my list.

I say this because God made free will; He cannot make bad things. Therefore, it has to be good.

I love that.

God made Lucifer, too.

Please help me see where in the Bible it says anything about how “God made free will”. I suspect you’re going to have a hard time demonstrating that man’s will is something which is “free” before you get to the part where God made it that way.

Let me line out my position before we go one inch further on this matter:

1. Unquestionably: man has a will. Man chooses all the time. Man has a mind and reason and is morally-responsible for what he does. It would be right to say that man wants to do what he does — he does what he does willingly.

2. What we see historically and biblically as the consequences of man choosing shows us without any question that, in the best case, man’s will is limited by man’s limited powers to effect his own will. Among those limits is a particularly-pernicious problem of man’s own essential moral shortcoming.

3. The demand that man has “free will” really doesn’t want man either to be “free” or really to have a “will”. That demand will always — always — be made by a person who is seeking to minimize God’s authority in some sphere of creation for the sake of empowering man to be without God.

Those things said, you may fire when ready.