Theonomy

baron · #1 (**permalink**) 02-28-2009, 02:01 PM

Since joining here I have meet a lot of terms that I was not fimiliar with. One is Theonomy. I have been reading a lot and finding the more I learn how little I know. Theonomy seems right to me but also some how wrong.

Questions:
1)According to Theonomy Gods character is reflected in his perfect law. Gods laws are eternal and bidding on all peoples in all times.

2) Was John Calvin a Theonomist wasn't Geneva set up like a Theocracy?

3) The Puritans were they Theonomist at least in New England were they also trying to set up a Theocracy in the New World.

Are these statments right or wrong? Why?

Thanks for any help with this subject.

***Contra_Mundum*** · #2 (**permalink**) 03-01-2009, 01:19 AM

1) God's will for men always reflects his intrinsic righteousness. However, there are positive commandments which he gave to one man, or to a nation, that are no longer in effect. God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son. Thankfully, we are not all put under that same kinds of directive. So it's not completely accurate to speak as though every command of God binds all people everywhere all the time. We need to ask why did he give this or that law.

2) Theonomy =/= Theocracy. These are not interchangeable terms. "Theonomy" has particular reference to a movement of the last 40 years, led mainly by some leading spokesmen of the Calvinist persuasion: Rushdoony, Bahnsen, and North being probably the most well known, although there were others. They first identified themselves by the term "Reconstructionists." Bahnsen's book "Theonomy in Christian Ethics" was an important tome to the movement.

Theonomists, with a certain justification, saw in the 16th and 17th centuries, reflections of their movement in the theocratic nature of church/state relations, and western society in general. But other than particular affinities to Establishmentarianism, there is good reason to question the premise that Theonomy is merely the reinstitution of theocratic principles.

For one thing, it was the era of theocracy that gave the Reformed church the tri-partate division of the Law (of Moses): Moral, Ceremonial, and Civil. This division is clearly called into question by Bahnsen, whose principle was "the abiding validity of the Law in exhaustive detail." Not that he advocated a wholesale republication of the Law, certainly not. However, he understood the ceremonial law to be presently fulfilled in Christ, and being fulfilled; and all the rest of the law he called "Moral." Civil-law details might need modern updating, however that which was deemed universally ideal should be implemented in every Christian social order.

The battle-ground (in print) seemed to this observer (me) to center on the applicability of the penal code. Should every nation institute the death-penalty according as was recorded in all the Israelite judicial laws? The Theonomist said yes.

Calvin said concerning that very idea: "No." And this should put to rest the notion that Calvin would have made a good Theonomist. Rushdoony, the acknowledged godfather of the Recon. movement, called Calvin's view on this point "heretical nonsense."

So, if Calvin and later Puritans and Presbyterians weren't Theonomists, what were they? They were theocrats, that is, they lived in an era still tied temporally to the Medieval period, which was an outgrowth of old Rome's transformation into "Christendom." EVERYBODY for over a thousand years simply "knew" that the church was an arm of the state, and/or the state an arm of the church.

The Reformation began to undo that symbiotic relationship. The church's independent government was reasserted. But although the church and state began to separate, it was not some simple cleavage that could pull neatly apart. The ecclesiastical division with Rome tore Europe apart, precipitating the 40 Years War in Germany, the horrific devastation of the Low Countries, bringing the threat of invasion to England (Spanish Armada) and eventual Civil War to Great Britain.

In process of all this, Protestants began writing biblical defenses of their rights to self-defense and self-determination. None of this would have made sense to anyone prior to the Reformation. So the Reformation set the direction for further political change (there were other factors pushing changes along) as well as the ecclesiastic earthquakes.

But everyone still, for a long long time expected the State to enforce the first table of the law, punishing heresy, enacting laws that the church asked for, etc. In practice, church governments and state governments tended to be run (or dominated) by the same people, whether the institutions were formally unified or not. And there are still countries that have official state-churches in the 20th cent. The earthly head of this body is typically a political appointee, or must be approved by the politicians or titular head-of-state. And we still see suppression of unfavored groups by the permission or instigation of those state-churches.

This is theocracy's vestiges, but it has very little connection to Theonomy.

As for Calvin "running" Geneva like a little fiefdom, this is legend borne from his detractors, mainly. Certainly there are bits and pieces of truth that are stitched together to create a story. But the truth is that Calvin lived in an era of Theocracy already. Calvin's main achievement governmentally in Geneva was in severing church government from the purview of the State.

Calvin was not a citizen of Geneva, he was not allowed by law to be a citizen of Geneva, and as a non-citizen could not vote or have a voice in Genevan civil affairs. However, he did organize the company of pastors in Geneva, who in the church policed morals, etc., as far as church-government went. And since nearly every member of society went to church in those days, that was control exercised over people lives which people today generally despise.

They didn't much like it then either, and they didn't like the Roman Church beforehand. But, at least with Rome it was always "pay up, get your penance." The rotten Protestants actually demanded life-correction, or you might get excommunicated! Rome always reminded you about your sins, but they used to make it so simple to fix it. Just make sure you get to Confession before next mass, and pay the piper.

So, did Calvin clean up Geneva's morals? No, not really, that was the work of the Company of Pastors, with Calvin as the chief minister and principal preacher in the principal city church. And really it was the Holy Spirit working through the diligent preaching of the Word, to make a pinch of salt salty again, and a little leaven leavening again, and light a small candle that lit up a whole city.

3) The Puritans in New England did attempt to establish a Christian commonwealth again in the New World. And they tried patterning their laws on Ancient Israelite social order. But note that, once again, this is an example of theocratic principles in action, not Theonomic. There is certainly some wisdom to be gleaned from this example, just as we can glean similar wisdom from similar effort by Alfred the Great, eight centuries or so prior.

But this is not Theonomy. The Puritans generally, as Calvin himself, would never have said that prudential attempts to employ just laws, by making reference to the biblical system of Moses, was the same thing as instituting God's known "preferred" laws in anachronistic situations (not that there were never such advocates; but they were a tiny minority). Such would be a claim to infallibility in application.

The (Puritan) Westminster Confession states that the judicial laws expired (they died) with that nation, binding no one further "than the general equity therof may require." This indicates that they were understood to be of the nature of positive requirements, precisely like the command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar; and that they frequently had discernible natural moral principles at their roots.

Were they "moral" also? Of course; they came from the only Standard of morality. But that Personal Standard didn't assign those laws in those forms to all nations everywhere at all times.

Furthermore, Calvin was explicit in denying that the penal code of Israel could not be either made more or less lenient, according to the brute or civilized conduct of this or that society. He thought such rigidity was pernicious and foolish.