Where is the "throw up your hands when you think you've got the Reformers figured out but then some quote is produced" smiley?!

I seriously need to put some hands on that little smiley with a pilgrim hat on!

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Rich
Northern VA
PCA

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Can it look like this? Please!?!

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J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College

I'm working on a Reader on the Civil Magistrate including Confessional materials and the reformers, post-reformation, puritan, and further. Hopefully it will be a large volume with cd-rom of electronic text. My goal is for it to be used as source material to spurn new studies. Get your smiley's ready!

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Chris Rhoades -33
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church (PCA) Nashville, TN-Under Care

Vera theologia non theoretica, sed practica est; Finis siquidem eius agere est hoc est vitam vivere deiformem. - Martin Bucer
""True theology is not theoretical, but practical. The end of it is living, that is to live a godly life."

Agreed. When exposure to the Scriptures becomes possible.
Who argues that God's moral principles change? Natural law proponents argue for a change in application not relativism. The situation in the commonwealth of Israel has changed, therefore the application of the moral law formerly administered through that institution has changed. The commonwealth is no more, it's typological purpose being fulfilled by Christ, therefore those applications are no more. They can function only as a guide for punishment, not a rule. Would you at least agree so far?

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Patrick
OPC
MDiv, RTS Jackson.

"He does well, that discourses of Christ; but he does infinitely better, that by experimental knowledge, feeds and lives on Christ." Thomas Brooks.

That's precisely my point. God's moral standards don't change--our applications of them do. If the civil laws were moral and just for one time, they are moral and just for another. The appliction of them might be different.

On the previous page you made a comment on "progressive revelation." I don't disagree. However, revelation always means going from less light to more. The mosaic code is more clear on civil matters than Genesis 9.

Not so. Calvin is not just asserting the law of nations at this point in Institutes. He denies the necessity of instituting all Mosaic laws in new covenant states.

The question is not about whether Calvin advocate the adoption of some Mosaic case laws. No informed student of Calvin would deny that he does. The question between followers of Bahnsen's Theonomy and the majority reformed tradition is this: by what hermeneutical axiom do we justify our use of the Sinai Covenant case laws in New Covenant era states?

Bahnsen argues that unless the case law in question is either explicitly or implicitly amended by the lawgiver it remains valid today. Since no case can be made by good and necessary consequence that any Mosaic civil law must be regarded as implicitly amended and since Bahnsen never admitted to any case law being explicitly amended, in practice Bahnsen's Theonomy reduces to the axiom that no Mosaic civil case law or punishment loses validity in the New Covenant since it has not been amended by the lawgiver.

Now Calvin explicitly in the Institutes passage previously cited argues that civil laws may be "changed and abrogated without affectiing morals"...and that punishments for a crime can be changed by the state without authorzation by God to do so. Both Calvin's postulates conflict with Bahnsen's view.

As for Foulner, his work is nullified by his habit of insufficient quotations from his sources. It is one thing to show that particular divines held to the contemporary relevance of particular Mosaic civil case laws. That Foulner does. It is another thing to show that they held Bahnsen's hermeneutic. There are passages in both Gillespie and Rutherford, to name only two examples, both of which Foulner does not mention, which show that both Gillespie and Rutherford felt free to modify either an unamened Mosaic civil punishment or decriminalize a Mosaic crime without specific divine authorization to do so.
For these see Samuel Rutherford, A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience, London, 1649, pp. 298,99; Rutherford, Divine Right of Church Government, 1646, pp. 493-494. and George Gillespie wrote concerning options available to the magistrate:

Gillespie, George "Wholesome Severity Reconciled with Christian Liberty," London, 1644, now online at Wholesome Severity Reconciled with Christian Liberty, by George Gillespie. (30 August 2004)

That Gillespie regarded such false teachers as guilty of a biblically defined offense and thus liable to lawfully punishment is shown by the fact that, to avoid punishment, a forbearance needed to be granted. Here, the magistrate, who has it in the power of his hand to punish and extirpate, may lawfully grant forbearance in cases where he hopes to win the offenders back to orthodoxy, or he may not execute the proper Mosaic punishment without bringing great danger to the church’s peace. Such exemptions are nowhere provided for in the Mosaic civil laws. So Gilespie to does not follow Bahnsen's hermeneutical axiom.

The question is not whether Calvin advocates civil laws. What is in question is whether or not Calvin contradicts, in his sermons on Deuteronomy, the principle of how to apply them that he lays out in Institutes.

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In Christ's love and service

Mr. Tim Cunningham, Dip. CS (Regent College)
Member, First Baptist Church
Vancouver, BC

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"The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar of 1500-year-old, 200 proof grace—a bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the gospel—after all these centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your own bootstraps—suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home-free before they started. Grace was to be drunk neat: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale." – Robert Farrar Capon

Tim wonders - Where in the Mosaic law does it say a death penalty for adultery is a maximum punishment and where in Scripture is the mandatory minimum punishment for adultery set out?

[quote=Spear Dane;289310]
2) snip... I agree with Calvin that just because a law differs from Jewish law, it does not make it wrong (Bahnsen made the same point).

Tim asks - Where did Bahnsen make that point?

[quote=timmopussycat;289510]He hints at it in his lecture on the relevant section in Calvin's Institutes.
If there exists one condition where the death penalty is proscribed, then it follows that death penalty is the maximum punishment. As to the second question, what's the minimum punishment? I don't know. My point was that there exists a condition *also* where the death penalty is not prescribed.

That still does not justify the law of nations as a non-arbitrary civil code.

As to the rest of your argument, I am not too interested in defending theonomy. I just hate bad (previous) ad hominems and copy/paste arguments. I am more interested in deriving a clear, normative ethic from the Scriptures. Theonomy tried this. The Reformed faith is lacking in this regard.

As to the Foulner reference, I didn't bring him up and dont' feel a need to defend him. Suffice to say, the quotations from Gillespie and Rutherford are closer in spirit to Bahnsen than to the current streams in Reformed thought.

Allow me address another point that is underlying a lot of Calvin assertions. Suppose one wants to make the argument that x law that is not found in the Bible should be used today and is not necessarily immoral to use that law.

Fine. No problem here. However, bring that into the penal section. Is the punishment just? Is it too lenient? Too severe? How do you know?

[quote=Spear Dane;289512]I think that the last point about current streams in Reformed thought is an important point. It seems that in God's law discussions people take sides on to the confessional status of Theonomy and then go to town. Some people argue against Theonomy as if Bahnsen came along with Calvin, Rutherford and Gillespie walking the earth and then said, "let me do it right, guys". That was not the environment into which Theonomy was introduced or even exists today.

CT

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Hermonta Godwin
Christ The King PCA
Raleigh, NC

How precise does one have to be to fit your requirements. One reason that some people seem to argue for close following of the Mosaic laws is that it allows a greater amount of precision than other alternatives. What if that precision is not necessary.

CT

It goes with what I am saying about general equity/situation. Most people who rebut theonomy with "general equity" assume that general equity gets rid of the Mosaic law completely. I, and Bahnsen, are arguing that the general equity stands in continuity with the law.

How precise does it have to be? Not overly precise. For instance, how is kidnapping to be punished? That's the line on which I am arguing. For things like computer fraud, there can be a little more fuzziness.

Saying not that precise does not really help or further discussion. It is basically a "know it when I see it" answer.

For kidnapping, it basically depends on why one did it. With that in mind, one could make sure that the evil doer gets something along the line that they tried to do to the other.

One thing to keep in mind, that subjective does not imply arbitrary.

CT

You're right. It doesn't. Some are; some aren't.

Bradford,
Why do you think kidnapping is so clear cut while, Computer fraud is fuzzy?

CT

Bad example. I should have chosen cloning. The bible directly addresses kidnapping--and kidnapping is still with us today.

Bradford - do you go by that name? I've always referred to you as Jacob. Which is it bro?

Do you know if Bahnsen interacts with Calvin on the quotes that CH has cited?

I think the thing I'm having difficulty connecting is something that Hermonta is drawing out. It does seem that the general equity of Natural Law and the Mosaic Law are similar in some substantial aspects as God is the giver of both. It does seem, however, that theonomy leans in a direction that only recognizes a Mosaic general equity as precisionally accurate enough while Calvin seems to argue that the broader application of a Natural Law principle would be acceptable.

As an example, one might argue that blasphemy can be prohibited on the basis of Natural Law and the Mosaic Law. It seems the theonomist would want to insist that any law that didn't impose the death penalty for blasphemy would be unrighteous due to the fact that it does not precisionally follow the Mosaic Law on this point. Calvin seems to leave room for less precision and he might see a fine or imprisonment as in accord with the general equity of Natural Law as the harsher penalty imposed under Moses served a pedagogical purpose.

Thoughts?

I usually go by the "Chosen One." Jacob, however, appears on all government identification documents. I recently started doing this because it looks dignified.

He does, but not in print--at least not to my knowledge. I know he interacts with them to some degree in his lectures on Calvin. I also have Jack Sawyer's thesis on this very topic--I will try to check that out tonight.

Yes, that seems accurate. Listen, I don't want to be pinned down as an "all or nothing theonomist." I try to read widely on ethics and see what good different theories have to say. See below.


Yes, that's accurate. I just want to focus on the "blasphemy" from a natural law perspective. Bishop Ussher, as seen on the other page, seemed to hold to both natural law and the penalties for blasphemy. If that's how one wants to define me, and it ends up being a "natural law" perspective, that's fine.

However, modern day Klinean natural law holders: Clark, DG Hart, Van Drunen, etc, would not hold to that. So while I can I say I hold to a natural law perspective, it looks quite different from the above.