The NXR Podcast - THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - Classical Two-Kingdoms And The Intersection Of Church and State

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00:00:30.000 All right, welcome back. This is episode seven now in a 10-part series that we're doing on all

00:00:49.840 things Christian nationalism. And this may be, for many of you, the episode that you've been

00:00:54.620 waiting for. We're going to talk about a few things, three things in particular. We're going

00:00:58.100 to talk about natural law and how it relates to civil law. We're also going to talk a little bit

00:01:03.160 about kind of Kuyperianism versus a classical two kingdom theology. And I'll update the audience

00:01:10.740 where I'm kind of at with that and give Stephen a chance to poke some holes if he can. And I think

00:01:17.060 he'll be able to probably at least get us to think. And then lastly, drum roll, please,

00:01:23.240 we will talk about the Christian prince. And so I think this will be a great episode. So let's

00:01:28.080 go ahead and dive in natural law civil law start the discussion okay um yeah so my my view which

00:01:35.280 i take to be the classical protestant view um is that that civil law um also known as positive law

00:01:42.100 is uh is must be derived from the moral law of god right and the moral law can be considered as

00:01:50.260 the natural law meaning that it's immutable it's creational um it's universal applied to all all

00:01:57.540 men. Um, but it's also revealed in scripture, summarized in the 10 commandments. So that's

00:02:04.340 what I was going to say. Part of the reason you, you never have bothered me with natural laws.

00:02:08.580 The first time I had you on our show, it was like two years ago, right after you published the book.

00:02:12.480 And one of the questions I asked you, and I already kind of knew the answer, but I was just

00:02:16.040 confirming was, you know, because I had actually done the reading. Um, I knew that the reformers,

00:02:21.320 I knew Calvin, I'd read the institutes and those things. And, um, I knew that you had, you know,

00:02:25.760 the classical reformed position. And all the reformers, when they said natural law,

00:02:32.460 natural law was synonymous with the Decalogue. It wasn't just the second table of law. It wasn't

00:02:37.100 just a natural instinct of common sense. It includes that, but it wasn't merely reason

00:02:43.740 and how we should treat our fellow man. But for the reformers, they would have said that the

00:02:48.460 Sabbath is a part of natural law, that the first table of the law, commandments one through four,

00:02:55.760 uh have no other gods before me don't make any graven images don't take the lord's name in vain

00:02:59.840 and remember the sabbath and keep it holy that that this is a part of natural law so when you

00:03:04.000 talk about natural law i knew that you were talking about it in the way that calvin and others have

00:03:07.800 which doesn't really bother me because it's the deck law it is the moral law of god yeah so that

00:03:13.040 what this means then is this is why i use moral law um is then i can say that you can get at the

00:03:19.140 moral law in principle via reason that doesn't mean it's always successful but you can get at

00:03:24.880 the same law through scripture so one is by faith so because god said so right that's basically what

00:03:31.340 faith is god says so and god is true so you believe it um and the other one is uh is through

00:03:36.960 reason or proper thinking about it so um so you get at the same thing so in principle you should

00:03:44.320 be able to get to all 10 commandments um by reason and of course by faith both the same thing so

00:03:52.400 So what this means then is when I mean that the civil law, which is an explicit, outward, promulgated, do this, don't do that, promulgated and enacted by a legitimate authority, so it can't be an illegitimate person.

00:04:07.320 You can't stand up in the street and say, I'm the king and let her do this because you're not a legitimate authority.

00:04:13.240 You then can derive that positive or civil law from reason and principle or from scripture or from both or whatever.

00:04:22.520 So you're thinking about what you ought to do in a particular situation can be informed by those things.

00:04:29.380 And I think there have been in the past in the Reformed tradition, they would affirm that.

00:04:34.840 I would say that's the broad consensus.

00:04:37.320 um now whether you emphasize scripture or you emphasize reason or experience that will change

00:04:44.120 depending on who it is and they're all this is not like liberal versus conservative this is just

00:04:48.460 all orthodox guys um so you can take like richard hooker would emphasize reason and experience a lot

00:04:55.280 i think calvin who emphasized scripture more but calvin would still acknowledge that reason

00:04:59.740 in principle can get you there in part the irony is because of scripture yeah that's that's romans

00:05:05.800 1, Romans 1 doesn't just say, it's really Romans 2 that gives the focus on, you know, like your

00:05:12.960 own conscience within yourself, even as an unregenerate man, simply made in the image of

00:05:16.920 God. You have a conscience, it's been, it's, you know, the images of God has been tarnished by sin,

00:05:21.640 but it still a vestige remains intact, and because of that vestige of the image of God that remains

00:05:26.240 intact, even for unregenerate man, Romans 2 talks about, you know, natural law, and it's very

00:05:31.620 obvious even to the non-christian um that that there's a certain way of treating his his neighbor

00:05:37.980 his fellow man but that's romans two but romans one um really has more of a focus on what we

00:05:44.040 consider to be the first table of the law um that that by nature by what god has made natural

00:05:48.940 revelation um we know that god exists uh not just that we should be kind to our fellow man but we

00:05:55.700 know there is a god he exists and we know not all but some of his attributes have been clearly

00:06:00.220 displayed, namely His eternal power and divine nature. And we can reason from that that if there

00:06:06.700 is a God, and there is one God, not gods, but a God, then we shouldn't have any idols and other

00:06:13.820 gods before Him. We also can reason from nature that this one God who does exist, that we shouldn't

00:06:22.380 blaspheme Him, we shouldn't have other gods before Him. We also can reason by the light of nature

00:06:27.920 that this one God who exists is the invisible God

00:06:30.700 and therefore images will always fail

00:06:32.980 to accurately express him

00:06:34.580 and then therefore begin to represent other gods

00:06:38.300 and idolatry.

00:06:40.020 Yeah, actually what you just said there,

00:06:41.560 that was certain pagan philosophers

00:06:43.780 came to that conclusion as well.

00:06:45.440 So Numa, Pythagoras. 1.00

00:06:47.160 So without being a Christian, 0.99

00:06:48.720 the non-Christian doesn't just innately recognize 0.95

00:06:52.360 by virtue of his conscience 0.90

00:06:53.520 that he shouldn't murder people,

00:06:55.160 but he also can argue by the light of nature that um he should worship god now there is i guess a

00:07:02.500 qualification with that though um because and calvin's very clear in this in his uh would it

00:07:09.220 be second volume or second book of this that uh that our reasoning powers with regard to to natural

00:07:16.060 theology or to god first table stuff is actually far weaker than our our ability on second table

00:07:23.780 stuff this is why calvin would say that like they're as blind as moles when it comes to

00:07:28.260 the true god right but they're actually pretty decent at the second table duties that that is

00:07:34.260 the pagan philosophers he says that and the reason he says that's not arbitrary he takes us back which

00:07:39.720 is a again i'd say a classical distinction going to augustine and earlier that uh at the fall man

00:07:45.500 lost those i think the the common word is obliterated was obliterated those faculties

00:07:53.160 or that ability to have acknowledged the higher truths of the first table. And so that means

00:07:59.820 you're driven down, instead of having a heavenly orientation, you're driven down to the things of

00:08:03.600 the earth, you create idols, various forms of, in the worst case, human child sacrifice. 0.97

00:08:10.820 And that's because within that, you're blind as moles. Because that heavenly orientation, 0.96

00:08:16.640 those faculties are gone. But whereas what is retained, though diminished and weakened,

00:08:21.660 would be those faculties of your own earthly life.

00:08:24.580 And part of that is you just can walk around

00:08:27.560 and experience, like, I don't like getting my stuff stolen.

00:08:30.460 And you can say, well, maybe there should be

00:08:32.200 a law against theft.

00:08:34.060 And so the power to reason on second table

00:08:36.320 is actually stronger.

00:08:37.180 And that's the basis of reformed theologians

00:08:42.140 and philosophers appealing to Plato and Aristotle

00:08:45.820 and Cicero and Seneca and Xenophon

00:08:48.300 on issues from home economy to ethics

00:08:51.540 to politics, because those are all fundamentally earthly things. And so from there, that's why they

00:08:59.640 could appeal to that. And that's also one reason why it's very common, Calvin said it, of course,

00:09:04.620 Hookard said it, other people said it, that you can take the common experience. If you study the

00:09:09.480 polities of the pagans, there are obviously bad practices in there, usually associated with the

00:09:15.420 religious side. But in terms of the laws of governance and their thinking about laws,

00:09:20.060 they can actually be very um useful uh for thinking about politics and ethics um and our

00:09:26.440 even christian societies yeah um so let's talk for a second um i and tell me if it's uh premature but

00:09:34.520 can we shift gears a little bit to two kingdoms yeah well let me let me say one more thing about

00:09:39.920 law if i might just to because my own mind needs completeness here so you can appeal to scripture

00:09:44.220 for these laws um and uh see yeah i just want to emphasize that that that i don't i don't care if

00:09:52.100 it's a just law and you appeal to scripture that's perfectly fine i think it's totally

00:09:56.620 ground as that that's um yeah because god wrote a book and we can appeal to the book right it's not

00:10:01.840 just a book for god's people but for all people yeah it's perspicuous you can you can you can see

00:10:05.780 it it says this the only thing i would say though is i don't think that scripture provides a

00:10:10.660 blueprint for the political system, or I'd say even the economic system, or the body of law you

00:10:18.560 must have in every place. So when you do politics, it's deliberation. It's in consideration of

00:10:24.980 circumstances, the characteristics of the people. Some people are not suited for democracy or

00:10:29.840 republic. Some people are more suited for a monarchy. And that's all context-dependent.

00:10:37.460 And the same thing with particular laws.

00:10:39.360 So the laws in one place could be different in another place

00:10:42.740 because this law over here will be effective

00:10:45.860 given their circumstances.

00:10:47.020 It won't be effective over here.

00:10:48.540 You need something else.

00:10:49.800 So that's how politics is.

00:10:51.920 Deliberation upon the circumstances,

00:10:53.820 come to a decision, enact the law,

00:10:55.840 and then promulgate it and enforce it.

00:10:57.200 Right.

00:10:57.420 So for instance, if you had a society

00:10:58.900 that never had cars before,

00:11:00.440 and then all of a sudden they have cars,

00:11:01.840 and nobody knows how to drive,

00:11:03.940 and they're all really just learning on the go

00:11:05.960 for the first time,

00:11:06.980 um, you might have lower speed limits and we want to say that's an injustice because the max speed

00:11:12.180 on their highways is 45 miles per hour. Whereas in America it's, you know, 70 or 80. Yeah. We

00:11:17.120 wouldn't say like, this is a breach of the law word of God. Like we'd say, no. Yeah. And actually

00:11:21.960 on my own street, we, we actually asked North Carolina to, to do a speed assessment because

00:11:26.560 I'm on a country road where people go 70 miles an hour down my, my street. And we're like, well,

00:11:30.820 we want to put up a posted speed limit, bring it down to 45 because there's kids here. Yeah. And

00:11:35.720 unfortunately they didn't actually go for that um which uh speaks bad i think about the bureaucracy

00:11:41.420 but it was contextual in the sense that like let's say that there weren't a bunch of families

00:11:44.840 with a bunch of kids yeah it was just open field yeah open farmland yeah you might 55 is fine but

00:11:50.180 now you have families with kids the circumstances have changed and the kids you'd like to not get

00:11:55.260 your kid run over and so you request to have a speed limit reduction because of the circumstances

00:12:00.100 yeah okay two kingdoms are we ready um yeah sure okay so uh just i know it's probably easier said

00:12:09.720 than done but um or in this case hard to actually say but can you give us just as as concise as

00:12:16.520 possible yeah a brief synopsis of the classical two kingdom approach yeah so we often say two

00:12:23.080 kingdoms um it's more precise to say twofold kingdom um i'm okay with saying two kingdoms

00:12:28.840 Because it's one king.

00:12:29.760 One king, basically one kingdom,

00:12:33.000 but there's two modes of reign.

00:12:34.580 And so you can say two kingdoms.

00:12:36.000 One would be in which Christ rules the church directly.

00:12:39.880 Ministers are not magistrates

00:12:42.160 in the sense that they can legislate their own laws.

00:12:44.060 They follow the laws of Christ.

00:12:45.820 I'd say it's a, I'm a moderate divine order guy.

00:12:48.800 So it's a, the church is a sort of divine order

00:12:51.440 instituted by Christ.

00:12:52.960 He's the king of the church immediately

00:12:55.120 and the ministers serve under him as emissaries or, you know, ministers.

00:13:01.900 They administer the laws of Christ with regard to the ecclesial context.

00:13:06.620 But the other mode would be civil, or you could say earthly,

00:13:10.540 and that would be, I'd say, mediated through civil magistrates.

00:13:15.480 And that would be, whereas the church appeals to the inward man,

00:13:19.080 tries to persuade them of the truths found in scripture,

00:13:21.540 um the civil kingdom is interested in outward action right so they can't legislate that you

00:13:27.180 believe this or that matters of the heart yeah matters of heart they can't say suddenly be scared

00:13:31.020 or beef you know you can't legislate emotions because it's all like internal stuff but they

00:13:36.600 can legislate the outward and so within the two kingdoms in there are you can say two swords sword

00:13:41.300 of the spirit wielded by the minister and then you have the sword of the civil magistrate which

00:13:46.580 strikes the outward man only and so these are the two modes of reign and because in that

00:13:51.340 second mode when it comes to the civil kingdom, the common kingdom of the civil magistrate,

00:13:57.980 because it's outward. It's concerns, behaviors, outward actions, and not matters of the heart.

00:14:04.480 The way that I've worded it to people is even though the Decalogue should be in full view

00:14:09.160 with the Christian prince, he doesn't actually have laws to mitigate the first or the 10th

00:14:17.060 commandment. I actually think that's interesting that like within the Decalogue, you have two 0.53

00:14:21.860 tables of the law, and it's both the first and the last. So you have one commandment in each

00:14:27.700 tables, like bookends that are actually regarding the heart, like images would be visible, outward,

00:14:35.600 external, you know, like, like, it's something that's witnessable. It requires an action of

00:14:40.660 making an image and then hoisting it up in some public space, you know, that would actually,

00:14:45.380 deter worship of the true God. Whereas the first commandment, have no other gods before me in terms

00:14:51.120 of not necessarily your actions, but in terms of your heart and your affections, there would be no

00:14:58.120 way for the civil magistrate to actually regulate that. And then likewise, it's like, well,

00:15:04.860 at what point or in what way does the civil magistrate in a Christian nation regulate the

00:15:09.880 10th commandment, thou shalt not covet? Well, he does it in precisely all the ways that are

00:15:14.700 breach of the Ten Commandment becomes so robust that it spills over into a breach of the fifth,

00:15:20.320 sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth commandment, that you're coveting without any restraint of

00:15:25.160 the heart, and that's not punishable by the civil magistrate. But if your covetousness

00:15:29.880 becomes so great that it spills over into causing you to murder or causing you to steal,

00:15:36.240 then coveting actually is, in a sense, being punished by virtue, by proxy of punishing theft

00:15:42.000 and punishing murder. And that's what James says in the book of James. He answers that question,

00:15:48.340 he raises it, and then he answers it. Why is it that you have factions and divisions among you?

00:15:53.280 Is it not because of your covetous desires within you? You desire, but have not, so you murder.

00:16:02.020 And so coveting is punished, but only when it rises to the extent that it spills over into

00:16:07.980 a breach of commandments. So, commandment number 10 is punished by the civil magistrate when it

00:16:12.100 causes you to breach commandments 5 through 9. Likewise, commandment number 1 is punishable by

00:16:18.000 the civil magistrate when that idolatry of the heart rises to the extent that it spills over

00:16:22.440 into a breach of commandments 2 through 4. Does that, would you agree with that? Yeah, no, I

00:16:27.460 completely, I think that both tables pertain to both of the ecclesial and the civil sphere,

00:16:33.660 but in different respects. So obviously the outward would be the civil magistrate deals

00:16:38.240 with the outward sins. And this is why even like polytheism can be suppressed, atheism can be

00:16:43.300 suppressed. If it's outwardly expressed, then it becomes outward. You say, you know, there is no

00:16:48.460 God and therefore the civil magistrate can say, no, don't say that. So that would be, he's not

00:16:53.360 trying to reform your heart because he can't. He's not punishing you simply for the belief in it.

00:16:57.960 We'll get to this in a later episode, but we're not punishing you just for the belief in itself,

00:17:02.040 but for the external expression of it which he deems harmful both out both to souls into the

00:17:07.320 body politic um and the likewise the or differently that the church will say okay good don't you don't

00:17:15.700 steal that's bad they'll say don't steal but they'll say you know for the eighth commandment

00:17:19.900 they'll say okay work hard but as you work hard work hard in the lord or work hard for the lord

00:17:26.560 so they're appealing to your heart so that your good work outwardly becomes completely good

00:17:32.260 inwardly as well because you can do all you can do all sorts of outward virtuous actions right

00:17:36.460 but you in order for it to be an actually good work it has to be both outwardly and inwardly

00:17:41.720 and that's for romans 14 anything that does not proceed from faith is sin right and the civil

00:17:46.640 magistrate is not going to take that um as something that's that's actually literally

00:17:52.040 punishable. But the minister in the house of God would say, he actually would appeal and even

00:17:59.240 command and say, it's not enough to just simply do outwardly the right thing, but we want our

00:18:04.960 works to be done in faith. Without faith, Hebrews chapter 11, without faith, it is impossible to

00:18:12.720 please him. And we want to be not just righteous in a conformity with our outward behaviors,

00:18:18.060 but we actually want to be pleasing to god which requires the heart yeah and this is how the church

00:18:23.180 and state together can coordinate um in the sense that they are promoting in people uh the the to

00:18:33.240 act in the complete goodness unto the lord so outward inward now i don't want to conflate

00:18:39.360 like the two kingdoms with church and state that's i think the air of the modern two kingdoms kind of

00:18:44.520 did that a little bit no i i wouldn't say whereas augustine did a better job i think with the city

00:18:50.200 of man and city of god yeah no i i don't i don't think they did that i there is a sense in which

00:18:55.180 the the i'd say the instituted church as a presbyterian like anglicans don't agree with

00:19:00.840 this i don't want to get into that dispute but there is a sense in which the the visible

00:19:03.860 instituted church is part of the of the spiritual kingdom of god but what but i i would say that

00:19:09.280 the principal distinction is between the the elect which is an inward reality the church is people

00:19:14.500 versus the church institute yeah no i'd say that like the spiritual kingdom of christ is fundamentally

00:19:19.720 in the elect which is known only by god because it's only visible to god who is true elect and

00:19:26.660 who's not and so that's and so the church as an institution functions to administer to those

00:19:33.240 people so they they do they do word and sacrament for those people so that institution is oriented

00:19:39.460 to the people of God as the elect of God, the spiritual kingdom of Christ. In that sense,

00:19:44.820 the instituted church is part of, is the outward expression in a way of the more inward reality of

00:19:53.120 the invisible kingdom of God. And so what this means then is that the civil kingdom,

00:19:58.900 it deals with outward things. I just don't think that the civil kingdom can enter into the church

00:20:03.100 and tell the minister what to do and has command over the minister as a minister.

00:20:09.460 But the minister, as a fellow citizen, as a man, in his capacity as a member of that society, is under the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate.

00:20:19.060 So he can't tell you what to preach on, how to administer sacraments.

00:20:23.720 The civil magistrate can't himself preach the word as a minister.

00:20:28.520 He can't preach the word as a—I guess you could be both, even though that's frowned upon.

00:20:33.060 But the governor shouldn't administer the Lord's Supper.

00:20:36.060 Right.

00:20:36.300 And likewise, the minister shouldn't hang anyone.

00:20:41.040 Right, yes, because as a minister, he does not have the power of outward punishment.

00:20:46.080 I mean, there is church discipline, but that does not involve some sort of corporeal punishment.

00:20:51.480 It's not physical.

00:20:52.640 That's just separation from the church.

00:20:55.580 So that would be the broadly.

00:20:57.200 what this allows you to do is to say that in the spiritual kingdom of Christ, in the invisible 0.90

00:21:06.060 church, there is neither male nor female, Greek or Jew, you know, master-servant, which is true. 0.95

00:21:12.280 There's a sort of equality that's been established in that realm among the elect, such that there is 0.98

00:21:18.320 no—that gender doesn't play a part, or your ethnicity doesn't play a part in your status

00:21:25.560 with regard to salvation justification for god you're yeah you you as a woman or a man

00:21:31.480 remain as an individual before god and you're saved um equally among that so even if you're

00:21:39.280 a slave you're just you could be actually more pious and more um righteous than your master

00:21:45.500 because even though both of you are christians um in that kingdom of god you can be first in

00:21:50.240 the kingdom of God and be a no-name slave because you do your work diligently to the Lord and your

00:21:57.920 good works, even though they're unseen by man, they're only seen by the master and you're a

00:22:03.060 slave, you could be first in the kingdom of God. But because there is a distinction, there's a

00:22:08.560 two-foldness, you have the civil kingdom where now the natural order of things remain as they are.

00:22:14.040 So you still have husband and wife, you still have master-servant, you still have the

00:22:19.660 different nations and different ethnicities yeah and the principles of the hierarchy

00:22:24.420 is are not shaped by like the slave might be pious but he's uneducated he cannot lead anyone

00:22:30.040 but he might be first in the kingdom of god however he's not fit to rule in a christian

00:22:34.820 society you need the civil magistrate who is by his natural abilities is able to rule in that

00:22:40.460 capacity so the that distinction allows you this is why i think actually like a sort of two-fold

00:22:47.880 of kingdom theology should be obvious to people. Unless you want to homogenize and globalize and

00:22:54.000 do all these other things, if you maintain a distinction between husband and wife and also

00:23:00.600 maintain that you can be equally saved before God in the kingdom of Christ, then you are a type of

00:23:05.960 twofold kingdom person. If you distinguish between the civil sword and the spiritual sword, that is

00:23:10.980 a type of twofold kingdom. If there are principles of earthly life that you want to remain untouched

00:23:15.940 because they're natural and yet you affirm equality within the kingdom of god that's a

00:23:20.580 form of two kingdom theology so it is i think it's fair to say it's a form to be um technical

00:23:27.460 so what i would have said in the past and and still largely agree with this is i would have

00:23:32.840 said one king two kingdoms and three spheres and so you know a lot of the kyperian types yeah would

00:23:39.340 the the kyperian types would say that yeah of course there's a two-fold nature they just want

00:23:45.260 rooted in kingdoms they would root it in spheres um and in that sense there's you know you could

00:23:50.380 even argue a threefold nature and instruments given uh not just duties and roles you know

00:23:56.460 um and and then of course corresponding privileges and rights and authority but then also

00:24:00.860 tools you know so um to the to the home has been given the rod to the the state has been given the

00:24:06.780 sword to the church has been given the keys and um and so what i would have said in terms of the

00:24:11.820 kingdoms. So one king, two kingdoms, three spheres. In regards to that two kingdom aspect, I would

00:24:17.620 have said that it's not so much a divide between, you know, sacred and secular or sacred and common,

00:24:23.480 but rather, and it's also certainly not a divide necessarily between church and state, I would

00:24:29.540 root that as being, you know, the distinction in spheres rather than kingdoms. But what I would

00:24:34.700 say, there is still two kingdoms of sorts, one king, still sovereign, ruling above both of them,

00:24:40.260 but two kingdoms in the sense of not sacred and common, but light and dark, a kingdom of light,

00:24:47.600 a kingdom of dark. And I would say that at some level, and I'm curious to hear your pushback to

00:24:52.840 this, because I'm sure it'll be helpful for me. But at some level, I would say that wherever you

00:24:58.680 find righteousness, and especially wherever you find a Christian, whether he's in the, you know,

00:25:05.740 the church institute, the visible church, or whether he's functioning in his role more broadly

00:25:11.660 in the, you know, the politic outside of the institute of the church. Wherever you find a

00:25:20.620 righteous man, a Christian man, you find, and wherever he acts in righteous ways, you find an

00:25:26.040 advancement of the kingdom of light. So, in other words, if you have a false teacher in the church,

00:25:30.400 it's in the church in terms of spheres but if he's you know if you have benny hen

00:25:36.560 um you have an advancement of the kingdom of darkness but in the sphere of the church

00:25:41.420 if you have constantine you have an advancement of the kingdom of light but within the sphere

00:25:46.220 of the state and that's kind of been my thinking i'm sure there are certain flaws what would you

00:25:50.980 say i i say that's perfectly compatible with what i'm saying so i i i um if you want to like the

00:25:56.660 kingdom of light uh i would agree with that in the sense that um the the two-foldness of kingdom

00:26:05.720 there's proper coordination between church and state i guess that's how i would say it

00:26:09.180 whereas and i would just say there's a coordination between spheres yeah for the advancement of one

00:26:14.280 particular kingdom light yeah i mean it's why even that i don't have a really a problem with

00:26:19.800 okay um the whole sphere thing i i don't i think that would require like a longer discussion on

00:26:25.320 exactly figuring out where the distinction or the differences are there. I don't see how they're

00:26:31.480 incompatible. The idea with like three estates, that's common within tradition. So, excuse me.

00:26:38.280 I would say that if you want to talk about kingdom of light and kingdom of darkness, 0.86

00:26:41.840 it would be the state or just the nation as such becoming a Christian nation. And the principal 0.89

00:26:49.200 role in that would be orienting people to the church, um, which would orient them principally

00:26:55.240 to kingdom of God, kingdom of life. But I would say that that would be, I would say in a way that

00:27:01.280 even the spiritual kingdom of God is coming to earth when, when the civil magistrates enact laws

00:27:08.100 that would order people to the church and that are just, um, and ultimately point them to the

00:27:14.460 highest good. Right. So I would agree with that. Um, I just, I would just frame it the way I

00:27:18.620 approach it would be a little bit differently. I think that the state in earthly life is supreme,

00:27:26.560 but it's subordinated to the highest good, which would be eternal life. And so that means that

00:27:33.160 its function is in a way to be, in one sense, to be under the church, not in the sense that

00:27:39.740 the church is directing it or telling the magistrate what to do, but in the sense that

00:27:44.380 his ultimate principal mission is, is eternal life for the, for the, you know, uh, for the,

00:27:50.240 his people under his. Right. And I think the reason why it appeals to me, what I just expressed

00:27:54.980 this one King, two kingdoms and three spheres and the distinction of the kingdoms being light

00:27:59.540 and dark rather than sacred and, and, uh, common. Part of the reason it appeals to me is, is because

00:28:05.260 within the, you know, invisible and visible church scheme, it's not just individual people that,

00:28:11.300 you could be administering the Lord's Supper and baptism to someone who in the final analysis

00:28:22.140 proves to be an apostate. It's not just that that is possible. We know that's possible from

00:28:29.180 scripture and experience, but it's also feasible that you cannot just have a true church that is

00:28:38.940 made up of, you know, a majority of people who actually belong to the invisible church. They're

00:28:42.960 truly regenerate. They're truly God's elect. But with isolated individual instances of people who

00:28:48.380 are unregenerate and apostates and who are given the sacraments because by all visible appearances,

00:28:55.020 it was the right thing to do. But on the final day, there's this Lord, Lord, you know, did we

00:29:01.800 not this and that and the other? Depart from me, I never knew you. But in my mind, it's feasible

00:29:06.700 that um not just at an individual person level but in terms of uh whole entities like like you

00:29:14.260 could have a false church the whole church is false uh whereas i would still say that uh it's

00:29:20.860 still a part of the church institute so that part of this it for me it's it's a way of reconciling

00:29:26.700 for instance you know it's a way of reconciling roman catholicism it's a way of like like my

00:29:33.180 desire, I'll just put my cards on the table, my not only desire, but as a post-mill guy, my prediction

00:29:38.880 is I don't think that the Roman church will utterly fail and be eradicated. I think the end

00:29:49.100 game, if I was to guess at the mind of God, is that the Roman church would repent, that they 0.87

00:29:56.180 would undo Trent. I don't want to see the Roman church fail, actually. I want to see the Roman

00:30:02.620 church come back into the fold, you know, almost like a Romans 11, you know, Jew and Gentile thing, 0.99

00:30:09.320 but with papists and Protestants, I would like to see them that, you know, if I could use these 0.99

00:30:14.600 terms in some sense, the natural branches grafted back in to the root that is Christ and not be 0.89

00:30:20.420 replaced, but be repentant. And so for me, it gives me a grid, a frame of including both,

00:30:28.380 you know the eo got you know eastern orthodoxy and roman catholicism within the church institute at

00:30:33.720 large um while also recognizing that it's not just isolated individual people but but as a whole

00:30:40.700 church that it um that that an argument can be made and i'm not saying for each and every

00:30:46.820 individual like i understand that there are some catholic priests that really are sound a lot more

00:30:52.500 protestant in terms of their conception of soteriology and salvation by grace but on the

00:30:57.180 whole, I could say that the Roman Catholic Church is not a true church. And yet, I could say,

00:31:05.140 but it is truly a part of the institute of the church, and I'm very hopeful for their inclusion.

00:31:13.020 Yeah, I mean, that was, many reformers thought something along those lines. It's tricky

00:31:17.420 to say something's a false church, and yet also part of the broad, you know,

00:31:23.240 low c catholic church right um yeah but that's where i'm at and it's funny you know

00:31:30.380 the reformation in some sense seems like the it's not an entirely like a counter movement

00:31:37.220 and separate in some ways it seems like just the other side of a singular coin of the enlightenment

00:31:43.060 that um i i'm i'm reformed so i i love the reformation we celebrate martin luther you know

00:31:51.160 and we do we do the whole thing and um and and and i have no apologies or shame but i do sometimes

00:31:58.500 feel a sense of curiosity and and borderline regret and wondering like could they have fought

00:32:07.120 harder you know like could like because i look at it and i'm like who's who's they the reformers

00:32:12.820 and trying to reform the catholic church like i see like because there's a certain sense you know

00:32:16.640 like we've we've used this expression before but like the toothpaste is very hard to go back in

00:32:20.400 tube and the reformation in some sense seems like pandora's box like like catholicism is easier i

00:32:25.680 know i understand all all i'm protestant for a reason i understand uh the failures and and and

00:32:31.440 the risk but um there was a certain way of viewing the world like things were more objective

00:32:37.280 the subjectivity of protestant theology um it's like well yeah we don't like the pope but then

00:32:43.200 everybody becomes their own individual pope you know and sola scriptura which i i adhere to and

00:32:48.480 and I love. At the same time, it's like, you know, it's not like, you know, doctrines of man versus

00:32:55.700 the Bible. That's a false dichotomy. Everybody's confessional. It's either a confession that's

00:33:00.200 tried and true, you know, and written by better men, or it's the confession that you're

00:33:04.000 subconsciously writing in your own head as you go along. But everybody has, there's no such thing

00:33:09.520 as an interpretation of scripture and then just the Bible alone. Everybody's interpreting scripture.

00:33:13.280 So it's really just whose interpretation is it going to be? And in the Protestant scheme,

00:33:17.980 the answer is very often who gets to interpret the bible the peanut gallery and the interpretations

00:33:24.420 really suck and you have millions of them instead of one and so all that being said i think like

00:33:30.620 the the reformation um followed the enlightenment in some sense that it really did give way it gave 0.98

00:33:36.780 theological explanatory power for accepting relativism and subjectivity whereas you know

00:33:43.500 catholicism was very much in line with the thinking of the day and the philosophy of the

00:33:49.360 day it followed that that like faith was objective like you can look and touch and see and and these

00:33:55.680 things are objectively true and and there's benchmarks and in a clear path that can you

00:34:01.040 know anybody could follow whereas whereas you know one of the one of the dangers of you know

00:34:05.960 the reformers is some but it really you know showed its head with the puritans was um the

00:34:11.060 navel gazing and, and, and over overly, you know, personal, not just subjectivity, but personal

00:34:21.940 constant, constant evaluation to where a lot of, you know, a lot of the Puritans had virtually no

00:34:29.800 assurance of like, they were constant, you know, he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves

00:34:33.880 and there was nothing objective to lay hold to, to know, it was just my heart and my heart is

00:34:38.840 constantly fickle do i really mean it do i really believe it and and uh catholicism is easier in so

00:34:45.640 many senses and and i know that it's you know it's gone too far and it's deeply flawed but i

00:34:50.020 and this would be like a 10-hour podcast i know i'm just i'm just saying i miss i miss the old

00:34:56.100 world that i was never even a part of but i've read about it and i and i see the appeal of of

00:35:02.300 these things touch see smell even incense and all like yeah and it's objective yeah i think

00:35:09.280 this is where like the federal vision guys tried to recover high objectivity i think it created a

00:35:15.640 lot of incoherence i know um problems that yeah because i look at them invisible invisible church

00:35:21.980 i think was doing just fine like why do we you know yeah um i mean this i guess this goes back

00:35:27.760 to that there are downsides to anything that is true. I would say that, I mean, I could go on for

00:35:35.340 a long time talking about all the problems with Roman Catholicism, but I don't think it was

00:35:39.940 actually as clear and objective as people thought. It was rooted in a tremendous amount of ignorance 0.87

00:35:49.560 of the average person. A lot of people had no idea what they were doing. There was a lot of

00:35:54.140 superstition um there was a lot of the the claims of the papacy allows the meddling of the papacy

00:36:00.900 into political matters that caused a tremendous amount of um strife conflict and war there was

00:36:08.420 claims of multiple popes at various times so i i don't um so i i don't think that it's a it's kind

00:36:15.580 of as rosy as uh as it seems and there's also i mean you if you want to be massive perversions

00:36:21.360 When I say rosy, I don't mean without perversions and without faults.

00:36:26.040 I mean rosy not in the sense of true or pure.

00:36:29.860 I mean there was a rosy element in terms of simplicity.

00:36:34.180 Yeah, if you have someone who claims to be able to mediate truth to you

00:36:39.160 and this is it or you're a heretic, then yeah, that becomes easier.

00:36:43.860 But there's other options.

00:36:45.020 You can become those.

00:36:45.960 You can have something that's simple and bad. 0.99

00:36:47.380 Or you can become Mormon. 0.98

00:36:48.400 Mormons have a similar thing as well. 0.94

00:36:49.860 Right.

00:36:50.220 I think ultimately it comes down to whether or not the Roman Catholic claim for itself is true.

00:36:57.560 And I think there's a lot of reasons to reject that.

00:37:00.880 So do I.

00:37:01.700 So yeah, we could, if simplicity was our principle, even then I think we have problems of who to choose for the source.

00:37:10.080 But truth kind of matters, even if it's complicated.

00:37:14.160 Simplicity isn't the only ideal.

00:37:16.240 Yeah, I mean, even if I, yeah.

00:37:17.960 I'd also, on the Enlightenment, I'd say that actually it was the Reformed guys who were in the early 17th and late 16th who were very conservative.

00:37:34.540 They were the Aristotelian realists and Thomists, whereas the Roman Catholics were often very nominalists and alchemists.

00:37:42.960 So you have Descartes, a central figure in modern philosophy, was a Roman Catholic and actually a defender of the Roman Catholic Church.

00:37:51.080 And part of his philosophy, people argue, was trying to defend the Roman Catholic claims for itself over against the claims of reason and Aristotelian philosophy of the Reformed.

00:38:03.240 So I don't think, even though you can identify Locke and these other guys as being Protestants, I don't think Roman Catholics, their narrative they give themselves is that it's nominalism from Ockham and then Luther, who was nominalist, and then that took the West down.

00:38:22.240 When actually it was many Roman Catholics were nominalists, including central figures of the Enlightenment being Roman Catholics, such as Descartes.

00:38:29.860 So I don't know, that's a long discussion.

00:38:31.940 but um well i think that at least whets people's appetite let's shift now though and um let's at

00:38:37.480 least begin the conversation surrounding the christian prince the prince yeah and i have a

00:38:42.240 feeling if i had to guess that um in about seven minutes or so i'll be saying and this is going to

00:38:48.000 be a two-parter yeah but let's start the conversation see how far we get yeah so christian

00:38:52.280 prince uh christian prince if you open a reformed political thing uh treatise or john calvin or

00:38:59.000 one or Luther, they'll talk about the Christian prince. Why did I use prince? Because when we

00:39:05.480 think of prince, we think of someone like a sort of great man, someone who has a type of gravitas

00:39:12.080 and is revered. He's not just a politician. I could have used the word statesman, but that

00:39:18.200 seemed kind of modern and also to our tradition somewhat foreign, not entirely, but we don't use

00:39:24.300 statesman as much anymore. But I wanted to use Prince because I think it would be a sort of

00:39:30.820 provocative word that would jar people from this idea of a politician, one, as a bad guy,

00:39:37.760 and also, two, as a sort of policy wonk, some guy who maneuvers in the background and all this,

00:39:42.980 but actually a figure, a man, like a great man. And so Christian Prince was my

00:39:48.820 attempt to recover in our Western thinking the concept of a great man. And we have great men

00:39:58.860 in our own tradition from George Washington. We mentioned before, you like him or hate him,

00:40:03.160 Abraham Lincoln was a sort of great man and others in our history.

00:40:07.020 Yeah, but he was great.

00:40:08.780 He was a great man by definition.

00:40:10.360 There's a difference in a great man and a good man.

00:40:11.880 Yeah, like you could say Alexander the Great was not exactly a good guy, but you could say that...

00:40:15.640 Napoleon was great.

00:40:16.460 right right so you have these these these figures in history who are uh kind of shake the world

00:40:23.820 and i think that's what we need like uh not um not necessarily someone who violates the

00:40:29.860 constitution like you want to throw the constitution no you can have a great man who um who operates

00:40:35.260 within the bounds of your political system who nevertheless by force of personality and action

00:40:40.940 is able to activate complacent hearts.

00:40:44.960 And that's what I think we need in our society today.

00:40:47.940 I think Trump is not a Christian prince,

00:40:50.660 but he is a sort of ironic great man.

00:40:53.140 And I hope that he's trailblazing

00:40:57.360 for a true Christian prince great man

00:41:00.380 to come about and to bring us back.

00:41:02.960 I see him as a precursor.

00:41:04.400 I don't think he is the great man,

00:41:06.480 but I think he's the closest we have.

00:41:08.560 And great man, again, being distinguished

00:41:10.640 from necessarily good man.

00:41:12.480 I think there are good aspects,

00:41:14.280 generally good aspects to Trump.

00:41:15.740 And there are aspects that I think are atrocious.

00:41:19.820 But so I think in some ways he's a good man,

00:41:22.300 in some ways he's not.

00:41:23.660 But in either case, I think he is a great man.

00:41:27.080 But even in that category of great man,

00:41:29.160 I don't think he's the greatest man.

00:41:30.620 I think he's a precursor to inspire a truly great man.

00:41:35.120 And whether that's gonna be eight years of J.D. Vance,

00:41:39.020 you know, whoever that is and however that comes. But I do think that Trump has been used in the

00:41:45.220 providence of God to, to wet our appetite for greatness. Yeah. And Elon is an example too.

00:41:54.120 Yeah. And the way I see like great men is that they, they bring about a type of event in history

00:42:00.120 that comes to shape history profoundly. So certainly Napoleon shaped history profoundly.

00:42:06.540 George Washington did. Abraham Lincoln did. And I think Trump did as well, or is. And that is,

00:42:13.440 he's destroyed the neoconservatives, which is very good. He's now opened the possibility for

00:42:20.900 a type of new right that is just exploding now in both popularity and in thought, intellectual

00:42:26.800 and popular. And so that's why I think Trump is a sort of event in history. And so he's a sort of

00:42:32.500 great man. People often blame Abraham Lincoln for all the sort of ills we have, or various problems

00:42:40.000 we've had in our, but he nevertheless, as a man, was the one who burst that open and made it

00:42:47.400 possible. And so good or bad, that's what he was. And so yeah, that's what we need. Because of the

00:42:59.020 path we're leading in the Western world, which is descending lower and lower into anti-Christianity

00:43:07.480 and degeneracy, we need someone, a great man, to bring that all back, to restore and basically

00:43:14.440 a sort of reminder of our heritage of faith, our heritage of virtue and piety. And so anyway,

00:43:21.280 that's why. The Christian prince, I describe him in ways that the reformers describe civil

00:43:30.900 magistrates, which was their sort of divine figure. They're not divinized. They're not

00:43:36.540 made god. But as representative. Yeah, but they are, in a way, because they have a power. They

00:43:42.200 are, like I said, they are mediators of divine power, in a way. Not for salvation. He can't

00:43:48.140 bring about anyone's salvation, but he can order a people through enacting a law, and he can direct

00:43:56.140 a people in ways that—the ability to make law itself, that's firstly from God. God is the first

00:44:05.180 one who can say—is the only one who can say, do this and don't do that, but he can delegate that

00:44:10.120 power to individuals who then can direct that power to people. So there is a sense in which—people

00:44:17.580 got really upset when i said that like that's the most sacred office the civil ruler is the most

00:44:22.120 sacred office that it's um it's uh it more displays in principle can display more of

00:44:29.520 god than even the the um the church minister and that's because the church minister is a

00:44:35.940 emissary he's a he's a minister on behalf of christ he's not a mediator he doesn't mediate

00:44:42.600 grace right he the he um administers the means of grace but he's not the mediator of grace and

00:44:48.600 that's a deeply protestant thought you know because and that's why like you know the pope

00:44:52.200 vicar of christ yeah that's why i say and yeah and he and so in their thought like a priest really

00:44:57.900 you know especially the pope or a cardinal uh really really would be more than an emissary

00:45:02.860 that they really would mediate grace right and and so in that sense that would be the chief office

00:45:08.140 So within a Catholic, you know, Roman Catholic conception, the Pope would be greater than any president or king, but within a Protestant perspective, it elevates in some sense.

00:45:21.720 Yeah, so the medieval papacy would see the Pope as being the originator of both spiritual and

00:45:29.860 civil power. So in a way that a king has his power by delegation of the Pope, because the Pope is

00:45:37.880 the vicar of Christ on earth. Christ is the ultimate originator of civil and spiritual power,

00:45:43.300 and so it goes through the Pope. What it just means then is that the Pope can remove that from

00:45:47.500 you so if you become a heretic the pope can say you know what you now you're a usurper all of a 0.95

00:45:52.820 sudden i take that power back and when that happens that means you're a tyrant by deep by 0.97

00:45:57.240 in effect um which means that all of your people under you can now rebel even murder you legitimate

00:46:04.360 the pope can command uh the the roman catholic subjects under a say a protestant

00:46:10.480 magistrate to now rebel and to even murder. Papacy has the power, at least did. I think 0.56

00:46:19.320 still does, but they're all kind of wishy-washy in this now. But if you're a heretic, then they

00:46:24.160 can seize all your property. They can seize everything you own because you're a heretic, 0.99

00:46:28.660 whereas Protestants generally denied that. So you still have a right to what you have, 0.98

00:46:34.200 even if you're in jail or you're accused of heresy and under civil punishment.

00:46:37.940 um but the pope could claim and that all roots and that's rooted in the theology whereas in

00:46:42.760 protestants it's it it did like papacy said yo you made possible tyranny which is um that but

00:46:49.080 yeah there was an elevation of the role of the civil ruler in earthly affairs uh

00:46:55.060 as a as an effect of protestantism which really is a restoration of classical politics um you see

00:47:03.460 in Plato and Aristotle and Seneca and Cicero that the civil magistrate, civil ruler, is in a way

00:47:10.100 the supreme office of the land, and the priests have their functions within religion, but in a

00:47:15.960 way, within a civil sense, they are subservient to the magistrate. Whereas in the Roman Catholic

00:47:20.840 system, you really have church and state are separate, and the priests are, at least in the

00:47:26.140 medieval conception, are under that jurisdiction of the church, and so cannot really be punished.

00:47:31.480 this is the idea of like church lands they'd have church property church farms uh church armies

00:47:36.500 militaries all of that function under that that system flows from that theology um which

00:47:42.020 protestants rejected so anyway that's great so what do you think should we do um another episode

00:47:48.000 on the christian prince or should we move on to our next topic uh i don't know what is our next

00:47:53.840 topic religious religious liberty so we can i think we could probably move into that yeah we

00:47:59.000 can move in from we could do christian prince and religious liberty okay so uh this was episode i

00:48:03.980 believe seven yeah is that right so episodes uh eight if you stick around for the conversation

00:48:09.180 we'll talk a little bit more of uh the christian prince and then how that shifts and relates to

00:48:14.980 religious liberty yeah all right thanks for tuning in

The NXR Podcast - August 16, 2025

THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - Classical Two-Kingdoms And The Intersection Of Church and State

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