The NXR Podcast - THE INTERVIEW - Natural Law & Theonomy with David Reece

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00:01:12.060 Why?

00:01:13.000 Well, I'll give you the reason.

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00:02:03.580 You can get every single episode available now, all of it ad-free.

00:02:07.860 And here's a couple clips just to whet your appetite.

00:02:11.160 And so our entire moral framework is based around 1930 and 1940. 0.89

00:02:15.440 And every bad thing is Hitler.

00:02:18.640 Every failure to confront the bad thing is Neville Chamberlain. 0.85

00:02:23.320 And Saddam Hussein, Hitler.

00:02:25.820 Vladimir Putin, Hitler.

00:02:27.220 Donald Trump, Hitler.

00:02:28.600 That's the only moral framework that we have that is operable.

00:02:32.860 So the moment that a young man crosses the aisle and the don't believe your lying eyes rhetoric doesn't work any longer,

00:02:40.400 And he's just noticed too much because it really is that blatantly obvious.

00:02:44.380 And he has nowhere else to go.

00:02:45.220 And he crosses the aisle.

00:02:46.320 Well, the moment he crosses the aisle, there's no reasonable, wise, mature leader over there.

00:02:50.300 You would just have the guys on the TV telling them, this is what the Bible says.

00:02:54.960 You have to believe this.

00:02:56.360 On the radio, the Christian radio stations, you'd only hear those guys preaching that particular thing.

00:03:03.000 When that is actually, when you look at all of church history, that's the minority view.

00:03:08.720 a tiny minority view the rest of theological history in the church is that you know is

00:03:16.160 the the kind of stuff that we're saying yeah this one's a banger again go to patreon.com

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00:03:30.120 All right, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I'm your host,

00:03:46.980 Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries. And in this episode, I welcome back my friend,

00:03:51.380 Mr. David Reese. He is the CEO of Armored Republic. He's the pastor of Puritan Reformed

00:03:55.840 church in Arizona, outside of Phoenix, I believe, right? You're in the Phoenix larger area.

00:04:01.380 Yes, sir. Absolutely.

00:04:03.040 All right. So today we are going to talk. So one of the things I love about David is

00:04:08.140 when other Christians are tempted to throw you under the bus for cheap points with suburban

00:04:14.120 moms with perhaps softer sensibilities, David has proven time and time again to be,

00:04:20.740 um, he's, he's a real friend and he's loyal. And it's not because, um, we perfectly agree on

00:04:27.820 everything. We have like 95% agreement. So we agree on a lot. Um, but we disagree. And a lot

00:04:33.640 of you guys have, I've, you know, you've reached out and emailed or left, left comments on YouTube

00:04:37.700 and said that you've been particularly blessed by our conversations at the points where we actually

00:04:42.320 disagree and trying to model, um, how within the reformed world, we can, um, love our brothers in

00:04:47.600 Christ and yet disagree. And so I think the last episode that Mr. Reese and I had together was on

00:04:54.860 Trump. I'm going to vote for Trump. He is not. And we hashed it out and we did so in a way that

00:05:00.740 we hope is honoring to Christ and beneficial for all of you who are still probably trying to make

00:05:07.080 that decision. What is the Christian position? What's the righteous thing to do? And so today

00:05:11.600 we want to talk about, so both of us are on the theonomic side of the aisle. I always like to add

00:05:18.300 the qualifier of general equity theonomy because there's some things within the reconstruction camp

00:05:23.140 that I would disagree with, but I'm a massive fan of, I love Greg Bonson, but I especially love

00:05:29.580 Rush Dooney. I think that Rush Dooney, in my assessment, Rush Dooney is one of the old school

00:05:35.560 theonomist that didn't carry with it. The theonomy of Rushduni was not colored by what I would

00:05:46.300 consider to be the post-war consensus lens. So all that being said, both of us, Mr. Reese and myself,

00:05:52.400 are theonomists, and yet we would have different conceptions and nuances and particulars. And so

00:05:58.920 we want to talk about immigration today, and we want to talk about what is the theonomic mitigating

00:06:05.080 mechanism in order to stop unhealthy nation crippling levels of immigration. But we want to

00:06:14.520 first set the stage, and I'm going to give it to Mr. Reese to help us define terms with the larger

00:06:19.460 conversation before we get into the particulars of immigration, the larger conversation of theonomy,

00:06:26.100 God's law, and natural law, because there is a danger on the natural law side. Both David and I

00:06:33.000 affirm natural law. We're both Reformed, and we understand that that is absolutely a part of

00:06:37.560 the Reformed tradition. But there is something to be said for if it's only natural law, or if

00:06:43.060 natural law supersedes special revelation and God's law, then the word that you often hear

00:06:49.260 thrown around is prudence, prudence, prudence. But prudence is really, and I think you'll agree

00:06:53.740 with this, Mr. Reese, is it can easily become a euphemism for man's reason. Prudence, aka man's

00:07:01.260 reason, and if it's just man's reason with no bumpers, no buffers, then man's reason, I'm

00:07:12.260 persuaded, is why we're in the current situation that we are. Man's reason gets us right back to

00:07:17.620 the Enlightenment and all these things that have ruined the West. And so we want to frame that

00:07:23.040 first. Natural law, what's a biblical conception of natural law? How did the Reformers understand

00:07:27.620 it? How does that work within a theonomic conception? When does natural law bow the knee

00:07:33.280 to special revelation and these kinds of things? And then we're going to play it out with a case

00:07:38.160 study and say, okay, so now with this theonomic conception over and against a pure natural law

00:07:44.420 conception, how does this play out with immigration? And at that point, that's where you'll see David

00:07:50.240 and I agreeing on 95%, disagreeing on 5%. And the nice thing about both of us is in real time,

00:07:56.460 this is a real conversation. It's not staged in real time. One of us might be persuaded. And so

00:08:00.960 you might see one of us tipping the hat and actually coming across the aisle and agreeing

00:08:05.400 with the other. And so in that sense, it makes for a very interesting conversation. So without

00:08:09.420 further ado, welcome to the show. Give us our terms, line it all out for us. Mr. Reese, it's

00:08:14.460 good to see you. Thank you, brother. Pastor Webb, I appreciate you having me on. You know, the other

00:08:18.060 thing is, by the way, the main reason that I can afford to offend suburban women is because I 0.82

00:08:22.760 already have such widespread popularity amongst suburban women my support of base right base

00:08:29.320 support uh and and especially for armored republic uh that those are the principal customers that i

00:08:34.360 have nice so i assume you're being sarcastic yeah yeah basically i'm sure this would be surprising

00:08:41.740 to you but the purchasers of body armor are like 98 men so you know the other two percent are

00:08:46.760 for their husband principally. So anyway, all right. So, um, okay. So when we talk about,

00:08:52.440 uh, about political philosophy, um, there are Gordon Clark did a really magnificent job of

00:08:59.280 kind of addressing the different possible ways that somebody can try to claim to know what the

00:09:03.500 government should do. And when we think about any sort of question like this, the main thing we're

00:09:07.860 dealing with is the question of how do I know what the government should do? Right? So, so the

00:09:13.560 The question of how do you know is something that has to be addressed, but we don't have time to go all the way back there.

00:09:18.160 But he did this fantastic job of kind of listing out the main ways of organizing political theory.

00:09:24.040 So the first one is this political idea that you really, when you look around and you look at justifications for force,

00:09:33.820 the main thing is to say, okay, what should the government do or what is it the government is authorized to do?

00:09:39.600 And the answer is that they shouldn't do anything, and they're not authorized to do anything, and that philosophy is called anarchy.

00:09:46.340 And I think that we don't deal seriously enough with the issue of anarchy as Christians a lot of the time, because that question, when you look around and you go, okay, God made human beings, what authorizes human beings to command other human beings to do stuff?

00:10:02.860 and if you don't have a warrant from god to be able to order people to do stuff then you're just

00:10:11.880 tyrannizing it right and and so i think that we all kind of just like blow off anarchism as a 0.78

00:10:18.760 problem that's intellectual by kind of being like well that's stupid i was like well i mean but but

00:10:25.360 seriously why can one guy go and order another guy to do a thing is it just because he has a 0.93

00:10:32.820 badge and a gun like what about the badge is magical and and i mean i get why the gun is

00:10:38.380 effective at getting somebody to do something right so so that leads us into sort of the next

00:10:42.700 one which is this idea of well there isn't a moral justification for being able to exercise authority

00:10:47.840 in fact the exercise of authority is sort of a misnomer is really just the exercise of power

00:10:54.380 and so we could take you know mal's justification the badge is just a luxury the gun is the thing

00:11:00.280 right and and so if that's the case then you know power comes from the barrel of a gun and it's just 0.86

00:11:04.800 telling people what to do and having enough force to intimidate them to do it and killing the guys 1.00

00:11:09.700 that aren't scared enough right so those those are those are things that an anarchy is is stupid 0.97

00:11:16.540 ultimately because it's unavoidable that there's going to be people who try to use coercive power 0.52

00:11:21.300 right so the there's there's actually a period in history that was anarchic in the sense of the

00:11:27.100 civil state. And that was the period from the creation of the world until the Noahic covenant.

00:11:33.640 So we have like 1,500 years where the civil magistracy did not exist, where God had not

00:11:39.900 authorized somebody to wield the sword for the purpose of vengeance. There was the right of the

00:11:45.620 use of the sword before then to be able to defend yourself. And we have an angelic fire sword

00:11:53.700 carrying guy defending the tree of life and the garden, God's private property against Adam and

00:12:00.460 Eve potentially trespassing in there. But that idea of there's this age of anarchy and real

00:12:07.460 politic where people were just ordering people around and building empires without any sort of

00:12:13.240 actual authorization from God. And again, that's the... Absence. For 1,500 years, you got the

00:12:18.260 absence of the civil magistrate and the presence of Nephilim. That always helps. I know that you're 1.00

00:12:28.720 a Sethite guy, right? I assume. Yes, I am. Yeah. So I believe the city of God, city of man.

00:12:34.100 Even within the Sethite conception, though, if you're a Sethite guy who's read a decent amount

00:12:42.540 of James Jordan. You can still, I mean, Sethite position still allows for dragons. It still

00:12:49.400 allows for, I mean, all kinds of lowercase g gods, even like Heiser's conception, which I think

00:12:56.160 Heiser hated Calvinism. He gets things wrong. But I think he gets a lot right. But even within

00:13:00.700 Heiser's conception, divine counsel, these kinds of things are fully on the table. You don't have

00:13:05.460 to believe in hybrid humanoid angels, fallen angels. I personally do, but you don't in order 1.00

00:13:12.520 to still look at, you know, the antediluvian world and say, wow, crazy time. 1.00

00:13:18.720 I mean, no, absolutely. 1.00

00:13:20.260 I mean, like, absolutely, there are these monster beast things.

00:13:24.780 And you even have, like, Job interacting with that, right?

00:13:27.860 And I think that there's, even after the flood, you've got this world filled with serious

00:13:33.780 beasts that have to be taken care of.

00:13:35.460 And I think people just underestimate the degree to which the strivings of honorable

00:13:40.880 men to slay these beasts and and make space safe you know it's kind of like when we when we

00:13:46.860 introduce like you know prime predators like top tier predators back into places it's like

00:13:51.740 we just we just decursified this place what right why are you bringing back dragons right

00:13:57.680 right anyway so yeah also there are real giants i mean like you know goliath is a real giant right

00:14:03.840 so so i'm not i'm not i'm not opposed to any of that there's all i think there's demonic

00:14:08.200 interaction there and and you you certainly have councils of angels i mean anybody who's read

00:14:11.840 milton uh you know paradise lost and paradise gained and all that you've got some interesting

00:14:17.060 stuff about that kind of that that council of the of the gods you know the the angels so anyways

00:14:22.580 yeah okay anyway so cool stuff um so my point was to say presence of nephilim or however you know

00:14:30.440 like unique evil unique evil um genesis 6 15 or 14 um i i think you'll agree with me that um yes

00:14:40.640 it's true when the calvinist you know stands in the pulpit and says you know uh every thought and

00:14:44.660 inclination of the heart was only evil continually and you know the calvinist is going to look at

00:14:48.800 that and say uh that's the depiction of all mankind apart from saving grace which is you

00:14:53.760 know received by faith in christ alone and i would say yes and amen however i believe that genesis

00:14:58.380 6, 15, and 14, is also uniquely a depiction of that time. It's true inwardly of the people of

00:15:05.760 that time at the level of the heart, and also true inwardly at the level of the heart of people

00:15:10.080 today. All unbelievers throughout all time periods, that is an accurate description of total 1.00

00:15:16.240 depravity, sin at the level of the heart. But I believe it also served as a unique description of 1.00

00:15:21.700 sin at the level of outward behavior, that during that time, and that brings us back to your point,

00:15:25.760 um in part because of the absence of the civil magistrate um that there was that evil the heart

00:15:31.740 was far more outwardly manifest in the antediluvian world before the new covenant than it is today

00:15:37.620 i think that gets us back on track absolutely so i think you have this the preaching of the law was

00:15:43.200 so minimized and the power to it was you know from god converting was so minimal in terms of

00:15:50.640 what he was doing there that you have the the binding power of the law um you know one of the

00:15:56.220 three uses right mirror chain and and lamp the binding power of the law was was so minimized

00:16:02.780 that you just had this like horrific wickedness and there's this dramatic engagement of demonic

00:16:08.480 power that's occurring and you have these beasts that are just the curse is like outrageous on

00:16:15.440 You look at the fossils of beasts that have been captured because of the flood causing quick covering, and you go, the teeth on those things are rather large.

00:16:29.200 And you go, I'm not sure that I know of any lizards or dogs or cats that do have teeth that big in our time.

00:16:37.440 So that's all like manifestation of huge levels of curse on the land.

00:16:43.760 So, okay, so we have anarchy, we have realpolitik, right?

00:16:48.320 So this idea that there's no justification for the exercise of power makes it so that you either end up as an anarchist

00:16:55.500 or you become a person who goes, well, there's not a justification for it, but I'm just going to do it.

00:16:59.920 And so you have this, like, raw exercise of power.

00:17:02.280 And that's very popular in the Democrat Party, and it's becoming increasingly popular in Republican circles.

00:17:07.920 It's just like, whatever, let's just do what we want, right?

00:17:10.680 So the law of God is very important to restrain evil. 0.75

00:17:14.260 So we end up with the kind of classical answer that you find that people who call themselves Christians will put forward,

00:17:21.100 and you end up with this natural law view.

00:17:24.180 And it's classical to us in America because, in particular, we're affected by kind of Lockean thought about how do we try to take Presbyterian principles.

00:17:34.220 Locke was raised by Presbyterian, Scotch Presbyterian parents.

00:17:36.720 And he's like, well, let's take Presbyterian principles and let's try to figure out a way to kind of put them in.

00:17:41.940 So we have this natural law view of the way government works.

00:17:46.100 But Locke is not the only person to try to use natural law to justify the civil order.

00:17:51.620 And so inside of natural law, you have a bunch of different ways of defining that.

00:17:56.980 And so I think that's one of the things that we should come back to when we're kind of comparing and contrasting a theonomy with natural law.

00:18:04.680 So the natural law philosophy, the most popular version of it is to look around and go like, well, what is nature like?

00:18:11.620 And then to try to derive principles from observing.

00:18:14.420 So there's other views, but that's sort of the Thomistic, Thomas Aquinas view where you're looking around and you're deriving the nature of things by observation and then thinking about it and trying to come up with rules and oughts from what is.

00:18:31.660 So we can talk more about that later.

00:18:32.860 But then the other effort is to have a social contract view.

00:18:37.020 And the social contract view is this effort to say, well, the way that the state gets its power is by agreement, by the forming of a contract.

00:18:46.700 But that view of social contract, contracts aren't binding across generations in the same way that covenants are.

00:18:54.820 And so social contract sounds sort of persuasive, especially to Americans, because of the fact that we go, OK, well, yeah, there is a consent of the people in relationship to government.

00:19:06.400 There is an electing of people. There is an ability to resist higher powers when they do tyrannical things, when they violate the contract.

00:19:13.760 But here's the deal. We're not allowed to contract anything and everything to the state.

00:19:17.820 there are there are authorized powers given to the state and it's not just a contract that's

00:19:24.220 binding forever we go oh no we accidentally gave away our choice of who we get to marry to the

00:19:28.860 civil magistrate one generation contracted that and we're stuck with that forever oh no

00:19:32.960 no that's not a legitimate function of the state and and so what we're going to do is retain the

00:19:39.960 the dual role of of the parents and the children agreeing together about who to marry as opposed

00:19:45.660 to saying that the civil magistrate is going to get to select your spouse and so any sort of

00:19:51.820 mistake like that historically doesn't make a contract that you're stuck in that has to go

00:19:56.620 through a revision there it's it's no illegitimate powers are restrained by the law of god so covenant

00:20:01.900 versus contract the covenant is a voluntary agreement a con a covenant is defined by god

00:20:06.940 and so the state is defined by god it's given by god in genesis 9 and so genesis 9 is where it's

00:20:12.940 formed in terms of the Noahic covenant. And what we find is that we have definitions being laid out

00:20:19.020 of the powers of the state elsewhere in scripture. Then there is the divine right view. The divine

00:20:24.960 right view is, you know, Locke has two treatises on government. There's the first treatise,

00:20:32.740 and there's the second treatise. And we are all very, the second treatise is the famous one in

00:20:37.700 america because he argues from natural law the first treatise is the treatise that everybody

00:20:43.100 forgets about and it's kind of like well why are we talking about a second treatise was there a

00:20:46.280 first one because second normally means that there were the first and nobody ever talks about the

00:20:49.780 first one and in the first one one of the things he deconstructs is this idea that like kings

00:20:53.600 have an inheritance from adam that they have this like inherited monarchy that's an absolute monarchy

00:21:01.400 because their fief symbol of their zone, you know, could be traced back or something.

00:21:07.180 So like you might have somebody like Charles II being like, I can train my lineage back

00:21:13.220 to Adam and find how my inheritance would make it so that I have a right to rule England.

00:21:18.560 You know, some sort of absurdity like that.

00:21:20.440 Everybody can trace their lineage back to Adam.

00:21:22.780 Well, I mean, yeah, of course.

00:21:23.900 I mean, can't you?

00:21:24.880 Yeah, everybody.

00:21:26.180 So that, but the idea that I'm the one who gets to inherit this particular chunk of land

00:21:33.260 would be like a silly manifestation of that.

00:21:35.700 And so the divine right of kings is sort of like, who has the blue blood?

00:21:39.380 How do you identify the ones that are royal in their veins?

00:21:45.260 And maybe you have lesser nobility or whatever that manifests that.

00:21:49.540 So you end up with these things like, well, the way you show yourself to be worthy of

00:21:53.780 of having the divine right to rule and your rule is absolute as though you were dealing with your

00:21:59.240 private property, um, that divine right view, uh, you're kind of like looking for signs of that.

00:22:05.080 Um, and, and, and that, that looking for signs of that can be like, well, were you brave enough

00:22:09.400 in battle or whatever else? And so you, you end up with these after the fact justifications to

00:22:13.620 try to justify an absolute rule. So would that be, would Cromwell kind of be an example of that?

00:22:18.880 So I don't think Cromwell was.

00:22:22.560 I think that the monarchy that he resisted was.

00:22:25.320 I think Cromwell would have made a divine law argument.

00:22:30.520 I think he would be an example of the sixth category, which is the one I believe in, basically theonomy, that there's a divine law or a covenant theory for government.

00:22:42.480 and that that that covenant theory involves you know just means to form the government but also

00:22:48.160 um you know what are what is the government's power what are the crimes and the penalties all

00:22:53.440 that kind of stuff the only reason i thought of cromwell is like i mean he certainly had the

00:22:56.320 consent of the people um and and there was a covenant uh of sorts that was present there

00:23:02.880 i was just thinking but he but he was ironically like it breaks the you know the divine rule

00:23:08.960 metric in terms of like, you know, he's not of noble blood. He's not within this lineage.

00:23:14.640 But you just, you mentioned what made me think of Cromwell was you mentioned in passing,

00:23:19.520 like somebody who fought really well. And Cromwell would be like an example of somebody,

00:23:23.920 it was like, that would be an example of instead of, you know, monarchy, it was like meritocracy.

00:23:28.780 It was like one of the first, you know, notable times that England was like, okay, you know,

00:23:34.160 um you know just the the son of the king and his son and his son and his son by you know default

00:23:41.560 being king uh hasn't been working out for us at least recently um maybe we should just have have

00:23:48.320 it as merit you know may the best man win and this is a virtuous man you know who's fought well

00:23:52.820 and so he kind of ascends that's you know he was in some sense a populist figure you know but then

00:23:58.040 the problem was succession, you know, um, that like Cromwell's son did not pan out to be the

00:24:05.000 man that Cromwell was. No, he did not. And then they went back to Kings. So, yeah. Yeah. And I,

00:24:11.180 I think, um, we should absolutely do an episode on Cromwell. Like I was just like tracing. I was

00:24:20.740 like going through my head. I was like, how can I talk about Cromwell? And I was like, I need like

00:24:23.940 90 minutes for cromwell like let's but so anyways there's also sorts of awesome to talk about

00:24:30.300 with that and the english civil war and everything so uh maybe you'll tolerate me doing that with

00:24:35.140 you sometimes sure okay okay so so that we got through this we have anarchy realpolitik natural

00:24:41.640 law uh social contract uh divine right and we have divine law or covenant theory covenant view

00:24:48.960 So those are sort of the things that we're stuck with there.

00:24:52.860 So as we think about those, the Bible is plainly not anarchic.

00:24:57.900 It plainly teaches that there are civil authorities.

00:25:00.380 We see it in Genesis 9.

00:25:01.920 We see it all throughout the Torah, the laying out of legitimate authority.

00:25:06.780 We see the teaching of the legitimate extent of government in lots of places in Scripture,

00:25:12.740 limits on taxation and all that kind of stuff.

00:25:15.120 We find that in 1 Samuel 8, where it says that 10% is a tyrannically high tax rate.

00:25:20.540 We go to the classic text in Romans 13, verses 1 through 7, where we find the authority of the state.

00:25:27.040 And verses 1 through 7 is not like a general command to submit to anybody who has a badge and a gun.

00:25:31.440 It's a laying out of the job qualifications for you to find who's authorized to rule and who's not in the extent of their power.

00:25:38.720 And so you find all that.

00:25:40.840 That anarchy just doesn't line up with Scripture.

00:25:43.740 Realpolitik, that just whoever happens to have the power,

00:25:46.440 is also not what lines up with Scripture because we have tests for tyranny,

00:25:49.520 and we have all sorts of examples of resistance against tyranny,

00:25:53.440 the doctrine of the lesser magistrate.

00:25:55.020 We have this idea of appealing to heaven and calling upon his power,

00:25:58.920 God's power to save us from tyrants.

00:26:01.380 And you have this idea that not that might makes right,

00:26:06.100 except in the sense that God, who is the ultimate might,

00:26:08.660 does actually determine what's right.

00:26:10.800 But amongst men and amongst creatures, it is not might that makes right or not might that justifies the exercise of power.

00:26:17.820 And so we have limits on power, and we find all sorts of things in the Scripture that show the rebuke of power,

00:26:23.640 and prophets often going to rebuke kings, for example.

00:26:27.500 So it is not the case that simply that authority flows from power.

00:26:33.780 That is not the Scripture doctrine.

00:26:36.520 With natural law, and again, we'll spend more time on that, social contract, government is not just by the consent of men.

00:26:43.080 Men are born under governments, and they have a duty to submit to legitimate governments whether or not they signed the contract.

00:26:48.640 And furthermore, you do not have the right to contract away powers that God has not given to the state.

00:26:54.540 And we find the example of Uriah trying to go in and participate in the sacrifices in the temple and God giving him leprosy in response to that.

00:27:04.940 Like, it's not just the powers that are taken or the powers that are agreed to representatively or whatever.

00:27:10.300 It is powers that God defines.

00:27:12.260 He defines the jurisdictions and the spheres.

00:27:14.240 And then as far as the divine right goes, we find the idea that people can be removed from office.

00:27:20.180 We find the idea that there's legitimate ways to enter office as opposed to usurping.

00:27:26.000 And it's not just some bloodline.

00:27:28.760 It's not just an inheritance line there.

00:27:31.340 you have the example of Saul being elected by the people, and then him losing his right to rule

00:27:37.960 because of his actions, and then him being removed, and you have the idea of David. And even with

00:27:43.480 David, there's a process, even though God chose him, there's a process of Judah electing him,

00:27:48.500 and then there's a process of the other tribes electing him. And so there's the process of law,

00:27:54.500 as well as the fact that there is limits on authority. So I want to say that there's process

00:28:00.620 of law, there's divine law, there's theonomy, there's covenant institution that is binding

00:28:05.800 across generations that has limits of process for selection of officers and all that kind of stuff.

00:28:10.840 So that's sort of my effort to give us the limits. So that's why I think we need to zero in on

00:28:14.420 natural law and we need to zero in on theonomy and contrast those two views to really be able to

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00:31:32.460 Give him a call today. So then, is there, where would you like me to go? Would you like me to

00:31:37.940 lay out the different types of well maybe maybe starting with just trying to if if maybe the two

00:31:43.980 of us can try to flesh out and define natural law and maybe some of the different conceptions

00:31:49.400 because i i don't know about you but i've found that um their natural law is it's kind of similar

00:31:56.460 to the larger like christian nationalism discussion you know it's like i'm a christian

00:32:00.520 nationalist what kind like i i'm i'm down i i like christian nationalism but i have you know

00:32:07.400 a particular type of, you know, Christian nationalism that I would adhere to. And,

00:32:11.760 and not everybody who, you know, wears the moniker necessarily means the same thing. So

00:32:18.080 in terms of natural law, I think that, you know, there is a, you know, there's a conception of

00:32:24.120 natural law that I think is perfectly biblical, you know, thinking of Romans one, thinking of

00:32:29.580 Romans two, especially Romans two. So if we could flesh that out starting there, I think that would

00:32:35.040 be helpful. So if somebody put forward this view of natural law that says natural law is this idea

00:32:43.380 that my conscience, my feelings, what's beautiful, what's pleasant is what's right. If somebody puts

00:32:53.360 forward that what's natural is what feels good, how would you respond to that if somebody said

00:33:00.240 that's what natural law is? That's the Disney version of natural law, follow your heart.

00:33:04.380 we would say, well, yeah, those things may come naturally, but the problem is that nature

00:33:09.860 is under a curse. And so even like, I remember people making arguments, liberals, progressive,

00:33:17.280 Christians, Christian in name only, but making arguments 10 years ago, 15 years ago with 0.62

00:33:23.200 homosexuality and leading up to Bergerfell in 2015. And just like we have evangelicals for 0.91

00:33:29.120 Harris, there were evangelicals for sodomy and gay marriage and things like that.

00:33:33.600 And one of the arguments that they would make was a natural law argument. Now, I don't think it actually suffices as a genuine natural law argument, but they were arguing, well, we're reasoning from nature.

00:33:45.540 And so one of the examples that they would give from nature is they would say, well, we found certain species, thanks to Alex Jones and his observations, the frogs really are turning gay.

00:33:56.620 And so we found this species of mudfish or frog or whatever that engages sexually with its partner of the same sex and blah, blah, blah. 0.87

00:34:07.220 And so therefore, sodomy is on the table and people can be gay and they can have the rights of marriage. 0.77

00:34:13.840 And my point is that in their minds, now I don't think they were right, obviously, but in their minds, they would have called that a natural law argument.

00:34:21.920 And I remember all the way back then thinking, you know, one problem with nature.

00:34:26.840 So we know from Romans 1 that, like, God reveals himself by what he has made.

00:34:31.000 So the creation, the cosmos, actually does speak of God.

00:34:33.600 And it doesn't just speak of, like, Romans 2 in terms of love for neighbor, the obligation,

00:34:38.600 the moral obligation of man as it, you know, horizontally affects his neighbor.

00:34:43.380 You know, don't steal from your neighbor.

00:34:44.520 Don't murder your neighbor.

00:34:46.680 Certainly the conscience speaks of that. 1.00

00:34:48.340 And that's natural to the Imago Dei. 0.75

00:34:51.920 And even for fallen men, unregenerate men, still have a conscience.

00:34:55.960 And they don't even, it's not just that they haven't lived up to God's standard.

00:34:58.880 They're without an apologia, an excuse, because they can't even meet their own standard.

00:35:02.620 All men are compromised.

00:35:03.880 All men have fallen short of the glory of God.

00:35:05.920 And so that's the horizontal aspect, Romans 2.

00:35:07.940 But you also have the vertical aspect.

00:35:09.700 You have, you know, Romans 1 is arguing that natural law, nature, natural revelation, I

00:35:16.260 should say, but I think it, you know, Romans 1 is kind of like natural revelation.

00:35:19.740 Romans 2 is like natural law, but nature itself testifies to the glory of God, his divine power

00:35:25.000 and his eternal power and divine nature, or divine nature and eternal power. One of those,

00:35:31.440 I can't remember. So, but that's all in scripture. The problem though, I remember thinking this like

00:35:36.560 eight years ago, here's the problem. If nature itself is under a curse and nature, if we decide

00:35:42.920 that nature will be the ultimate standard apart from special revelation or over and above and

00:35:49.220 against special revelation. Well, nature, Romans 1 is true, of course, that nature does reveal to

00:35:57.140 us that there's a God in heaven. And I think you can argue from nature, the triune God, and not

00:36:01.400 just a deistic deism, but actual Christian God, the triune God. And I think that we actually can

00:36:09.400 see that in nature. However, all that being said, nature also lies. And what I mean by that is that

00:36:17.200 because nature has fallen and under a curse, if all we do is observe nature, we will come away

00:36:23.380 with some really bad ideas. Like, there really are certain species that do things that are

00:36:29.760 immoral, right? Like praying mantis, you know, like after they mate, you know, the female praying

00:36:34.500 mantis, you know, eats the head off of the male praying mantis. And so if nature's all you have,

00:36:39.100 and you look at, you know, praying mantis, and all of a sudden you start making an argument like,

00:36:42.600 Like, you know, after your, you know, spouse conceives, then, you know, the wife can murder

00:36:49.160 her husband, you know, and carry on his line without him. Like, no, that would be a bad

00:36:53.180 argument. That's a bad argument. So my point is to say, I think natural law is real. I think it's

00:36:58.060 inevitable and inescapable, and I am Reformed, and it's part of the Reformed tradition. But you

00:37:02.640 got to be real clear about what you mean by natural law. And when you look at natural revelation,

00:37:07.600 I think it's important to say natural revelation reveals true things about God, but it's not

00:37:11.800 exhaustive truth. That's why we need special revelation because nature, I think, and this

00:37:17.660 gets back to, you know, Jim Jordan, some of his conceptions, I think nature, there's a sense in

00:37:21.980 which the curse has been pushed back as time goes on. And so, you know, nature was particularly

00:37:26.780 cursed in the antediluvian world. However, at the same time, I think you can make an argument in 0.94

00:37:31.180 terms of like Psalm 19, the skies pour forth speech, the stars, right? So beasts, you know,

00:37:37.600 that are particularly malevolent. But the stars, I think that the skies actually perhaps,

00:37:45.640 I think you could argue, spoke more clearly in earlier years than they do now. And part of that

00:37:53.800 is because in these last days, Hebrews 1, God spoke to us in many, many ways by the prophets,

00:37:58.340 our fathers, the prophets, many times and in many ways, dreams, visions. And I think even,

00:38:03.020 I think you can include in Hebrews 1, 1 through 3, even saying that God spoke with more clarity

00:38:09.240 and maybe even a wider scope of breadth through natural revelation. But now he's given his final

00:38:16.740 word, who is his son, and his son has been inscripturated by the apostles and all the

00:38:21.780 prophets who pointed to him and the apostles who pointed back to him, the Bible, the canon,

00:38:26.460 and this is God's final word and it's the clearest word. And I even think there's an argument to be

00:38:30.440 made for, you know, the Magi following the star, that it was kind of like the last of the skies.

00:38:37.740 They still, fourth speech, Psalm 19 is still true today, but I think it might have been even more

00:38:42.600 acutely true, and that, like, the stars may have been more active in older times and brighter

00:38:49.200 and clearer as they testify to God. And then one star in particular, under God's divine providence,

00:38:55.000 as God is about to give his final word in his son, the birth of his son, one star, you know,

00:39:00.300 it's like the last of the skies moving in a very particular divine kind of supernatural way leading

00:39:05.680 up to, and now the stars are more quiet. The stars used to scream. Now they whisper because the sun

00:39:12.260 is now arrived. The brightest star has come. You know, like, I don't know. I feel like,

00:39:16.100 feel like that'll preach. So anyways, all that being said, the point is natural revelation

00:39:19.820 is true. It is biblical, but nature, we should remember, is under a curse. And because nature's

00:39:26.380 under a curse, there are certain things that nature tells us that aren't the overarching

00:39:32.360 truth. Like nature tells us that death has the final word, but scripture tells us that death

00:39:36.980 will be swallowed up in life. And like, we need scripture. So anyways.

00:39:41.500 I'm like such a wet blanket. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm looking, I know you and I are

00:39:48.860 planning to have a conversation in the near future about how do we know stuff. And so I'm

00:39:55.380 going to I'm going to I'm going to put a pin in it that's fine talking about some of those things

00:39:59.220 but I want to give you a brief a brief reply which I would say if I think about natural law

00:40:05.140 right like okay I think there's four ways that people have tried to give natural law historically

00:40:11.060 one is the feeling based one which you so eloquently called Disney natural law right which

00:40:16.220 I love it's exactly right it's exactly what it is it's like my perverted affections tell me what

00:40:21.340 is right. And so therefore, what is right is whatever I want. Therefore, I'm God. That's

00:40:26.960 that first natural law. And then you actually addressed other versions of it as well. I think

00:40:31.680 what you laid out, one of the ones you mentioned is the observation of stuff where you're like, 0.98

00:40:35.440 well, the frogs are totally gay. So the world is gay. And so like, gay frogs, gay world, man, 0.99

00:40:41.560 like you got to just deal with it. So this, I think the idea that you look around at nature 1.00

00:40:47.560 and you can find what's right based upon what you can observe in nature.

00:40:52.440 That's sort of the, like, Marquis de Sade version of natural law.

00:40:56.780 And I think that we try, like, you can read, like, apologists like Thomas Aquinas

00:41:03.080 or, like, Pele or something like that where you try to, like, do some, like,

00:41:07.520 arguments from the observation of nature about God and about ethics.

00:41:11.340 And I think that when you do that, and it's based upon what you see, right, you end up with this problem of, first, you can't derive an ought from what it is.

00:41:24.480 Like, you don't see oughts anywhere.

00:41:27.020 Oughts are not observable.

00:41:30.260 And so when we're looking around and seeing descriptions of, making descriptions of what we see, we already have to have a definition of good coming in on those observations.

00:41:41.020 So we're like, we're engaged looking at the world and looking at creatures and saying, well, this is happening and it's good, right?

00:41:49.480 So we already have a judgment of good that we're imposing in.

00:41:51.740 So we smuggle it in and we don't really get the aughts from our observation.

00:41:56.160 We are just, we're just imposing them.

00:41:57.940 And I think so when we then talk about observing the world, when I read Romans chapter 1,

00:42:09.220 and I look at verses, I think, 19 and 20 are sort of the key there to the main thing that

00:42:16.720 was being talked about. So you have this, like, being able to see from the things that are made.

00:42:21.860 and that's that language that the text says if the wrath of god is revealed from heaven against

00:42:28.980 all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness because

00:42:33.080 what may be known of god is manifest in them for god has shown it to them for since the creation

00:42:38.860 of the world this is verse 20 romans 120 but since the creation of the world his invisible attributes

00:42:44.080 are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and godhead

00:42:51.600 so that they are without excuse.

00:42:54.160 So like you're paraphrasing from memory, super impressive.

00:42:56.400 And so the thing there that people read as like we look at creation

00:43:04.500 and understand by looking at creation is being understood by the things that are made.

00:43:11.100 The being understood by the things that are made is in Greek,

00:43:14.800 it is like being understood by the creature.

00:43:18.820 and we think of it as like being understood by looking at the stuff that was made and i i would

00:43:25.860 posit to you um that that the text there is saying being understood by the creature not by means of

00:43:34.080 looking at stuff but by man and the word that's used there is the same word that's used in ephesians

00:43:39.060 where it says uh you know that we are his workmanship that word like workmanship is the

00:43:44.060 same word that's here that's the by the the things that are made the things that are made is one greek

00:43:48.460 word, and it's the same one in Ephesians, that's workmanship. So I would put forward that it's

00:43:53.980 being understood by men, not being understood by looking at the universe. So real quick, I need

00:43:59.840 you to flesh out that distinction a little bit better. So workmanship is a word that describes

00:44:04.440 mankind, but also is being used to describe the cosmos, all created things, is his handiwork,

00:44:12.600 his workmanship. And so this workmanship, speaking of the cosmos, created things apart

00:44:18.940 from man, man being the pinnacle of the earthly cosmos. But everything else is also God's

00:44:27.200 workmanship. And you're saying that there's a distinction between man's observation of God's

00:44:34.420 workmanship, leading him into certain conclusions and truth, versus what? You're saying it's not

00:44:43.240 that, that it's not just man's mere observation of the created cosmos, but it's, because

00:44:50.640 it almost sounds like what you're saying would almost be kind of like a similar concept to the

00:44:59.400 hermeneutic of um carl bart uh you know what he did in his hermeneutic in terms of reading special

00:45:06.640 revelation the scripture that it's um that is not really infallible in and of itself but it becomes

00:45:11.600 infallible in man's in the reading of scripture you know like the the words on the page itself

00:45:17.660 are actually not god's work um it becomes god's word when it's being read by a human being created

00:45:23.740 in the image of god and especially a regenerate human being that has a spirit at work within him

00:45:27.840 And so it's like, really, it's the words on the page, plus the person, plus the spirit,

00:45:31.440 you know, our powers combined, those three things make it the word of God.

00:45:35.200 And I'm like, no, no, thanks.

00:45:37.420 You know, and it almost sounds like you were saying that, and I'm not even disagreeing

00:45:41.320 with you, but I just need some more clarity.

00:45:44.300 It sounds like you're applying like a Bardian hermeneutic of special revelation to interpreting

00:45:49.580 natural revelation.

00:45:51.700 So yeah, so I don't mean that.

00:45:53.620 I don't mean that natural revelation requires the the agreement of of the person for it to exist

00:46:01.060 So let me let me let me round out and this might help to make it a little bit more clear if I if I explain

00:46:05.140 So the four categories that there that are natural others there's natural law of feelings, which is bogus Disney

00:46:10.160 There's natural law of observation, which is sort of the Thomist, you know view where you're looking at stuff and drawing out

00:46:15.880 And then there's this natural law where you can just kind of reason it out, right?

00:46:19.840 Like R.C. Sproul's, you know, kind of description of rationalism is, you know, you're sitting in a Dutch oven,

00:46:25.980 reasoning it out by yourself in the dark, you know.

00:46:28.140 And so it's not that.

00:46:29.900 It's not reason alone either.

00:46:31.220 It's not like I'm going to posit a definition of man, and if I view man as, you know, like, you know, it's not that.

00:46:38.260 So what is it, right?

00:46:40.060 And I'm going to argue natural law is thought content that's planted in man.

00:46:46.620 So if you think about the heart of man, the heart of man is his mind.

00:46:54.840 And there are certain content pieces that are unavoidably present at the moment of conception by the very nature of man.

00:47:05.440 So the image of God, whatever that is, is present in man at conception.

00:47:10.960 The image of God is reason plus innate concepts.

00:47:17.080 Innate ideas, innate categories, whatever label you want to use for that.

00:47:21.820 And I think those categories are defined for us as the attributes of God

00:47:25.080 and also the categories for the moral law.

00:47:29.180 And so what we do is we end up taking, like, eternality,

00:47:33.920 which is an attribute of God, and we, like, apply it to the universe,

00:47:37.340 and now we have a false god, right?

00:47:39.960 So we construct false gods by taking the attributes of God

00:47:44.420 that are unavoidable to thought, and we make these false gods.

00:47:48.440 And then the way we corrupt the moral law is we'll have, like, okay,

00:47:52.400 there's people I'm supposed to honor, Fifth Commandment,

00:47:54.740 and, like, you give honor illegitimately, or you give honor without any constraints,

00:47:58.420 or, like, you worship your ancestors, or you throw off honor

00:48:02.400 and you honor the inappropriate people or whatever, right?

00:48:04.800 Same with the Sixth Commandment. 1.00

00:48:05.800 Oh, I shouldn't kill anybody unless they're Jews or unborn children, right? 1.00

00:48:09.280 Like, those are—so you end up with, like, explaining away, you know, 1.00

00:48:13.520 categories of the human race as human and trying to say they're not really human and so therefore 0.91

00:48:17.800 i can kill them and and so we have this sort of like or maybe the bourgeoisie the bourgeoisie 1.00

00:48:23.000 are not people um you know and so the idea that you have a right to to kill them and take their 0.99

00:48:27.560 stuff um and so the these these things are corruptions there so so my point would be

00:48:34.140 you don't have to imagine for a second a mind that is disconnected from sensory experience

00:48:39.780 You're paralyzed at such a point where there's a breaking of a connection to any of your

00:48:46.240 sense experience.

00:48:46.900 You're blind, you're deaf, you can't feel stuff, there's no tactile experience, you're 0.94

00:48:52.080 not smelling stuff, and you're not tasting things. 0.91

00:48:54.280 That's tragic.

00:48:56.020 And so all of that, that person is still inexcusable if they reject God.

00:49:02.360 And that's because there's a natural law and there's natural revelation.

00:49:07.940 it's inherent to their nature as a man and so the the it's not natural in the sense of feeling it's

00:49:16.140 not natural in the sense of observing nature it's not natural in the sense of like logic alone it's

00:49:20.860 natural in the sense that it's a part of the very nature of man and so we unavoidably have categories

00:49:26.460 of thought that we that we make moral judgments with and we accuse or excuse ourselves based upon

00:49:31.820 those judgments and those are those are contradictory so we're condemned under even our

00:49:35.060 own judgment all right that's it guys i tried to warn you the time has finally arrived our early

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00:51:58.980 no that's that's good that that's that i appreciate that that's helpful because

00:52:05.620 you're right that's a really good point that you bring up like you know uh helen keller like uh

00:52:11.940 is you know is she excused like you know does romans one not apply to her all all men are

00:52:17.780 without an excuse, unless you can't, you know, you can't hear or see, you know, like the, well,

00:52:23.680 then, well, then you actually do have an excuse because you, you know, the sky's poor for speech,

00:52:29.180 you know, Psalm 19 or Romans 1, you know, like what God has made his handiwork. Well, you know,

00:52:34.640 she can't see it. She can't hear it. And so she doesn't need Jesus to get to heaven. She's actually,

00:52:42.040 you know she's uh she's uh she's excused um you know i and of course we would say no um so that

00:52:49.720 that is helpful to say that uh it's not just um it's not just god's handiwork and seeing these

00:52:56.440 things that renders man without an apologia but but that it's uh it's something that god it's

00:53:03.000 not just what god has made outside of man that he can observe but it's also god's making of man

00:53:08.040 himself, something that's inside of man and the way that God constructed him that makes him morally

00:53:14.240 culpable. And that right there, if you think about experience, experience as a whole is

00:53:26.280 interpreted. You don't learn from experience, you interpret experience. And your interpretations

00:53:33.500 of experience are based upon your worldview.

00:53:36.660 And so when I look at the stars, I can say that's cosmic dust caused by chaos.

00:53:44.080 Or I can say those are lights in heaven created by God.

00:53:50.040 And when I think about Psalm 19, it talks about the heavens declaring the glory of God,

00:53:57.600 and there's no place where their speech is not heard.

00:54:00.040 um uh you know it's talking it's not that the stars are literally pouring out propositional

00:54:05.760 thought content right the the issue is is you know if there's nobody to look at the stars are

00:54:12.000 they speaking to them you know it's it's the it's the it's the observer that that the stars remind

00:54:20.020 them of the of the stuff that's written on their heart so you look at the stars and the stars have

00:54:25.740 been frequent objects of worship so is the the sun but their changeableness the fact that they

00:54:31.580 are changeable means they're not eternal right yeah they're not immutable and so that that that

00:54:36.820 eternality um is necessary to divinity and and without eternality you know they're not divine

00:54:43.740 so as you look at them and recognize the changeableness of them it's it that thinking

00:54:49.020 about the changeableness of them is what reminds you that they're not god and and so the there's

00:54:56.040 there's a there's the unchangeable one who is god and and so i think the your your own the the stuff

00:55:04.020 written on your heart your mind is is the stuff that as you observe it that that's the speech and

00:55:11.200 so it's where they're where they're where their speech in other words where there's rational

00:55:14.320 minds is where that's observed. And so that idea, so natural law, it's not, the reformed

00:55:23.460 or biblical view of natural law is not feeling, it's not observation of the sense of experience,

00:55:28.040 it's not sitting in a Dutch oven and reasoning with nothing else, it's not rationalism. It's

00:55:33.140 the innate categories. And so there are two main things we have to deal with with this idea of

00:55:38.400 natural law. It's the inexcusability of man for rejecting God, which is, again, you've got these

00:55:43.360 categories, the attributes of God. He's infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom,

00:55:47.340 power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. That's sort of catechism question four. What is

00:55:51.400 God? That definition, I think that does a great job of cataloging the attributes of divinity

00:55:57.320 that distinguish God from creatures. And so what you have is the infinitude of God. God is infinite,

00:56:06.420 other things are not. God is eternal, other things are not. God is unchangeable, other things are

00:56:11.580 not. So the creator-creature distinction there is carefully guarded. Creatures are finite,

00:56:19.600 temporal, and changeable. And so the finitude of things and the temporality being inside of time

00:56:30.180 and the changeableness, which is what time is. Time is change, right? So if you're changeable,

00:56:36.760 you're in time and so that that whole idea that that those attributes of divinity are are are

00:56:43.960 things that are that are written in our heart and we we are interpreting things through this lens

00:56:49.000 of what's changeable what's not what's what's what's temporal what's eternal what's what's uh

00:56:53.560 infinite what's what's finite those are categories that are unavoidable um and so and then with them

00:56:59.720 And so as a result, we make idols conceptually,

00:57:03.900 and we have these false gods, and these false gods are incoherent messes.

00:57:11.660 They're self-contradictory in their nature because we've made up

00:57:17.060 this incoherent definition of a false god.

00:57:20.560 And so only the biblical God has a coherent definition that is not contradictory.

00:57:27.180 And then when we go to moral choice, we have the objective spoken word of God

00:57:34.220 from the oracles of God, and that law condemns people who are in the church.

00:57:39.580 They hear that, and they go, okay, I'm without excuse from this written law.

00:57:42.520 But also the law in the heart, those moral categories,

00:57:45.300 make it so that our own choices, we accuse or excuse ourselves.

00:57:49.040 And so one day I go, you know, it's bad to judge people.

00:57:51.920 And then I all of a sudden realize I've just judged people by judging their judging.

00:57:56.440 And so you go, I have an incoherent ethical system, and I have just done the thing I am condemning, right?

00:58:03.480 So you realize your own internal self-contradiction and realize that by your own standard, you're condemned.

00:58:09.800 So that's how I understand the inexcusability to work, both in terms of our conceptual idolatry

00:58:14.480 and in terms of ethical judgments and the use of the law to judge us.

00:58:20.260 And the two keys to being held responsible are there has to be a judge to judge us, and there has to be a law by which we're judged.

00:58:27.700 And our false view of the judge is bogus, and it's obvious that we are lying to ourselves.

00:58:33.620 And our own standards we break.

00:58:35.940 And then God's the actual judge, and his standard is the actual standard, and we're guilty under those as well.

00:58:41.320 And so, woe is me.

00:58:43.340 I am a man of unclean lips, and I live amongst a people of unclean lips.

00:58:46.380 It should be the only appropriate response from anybody.

00:58:48.380 Right.

00:58:48.940 Right. No, that's all really good. The only thing that I would say in response is, at this point,

00:58:54.560 I think I'm, because I'm with you, because I've, you know, as I've taught Romans 1 on multiple

00:59:01.860 occasions, I've always, I've always, you know, tried to emphasize that Romans 1 doesn't merely

00:59:08.980 say, and this goes to your point, because I think you're exactly right, Romans 1 doesn't merely

00:59:14.260 communicate that the attributes of God, his existence, his holiness, his divine nature,

00:59:20.480 his deity, Godhead, and also his power, his eternal power, omnipotence, and infinitude,

00:59:29.160 and eternality, and all these things. Romans 1 doesn't merely say that the created cosmos,

00:59:35.700 God's handiwork outside of man himself, by means of everything else that God has made,

00:59:40.560 that God's creation testifies and speaks, communicates these truths, the truth of God's

00:59:51.400 existence and the truth of many, not all in an exhaustive sense, but many of his attributes.

00:59:56.800 Romans 1 doesn't merely say that, that creation testifies or speaks about God,

01:00:01.900 but Romans 1 goes further and says that these things have been clearly perceived. So it's not

01:00:08.000 just creation has sent a message, that God has sent a message through creation. It's also man

01:00:16.420 has to be included in this equation because it's also God has made creation in such a way

01:00:23.740 that creation is speaking about God, about its maker. Also, God has made man in such a way that

01:00:32.520 man is receiving the message. So it's not just that the message goes out from creation,

01:00:37.220 But the message is received by the pinnacle of earthly creation, God's image-bearing creatures,

01:00:43.480 man. And that's precisely why man is, at the end of the day, without an excuse that is morally

01:00:50.280 culpable, because it's not just that God was faithful. And this, I mean, you could argue that

01:00:55.820 this would be enough, but God and his generosity and his kindness and his mercy and everything

01:01:00.880 about him, he goes much further. God is not merely faithful to make sure that his creation

01:01:09.100 sends the message, but he's also been faithful to make sure that mankind receives the message.

01:01:16.880 It's been clearly perceived, not just clearly communicated by creation, but clearly perceived

01:01:22.200 as the word that Romans 1, if I'm remembering correctly, uses. So not just message has been

01:01:28.620 sent out, but message received. So the culpability of man, I think, is twofold. It's not just that

01:01:36.040 man is morally responsible because the message is there, written in the sky and in the trees and

01:01:40.980 the forests and rivers and everywhere he looks and everything he hears. It's not just the message

01:01:46.000 is there, but also God has constructed not just the creation to speak the message, but man in such

01:01:51.980 a way that the message is within him. The message is not just outside of him to be observed, but

01:01:59.400 inside of him in such a way that it is perceived. And so I guess, I don't know how to think about it

01:02:06.360 because you've raised some good points. As of now, I think I would want to say that both are true

01:02:13.080 instead of just that I want to say that, no, there really is an observational factor of creation

01:02:20.400 outside of man really is speaking something true about God that can be observed. And also,

01:02:28.400 there really is something in man, in that image, you know, the image of God has been tarnished,

01:02:36.020 but a vestige still remains. And in the remaining image of God that all people have,

01:02:41.600 there's something in man that testifies to the reality of God, the truth of God, the glory of

01:02:46.880 God, holiness of God, and the law of God and man's moral obligation to submit to that law,

01:02:53.720 that it's both outside of man and inside of man, I guess is where currently, I think that's where

01:03:00.340 I would hang my coat. Is that different than what you're saying? Am I saying the same thing?

01:03:05.400 Because it sounds like you're really going to give the full emphasis or at least the lion's

01:03:10.420 share to what is in man, the Imago Dei, whereas I'm kind of, I don't know, maybe I'm splitting it

01:03:18.100 like a 50-50. Sure, I think, so what I would want to say is, you know, Augustine uses this analogy

01:03:25.920 that natural theology or natural law is sort of like invisible ink written on a page,

01:03:34.140 and experience is like the heat of a flame that causes the invisible ink to become visible.

01:03:43.580 And so it's like the other thing.

01:03:46.660 So this idea that you have these categories, you have these attributes that are in the mind

01:03:57.480 that are unavoidable to human thought and you're structuring them

01:04:00.860 And you start to, as you engage with experience, you're starting to think about things.

01:04:05.440 You go, well, is this like this?

01:04:06.680 And how is that?

01:04:07.800 And is man this?

01:04:09.600 And so you start to posit stuff about the things you're experiencing.

01:04:14.880 It's sort of the process.

01:04:17.180 And so the experience is a kind of opportunity to think and to analyze and to start imposing the thought categories on.

01:04:26.960 The other thing that Augustine talks about,

01:04:28.900 there's this book called De Magistra, or Of the Teacher.

01:04:31.240 And it's this fantastic little, it's almost like a platonic dialogue.

01:04:35.680 It's like 30 pages.

01:04:37.380 And it's this little conversation between Augustine and his son,

01:04:40.520 who tragically died.

01:04:43.660 But the dialogue is about, does any man really teach any other man?

01:04:49.020 And he uses this discussion of language and how language is signs.

01:04:55.060 and you can't really understand symbols or signs without already knowing the language.

01:05:00.220 If I'm talking to you in Russian, you wouldn't understand it unless you happen to know Russian.

01:05:03.580 Do you know Russian?

01:05:04.500 No.

01:05:05.400 Okay, all right.

01:05:05.940 So if I spoke to you in Russian, then the result would be that you'd be like,

01:05:09.380 I don't know what you're saying, right?

01:05:10.480 But if you know Russian, then you can.

01:05:12.900 So as I talk to you in English, I'm using words that are symbols for thoughts,

01:05:17.020 and you interpret those symbols, and you understand what those symbols mean.

01:05:22.380 and so if you know the language then you can interpret what's being said if you don't know

01:05:28.400 the language then the signs are just meaningless gobbledygook that makes sense except i don't even

01:05:33.540 think russians understand the symbols of russians because i every time i try to read like a great

01:05:40.560 novel and i've done it you know i've done a couple of them but do that do that do that you know or

01:05:46.140 you know, whatever. I feel like the names of characters, especially in, you know, in fiction

01:05:53.200 novels is like, it's like Ivan, Ivan Esky, Ivan, and it's like 27 different names that you have

01:06:03.340 to keep in the back of your mind. And 26 of them are just variations of the same name. And you're

01:06:08.720 like, this can't, you can't be serious. Like what, like, why, why can't it just be, even,

01:06:14.220 even if it's russian why can't we have just very different distinct names you know and and where

01:06:19.740 they don't all sound the same so it's like is it is it this character and you read like four

01:06:23.580 paragraphs to realize oh this is a whole other guy who's talking right now so russians i feel

01:06:30.160 like they gotta do that many names russians have i mean that's absolutely maybe that's the problem

01:06:33.900 maybe there's only like two names you know maybe like like uh like like when you think of uh

01:06:39.400 everybody being named muhammad it's like there's got to be another name so the russians have solved

01:06:45.160 that problem they have they have plenty of names they do not run out of names this is absolutely

01:06:50.400 true and and so yeah the other problem with dostoevsky novels is like every time like every

01:06:54.420 five minutes somebody is like passing out or going into hysterical crying fit you're like

01:06:57.840 is this what life is like in russia it's like it's like a russian anime all right go ahead

01:07:04.300 So that thing right there, this idea that you have to use the symbols,

01:07:09.900 you interpret symbols, you have to know the meaning of the symbols

01:07:12.200 to interpret it rightly.

01:07:14.400 So the world, we only end up interpreting the world rightly 0.92

01:07:18.260 with a Christian worldview. 0.90

01:07:20.420 And so we can grab hold of things to point to people,

01:07:24.400 to use to argue, who can go, well, is the sun?

01:07:26.360 Is the sun changing?

01:07:27.300 Like, okay, so it's not eternal, right? 0.99

01:07:29.100 And then the Egyptians that are worshiping it might go, oh, you're like, wow. 0.97

01:07:32.520 You know, but we're going backward in. 0.99

01:07:35.440 We're going in.

01:07:36.220 We have the Christian worldview.

01:07:37.540 It's been given to us. 0.99

01:07:38.400 And as a result, we can go back and we can deconstruct.

01:07:40.720 Right.

01:07:41.120 And so we can use their experience to engage with them to deconstruct. 0.70

01:07:45.700 And then we can posit a coherent worldview, the Christian worldview.

01:07:49.160 And we can argue for reasons why the denial of it's absurd.

01:07:52.120 But it is not – our experience of the natural world is not sufficient to get knowledge, to have certainty about things apart from the revelation of God's spoken word, the propositional revelation that comes to us.

01:08:15.060 And until we understand and believe what he has said, we don't have knowledge.

01:08:19.980 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

01:08:22.120 but we i think we have to so getting into epistemology here but i think there are

01:08:28.180 degrees of knowledge because we have to say that um because i'm with you in terms of eternal

01:08:33.380 knowledge true the truest truths uh the deep magic you know as aslan would say um that only

01:08:41.220 comes by regeneration you have to you have to become a new creature in christ jesus and and

01:08:46.000 actually have spiritual eyes and spiritual ears in order to discern these things um but we can't

01:08:51.760 say, on the flip side, we can say less knowledge or a different kind of knowledge, but we can't

01:08:56.500 say no knowledge. Because the whole argument of Romans chapter 1 is that man is condemned on the

01:09:02.680 basis of him having knowledge. And so that's why he's guilty, because he can't stand before God

01:09:10.320 and claim not to know. He does know. And then that's why he has to constantly lie and suppress

01:09:16.540 the truth. So it's not just he hasn't received the truth. It's not, number one, that the truth

01:09:21.500 isn't out there. The truth has been clearly displayed. Also, the truth has been perceived

01:09:27.500 at some level. The message has been clearly sent out. The message has been received all at a

01:09:32.860 natural level, natural man, apart from regeneration. And on that basis enough, that truth that has gone

01:09:38.480 out and that truth that has been, the partial truth of natural revelation, apart from special

01:09:43.400 revelation, and the partial perception, reception of that truth by natural man is, that equals

01:09:52.120 partial truth, partial truth reception is enough, it's sufficient for the kind of knowledge,

01:10:00.520 whatever label we want to give it, the kind of knowledge that's sufficient for what?

01:10:04.200 Sufficient to condemn.

01:10:06.200 Sufficient for damnation.

01:10:08.200 Yeah.

01:10:08.360 Yeah. So we can talk about knowledge and the definition of the term and all that kind of stuff in our time when we talk about epistemology.

01:10:17.000 But I think that I get what you're saying.

01:10:20.340 I agree with you that there's a sufficient thought process that's occurring that a person is condemned.

01:10:25.660 And so I think that your inexcusability is based upon your thoughts.

01:10:31.680 And every man is inexcusable, has had thoughts that make them inexcusable, except for the God man.

01:10:38.360 Jesus Christ. And so, yeah, absolutely. Okay, cool. All right, go on.

01:10:43.200 So when we think about this, we've got this idea of natural law and the moral element of it.

01:10:49.380 We just spent a bunch of time on the idea of the moral culpability of man based upon natural law.

01:10:54.300 And if natural law is something that's written on the heart, if it is the stuff that we're

01:11:02.420 inexcusable because of, then what we're going to have is we go, okay, natural law, what

01:11:08.560 does it align with?

01:11:09.300 And the historic reform view has been that the natural law is the moral law, and that

01:11:13.840 moral law is the Ten Commandments.

01:11:15.920 And so what you end up with is you basically say, okay, the Ten Commandments are written

01:11:18.540 on the heart, and they're going to be in a corrupted form.

01:11:21.740 And so we have the material out of which the Ten Commandments are made, the categories,

01:11:25.420 the attributes, the definitions that it's made out of, and then we're going to misconstruct.

01:11:30.900 And so we have the human laws that are sort of like House of Mirrors version of the Ten Commandments.

01:11:36.260 And that's what humans come up with because of the corruption.

01:11:40.780 Now, that idea that the moral law is what the natural law is,

01:11:46.660 if you come from the reformed conception of what natural law is,

01:11:50.340 you have to end up saying, if you want to take natural law and apply it to the state,

01:11:54.660 You have to end up saying that the state and its authority and what crimes are versus sins, that those things are a part of the moral law.

01:12:06.520 And the distinction of the civil law and the idea that civil authority was given at a particular time, you have to abandon.

01:12:17.240 So what you end up doing when you try to say that what the state ought to do

01:12:21.020 is a part of the moral law in terms of the natural law

01:12:25.480 is you have to say that the state is inherent in man.

01:12:31.300 And so now the state becomes a creation ordinance.

01:12:34.540 And so that's why you hear all these guys that love to talk about natural law

01:12:39.540 in terms of a Christian state.

01:12:41.740 They'll go back to the idea of Adam a lot because it's essential.

01:12:46.260 to their doctrine that the state be inherent in man.

01:12:52.880 So do you not think, real quick,

01:12:54.740 do you not think that in a prelapsarian world,

01:12:57.740 if there had been no fall, that there would be no state?

01:13:01.780 There would be no state.

01:13:02.780 The state is the minister of wrath.

01:13:04.220 Where there is no sin, there's no need for wrath.

01:13:07.120 Oh, really?

01:13:07.700 Okay.

01:13:09.140 Okay, so that would be another place where we differ.

01:13:13.260 like i you know even uh you know doug wilson who's you know for the most part he's far more

01:13:18.160 van tillion than he is um than he is you know um uh to mystic but uh you know even even wilson has

01:13:27.140 argued you know that there would still be a necessity for determining um which side of the

01:13:32.860 road are we going to drive on who makes that decision you know those kinds of um regulations

01:13:39.300 So there wouldn't be sins to punish with a sword, but that there would still be certain judgments that would need to be rendered for civilization.

01:13:52.120 And I found that compelling.

01:13:54.260 That's kind of where I'm at.

01:13:55.860 But go ahead.

01:13:56.500 I want to hear you out.

01:13:57.860 I'm curious.

01:13:59.220 Sure.

01:13:59.420 I mean, so we can liken that to also, like, what gauge of rail should we build railroads with, right?

01:14:03.680 Or how should plugs work for electrical power?

01:14:07.360 like should we use the european standard or should we use the american standard i think that those

01:14:10.960 are the those are those are entirely uh easily dealt with in terms of a a free exchange through

01:14:17.920 voluntary contracts and and how trade works um and and so so i think that the the pre-fall

01:14:26.320 institutions are the individual in the household um and so what we find is the church as distinct

01:14:33.200 from the world established in Genesis 3 and the first excommunications of Genesis 4.

01:14:38.380 And then you have the state being established with this power of the sword

01:14:42.740 for vengeance-taking and just warfare in Genesis 9.

01:14:47.060 And so if the state exists before Genesis 9, then what, you know,

01:14:54.840 so God was just reaffirming that we have the power of the sword to avenge

01:14:59.040 and institute capital punishment there, but it's already actually existed prior to that.

01:15:03.200 And with Cain, when he put the curse on, don't punish Cain,

01:15:08.160 and if you do punish Cain, you'll get a worse curse,

01:15:11.060 that was just a special exception as opposed to highlighting the problem

01:15:15.360 of not having the state.

01:15:17.960 So you end up with a pretty dramatically different framework.

01:15:21.780 And so when you have natural law and you say the state comes from nature

01:15:27.740 or for man's nature, then you end up saying that what are crimes

01:15:33.920 and what are sins is also a part of the things that can be determined

01:15:37.740 through this sort of understanding of human nature

01:15:41.260 or of the category of natural law, the moral law.

01:15:45.940 And so if you think about instead, if you say that divine law

01:15:53.340 that's given in terms of special revelation

01:15:55.780 is what establishes the state.

01:15:58.600 And in fact, if the Noahic Covenant is an administration of the Covenant of Grace,

01:16:04.240 wherein the state is established,

01:16:06.800 then you have this time of special institutionalization of the state,

01:16:13.220 and we have a dependency on special revelation for what the state ought to do.

01:16:18.940 Now, we do have a sense of justice that's a part of the natural law,

01:16:23.900 And so we're going to have responses, but humans are going to mess that up.

01:16:27.860 So you're going to have our sense of justice is going to be more or less accurate

01:16:34.180 based upon the culture and based upon the presuppositions we're operating on.

01:16:38.340 But the problem, the reality is we have no idea what the state should do

01:16:42.100 and what things we should coercively use the state to make people do

01:16:46.420 without God's word telling us the limits and features of the state.

01:16:53.440 I think we have some idea, but I'm 100% with you in terms of all those ideas will be corrupted.

01:17:02.540 All those ideas will, I do think that there would be a natural bent because nature is under a curse

01:17:08.920 and man's flesh, you know, image of God has been tarnished and the sin nature and all these kinds

01:17:16.500 of things that the bent will be towards tyranny or anarchy, no state at all, or a wicked, overly

01:17:25.940 domineering state. Like we need special revelation to clearly define moral law and also to help us

01:17:37.200 discern between sins and crimes. And that is like those categories commonly are, that's one of the

01:17:44.860 big mistakes that I continually run into. I find that people are like, well, you're saying that

01:17:50.140 there need to be forced conversions. And I'm saying, no, I'm saying there needs to be forced

01:17:54.340 morality. Forced morality. That's what the state does, is it legislates morality, not conversion.

01:18:01.880 Only the gospel can change people's heart. But the law of God, when legislated and enforced by

01:18:06.920 the civil magistrate, absolutely can curb sin at the outward behavioral level. And that's precisely

01:18:13.660 what the state is meant to do. It's going to curb outward behaviors of sin, particularly though when

01:18:19.860 it falls into the category of crimes. Nobody in the Christian nationalist or theonomic

01:18:25.900 camps are arguing for the thought police to enforce coveting. The state cracks down on

01:18:34.740 coveting when coveting crosses the line and moves to the expression of theft or murder or bearing

01:18:41.000 false witness or one or the other, you know, commandments. And then I would say the same for

01:18:45.580 the first table of the law. It's not the first commandment. It's actually kind of funny. Have

01:18:51.300 you thought about this, David, that the 10th, it's like bookends, like the first and the 10th

01:18:57.720 of the 10 commandments. Because I don't think that the state should crack down on the first either.

01:19:02.860 The first is a matter of the heart, having other gods before God, idolatry at the level of the

01:19:07.560 heart. But the first will become a crime when it moves from the private realm to the public realm

01:19:13.300 in terms of images, especially public images. Like you can't build a 90-foot tall golden statue

01:19:22.560 of Nebuchadnezzar and command veneration. That's not just a sin, that's a crime.

01:19:29.640 And a righteous Christian state would tear down that statue or do what Moses did, grind it into 0.99

01:19:34.640 dust, put it in the water, and make everybody drink it, something like that. But the first 1.00

01:19:39.860 commandment, you could have idols of the heart, as even Christians often do. But then when it 0.95

01:19:45.640 becomes an image, a public image, where you're in an obligatory fashion, you're even requiring

01:19:53.980 others or even tempting others, drawing others towards idolatry in the public square. And then

01:20:00.700 third one, blasphemy, especially when it's very blatant and brash and public, mocking Jesus,

01:20:08.920 you know, publicly, like the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence did a few years back, where they had

01:20:13.940 to mock Jesus on the cross, and nuns that were, you know, gyrating in front of it, like, yep,

01:20:20.500 straight to jail, you know, like, yep, that's a crime, and then the fourth, with blue laws and

01:20:26.760 Sabbath breaking. And all those things would have to be fleshed out in godly ways. But I just,

01:20:32.840 my point is, I find it interesting that the 10th commandment, two tables of the law, how it pertains

01:20:37.300 our obligation to God or obligation to neighbor. The last commandment, the 10th, is a sin, not a

01:20:42.800 crime, but it's a sin that if we don't fight it at the level of the heart by grace, well, then the

01:20:49.920 10th commandment then expresses itself in commandments five through nine, which are crimes.

01:20:54.740 And then on the first table of the law over here,

01:20:56.840 the first commandment, sin of the heart, private,

01:20:59.340 it's not a crime,

01:21:00.380 but if we don't find it by grace at the level of the heart,

01:21:02.780 it will express itself outwardly

01:21:04.760 in commandments two, three, and four,

01:21:06.520 which would enter, you know,

01:21:08.860 cross those categorical lines from sin,

01:21:12.440 not only being a sin, but now being a sin and a crime.

01:21:16.280 And I think, I think we, you're not going,

01:21:19.740 I'm saying all that, I find it interesting,

01:21:21.900 but also I'm agreeing with you in the sense that

01:21:23.500 you're not going to derive those conceptions by mere reason. You're going to have to

01:21:30.140 look at Scripture, particularly all the case laws and civil codes that we have given to Israel.

01:21:39.420 Otherwise, you just look at the Ten Commandments and say, well, I guess the civil magistrate

01:21:43.560 punishes none of it or all of it. But the only way that you can look at the summary law of moral

01:21:49.360 law, in the Decalogue, and then begin to categorize what belongs to the state and what's punishable

01:21:56.020 by the state and what's not, what belongs to the church and these kinds of things is by looking at

01:22:02.400 all, you can't just look at Exodus 20. You have to then look at all the case laws and all the civil

01:22:07.100 codes and see what was actually punished. And then that brings up the next question is, you know,

01:22:12.760 sins versus crimes. And then if it is a crime, what's the punishment? Because otherwise that too

01:22:18.280 falls to the reason of man. And it's just like, well, we think that murder gets a slap on the

01:22:22.860 wrist, you know, or we think that if you murder someone, then we murder your whole family. You 0.99

01:22:27.780 know, like, how do you know to not go too little, not go too far? Like, you need special revelation

01:22:34.760 for those things. I think what we just communicated about the first and tenth

01:22:38.840 commandments, I think it's really neat. I had historically kind of thought about blasphemy

01:22:43.040 as fitting under the first commandment. But I think as you've described it, I actually think 0.93

01:22:46.320 you're right. It fits into the second commandment in terms of the criminal codes that would fit

01:22:50.520 into. And so I actually think, I think that conception that you've got is neat there. And

01:22:53.640 I think it is a neat mirroring structure in the law. So thank you for pointing that out.

01:22:58.840 The other thing is you and I did a show a while back where we talked about the law,

01:23:04.780 I think it was kind of like primer and theonomy or something like that. And we talked about the

01:23:08.700 structure of the law and how you have like the big principial laws, the apodictic law,

01:23:12.660 You know, the two great commandments, the Ten Commandments, and you've got below that, you've got case laws, the if-then statements, and they fit inside of those.

01:23:20.220 And then below that, you've got the approved and disapproved examples.

01:23:22.780 And so you've kind of got this structure for categorizing and organizing the law.

01:23:27.700 And so I think without that structure, without that glorious revelation from God of aughts, you know, we're going to come up with some messed up conceptions.

01:23:42.660 of what we ought to do, and when you get it to the state and you go into the sin-crime

01:23:46.640 distinction and just penalties and where to use coercive power, it becomes a huge tyrannical

01:23:51.460 mess, and like you mentioned, anarchy or tyranny is the big thing.

01:23:54.560 I think tyranny is a general tendency, and one of the big problems with tyranny, when

01:23:59.520 you don't understand the institutions, there's the individual, the household, the church,

01:24:03.380 and the state, when you blend those institutions, the tendency is for the city of man to have

01:24:12.460 the state be the god and to usurp the church and to usurp the household and to usurp the individual

01:24:20.200 and so you've got like the example like nimrod who was a mighty hunter before the lord what was he 0.88

01:24:24.140 hunting he was hunting men and he was enslaving them to go build his cities and and so and to

01:24:30.780 build you know ultimately there's you know the tower of babel and all that so you have this idea 0.81

01:24:34.520 of tyranny and despotism, in particular.

01:24:39.640 And despotism, despotis in Greek is a manager, right? 0.91

01:24:43.480 And the woman is supposed to be the despotis of the oikos. 0.93

01:24:47.140 She's a manager of the household. 1.00

01:24:49.180 It's one of the things that she's called to do.

01:24:51.540 And this managing of the home is, when you're the patriarch 0.93

01:24:57.340 or matriarch of a home, all the children and all the servants,

01:24:59.940 you can manage in extraordinary detail. 0.68

01:25:01.660 You have the right to do that.

01:25:02.520 You know, and that's the prerogative in power there.

01:25:05.800 If the state, if you have a despotism and the despot thinks of himself like, you know, like Kim Jong-il or Un or whichever one is running around these days, you know, and you start to think, I can just make everybody do whatever I want in extraordinary detail.

01:25:21.500 You've made the whole state into sort of the property, the personal property of that dictator or that despot.

01:25:31.940 And so he thinks of the state like his house.

01:25:35.460 And I think that the word of God gives us the institutions, and the word of God tells us the authority and power of the institutions.

01:25:44.680 And the state is super complex.

01:25:47.600 And you have to exercise this power where you are exercising dominating power and force on other people to demand obedience with the thread of the sword.

01:25:58.180 And so that's the most ham-handed, big-thumbed power of all of the powers that God has given to man.

01:26:06.200 And so if we don't have the proper limits and we try to go in and go, we're going to manage sin.

01:26:10.780 And so we're going to be like, you didn't speak with a good enough tone, off with his head.

01:26:14.660 That obedience was not prompt enough, off with his head.

01:26:18.220 So the kind of stuff you'd want to discipline children for, you start using the sword to manage that thing,

01:26:25.480 and you have this horrific tyranny.

01:26:28.180 yes yep so so this this this thing so if we say natural real quick that's part of the problem that

01:26:38.860 we have right now and i know you agree is our entire society our entire culture is managerial

01:26:44.900 so like what you're it's such an irony and it's a tragic irony but uh what people see today what

01:26:51.020 they would call authoritarian or tyrannical or domineering um categorically is is not and that

01:27:00.280 what actually is tyrannical and domineering um is what we actually have so like people think like

01:27:06.600 well if the state if the state said um that you can't um you can't have uh you know calls to

01:27:16.500 prayer, sirens five times a day, calls to Muslim prayer. Well, that's tyrannical. That's

01:27:24.280 authoritarian. That's a breach of the First Amendment. You always have to tell, what's the

01:27:30.020 first word of the First Amendment? People don't understand, not even close to understanding the

01:27:35.600 First Amendment, but that's tyrannical. When it's like, no, telling people to the centimeter,

01:27:44.860 what size screw they have to use to construct a porch in their backyard is tyrannical that's

01:27:52.640 that like that's actual tyranny that that's the tyranny that we're under is this um the fact that

01:27:58.940 nobody the fact that um the government knows exactly how much i owe them in taxes

01:28:04.320 but somehow i still have to figure it out every year and nobody can ever uh uh nobody can ever

01:28:11.980 contested because it's like 9,000 pages of tax law, you know, that nobody could ever figure out.

01:28:19.400 And then IRS agents, they're like, you know what, we should spend, you know,

01:28:23.440 $80 million on giving them guns. And it's like, what? What in the world? And, you know, so you

01:28:31.360 got to figure out how much you owe. And then you go to them and say, okay, I'm going to pay you

01:28:34.920 this much. And they say, no, that's wrong. It's more than why don't you just give me a bill?

01:28:38.440 you know and and and so anyways but that's what it and and the sad thing is it's also i think in

01:28:44.140 the ecclesiastical realm it's the same theme i don't know what it is and how we got here exactly

01:28:49.560 i have ideas but um that seems to be the overarching theme not just with the state

01:28:54.020 but all across the board is the managerial class the managerial culture um and the church is the

01:29:00.100 same way so so it's like we'll say um the state is tyrannical if they ever thought about um if

01:29:06.980 they ever thought about saying we're distinctly Christian nation or adopting, you know, the

01:29:12.500 Apostles' Creed as a preamble to the Constitution, that's tyranny. But they can have a million 0.97

01:29:20.080 different laws and regulations across the board, you know, with everything else. And that's fine.

01:29:26.120 So they can be managerial. And then the same thing in the church. You preach something that's

01:29:32.820 clearly God's word. Like women should be beautiful and beauty for a woman is defined not by perishable

01:29:41.520 beauty outwardly, but the beauty, imperishable beauty of the heart, which is defined chiefly

01:29:46.040 by a quiet and gentle spirit. And that will be viewed as authoritarian, tyrannical. But on the

01:29:55.000 flip side, being a pastor and having 47 different midweek programs, you know, on Wednesday nights

01:30:04.240 and Tuesday nights and this and that and the other, and like, you got to be in a life group.

01:30:07.440 And if you're not, you know, then you're failing and we're going to give you a guilt trip and

01:30:12.420 all these different things. We're like, well, that's fine. That's just trying to foster community.

01:30:18.800 And that's like, well, no, but he actually doesn't have any jurisdiction to do that.

01:30:22.640 he can he can ask people to show up on the lord's day um and worship in spirit and in truth with

01:30:30.020 the ordinary means of grace that he can ask that um but there's actually he actually has no

01:30:36.020 authority for wednesday night he could suggest it maybe as a good thing but like but no there

01:30:42.260 there is no um mom's prayer meeting that is morally obligatory uh that a pastor like just

01:30:49.360 like um you know so it's i i just i don't know as you were talking it just got me thinking i find

01:30:53.540 that interesting that like right now we're suffering under um the tyranny of a thousand

01:30:59.680 little laws that come from a managerial class and and it's funny that you used the wife in the home

01:31:05.980 as example because i think there's a connection there too that the managerial role and correct

01:31:11.340 me if you disagree with me but i think it's a uniquely in god's design it is predominantly

01:31:16.220 maybe not exclusively, but predominantly a feminine role. Whereas I feel like the going out

01:31:22.880 and taking, you know, conquering new hills, you know, and expansion, and that's a uniquely

01:31:30.060 masculine role. But then giving to, you know, once the next hill has been conquered and once

01:31:37.700 the next town has been built and handing that over, you know, to the shield maiden in the home

01:31:43.040 to manage those things as you go back out to fight and to expand, you know, to work and to 0.95

01:31:47.540 keep. Like Adam, you know, has given this twofold role, working and keeping, providing, but also

01:31:51.660 protecting. So it's like conquering more and then defending that which has been conquered. It's this

01:31:57.100 fighting and building, fighting and building, sword and trowel, like Nehemiah, you know, and

01:32:02.780 Ezra, you know, and that seems uniquely, you know, inherently masculine. But managing

01:32:08.660 seems inherently feminine. And right now, you look at the church, and it's really feminine,

01:32:17.680 and you have very managerial church leadership. And then you look at the state, and by golly, 0.82

01:32:24.960 wouldn't you know it, it's a gynocracy. It's very feminine. We have a woman currently running 1.00

01:32:30.000 for president, and wouldn't you know it, 10,000 little managerial laws, but no actual, 1.00

01:32:36.020 you know um but but but on the world stage we're laughing stock where uh iq has gone down for

01:32:42.620 america um wealth has gone down for america um life expectancy has gone down for america um

01:32:48.900 on all the metrics education we're dumber than than ever before um the only thing that keeps

01:32:54.380 going up for america is uh imprisonment you know like uh that's it and so it it's it's funny that

01:33:01.360 just this transfer from 10 commandments to 10,000. I think GK Chesterton said that, like,

01:33:06.360 you can have 10 commandments. If you will not, you'll have 10,000. And it's all the meticulous,

01:33:12.220 incessant, managerial, and all of this has also come at the same time, and I don't think it's

01:33:18.020 a coincidence, as our embrace of feminism. But it's not just the state. I see it in the church

01:33:24.960 also, is my point. Right. No, I think the idea that men are supposed to take risks and have

01:33:31.280 a little bit more of the pioneer type of work and that women doing some of the,

01:33:35.980 dealing with the administration, the managing of it, the farming, right? 1.00

01:33:40.220 You pioneer the land and kind of prepare it and you have refume, whatever,

01:33:43.400 and there's sort of detail.

01:33:44.220 I think it's not managing of the detail, managing, I don't think by itself is inherently feminine,

01:33:51.220 but I do think women are designed to tend to be focused in, have strong relational things

01:33:58.400 and have a really strong focus on that detail there.

01:34:03.380 And men are designed to generally be more okay with letting more stuff go.

01:34:10.200 And that makes it so that we can be more effective

01:34:14.560 at interacting with other powers that are outside of our jurisdiction.

01:34:19.300 I think that's a part of the way the Fifth Commandment is written on our heart.

01:34:22.000 And so we do want to be good managers of the stuff that's in our jurisdiction.

01:34:26.080 but i do think that there is a special gifting generally speaking to women that uh that they

01:34:33.220 are better at managing those details and the maintenance right so and generally men are better

01:34:37.860 at the getting the new stuff and and so i agree with that i agree with the general you know point

01:34:44.300 that you're making there and all that kind of stuff and just i want to i don't want some man

01:34:47.880 to hear what you just said and use that as an excuse to not be a hard worker managing the stuff

01:34:52.440 that he's got jurisdiction over that's true and a lot of guys are apathetic when it comes to

01:34:56.820 organization um and and absolutely would be tempted to take my argument and say hey the reason why my

01:35:03.300 life is falling apart is because i'm just so masculine right i'm i'm being a lion i'm just

01:35:08.840 i'm just sleeping in the day you know waiting to fight off another lion right he comes you know

01:35:14.460 right so so that's all that's all that's my only good that's my only my only concern about that

01:35:19.560 good point okay so so we when we have this you know natural law theonomy thing coming on you

01:35:27.280 know one of the big critiques of theonomy is you go well theonomy doesn't allow the government to

01:35:31.960 do all this stuff i want it to do because there are limits on its power and i want the trains to

01:35:38.840 run on time so you know and and you know there's other things that i'd like to have fixed and so

01:35:45.940 i think that the messianic view of the state the managerial view of the state the desire for a

01:35:52.740 strong man to come along and fix our problems the worship of princes and the putting of trust in

01:35:57.860 them the state olatry and the fact that we think the state is the solver of all the problems and

01:36:03.440 our like pretense like like conservatives think that the military is full of hyper-competent

01:36:07.460 people and liberals think that like the state department is full of like hyper-competent people

01:36:11.920 and it's like in reality they're both just the post office yeah you know and it's like there

01:36:17.100 are some magnificent soldiers and marines and airmen and sailors and those magnificent soldiers

01:36:24.140 sailors airmen and marines and i don't know what do we call space force people now space forcees

01:36:28.420 uh spacers i don't know starship commanders okay and the stars guys who work for elon

01:36:33.860 Right? So when we think about all of those, the magnificent ones all hate the bureaucratic managerial nonsense awful that is the system, right?

01:36:49.060 And so I think of all of the warfighters that I have talked to that deal with stuff, they hate the system and the bureaucracy and the institution.

01:37:01.480 and they have some of the people that they worked with that they love

01:37:07.160 because of the fact that they had virtues and desire to do right things

01:37:11.800 and all that kind of stuff.

01:37:12.720 So I think liberals look at the peacetime bureaucracy as full of intelligent

01:37:20.060 and whatever people, and then conservatives tend to look at the wartime system

01:37:23.460 and view it that way.

01:37:24.720 And so what we need to realize is that it's all this horrific nightmare

01:37:28.560 and Elon should fire 95% of the people

01:37:32.140 in every institution that we currently have

01:37:35.800 that's a federal one.

01:37:37.120 I think he will.

01:37:38.520 I really do.

01:37:40.820 What? Say it again?

01:37:42.720 So that's great. 0.99

01:37:45.500 The government's ridiculous. 0.97

01:37:46.800 The federal government's absurd. 0.87

01:37:47.960 All levels of government are bloated.

01:37:50.960 And so we have an absurd level of government everywhere.

01:37:54.620 And what we do is we just forcibly extract money

01:37:57.120 through tyrannically high taxation of confiscatory levels.

01:38:01.640 And then we also cheat everybody out of stuff by debasing the currency constantly.

01:38:06.680 And we can talk about wanting to lower taxes,

01:38:10.280 but when we spend the money, we're really printing the money.

01:38:13.320 And so the taxes come from the spending.

01:38:16.980 The spending is the problem.

01:38:18.960 And so you go, what should the government do?

01:38:21.240 right what what is the what is the what is the mission of the civil government what has god

01:38:30.360 commanded to do and it's supposed to be an avenger of of god right it it is is a minister of wrath

01:38:37.600 and so its purpose is to punish criminals and its purpose is to wage just wars right and if we're

01:38:49.680 doing other stuff besides that, then it's not serving its purpose. And so what we find is that

01:38:59.740 governments don't deal with disputes of law efficiently. The court system's horrific.

01:39:08.800 And so it takes forever to deal with disputes about breaking contracts, and it takes forever

01:39:14.400 to deal with any sort of criminal process.

01:39:17.660 I mean, it costs like the equivalent of the wages

01:39:20.460 a person an average American is going to earn

01:39:22.180 in their entire life to deal with prosecuting one criminal.

01:39:25.500 The inefficiency of our system is absurd.

01:39:29.500 And so we're terrible at the actual purposes of government.

01:39:34.060 And in the waging of warfare,

01:39:36.540 as opposed to having a citizenry that is armed

01:39:40.340 with limited government that makes it

01:39:43.620 so that we're not an imperial power, right?

01:39:46.260 As opposed to having a republic of a citizen soldiery,

01:39:50.580 we have this huge standing army, and we put it all over the place,

01:39:57.920 and we spend enormous amounts on enormous numbers of things.

01:40:03.040 And so every element of what the government does in the United States now is bad.

01:40:10.780 There is this horrific managerial bloat, administrative bloat, bureaucratic bloat, regulatory bloat,

01:40:19.740 the bloat of laws, the bloat of rulings, the degree to which it's just this horrific thing.

01:40:27.640 And the law of God puts restraints on it.

01:40:30.500 And so what I want to say is people don't like it because the government doesn't do all the stuff they want it to do then.

01:40:36.480 and i want to suggest to anybody who's not satisfied with that the problem is them

01:40:41.220 and not god's definition of what the government's supposed to do

01:40:46.220 all right that's good

01:40:49.920 um okay well i feel like any final thoughts for this episode i feel like we're going to probably

01:40:58.560 continue the conversation we want to talk about i would like to you know like i said in the

01:41:02.880 beginning of the episode i kind of maybe over promise and gonna under deliver and you know

01:41:07.380 since we're talking about the state you know it's only fitting that i promise something and under

01:41:11.640 deliver but um but maybe um maybe we can make this i'm thinking we can make this you know a part two

01:41:18.920 if that's something that you're comfortable with where we talk about okay so now let's take this

01:41:22.740 concept and um let's talk about immigration because that's outside of you know you know

01:41:29.420 punishing enemies, both domestic and foreign, you know, waging just wars and, you know, agents of

01:41:37.100 wrath for those who are criminals. Like you said, what about, you know, immigration? Like I say it's

01:41:42.940 outside, but I mean, you know, if somebody's coming illegally, then they are a criminal. And

01:41:47.300 you would, you would argue, right, that the state, that it does fall to the state

01:41:51.040 to be a protector of borders? Yes, absolutely. That's the extent of the jurisdiction. And so

01:41:58.320 you've got to and so you know somebody crosses the border um and they're they're not authorized

01:42:03.560 to do so um you know you've got an invasion yep great you've got you've got trespassing there so

01:42:09.940 so now the question is you know what do you what do you do about that and who's allowed to come

01:42:12.700 across and the whole legal immigration versus illegal immigration thing and you know obviously

01:42:17.260 if you let somebody on your land they're not trespassing right okay uh yeah well then let's

01:42:23.180 if you're okay with it let's go ahead and make that an episode two and talk about um how this

01:42:28.860 applies to immigration if there's any room for prudence or if it's simply no it's it's this is

01:42:38.360 what you're allowed this is this is what's clear of how you can mitigate um immigration and there's

01:42:44.640 no mitigating factors beyond these um that is a conversation that i think would be really fruitful

01:42:50.820 to have. And I think that'll play into kind of demonstrating as a case study, natural law

01:42:57.340 versus theonomy. And then in that, maybe we can also have the conversation of how do we know

01:43:03.860 what we know in epistemology. Great. So it seems like I filibustered myself into getting another

01:43:09.080 show. Yeah, you did. But to be fair, not just you, I was over here talking about stars, you know,

01:43:14.260 and, you know, the stars speaking more loudly and then leading up to Bethlehem and the birth of

01:43:19.700 jesus and i worked in the nephilim somehow some way and did that and michael heiser you had

01:43:24.700 dragons yeah we had dragons in there so it's i don't i don't think it's it would not be fair

01:43:29.340 if i said that it was your fault um you should just tell people this is a show about dragons

01:43:33.260 the title should just be there you go we talked about dragons we'll get yeah we can get 50 000

01:43:37.920 views like that uh nephilim brings all the boys to the yard that's that's the strategy here it's

01:43:43.180 like, you know, you've got giants, maybe just a dash of mermaids, and then boom, Christian

01:43:51.260 nationalism, theonomy, you know, and like people like, I actually did have, you know, I've had a

01:43:56.260 few people email us, and it's been encouraging. Yeah. What'd you say? Theonomic mermaids. Theonomic

01:44:03.180 mermaids, yeah. Riding dragons. There you go. But I've had, it has been funny. I've had a number

01:44:07.880 of emails where people have reached out, and they said, they've said, I'll be honest, I came for

01:44:12.500 I came for Giants, and I stayed for the base theology. So, I mean, it works. It really does

01:44:20.440 work. So, all right, we'll land the plane here for today, and we will pick it up next time.

01:44:25.160 Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks a lot.

The NXR Podcast - November 04, 2024

THE INTERVIEW - Natural Law & Theonomy with David Reece

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