Pastor Andrew Isker and Pastor David Reeser begin their nine-part series "Israel: The History, the Bible, the Scripture, the Big Shebang." In this episode, the guys discuss the role of the Bible in shaping our understanding of the world, and how it relates to the modern world.
00:04:03.040All right. So today we are going to talk. So one of the things I love about David is
00:04:08.140when other Christians are tempted to throw you under the bus for cheap points with suburban
00:04:14.120moms with perhaps softer sensibilities, David has proven time and time again to be,
00:04:20.740um, he's, he's a real friend and he's loyal. And it's not because, um, we perfectly agree on
00:04:27.820everything. We have like 95% agreement. So we agree on a lot. Um, but we disagree. And a lot
00:04:33.640of you guys have, I've, you know, you've reached out and emailed or left, left comments on YouTube
00:04:37.700and said that you've been particularly blessed by our conversations at the points where we actually
00:04:42.320disagree and trying to model, um, how within the reformed world, we can, um, love our brothers in
00:04:47.600Christ and yet disagree. And so I think the last episode that Mr. Reese and I had together was on
00:04:54.860Trump. I'm going to vote for Trump. He is not. And we hashed it out and we did so in a way that
00:05:00.740we hope is honoring to Christ and beneficial for all of you who are still probably trying to make
00:05:07.080that decision. What is the Christian position? What's the righteous thing to do? And so today
00:05:11.600we want to talk about, so both of us are on the theonomic side of the aisle. I always like to add
00:05:18.300the qualifier of general equity theonomy because there's some things within the reconstruction camp
00:05:23.140that I would disagree with, but I'm a massive fan of, I love Greg Bonson, but I especially love
00:05:29.580Rush Dooney. I think that Rush Dooney, in my assessment, Rush Dooney is one of the old school
00:05:35.560theonomist that didn't carry with it. The theonomy of Rushduni was not colored by what I would
00:05:46.300consider to be the post-war consensus lens. So all that being said, both of us, Mr. Reese and myself,
00:05:52.400are theonomists, and yet we would have different conceptions and nuances and particulars. And so
00:05:58.920we want to talk about immigration today, and we want to talk about what is the theonomic mitigating
00:06:05.080mechanism in order to stop unhealthy nation crippling levels of immigration. But we want to
00:06:14.520first set the stage, and I'm going to give it to Mr. Reese to help us define terms with the larger
00:06:19.460conversation before we get into the particulars of immigration, the larger conversation of theonomy,
00:06:26.100God's law, and natural law, because there is a danger on the natural law side. Both David and I
00:06:33.000affirm natural law. We're both Reformed, and we understand that that is absolutely a part of
00:06:37.560the Reformed tradition. But there is something to be said for if it's only natural law, or if
00:06:43.060natural law supersedes special revelation and God's law, then the word that you often hear
00:06:49.260thrown around is prudence, prudence, prudence. But prudence is really, and I think you'll agree
00:06:53.740with this, Mr. Reese, is it can easily become a euphemism for man's reason. Prudence, aka man's
00:07:01.260reason, and if it's just man's reason with no bumpers, no buffers, then man's reason, I'm
00:07:12.260persuaded, is why we're in the current situation that we are. Man's reason gets us right back to
00:07:17.620the Enlightenment and all these things that have ruined the West. And so we want to frame that
00:07:23.040first. Natural law, what's a biblical conception of natural law? How did the Reformers understand
00:07:27.620it? How does that work within a theonomic conception? When does natural law bow the knee
00:07:33.280to special revelation and these kinds of things? And then we're going to play it out with a case
00:07:38.160study and say, okay, so now with this theonomic conception over and against a pure natural law
00:07:44.420conception, how does this play out with immigration? And at that point, that's where you'll see David
00:07:50.240and I agreeing on 95%, disagreeing on 5%. And the nice thing about both of us is in real time,
00:07:56.460this is a real conversation. It's not staged in real time. One of us might be persuaded. And so
00:08:00.960you might see one of us tipping the hat and actually coming across the aisle and agreeing
00:08:05.400with the other. And so in that sense, it makes for a very interesting conversation. So without
00:08:09.420further ado, welcome to the show. Give us our terms, line it all out for us. Mr. Reese, it's
00:08:14.460good to see you. Thank you, brother. Pastor Webb, I appreciate you having me on. You know, the other
00:08:18.060thing is, by the way, the main reason that I can afford to offend suburban women is because I0.82
00:08:22.760already have such widespread popularity amongst suburban women my support of base right base
00:08:29.320support uh and and especially for armored republic uh that those are the principal customers that i
00:08:34.360have nice so i assume you're being sarcastic yeah yeah basically i'm sure this would be surprising
00:08:41.740to you but the purchasers of body armor are like 98 men so you know the other two percent are
00:08:46.760for their husband principally. So anyway, all right. So, um, okay. So when we talk about,
00:08:52.440uh, about political philosophy, um, there are Gordon Clark did a really magnificent job of
00:08:59.280kind of addressing the different possible ways that somebody can try to claim to know what the
00:09:03.500government should do. And when we think about any sort of question like this, the main thing we're
00:09:07.860dealing with is the question of how do I know what the government should do? Right? So, so the
00:09:13.560The 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.
00:09:18.160But he did this fantastic job of kind of listing out the main ways of organizing political theory.
00:09:24.040So the first one is this political idea that you really, when you look around and you look at justifications for force,
00:09:33.820the main thing is to say, okay, what should the government do or what is it the government is authorized to do?
00:09:39.600And the answer is that they shouldn't do anything, and they're not authorized to do anything, and that philosophy is called anarchy.
00:09:46.340And 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?
00:10:02.860and if you don't have a warrant from god to be able to order people to do stuff then you're just
00:10:11.880tyrannizing it right and and so i think that we all kind of just like blow off anarchism as a0.78
00:10:18.760problem that's intellectual by kind of being like well that's stupid i was like well i mean but but
00:10:25.360seriously why can one guy go and order another guy to do a thing is it just because he has a0.93
00:10:32.820badge and a gun like what about the badge is magical and and i mean i get why the gun is
00:10:38.380effective at getting somebody to do something right so so that leads us into sort of the next
00:10:42.700one which is this idea of well there isn't a moral justification for being able to exercise authority
00:10:47.840in fact the exercise of authority is sort of a misnomer is really just the exercise of power
00:10:54.380and so we could take you know mal's justification the badge is just a luxury the gun is the thing
00:11:00.280right and and so if that's the case then you know power comes from the barrel of a gun and it's just0.86
00:11:04.800telling people what to do and having enough force to intimidate them to do it and killing the guys1.00
00:11:09.700that aren't scared enough right so those those are those are things that an anarchy is is stupid0.97
00:11:16.540ultimately because it's unavoidable that there's going to be people who try to use coercive power0.52
00:11:21.300right so the there's there's actually a period in history that was anarchic in the sense of the
00:11:27.100civil state. And that was the period from the creation of the world until the Noahic covenant.
00:11:33.640So we have like 1,500 years where the civil magistracy did not exist, where God had not
00:11:39.900authorized somebody to wield the sword for the purpose of vengeance. There was the right of the
00:11:45.620use of the sword before then to be able to defend yourself. And we have an angelic fire sword
00:11:53.700carrying guy defending the tree of life and the garden, God's private property against Adam and
00:12:00.460Eve potentially trespassing in there. But that idea of there's this age of anarchy and real
00:12:07.460politic where people were just ordering people around and building empires without any sort of
00:12:13.240actual authorization from God. And again, that's the... Absence. For 1,500 years, you got the
00:12:18.260absence of the civil magistrate and the presence of Nephilim. That always helps. I know that you're1.00
00:12:28.720a Sethite guy, right? I assume. Yes, I am. Yeah. So I believe the city of God, city of man.
00:12:34.100Even within the Sethite conception, though, if you're a Sethite guy who's read a decent amount
00:12:42.540of James Jordan. You can still, I mean, Sethite position still allows for dragons. It still
00:12:49.400allows for, I mean, all kinds of lowercase g gods, even like Heiser's conception, which I think
00:12:56.160Heiser hated Calvinism. He gets things wrong. But I think he gets a lot right. But even within
00:13:00.700Heiser's conception, divine counsel, these kinds of things are fully on the table. You don't have
00:13:05.460to believe in hybrid humanoid angels, fallen angels. I personally do, but you don't in order1.00
00:13:12.520to still look at, you know, the antediluvian world and say, wow, crazy time.1.00
00:13:35.460And I think people just underestimate the degree to which the strivings of honorable
00:13:40.880men to slay these beasts and and make space safe you know it's kind of like when we when we
00:13:46.860introduce like you know prime predators like top tier predators back into places it's like
00:13:51.740we just we just decursified this place what right why are you bringing back dragons right
00:13:57.680right anyway so yeah also there are real giants i mean like you know goliath is a real giant right
00:14:03.840so so i'm not i'm not i'm not opposed to any of that there's all i think there's demonic
00:14:08.200interaction there and and you you certainly have councils of angels i mean anybody who's read
00:14:11.840milton uh you know paradise lost and paradise gained and all that you've got some interesting
00:14:17.060stuff about that kind of that that council of the of the gods you know the the angels so anyways
00:14:22.580yeah okay anyway so cool stuff um so my point was to say presence of nephilim or however you know
00:14:30.440like unique evil unique evil um genesis 6 15 or 14 um i i think you'll agree with me that um yes
00:14:40.640it's true when the calvinist you know stands in the pulpit and says you know uh every thought and
00:14:44.660inclination of the heart was only evil continually and you know the calvinist is going to look at
00:14:48.800that and say uh that's the depiction of all mankind apart from saving grace which is you
00:14:53.760know received by faith in christ alone and i would say yes and amen however i believe that genesis
00:14:58.3806, 15, and 14, is also uniquely a depiction of that time. It's true inwardly of the people of
00:15:05.760that time at the level of the heart, and also true inwardly at the level of the heart of people
00:15:10.080today. All unbelievers throughout all time periods, that is an accurate description of total1.00
00:15:16.240depravity, sin at the level of the heart. But I believe it also served as a unique description of1.00
00:15:21.700sin at the level of outward behavior, that during that time, and that brings us back to your point,
00:15:25.760um in part because of the absence of the civil magistrate um that there was that evil the heart
00:15:31.740was far more outwardly manifest in the antediluvian world before the new covenant than it is today
00:15:37.620i think that gets us back on track absolutely so i think you have this the preaching of the law was
00:15:43.200so minimized and the power to it was you know from god converting was so minimal in terms of
00:15:50.640what he was doing there that you have the the binding power of the law um you know one of the
00:15:56.220three uses right mirror chain and and lamp the binding power of the law was was so minimized
00:16:02.780that you just had this like horrific wickedness and there's this dramatic engagement of demonic
00:16:08.480power that's occurring and you have these beasts that are just the curse is like outrageous on
00:16:15.440You 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.
00:16:29.200And 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.
00:16:37.440So that's all like manifestation of huge levels of curse on the land.
00:16:43.760So, okay, so we have anarchy, we have realpolitik, right?
00:16:48.320So this idea that there's no justification for the exercise of power makes it so that you either end up as an anarchist
00:16:55.500or you become a person who goes, well, there's not a justification for it, but I'm just going to do it.
00:16:59.920And so you have this, like, raw exercise of power.
00:17:02.280And that's very popular in the Democrat Party, and it's becoming increasingly popular in Republican circles.
00:17:07.920It's just like, whatever, let's just do what we want, right?
00:17:10.680So the law of God is very important to restrain evil.0.75
00:17:14.260So we end up with the kind of classical answer that you find that people who call themselves Christians will put forward,
00:17:21.100and you end up with this natural law view.
00:17:24.180And 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.
00:17:34.220Locke was raised by Presbyterian, Scotch Presbyterian parents.
00:17:36.720And he's like, well, let's take Presbyterian principles and let's try to figure out a way to kind of put them in.
00:17:41.940So we have this natural law view of the way government works.
00:17:46.100But Locke is not the only person to try to use natural law to justify the civil order.
00:17:51.620And so inside of natural law, you have a bunch of different ways of defining that.
00:17:56.980And 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.
00:18:04.680So the natural law philosophy, the most popular version of it is to look around and go like, well, what is nature like?
00:18:11.620And then to try to derive principles from observing.
00:18:14.420So 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.
00:18:32.860But then the other effort is to have a social contract view.
00:18:37.020And 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.
00:18:46.700But that view of social contract, contracts aren't binding across generations in the same way that covenants are.
00:18:54.820And 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.
00:19:06.400There is an electing of people. There is an ability to resist higher powers when they do tyrannical things, when they violate the contract.
00:19:13.760But here's the deal. We're not allowed to contract anything and everything to the state.
00:19:17.820there are there are authorized powers given to the state and it's not just a contract that's
00:19:24.220binding forever we go oh no we accidentally gave away our choice of who we get to marry to the
00:19:28.860civil magistrate one generation contracted that and we're stuck with that forever oh no
00:19:32.960no that's not a legitimate function of the state and and so what we're going to do is retain the
00:19:39.960the dual role of of the parents and the children agreeing together about who to marry as opposed
00:19:45.660to saying that the civil magistrate is going to get to select your spouse and so any sort of
00:19:51.820mistake like that historically doesn't make a contract that you're stuck in that has to go
00:19:56.620through a revision there it's it's no illegitimate powers are restrained by the law of god so covenant
00:20:01.900versus contract the covenant is a voluntary agreement a con a covenant is defined by god
00:20:06.940and so the state is defined by god it's given by god in genesis 9 and so genesis 9 is where it's
00:20:12.940formed in terms of the Noahic covenant. And what we find is that we have definitions being laid out
00:20:19.020of the powers of the state elsewhere in scripture. Then there is the divine right view. The divine
00:20:24.960right view is, you know, Locke has two treatises on government. There's the first treatise,
00:20:32.740and there's the second treatise. And we are all very, the second treatise is the famous one in
00:20:37.700america because he argues from natural law the first treatise is the treatise that everybody
00:20:43.100forgets about and it's kind of like well why are we talking about a second treatise was there a
00:20:46.280first one because second normally means that there were the first and nobody ever talks about the
00:20:49.780first one and in the first one one of the things he deconstructs is this idea that like kings
00:20:53.600have an inheritance from adam that they have this like inherited monarchy that's an absolute monarchy
00:21:01.400because their fief symbol of their zone, you know, could be traced back or something.
00:21:07.180So like you might have somebody like Charles II being like, I can train my lineage back
00:21:13.220to Adam and find how my inheritance would make it so that I have a right to rule England.
00:21:18.560You know, some sort of absurdity like that.
00:21:20.440Everybody can trace their lineage back to Adam.
00:22:22.560I think that the monarchy that he resisted was.
00:22:25.320I think Cromwell would have made a divine law argument.
00:22:30.520I 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.
00:22:42.480and that that that covenant theory involves you know just means to form the government but also
00:22:48.160um you know what are what is the government's power what are the crimes and the penalties all
00:22:53.440that kind of stuff the only reason i thought of cromwell is like i mean he certainly had the
00:22:56.320consent of the people um and and there was a covenant uh of sorts that was present there
00:23:02.880i was just thinking but he but he was ironically like it breaks the you know the divine rule
00:23:08.960metric in terms of like, you know, he's not of noble blood. He's not within this lineage.
00:23:14.640But you just, you mentioned what made me think of Cromwell was you mentioned in passing,
00:23:19.520like somebody who fought really well. And Cromwell would be like an example of somebody,
00:23:23.920it was like, that would be an example of instead of, you know, monarchy, it was like meritocracy.
00:23:28.780It was like one of the first, you know, notable times that England was like, okay, you know,
00:23:34.160um you know just the the son of the king and his son and his son and his son by you know default
00:23:41.560being king uh hasn't been working out for us at least recently um maybe we should just have have
00:23:48.320it as merit you know may the best man win and this is a virtuous man you know who's fought well
00:23:52.820and so he kind of ascends that's you know he was in some sense a populist figure you know but then
00:23:58.040the problem was succession, you know, um, that like Cromwell's son did not pan out to be the
00:24:05.000man that Cromwell was. No, he did not. And then they went back to Kings. So, yeah. Yeah. And I,
00:24:11.180I think, um, we should absolutely do an episode on Cromwell. Like I was just like tracing. I was
00:24:20.740like going through my head. I was like, how can I talk about Cromwell? And I was like, I need like
00:24:23.94090 minutes for cromwell like let's but so anyways there's also sorts of awesome to talk about
00:24:30.300with that and the english civil war and everything so uh maybe you'll tolerate me doing that with
00:24:35.140you sometimes sure okay okay so so that we got through this we have anarchy realpolitik natural
00:24:41.640law uh social contract uh divine right and we have divine law or covenant theory covenant view
00:24:48.960So those are sort of the things that we're stuck with there.
00:24:52.860So as we think about those, the Bible is plainly not anarchic.
00:24:57.900It plainly teaches that there are civil authorities.
00:26:36.520With natural law, and again, we'll spend more time on that, social contract, government is not just by the consent of men.
00:26:43.080Men are born under governments, and they have a duty to submit to legitimate governments whether or not they signed the contract.
00:26:48.640And furthermore, you do not have the right to contract away powers that God has not given to the state.
00:26:54.540And 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.
00:27:04.940Like, it's not just the powers that are taken or the powers that are agreed to representatively or whatever.
00:30:45.780your vocation is more important than just the income you bring in for your family your work
00:30:52.060should equip you with better life skills and deeper relationships than you could ever get
00:30:57.780from college now if you can't handle overwhelming smells of things like urine feces and ammonia
00:31:03.720wrestling 500 pound llamas and traveling for months at a time or being pushed to grow physically
00:31:10.680emotionally, and spiritually, then you need not apply. We're a growing company with a variety
00:31:16.520of open positions. So contact us today before our interview window closes in January. Call Elijah
00:31:22.920at Top Knot with the phone number that's listed in the description for this show.
00:31:27.980Go to the description. The phone number for Elijah with Top Knot will be right there.
00:31:32.460Give him a call today. So then, is there, where would you like me to go? Would you like me to
00:31:37.940lay out the different types of well maybe maybe starting with just trying to if if maybe the two
00:31:43.980of us can try to flesh out and define natural law and maybe some of the different conceptions
00:31:49.400because i i don't know about you but i've found that um their natural law is it's kind of similar
00:31:56.460to the larger like christian nationalism discussion you know it's like i'm a christian
00:32:00.520nationalist what kind like i i'm i'm down i i like christian nationalism but i have you know
00:32:07.400a particular type of, you know, Christian nationalism that I would adhere to. And,
00:32:11.760and not everybody who, you know, wears the moniker necessarily means the same thing. So
00:32:18.080in terms of natural law, I think that, you know, there is a, you know, there's a conception of
00:32:24.120natural law that I think is perfectly biblical, you know, thinking of Romans one, thinking of
00:32:29.580Romans two, especially Romans two. So if we could flesh that out starting there, I think that would
00:32:35.040be helpful. So if somebody put forward this view of natural law that says natural law is this idea
00:32:43.380that my conscience, my feelings, what's beautiful, what's pleasant is what's right. If somebody puts
00:32:53.360forward that what's natural is what feels good, how would you respond to that if somebody said
00:33:00.240that's what natural law is? That's the Disney version of natural law, follow your heart.
00:33:04.380we would say, well, yeah, those things may come naturally, but the problem is that nature
00:33:09.860is under a curse. And so even like, I remember people making arguments, liberals, progressive,
00:33:17.280Christians, Christian in name only, but making arguments 10 years ago, 15 years ago with0.62
00:33:23.200homosexuality and leading up to Bergerfell in 2015. And just like we have evangelicals for0.91
00:33:29.120Harris, there were evangelicals for sodomy and gay marriage and things like that.
00:33:33.600And 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.
00:33:45.540And 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.
00:33:56.620And 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
00:34:07.220And so therefore, sodomy is on the table and people can be gay and they can have the rights of marriage.0.77
00:34:13.840And 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.
00:34:21.920And I remember all the way back then thinking, you know, one problem with nature.
00:34:26.840So we know from Romans 1 that, like, God reveals himself by what he has made.
00:34:31.000So the creation, the cosmos, actually does speak of God.
00:34:33.600And it doesn't just speak of, like, Romans 2 in terms of love for neighbor, the obligation,
00:34:38.600the moral obligation of man as it, you know, horizontally affects his neighbor.
00:34:43.380You know, don't steal from your neighbor.
00:35:03.880All men have fallen short of the glory of God.
00:35:05.920And so that's the horizontal aspect, Romans 2.
00:35:07.940But you also have the vertical aspect.
00:35:09.700You have, you know, Romans 1 is arguing that natural law, nature, natural revelation, I
00:35:16.260should say, but I think it, you know, Romans 1 is kind of like natural revelation.
00:35:19.740Romans 2 is like natural law, but nature itself testifies to the glory of God, his divine power
00:35:25.000and his eternal power and divine nature, or divine nature and eternal power. One of those,
00:35:31.440I can't remember. So, but that's all in scripture. The problem though, I remember thinking this like
00:35:36.560eight years ago, here's the problem. If nature itself is under a curse and nature, if we decide
00:35:42.920that nature will be the ultimate standard apart from special revelation or over and above and
00:35:49.220against special revelation. Well, nature, Romans 1 is true, of course, that nature does reveal to
00:35:57.140us that there's a God in heaven. And I think you can argue from nature, the triune God, and not
00:36:01.400just a deistic deism, but actual Christian God, the triune God. And I think that we actually can
00:36:09.400see that in nature. However, all that being said, nature also lies. And what I mean by that is that
00:36:17.200because nature has fallen and under a curse, if all we do is observe nature, we will come away
00:36:23.380with some really bad ideas. Like, there really are certain species that do things that are
00:36:29.760immoral, right? Like praying mantis, you know, like after they mate, you know, the female praying
00:36:34.500mantis, you know, eats the head off of the male praying mantis. And so if nature's all you have,
00:36:39.100and you look at, you know, praying mantis, and all of a sudden you start making an argument like,
00:36:42.600Like, you know, after your, you know, spouse conceives, then, you know, the wife can murder
00:36:49.160her husband, you know, and carry on his line without him. Like, no, that would be a bad
00:36:53.180argument. That's a bad argument. So my point is to say, I think natural law is real. I think it's
00:36:58.060inevitable and inescapable, and I am Reformed, and it's part of the Reformed tradition. But you
00:37:02.640got to be real clear about what you mean by natural law. And when you look at natural revelation,
00:37:07.600I think it's important to say natural revelation reveals true things about God, but it's not
00:37:11.800exhaustive truth. That's why we need special revelation because nature, I think, and this
00:37:17.660gets back to, you know, Jim Jordan, some of his conceptions, I think nature, there's a sense in
00:37:21.980which the curse has been pushed back as time goes on. And so, you know, nature was particularly
00:37:26.780cursed in the antediluvian world. However, at the same time, I think you can make an argument in0.94
00:37:31.180terms of like Psalm 19, the skies pour forth speech, the stars, right? So beasts, you know,
00:37:37.600that are particularly malevolent. But the stars, I think that the skies actually perhaps,
00:37:45.640I think you could argue, spoke more clearly in earlier years than they do now. And part of that
00:37:53.800is because in these last days, Hebrews 1, God spoke to us in many, many ways by the prophets,
00:37:58.340our fathers, the prophets, many times and in many ways, dreams, visions. And I think even,
00:38:03.020I think you can include in Hebrews 1, 1 through 3, even saying that God spoke with more clarity
00:38:09.240and maybe even a wider scope of breadth through natural revelation. But now he's given his final
00:38:16.740word, who is his son, and his son has been inscripturated by the apostles and all the
00:38:21.780prophets who pointed to him and the apostles who pointed back to him, the Bible, the canon,
00:38:26.460and this is God's final word and it's the clearest word. And I even think there's an argument to be
00:38:30.440made for, you know, the Magi following the star, that it was kind of like the last of the skies.
00:38:37.740They still, fourth speech, Psalm 19 is still true today, but I think it might have been even more
00:38:42.600acutely true, and that, like, the stars may have been more active in older times and brighter
00:38:49.200and clearer as they testify to God. And then one star in particular, under God's divine providence,
00:38:55.000as God is about to give his final word in his son, the birth of his son, one star, you know,
00:39:00.300it's like the last of the skies moving in a very particular divine kind of supernatural way leading
00:39:05.680up to, and now the stars are more quiet. The stars used to scream. Now they whisper because the sun
00:39:12.260is now arrived. The brightest star has come. You know, like, I don't know. I feel like,
00:39:16.100feel like that'll preach. So anyways, all that being said, the point is natural revelation
00:39:19.820is true. It is biblical, but nature, we should remember, is under a curse. And because nature's
00:39:26.380under a curse, there are certain things that nature tells us that aren't the overarching
00:39:32.360truth. Like nature tells us that death has the final word, but scripture tells us that death
00:39:36.980will be swallowed up in life. And like, we need scripture. So anyways.
00:39:41.500I'm like such a wet blanket. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm looking, I know you and I are
00:39:48.860planning to have a conversation in the near future about how do we know stuff. And so I'm
00:39:55.380going to I'm going to I'm going to put a pin in it that's fine talking about some of those things
00:39:59.220but I want to give you a brief a brief reply which I would say if I think about natural law
00:40:05.140right like okay I think there's four ways that people have tried to give natural law historically
00:40:11.060one is the feeling based one which you so eloquently called Disney natural law right which
00:40:16.220I love it's exactly right it's exactly what it is it's like my perverted affections tell me what
00:40:21.340is right. And so therefore, what is right is whatever I want. Therefore, I'm God. That's
00:40:26.960that first natural law. And then you actually addressed other versions of it as well. I think
00:40:31.680what you laid out, one of the ones you mentioned is the observation of stuff where you're like,0.98
00:40:35.440well, the frogs are totally gay. So the world is gay. And so like, gay frogs, gay world, man,0.99
00:40:41.560like you got to just deal with it. So this, I think the idea that you look around at nature1.00
00:40:47.560and you can find what's right based upon what you can observe in nature.
00:40:52.440That's sort of the, like, Marquis de Sade version of natural law.
00:40:56.780And I think that we try, like, you can read, like, apologists like Thomas Aquinas
00:41:03.080or, like, Pele or something like that where you try to, like, do some, like,
00:41:07.520arguments from the observation of nature about God and about ethics.
00:41:11.340And 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.
00:41:30.260And 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.
00:41:41.020So 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?
00:41:49.480So we already have a judgment of good that we're imposing in.
00:41:51.740So we smuggle it in and we don't really get the aughts from our observation.
00:41:56.160We are just, we're just imposing them.
00:41:57.940And I think so when we then talk about observing the world, when I read Romans chapter 1,
00:42:09.220and I look at verses, I think, 19 and 20 are sort of the key there to the main thing that
00:42:16.720was being talked about. So you have this, like, being able to see from the things that are made.
00:42:21.860and that's that language that the text says if the wrath of god is revealed from heaven against
00:42:28.980all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness because
00:42:33.080what may be known of god is manifest in them for god has shown it to them for since the creation
00:42:38.860of the world this is verse 20 romans 120 but since the creation of the world his invisible attributes
00:42:44.080are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and godhead
01:07:41.120And so we can use their experience to engage with them to deconstruct.0.70
01:07:45.700And then we can posit a coherent worldview, the Christian worldview.
01:07:49.160And we can argue for reasons why the denial of it's absurd.
01:07:52.120But 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.
01:08:15.060And until we understand and believe what he has said, we don't have knowledge.
01:08:19.980The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
01:08:22.120but we i think we have to so getting into epistemology here but i think there are
01:08:28.180degrees of knowledge because we have to say that um because i'm with you in terms of eternal
01:08:33.380knowledge true the truest truths uh the deep magic you know as aslan would say um that only
01:08:41.220comes by regeneration you have to you have to become a new creature in christ jesus and and
01:08:46.000actually have spiritual eyes and spiritual ears in order to discern these things um but we can't
01:08:51.760say, on the flip side, we can say less knowledge or a different kind of knowledge, but we can't
01:08:56.500say no knowledge. Because the whole argument of Romans chapter 1 is that man is condemned on the
01:09:02.680basis of him having knowledge. And so that's why he's guilty, because he can't stand before God
01:09:10.320and claim not to know. He does know. And then that's why he has to constantly lie and suppress
01:09:16.540the truth. So it's not just he hasn't received the truth. It's not, number one, that the truth
01:09:21.500isn't out there. The truth has been clearly displayed. Also, the truth has been perceived
01:09:27.500at some level. The message has been clearly sent out. The message has been received all at a
01:09:32.860natural level, natural man, apart from regeneration. And on that basis enough, that truth that has gone
01:09:38.480out and that truth that has been, the partial truth of natural revelation, apart from special
01:09:43.400revelation, and the partial perception, reception of that truth by natural man is, that equals
01:09:52.120partial truth, partial truth reception is enough, it's sufficient for the kind of knowledge,
01:10:00.520whatever label we want to give it, the kind of knowledge that's sufficient for what?
01:10:08.360Yeah. 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.
01:10:17.000But I think that I get what you're saying.
01:10:20.340I agree with you that there's a sufficient thought process that's occurring that a person is condemned.
01:10:25.660And so I think that your inexcusability is based upon your thoughts.
01:10:31.680And every man is inexcusable, has had thoughts that make them inexcusable, except for the God man.
01:10:38.360Jesus Christ. And so, yeah, absolutely. Okay, cool. All right, go on.
01:10:43.200So when we think about this, we've got this idea of natural law and the moral element of it.
01:10:49.380We just spent a bunch of time on the idea of the moral culpability of man based upon natural law.
01:10:54.300And if natural law is something that's written on the heart, if it is the stuff that we're
01:11:02.420inexcusable because of, then what we're going to have is we go, okay, natural law, what
01:13:09.140Okay, so that would be another place where we differ.
01:13:13.260like i you know even uh you know doug wilson who's you know for the most part he's far more
01:13:18.160van tillion than he is um than he is you know um uh to mystic but uh you know even even wilson has
01:13:27.140argued you know that there would still be a necessity for determining um which side of the
01:13:32.860road are we going to drive on who makes that decision you know those kinds of um regulations
01:13:39.300So 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.
01:21:08.860cross those categorical lines from sin,
01:21:12.440not only being a sin, but now being a sin and a crime.
01:21:16.280And I think, I think we, you're not going,
01:21:19.740I'm saying all that, I find it interesting,
01:21:21.900but also I'm agreeing with you in the sense that
01:21:23.500you're not going to derive those conceptions by mere reason. You're going to have to
01:21:30.140look at Scripture, particularly all the case laws and civil codes that we have given to Israel.
01:21:39.420Otherwise, you just look at the Ten Commandments and say, well, I guess the civil magistrate
01:21:43.560punishes none of it or all of it. But the only way that you can look at the summary law of moral
01:21:49.360law, in the Decalogue, and then begin to categorize what belongs to the state and what's punishable
01:21:56.020by the state and what's not, what belongs to the church and these kinds of things is by looking at
01:22:02.400all, you can't just look at Exodus 20. You have to then look at all the case laws and all the civil
01:22:07.100codes and see what was actually punished. And then that brings up the next question is, you know,
01:22:12.760sins versus crimes. And then if it is a crime, what's the punishment? Because otherwise that too
01:22:18.280falls to the reason of man. And it's just like, well, we think that murder gets a slap on the
01:22:22.860wrist, you know, or we think that if you murder someone, then we murder your whole family. You0.99
01:22:27.780know, like, how do you know to not go too little, not go too far? Like, you need special revelation
01:22:34.760for those things. I think what we just communicated about the first and tenth
01:22:38.840commandments, I think it's really neat. I had historically kind of thought about blasphemy
01:22:43.040as fitting under the first commandment. But I think as you've described it, I actually think0.93
01:22:46.320you're right. It fits into the second commandment in terms of the criminal codes that would fit
01:22:50.520into. And so I actually think, I think that conception that you've got is neat there. And
01:22:53.640I think it is a neat mirroring structure in the law. So thank you for pointing that out.
01:22:58.840The other thing is you and I did a show a while back where we talked about the law,
01:23:04.780I think it was kind of like primer and theonomy or something like that. And we talked about the
01:23:08.700structure of the law and how you have like the big principial laws, the apodictic law,
01:23:12.660You 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.
01:23:20.220And then below that, you've got the approved and disapproved examples.
01:23:22.780And so you've kind of got this structure for categorizing and organizing the law.
01:23:27.700And 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.
01:23:42.660of what we ought to do, and when you get it to the state and you go into the sin-crime
01:23:46.640distinction and just penalties and where to use coercive power, it becomes a huge tyrannical
01:23:51.460mess, and like you mentioned, anarchy or tyranny is the big thing.
01:23:54.560I think tyranny is a general tendency, and one of the big problems with tyranny, when
01:23:59.520you don't understand the institutions, there's the individual, the household, the church,
01:24:03.380and the state, when you blend those institutions, the tendency is for the city of man to have
01:24:12.460the state be the god and to usurp the church and to usurp the household and to usurp the individual
01:24:20.200and so you've got like the example like nimrod who was a mighty hunter before the lord what was he0.88
01:24:24.140hunting he was hunting men and he was enslaving them to go build his cities and and so and to
01:24:30.780build you know ultimately there's you know the tower of babel and all that so you have this idea0.81
01:24:34.520of tyranny and despotism, in particular.
01:24:39.640And despotism, despotis in Greek is a manager, right?0.91
01:24:43.480And the woman is supposed to be the despotis of the oikos.0.93
01:25:02.520You know, and that's the prerogative in power there.
01:25:05.800If 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.
01:25:21.500You've made the whole state into sort of the property, the personal property of that dictator or that despot.
01:25:31.940And so he thinks of the state like his house.
01:25:35.460And 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.
01:25:47.600And 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.
01:25:58.180And so that's the most ham-handed, big-thumbed power of all of the powers that God has given to man.
01:26:06.200And so if we don't have the proper limits and we try to go in and go, we're going to manage sin.
01:26:10.780And so we're going to be like, you didn't speak with a good enough tone, off with his head.
01:26:14.660That obedience was not prompt enough, off with his head.
01:26:18.220So the kind of stuff you'd want to discipline children for, you start using the sword to manage that thing,
01:33:44.220I think it's not managing of the detail, managing, I don't think by itself is inherently feminine,
01:33:51.220but I do think women are designed to tend to be focused in, have strong relational things
01:33:58.400and have a really strong focus on that detail there.
01:34:03.380And men are designed to generally be more okay with letting more stuff go.
01:34:10.200And that makes it so that we can be more effective
01:34:14.560at interacting with other powers that are outside of our jurisdiction.
01:34:19.300I think that's a part of the way the Fifth Commandment is written on our heart.
01:34:22.000And so we do want to be good managers of the stuff that's in our jurisdiction.
01:34:26.080but i do think that there is a special gifting generally speaking to women that uh that they
01:34:33.220are better at managing those details and the maintenance right so and generally men are better
01:34:37.860at the getting the new stuff and and so i agree with that i agree with the general you know point
01:34:44.300that you're making there and all that kind of stuff and just i want to i don't want some man
01:34:47.880to hear what you just said and use that as an excuse to not be a hard worker managing the stuff
01:34:52.440that he's got jurisdiction over that's true and a lot of guys are apathetic when it comes to
01:34:56.820organization um and and absolutely would be tempted to take my argument and say hey the reason why my
01:35:03.300life is falling apart is because i'm just so masculine right i'm i'm being a lion i'm just
01:35:08.840i'm just sleeping in the day you know waiting to fight off another lion right he comes you know
01:35:14.460right so so that's all that's all that's my only good that's my only my only concern about that
01:35:19.560good point okay so so we when we have this you know natural law theonomy thing coming on you
01:35:27.280know one of the big critiques of theonomy is you go well theonomy doesn't allow the government to
01:35:31.960do all this stuff i want it to do because there are limits on its power and i want the trains to
01:35:38.840run on time so you know and and you know there's other things that i'd like to have fixed and so
01:35:45.940i think that the messianic view of the state the managerial view of the state the desire for a
01:35:52.740strong man to come along and fix our problems the worship of princes and the putting of trust in
01:35:57.860them the state olatry and the fact that we think the state is the solver of all the problems and
01:36:03.440our like pretense like like conservatives think that the military is full of hyper-competent
01:36:07.460people and liberals think that like the state department is full of like hyper-competent people
01:36:11.920and it's like in reality they're both just the post office yeah you know and it's like there
01:36:17.100are some magnificent soldiers and marines and airmen and sailors and those magnificent soldiers
01:36:24.140sailors airmen and marines and i don't know what do we call space force people now space forcees
01:36:28.420uh spacers i don't know starship commanders okay and the stars guys who work for elon
01:36:33.860Right? So when we think about all of those, the magnificent ones all hate the bureaucratic managerial nonsense awful that is the system, right?
01:36:49.060And 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.
01:37:01.480and they have some of the people that they worked with that they love
01:37:07.160because of the fact that they had virtues and desire to do right things