Open Letter to Dr. White (Regarding Theonomy)

Dear Dr. James R. White,

Let me begin by saying that of all the great teachers and theologians in the Reformed world alive today, I owe the greatest debt to you. Most of what I learned on matters pertaining to theology and apologetics over the past six years came from listening to your debates and Dividing Line podcast, as well as reading several of your books (The Forgotten Trinity remains my all-time favourite, as it has helped me in numerous encounters with Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, Mormons and Oneness Pentecostals). I continue to hold you up to my colleagues as the best Christian apologist today against Islam.

That being said, I have over the course of my studies in ethics and social theory in the past two years gravitated towards the Theonomic position. Van Til's maxim of "Theonomy or Autonomy" is one that I take very seriously, as I find that if I were to be truly Presuppositional in my approach to law and ethics, I am forced to say that the scriptures (both Old and New Testament) are the only sure foundation that we can have in questions relating to those issues. On the specific issue of Old Testament judicial law, I find that there is immeasurable wisdom in those laws that we cannot afford to dispense with, and the Church today would be much poorer in its witness to the world if it did not draw from those resources to give coherent answers to the socio-political and economic problems plaguing the world today.

Yes, there is to some extent some cultural baggage contain in the Old Testament Law. I believe that this is the reason why the Reformed Confessions spoke of "General Equity." It is through that principle of General Equity that we are able to filter out those elements of the judicial laws that are strictly for Ancient Israel only, and extract the principles from them that are relevant to every culture and every age. I find it perplexing that you accuse the Theonomic position of Judaizing, when in fact every Theonomic author that I know of recognizes the necessity of contextualizing the principles of those laws to the social situations that we find ourselves in. My Eastern European Theonomist colleagues do not cease to be Eastern Europeans, neither do my African Theonomist colleagues give up their Africanness by adopting the position that they do. Every culture needs to be redeemed under Christ, but nobody is asserting that they have to be changed into some sort of Neo-Israel in the process. To assert otherwise is to assert a Strawman.

That being said, I must speak on the statements that you have made regarding Shari'a and its alleged similarity to Theonomy. As a student in Middle Eastern Studies, who is in the process of reading the Qur'an in the original Arabic and has written no less than two university-level papers on the subject of Islamic jurisprudence, I think that I can speak with some level of credibility on the topic of Shari'a. I can assure you that I did not learn about Shari'a from Fox News (we don't have that up here in Canada). Perhaps I am not up to your level when it comes to knowledge and acquaintance in the Islamic sources, but by God's grace I am getting there, and hope to be just as effective in that area as you are. Be that as it may, I do find the comparison between Theonomy and Shari'a to be both oversimplistic and inaccurate, as there are many points of divergence between the two:

1. First of all, while Theonomy is comprehensive, it is not exhaustive (that is a distinction many people fail to make). Recall that there are only 613 laws in Torah, whereas Shari'a has tens of thousands of laws covering all sorts of matters that the Torah does not even begin to touch upon. This is because Biblical Law was never meant to be exhaustive. Biblical law has many areas that are "adiaphora," where we can exercise our Christian liberty, whereas Shari'a regulates every part of your life, right down to how you go to the bathroom or what positions you may have sex with your spouse. I've yet to see a Theonomic treatise on the proper biblical way to clip one's toenails!
2. Many of the Islamic penalties are much more severe than the Biblical penalties. For example, thieves must pay back what they stole in the Torah, whereas in the Qur'an they get their hands chopped off. The number of crimes one may be put to death for is also significantly smaller in the Torah than it is in Shari'a.
3. Islamic law barely (if at all) distinguishes between sins and crimes the way Biblical law does. For them, most if not all sins must be prevented or punished by the State somehow. Theonomists recognize the Kuyperian concept of Sphere Sovereignty, which limits the extent to which the State can punish that which is unlawful, and leaves it to the spheres of family and church to handle those laws that lack judicial penalties. You will not find any equivalent to Sphere Sovereignty in Islamic social thought, as they tend to mix and confuse the spheres together.
4. The economic systems are polar opposites. Biblical economics is based on free enterprise, which you'll get from reading any number of Gary North's writings. Shari'a, on the other hand, is based on heavy regulation and taxation (basically Socialism). Every discussion of Shari'a-compliant economics I have ever come across talks about heavy income taxation, banning of interest, and welfare statism.
5. The Theonomic movement is very Libertarian in its orientation. Rushdoony wrote in the Roots of Reconstruction that Theonomy is close as one can get to Radical Libertarianism. Shari'a has the opposite tendency: It is Totalitarian, and can only be truly enforced in Statist society where civil government reaches into every area of its citizens' lives.
6. Finally, Theonomists, being orthodox Calvinists, believe that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, and that only the Holy Spirit can make the heart desire obedience to God's Law. We do not believe in "salvation by law" as a certain Islamic apologist mischaracterizes us as believing. The idea that a perfect law can behavioristically change hearts and minds may be an Islamic notion, but it is not a Christian one, and we repudiate it wholeheartedly.

These are just a few of the differences between the two systems that come readily to mind. Here is another article which explains the differences between the two. Suffice to say, I find the attempt at comparing the two to totally inaccurate,  and can only be sustained if one is not well-acquainted with both Biblical Law and Shari'a.

With that out of the way, I must speak to one other matter that you raised up in your recent Dividing Line, and that is the behaviour of most of those within the Theonomic camp. I do find it funny that the same accusation is being hurled at Theonomic Calvinists by non-Theonomic Calvinists that Arminians routinely hurl against Calvinists of all stripes. Be that as it may, I agree with almost everything you said in your last DL. It is unfortunate that you've had some nasty scrapes with some of the Theonomic stalwarts, given that your high view of the Law makes you an honourary Theonomist in my book (then again, infights in the Theonomic camp are not unheard of!). I have spoken to various young Theonomists that I know (including a certain individual you know who goes to the same church as you), and many of us agree that there is indeed an attitude problem among many Theonomists. This is not something new, as Bahnsen addressed the exact same problem back in the 90s. I'm not entirely sure why a lot of those "Angry Calvinists" find themselves in the Theonomic camp. I do hope and pray that those of us within the Theonomic camp will heed the admonition to "speak the truth in love," and shed this unfortunate tendency (it has become something of a PR problem for us among other Reformed folk). But I do thank you for raising the issue. I also thank you for recognizing that we are all not like that.

That concludes my Apology (a fititng double-entendre) for the Theonomic movement. May God bless you in your ministry work, and may you continue to equip the saints in dealing with the pressing issues that we face today.

John R.W. Stott on Being Salt and Light

The world is evidently a dark place, with little or no light of its own, since an external source of light is needed to illumine it. True, it is "always talking about its enlightenment," but much of its boasted light is in reality darkness. The world also manifests a constantly tendency to deteriorate. The notion is not that the world is tasteless and that Christians can make it less insipid ("The thought of making the world palatable to God is quite impossible"), but that it is putrefying. It cannot stop itself from going bad. Only salt introduced from outside can do this. The church, on the other hand, is set in the world with a double role, as salt to arrest--or at least to hinder--the process of social decay, and as light to dispel the darkness.

What message do we have, then, for such people who feel themselves strangled by 'the system', crushed by the machine of modern technocracy, overwhelmed by political, social and economic forces which control them and over which they have no control? They feel themselves victims of a situation they are powerless to change. What can they do? It is in the soil of this frustration that revolutionaries are being bred, dedicated to the violent overthrow of the system. It is from the very same soil that revolutionaries of Jesus can arise, equally dedicated activists--even more so--but committed rather to spread his revolution of love, joy and peace. And this peaceful revolution is more radical than any programme of violence, both because its standards are incorruptible and because it changes people as well as structures. Have we lost our confidence? Then listen to Luther: "With his single word I can be more defiant and more boastful than they with all their power, swords and guns."

John R.W. Stott, Christian Counter-Culture: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (InterVarsity Press, 1978), pgs. 58-59, 64.

John Murray on the Cultural Mandate

There is an indication in Genesis 1 and 2 of the variety which would have characterized his labours in a state of confirmed integrity. The other mandates—the replenishing of the earth and subduing it—involved labour also. Even in the genial conditions which would have obtained in an uncursed earth it is not difficult to imagine the labour entailed in geographical expansion and the necessity of making adequate provision for sustenance and comfort in this process of expansion. But more significant in respect of labour is the mandate to subdue the earth. This means nothing if it does not mean the harnessing and utilizing of the earth’s resources and forces. We are not to suppose that the earth is represented as offering resistance to man’s dominion and that the subduing was to be that of conquering alien and recalcitrant powers. But the subduing of the earth must imply the expenditure of thought and skill and energy in bringing the earth and its resources under such control that they would be channeled to the promotion of certain ends which they were suited and designed to fulfil but which would not be fulfilled part from the exercise of man’s design and labour. In the sense in which Jesus spoke of the Sabbath as made for man and not man for the Sabbath, so we may not say that the earth and its resources were made for man and not man for them; he was to exercise dominion over them, they were not to rule over him The earth and its resources were to be brought into the service of his well-being, enjoyment and pleasure.

John Murray, Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1957), 36-37.

Book Recommendation: “Redemption Accomplished and Applied” by John Murray

NOTE: For a few years now, I have been writing book recommendations for my church's monthly newsletter. I have decided that I would begin reposting some of them here on my blog. Note that these are not full-length reviews, but short blurbs on what I found helpful about the books and why I recommend others to read them. I hope this encourages you to check out the same books.

From the back of the book:

The atonement lies at the very center of the Christian faith. The free and sovereign love of God is the source of the accomplishment of redemption, as the Bible’s most familiar text (John 3:16) makes clear. 

For thoughtful Christians since the time of the Apostle Paul, this text has started, not ended, the discussion of redemption. Yet few recent interpreters have explored in depth the biblical passages dealing with the atonement as penetratingly or precisely as John Murray, who, until his death in 1975, was regarded by many as the foremost conservative theologian in the English-speaking world. 

In this enduring study of the atonement, Murray systematically explains the two sides of redemption: its accomplishment by Christ and its application to the life of the redeemed. In Part 1 Murray considers the necessity, nature, perfection, and extent of the atonement. In Part 2 Murray offers careful expositions of the scriptural teaching about calling, regeneration, faith and repentance, justification, adoption, sanctification perseverance, union with Christ and glorification.

I read this book while taking Systematic Theology classes under Prof. Kirk Wellum in Toronto Baptist Seminary, and this was my favourite among all my seminary textbooks. And it’s not because of its short length! Although small and only 192 pages long, it is densely packed with great information on the doctrine of salvation. This work is a classic treatment of the salvific work of God (especially as it relates to Jesus’ work on the cross) from a Reformed perspective. It is concise enough that readers are not drowned in lengthy theological arguments, yet comprehensive enough that the breadth of the biblical teaching on redemption is adequately covered. Murray’s contributions to the theology of redemption are helpful both to those who are still young in the faith and need to be grounded in the scriptural understanding of salvation, as well as more experienced Christians who wish to further their understanding of how God has accomplished His salvific work and has applied it to believers.

In keeping with the title, Murray has divided the book into two sections: Redemption Accomplished (which is 5 chapters long) and Redemption Applied (which is 10 chapters long). As noted in the preface, the second section of this book was originally a set of twenty two articles that the author wrote for The Presbyterian Guardian from 1952 to 1954.  It was later collected together and added to the first section to produce the current edition of the book, which has remained in more or less the same form since it first came out back in 1955.

For those looking for a biblical and logical exposition of Reformed theology that explains the key concepts underlying our belief concerning the doctrine of salvation, this is the best one-volume treatment of the issues. It is both highly informative and edifying, and belongs in every believer’s library.

On Being Salt and Light

Some Christians think that either you're involved in heavenly things or involved in earthly things. That is a false dichotomy, because the Bible commands us to be involved in both: "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (Jeremiah 29:7).

Christians should be fully involved in the public square, and they should be involved in such a way that the surrounding world can see what the effect of a Christian worldview and lifestyle have on such public involvement. Statements such as "None of these things matter , because it's all about Jesus!" sound high-minded and pious, but it's not what the Lord commanded, and in fact goes contrary to His command for us to be salt and light to the world around us.

Two Principles in Debating

Two truths that ought to be obvious to everybody regardless of their religious or political beliefs:

1. Sincerity does not equal truthfulness. One may sincerely hold to his beliefs, but he may be sincerely wrong about his beliefs.
2. A sincerely wrong person is not a lying or deceptive person. Unless one has good reason to think otherwise, it is always best to assume that if one is making a claim, they really do believe the claim they're making (even if you know that claim to be false).

On the Harmony Between Different Disciplines

The human mind has a wonderful faculty for the condensation of perfectly valid arguments, and what seems like an instinctive belief may turn out to be the result of many logical steps. Or, rather it may be that the belief in a personal God is the result of a primitive revelation, and that the theistic proofs are only the logical confirmation of what was originally arrived at by a different means. At any rate, the logical confirmation of the belief in God is a vital concern to the Christian; at this point as at many others religion and philosophy are connected in the most intimate possible way. True religion can make no peace with a false philosophy, any more than with a science that is falsely-so-called; a thing cannot possibly be true in religion and false in philosophy or in science. All methods of arriving at truth, if they be valid methods, will arrive at a harmonious result.

Machen, John Gresham. Christianity and Liberalism. ReformedAudio.org, 1923. p. 51.