Power, Family, Community and Law

The New Morality

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Sociology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 10

Track: 41

Dictation Name: RR113A2

Date: 1974

Our scripture is from the Isaiah 45:7, 20 following. Isaiah 45:7, 20 following; or let’s begin at verse 5 and read through verse 7:

“5I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:

6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else

7I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”

“20Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that are escaped of the nations: they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save.

21 Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? Who hath told it from that time? Have not I the Lord? And there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.

22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.

23 I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.

24 Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come; and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed.

25 In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.”

Polytheism is the worship of many gods. This was the common religion of antiquity. In effect, in ancient cultures, there was no religious worship. One of the things we often do is that we ascribe to other religion, characteristics of our own. In Rome and in Greece, as in Buddhism, and Hinduism today and in any other religion, anywhere in the world, there is no worship in our sense of the word. Not even remotely.

What happened in Rome, when someone went into a temple? He went in there not on a day of worship, because there was no Day of Worship. Only Israel in antiquity had a Day of Worship. Today, apart from our faith, and Judaism, only Islam has an imitation Day of Worship: Friday. But in pagan antiquity if you went into a temple, it was for a particular god to buy a particular form of insurance for what you were going to do that day. You did not go to the temple unless you were buying insurance. If, thus, you wife were going to be in childbirth, you went to a particular temple and there made a sacrifice, you bought protection. If you were taking a sea voyage you went to the temple of Castor and Pollux and you bought insurance. Now, if you had trouble after paying for insurance, you said, ‘So much the worse for you, I’m taking my business elsewhere,’ and you went to another temple of another god to buy your insurance for the next trip. This was polytheism.

This is still polytheism wherever it exists in the world. I remember when I was a student and I took a course in comparative religion from a visiting scholar from Germany, Dr. Speigelberg. There were some in the class that were delighted no ends, and in fact they picked up the term, ‘benjo no commie’ and that became a favorite term in the dorm. Why? Because they learned from Dr. Speigelberg’s lectures that in Japan, the particular god who inhabits the toilet and to whom you make your obeisance and make sure that you avoid trouble, is named Benjo No Commie. He is the spirit of the bathroom, the toilet, and he controls everything in that area, so you placate him if you don’t want trouble in that realm. You see, this is the spirit of polytheism; may gods, or more literally, many spirits, each governing a particular area, so you pay insurance for protection in that area when you are there. There is no true god in all these religions.

The term God is used by us, but even the term ‘benjo no commie,’ commie does not mean god, although it is normally translated as such. It means the particular spirit of that realm.

Now, we are inclined to laugh at polytheism as it existed in antiquity and as it exists in our time, but the spirit of polytheism is really more rampant in the world today than ever before. Original Sin is the ultimate in polytheism. ‘Ye shall be as god,’ knowing, determining for yourself what constitutes good and evil; every man his own god, a universe of gods. “Do your own thing,” the hippies said, ‘be your own god’ so that polytheism now has come to full fruition. It bears the name of many philosophies; in fact almost any school of philosophy that you can point to is polytheistic: pragmatism, Existentialism, whatever it may be, it is polytheism.

Pragmatism, or Existentialism, because they are essentially the same, say truth is what works for you. And Existentialism says that a man should not be determined by anything outside of himself, but only by the biology of his own being. Now, the logic of Existentialism comes home fully in Jean-Paul Sartre, who is the most logical and the most consistent Existentialist of our day. He says, as a matter of fact, it is Atheism come to maturity. And for Sartre, God is not a problem. Other people are, because if I say I am god, and good and evil are what I say they are, then what right do you have to claim to be a god? We’re going to have trouble, are we not, if we both claim to be gods? And of course, this is the problem in all of modern thought. The whole of the modern world is Existentialist. Whether you know it or not, the teaching of the public schools is Existentialist philosophy. This is what the teachers are taught. This is what, from their earliest days, they imbibe it when they go to public schools and the philosophy, even though it isn’t so labeled, they are given in their teacher training courses. And as a result, the world has a problem. It calls it the Communications Problem. It is pretty hard to communicate with someone if you believe you are a god, and he claims to be one also; because then there is a conflict. We are not on the same wavelengths, because for me to claim to be god and you to claim the same means that you’re not understanding me, you see. I have a communications problem with you because when I claim to be a god, you should bow down to me and give in to my will. As a result, trouble, conflict is built into the modern world by its faith.

Sartre, the philosopher of Existentialism has very definitely recognized this without surrendering his faith. And he has said, for me god is not the problem, my neighbor is! Because how can I admit my neighbor’s claims to be god also? And his universe then becomes one in which he alone exists. There’s no possibility of communicating with anyone else. And so it becomes hell and Sartre so describes it. He must say, finally, for me my neighbor is the devil. And he must describe the world of the Existentialist—his world—under the title, ‘No Exit,’ a hell from which there is no exit in which each man lives alone and dies alone because he will not recognize God and therefore cannot recognize his neighbor.

Now how Sartre describes the world of the Existentialist is of course, how scripture describes Hell. The figures of speech that the Bible uses to describe Hell are never of community. The picture we have of Hell is always of total isolation, weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth, a total self-absorption with oneself, the fire that burns, the fire of remorse, the fire of eating on oneself. The very words for hell are significant; Gahanna, or hinnom, the dump-heap of Jerusalem where, as in any dump heap, nothing has any meaningful relationship to anything else.

Now everything in this room has a place in terms of a meaningful relationship. The pews are focused on the pulpit, so that when you sit there, you can listen to the Word of God expounded; the building, so designed so that it will carry so many pews, focusing on the Word of God, the Acoustics so ordered that it can be best heard, the lighting so that you can read the hymnals and your Bible. Everything has a function and a purpose. But Gahanna, the Valley of Hinnom, the dump-heap of Jerusalem, and Hell, the dump-heap of God’s New Creation, of God’s universe, is a place where nothing has meaningful relationship with anything else, because what goes into a wastebasket and what goes into a dump is there without any meaningful context.

And so it is in Hell. Nothing has any meaning. All things are in total isolation. And all men totally absorbed in themselves, no community is possible in Hell because man has denied God and therefore has denied his neighbor. He has denied that there is anything except himself. God says, “I am the Lord and beside me there is none other.” And when man sins and declares he is god, then there is none else beside him; he becomes his own universe. But he cannot create, and he is not sufficient unto himself, and so when man becomes his own god, he becomes his own hell here and now.

A good many years ago when it told a man that if he persisted in his ways, he would end up in Hell, he said, ‘I’m there already.’ And he was! So totally wrapped up in himself, so totally wrapped up in what his will demanded that even though it was killing him, even though his life day after day was a living hell, he would not surrender. It was ‘My will! I am the lord,’ he was saying, ‘and beside me there is none else.’ No one had any place in his universe except himself. And even when he was fearful that he was dying, and I asked him if he would not pray with me, he shook his head and said, “Rush, how can a man humble himself to pray?” He was god in his world and he was saying, as against God, ‘I am the lord and there is none else.’

Now when God says, “I am the Lord and there is none else,” and He repeats this over and over again in the 45th chapter of Isaiah, He is affirming His absolute sovereignty. He is the yardstick, the maker of all things. God is the only true Existentialist. God is declaring that there is no standard by which He can be judged. He is the source of all standards. He is the source, the Creator of all things. “I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil.” All things are what God has made them to be. All things are defined in terms of God. And therefore we cannot approach scripture with any ideas and say, ‘Well, let us understand, let us divide the Word of God, or let us describe it in terms of this and that category which we’ve borrowed from here and there.’ This we cannot do. The only standard is the Word of God itself. And we must take the Word and interpret the Word in terms of itself and then interpret every area of life and ourselves in terms of the Word. We can understand nothing—not even ourselves except in terms of the Word.

Because God is the Lord, “I am the Lord and there is none else.” Good and evil are exactly what God declares them to be. God cannot learn anything, because He is the source of learning. He is the source and the maker of all things. And all things come out of His being and so it is when man claims to be God he draws on his own resources and in the modern view of education we are told, don’t try to fill the child’s mind with things, draw out of him what is in him. He is now god. And it is to come out of his own being. Existentialism is logical.

In every system, in every area of life, there is an authority. If our authority in every area is not God and His Word, we are then polytheists. We are idolaters. We are worshiping other gods when we go into the school room or into the laboratory or into the business realm. But God says, “I am the Lord and there is none else.” Moreover, God, when He declares, “I am the Lord” is saying, “I am Jehovah.” What does that mean?

In Exodus 3:14 we have a confrontation between Moses and God, a very sad, despairing Moses; a Moses who as a prince of Egypt had tried to deliver his people and had failed and then had fled for his life and in the back side of the desert now as a man who had given up. And God spoke to him out of the burning bush and Moses said, “What is Thy name, Lord?” Remember last night we dealt with the significance of names. Names are definitions; definitions. So Moses was saying, ‘Lord, define yourself to me. I am bewildered. You spoke indeed to Abraham, Isaac and Moses [Jacob], but you’ve been silent since then and look at the captivity of my people, their bondage, their slavery, their suffering. I don’t understand it and I don’t understand you silence, so define yourself. What is Thy name, that I may tell the people, and myself?’ And God refused to define Himself. And He declared, “I Am that I Am!” Or, ‘I am He who is, Jehovah.’

Now there are titles given to God, sometimes they are called names, but God refuses to name Himself other than Jehovah (He who is). In other words, the self-existent one, the one who cannot be named, because He is the source of all naming, of all creating, of all defining, “all things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.” So there is nothing outside of God in terms of which He can be described or named. God cannot be measured. He is the yardstick. God cannot be named. He is the definer. He is He who is; “I Am that I am,” the eternal, the self-existent one. And so God cannot be named. God cannot be defined.

It is significant that Existentialism says that man has being, but no essence. Man cannot be defined. Man has become the god of the new system. The only possible definition for man is a self-definition. If I choose to define myself, then that is my definition, but you cannot hold me to it. Tomorrow I may choose to define myself in another way. Atheism is logical. We should be as faithful to God and His Word.

Thus, when we look at the world around us, we are seeing a world in which men claim to be god. This is basic to unbelief. This is Original Sin—to be as god, knowing, determining for oneself what is good and evil. And in our world today, the only way we can contend with this is to stand solidly in terms of the Word of God and to declare that He alone is God—He who is and beside Him there is none other. And He challenges us, saying, “Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? Who hath told it from that time? Have not I the Lord? And there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.” God declares, I am He who has declared all things from the beginning, I made them. I determined their course. Known unto God are all His works from the foundation of the world. And our Lord declares the very hairs of your head are all number, not a sparrow falls but our Father knows it.

I cannot number the hairs of my head, I only know they are much fewer than they were 20 years ago and I trust they will not be that much fewer 20 years from now, but it won’t be whether I choose or whether I do not. It will be of the Lord. Man’s goings, scripture says, are of the Lord. How then can a man understand even himself? And the only degree to which we can understand ourselves and understand the world around us is to the degree that we commit ourselves to the Word of God and recognize that He is the Lord and there is none other and that He has a new name for us and we can only know ourselves and define ourselves in terms of God’s calling. And He who has redeemed us through the blood of Jesus Christ is now through His sanctifying grace defining us and we are to seek that new name in obedience because only as we believe and obey are we progressively defined—not in terms of the old man who says, ‘I am my own god, determining good and evil for myself,’ but He is the Lord. “Lord, Thy servant hears. Speak.”

And so the Word of God summons us as we face a world in which the new morality prevails, a do-it-yourself morality in which men feel that if you are sincere about what you do, it’s all right. This is the ultimate in their standard. We cannot answer that world unless we do so in terms of the true God, the God of scripture.

It is interesting that the most popular professor in the United States a couple of years ago was named to be Michael Novak, who at that time was at Stanford and now is at one of the ivy league schools in the North Atlantic area. Now, Michael Novak is an Existentialist to the core. He’s also one of these people who claims to be a Christian Atheist, which tells you how language itself has been destroyed by unbelief. But Michael Novak carries this philosophy of Existentialism, of Atheism to its logical belief. Do your own thing, every man his own god, determining for himself what constitutes right and wrong, that’s valid. No one has a right to judge you. And so the big problem for him in his book (since he is a Leftist-radical), is how to distinguish himself from Hitler! And he really cannot come up with an answer. He wants to say that, ‘well, I don’t like that,’ but he has no way of distinguishing between Hitler and himself, or himself and Stalin, because he has destroyed any principle of distinction, and this of course is why the modern world is in trouble.

Every man his own god; this is the theme of the Book of Judges. “In those days there was no king in Israel.” And it doesn’t mean an earthly king, the Lord of Hosts, as the King, ruling from the Holy of Holies. “In those days there was no king in Israel,” because men had left the Lord, “and every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” And if we are going to be God’s people, we do not that which is right in our own eyes, but that which God commands. And so, His Word is, “look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else. I have sworn by myself. The Word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return, but unto me, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall swear.”

However you interpret that verse, it means that God as sovereign ultimately is going to require everyone to bend the knee to Him, either as a believer or one who in fearful judgment stands before the Lord, the God of all creation.

Are you a polytheist? Do you have a different god when you go out of this house? Is there a god of the marketplace and of the school? A god of the home? A benjo no commie, or whatever you will? Or do you recognize the Word of God, that He is the Lord and there is none else?

Let us pray.

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we give thanks unto Thee that Thou art God, that the government is upon Thy shoulders, that Thou who hast made all things hast in Thy grace and mercy remade us in Jesus Christ and has given us so great and glorious promises in Him. Give us grace, oh Lord to be always faithful unto Thee, to know that there is none else, that Thou art indeed a just God and our savior. Grant that day after day, we so walk that our homes, our work, wherever the soles of our feet may tread, we may there make of it holy ground unto Thee. Grant us this we beseech Thee in Jesus’ name, amen.