Studies in Political Philosophy

Inescapable Knowledge

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Lesson: Inescapable Knowledge

Genre: Speech

Track: 17

Dictation Name: RR124J17

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we come to thee mindful of all thy past and present mercies. Make us truly grateful, that in all things we may magnify and serve thee, rejoice in thy grace, and acknowledge that thou art God. We thank thee, our Father, that thou hast undertaken for us, that thou art the captain and author of our salvation, and in this confidence we come to thee, knowing that our tomorrows are in thy hands, and that thou dost speak to us continually the words that we need, the word of strength and the word of rebuke, the word of healing and the word of confidence, the word of joy and the word of victory. Our God, we thank thee. In Jesus name. Amen.

Our scripture lesson is Ezekiel 6. “And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God; Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys; Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars. In all your dwellingplaces the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.

Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries. And they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall lothe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations. And they shall know that I am the Lord, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.

Thus saith the Lord God; Smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. He that is far off shall die of the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I accomplish my fury upon them. Then shall ye know that I am the Lord, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols. So will I stretch out my hand upon them, and make the land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath, in all their habitations: and they shall know that I am the Lord.”

Inescapable knowledge, this is the subject of Ezekiel 6. Inescapable knowledge. Ezekiel was speaking to Judah in the days before the captivity. The land had long been accustomed to prosperity and it was hard for them to believe that their world was going to come to an end, but Ezekiel, in the first seven verses of this chapter, speaks of the desolation of the land, and in verses 8-10, he declares that the survivors will go into exile and shall remember what God said, and that his word was fulfilled. In the concluding verses, 11-14, he declares that their punishment is just and well-deserved. In verses 7, 10, 13, and 14, over and over again, we have a chorus, the refrain, the theme of the chapter, “and they shall know that I am the Lord.” This knowledge is inescapable knowledge. Over and over again, the Bible makes it clear that knowledge of God is inescapable.

The question is often raised, “What about the people in the middle of Africa, in the heart of Asia, in the jungles of South America and elsewhere? They have never heard about God,” and the Bible says this is not true, that any man who claims he does not know the things of God is a liar. Paul summarizes the biblical statement in Romans 1:18, where he declares that all men know the invisible things of God, that it is written upon every heart by God, their creator, but that men hold, or hold down, or suppress this truth in their unrighteousness. The knowledge is there, but they deny that they know it. They refuse to acknowledge it. They do everything to suppress the truth of God, which is written inescapably upon every fiber of their being, and God says, if men will not know me in my grace, if they will not accept me by faith, then they shall know me in judgment, and this is the theme of this chapter. My people have refused to know me, but they shall know that I am the Lord, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them. And so God declares, I will bring judgment upon this people. The judgment was going to strike them before it struck the rest of the world.

In Ezekiel 38:12, Ezekiel speaks of Jerusalem as the middle of navel, or center of the earth, Because they are God’s chosen people, they are central to history even though great empires surround them and humanly speaking, they seem insignificant by comparison, and judgment, the Bible declares, begins at the house of God, so that those who claim to be God’s people but are not, judgment begins with them, and so as Ezekiel declares that God is going to pronounce judgment upon the whole world, he declares that this judgment is going to begin at the center, at Jerusalem, because God has declared that all things are going to be destroyed to prepare the way for the coming of Christ. I will overturn, overturn, overturn until he comes whose right it is.

Therefore, because they were the chosen people of God had been apostate, judgment will come upon them and their false religions. They had defiled the whole land. They have taken the land, the mountains, the ravines, the valleys, and given them all over to idolatrous shrines, so that everywhere you turn, you find the land polluted by shrines, but God will bring judgment upon them to spare the land. They had despised God’s laws concerning the land, Jeremiah said. They had refused to give the land the Sabbath God had required, and therefore, God was going to give the land a rest. This is significant. When man fell into sin, the very earth was cursed because of man’s sin. When man continued in his sin, the judgment of the flood struck the whole earth, and destroyed the glory of the world before the flood, and God declared then, according to Genesis 8:20-22, that he would no more curse the earth for man’s sake. The judgment hereafter would fall upon man, and when man began to destroy the earth, to do it damage, God would give the earth a rest to recuperate it, and his judgment would fall upon man, and so the captivity was declared. For seventy years, they were to go into captivity, because for seventy-sevens of years they had failed to give the land its Sabbath, and the land was to have its rest to recuperate from them, so for seventy years it was to be a wilderness.

Because God had decreed after the flood, “I will not again curse the ground anymore for man’s sake, for that the imagination of man’s heart is evil from its youth. The earth will not share further in man’s sin. It groans and travails, St. Paul declares, in Romans 8:22-23, waiting for the redemption of our body and the general resurrection. The next step for the earth, apart from the triumph of God’s saints, is the new creation.

Thus, when men today, with their filthy imagination, dream that they have grown so powerful with their bombs and other weapons that they can destroy the earth, they are bragging. God will not permit it, and God will destroy them in their pride, and give the earth a rest from man’s destruction.

In Ezekiel 20, God declared to them that they had been guilty of the abomination of Egypt. That is, of nature, and so God declares that those who turn away from me and turn to nature, I will use nature to destroy them, and so he says to Israel, “You shall be judged by nature itself. The mountains, the valleys, and the trees which you have defiled shall be given a rest because of your sin, and the very forces of this world shall turn against you so that the earth may have its rest. How much truth is there in all of this? Is this something that happened simply in Old Testament times? Is very interesting but purely academic? Or is this God’s way of working yet?

Let us examine what has happened in the world of nature in recent years, and I’m not going by statistics corrected by myself, but by scientists who are not Christians, who would be upset at the use I put them to, frankly, but they had no answers. They scout around trying to find an answer and perhaps if the atomic bombs and perhaps it’s this and perhaps it’s that, any reason, except it’s God, but in the approximately half century before the end of World War 2, there were seven major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. In the years since to 1965, there has been nine major earthquakes in about a third of the time. In a half a century before the end of World War 2, there were six major floods, avalanches, and tidal waves, but since the end of World War 2, there have been twelve major floods, avalanches, and tidal waves. Twice as many. In those preceding years, there were eleven man-killing, building-leveling hurricanes, but since then, there have been thirteen man-killing, building-leveling hurricanes, and there is much, much more that has transpired. One of the startling facts is that in recent years since World War 2, the major source of earth’s fertility, the major source of fertilizer, thunder storms, which annually deposit untold tons of nitrogen, natural nitrogen, upon the soil, have declined. Suddenly, there are very few thunderstorms the world over, and suddenly the greatest restorer of fertility to the soil is no longer functioning. Why?

Again, as we survey history, we find that at the end of every age, as judgment overwhelms an apostate era, you see the rise of disasters and of plagues as well. Before Rome fell, disasters had struck it and plagues had decimated the population so that it was only a fraction of its previous population, and when the Middle Ages departed from the faith and became an apostate culture, it was laid low by the plague which left some areas with half the population, some with a third, and some areas virtually wiped out, and when Europe, at the end of the 17th century, turned its back on the Reformation and adopted the Enlightenment philosophy, again plague laid Europe low. Are these things coincidences? It’s asking too much to believe so, and God has declared emphatically that the knowledge of him is inescapable knowledge, that men will either know God by faith or they will know him in judgment, and they shall know that I am the Lord, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.

The world of the future is going to be the same as the world of the past. It’s going to be God’s world, and God is going to deal with those who deny him, and the goal of God’s workings in history is announced repeatedly in scripture, notably in Isaiah 11:9 and Habakkuk 2:14, wherein we are told that the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, and this is inescapable knowledge. Men shall either acknowledge him by faith or by their judgment.

In Ezekiel 6:6, the indictment concludes with these verses, this verse, “and your works may be abolished.” This is the purpose of God’s judgment, that your works may be abolished, or the word “abolished” can also be rendered as “blotted out.” It is the same word that is used repeatedly for the blotting out of our sins and our transgressions by the grace of God, so that either man comes to God in terms of knowledge of him by faith and accept him as Lord and savior, and all his sins are blotted out, or he is brought to the knowledge of God by God’s judgment, and all his works are blotted out, or abolished, by God. So that all men, with their filthy imaginations dream of as they make of themselves gods upon earth, as a destiny to be abolished, to be blotted out, by God’s judgment, unto the end that his will may prevail, and his kingdom triumphs so that the earth be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. Either our sins are blotted out by the blood of Christ and we stand in his protection, or our works are blotted out by the judgment of God for we shall know him. Knowledge of God is inescapable knowledge. Either by judgment, or by faith. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that thou hast made thyself known to us by faith, by grace, and hast separated us from those upon whom judgment is to descend. Give us grace therefore, to move in the confidence that in Jesus Christ, we are more than conquerors, that the earth is thine and not man’s, and that the very ground beneath our feet and the air and elements around us move not in terms of man but in terms of thy holy purpose, and that even as the very stars in their course fought against Ezra{?} in the days of Deborah, so now the very stars in their course and the ground beneath our feet are at war with those who will not know thee by faith, but are destined to know thee in judgment. We thank thee for thy calling and election. We praise thee for thy grace. In Jesus name. Amen.

First of all, before we have our questions, a couple of announcements. We’re very happy to know that one of our number, Gary Arnold, won in the primary and will be running for election to the Assembly from the 63rd district in November. We’re also happy to have one of our number who is from out of town with us today, Mrs. Stanford, from Santa Maria, over there near the door. Very happy to have you here, Mrs. Stanford. I’d like to call to your attention two very interesting issues of Life; June 3 and June 10, and it deals with the plans for racial warfare on the part of Negros. I have not yet read the first, but the second I have read and it is an exceptionally plain spoken and telling article, although the writers have no answer to it but a vague hope that somehow we can open up a dialogue, and that will be the answer, which is absurdity, and to me, it is significant, these people mean business. Leroy Jones in his book, which was written with a Guggenheim Fellowship and under federal subsidies, has made it clear that their purpose is to kill every white man the world over. It’s that openly stated, and then they will have a wonderful world when they have totally destroyed everything, and it’s important for us to know that this kind of thinking is not going to be ended. It will only be encouraged by dialogue. We cannot deal with iniquity by dialogue.

Are there any questions now? Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, very definitely. This does reflect the communist program and there is no doubt about it. Every kind of subversive group in involved in this.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] well, of course, I think this kind of talk is encouraged because the purpose of it is destruction, and after a certain point when they have destroyed our liberty, then they will no doubt turn on the Negro and destroy him, mercilessly, but meanwhile, he’s an important instrument of destruction, and it seems to me the function that it is intended to carry on is destroy the local police forces, to destroy local self-government, and then to say that the answer is for the federal government to come in and take over everything, and to ensure it’s law and order, and it’s to make us, I think, demand help from Washington, for as the biggest help Washington could give us is to stay out of everything, and for Washington’s court to let our policeman and our local courts have some freedom to deal with these people without interference, because the inevitable answer to everything now is to appeal it to Washington in the confidence that godly law and order are going to be destroyed, and we have subversive groups definitely working to get into courts in order to appeal to Washington, in order to overthrow the law. So they beg for arrest in many cases just for this purpose. Yes?

[Audience] {?} on the radio, it’s gone on the radio station, and I heard {?} they say Negros are now forming vigilante groups {?} monitor the police calls, and then follow the police car and there is no {?}

[Rushdoony] That’s right. This has been described on both television and on radio in the last {?} days.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] It would be interesting to know where the money for these patrol cars and two-way radios comes from. I would not be surprised if a surprising proportionate of it came from the churches. Yes?

[Audience] I wanted to tell you, {?} gaming laws in various states, and I’m thinking of one such {?} and Idaho’s regulations this year were quite astounding for hunting. They {?} and even {?} whether hunting or not {?} but I wondered if this has been occurring elsewhere in other states.

[Rushdoony] There have been some surprising developments in Idaho, which used to be a good state, but they have actually gone into the high mountain areas where the forest service used to maintain roofed three-walled shelters for hunters who were caught in sudden storms, and burned them down so there will be no refuge of any kind, and many areas of Idaho have been barred to hunters and what’s going on in Idaho, I don’t know.

[Audience] {?} everything, hunting or not {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, Idaho is becoming a strange state in this respect, and there are similar attempts for regulations elsewhere. Yes?

[Audience] I happened to catch part of the program {?} great religions, {?}was talking, a woman called in, talking with Rabbi {?}. She told {?} that she had never heard that Jews {?} Christ, and that the Romans. Now, Rabbi {?} answer was something Pontius Pilate being completely {?} entirely wicked, and that he {?}. However, the Bible says, as I remember that he {?}

[Rushdoony] The historical situation was briefly this. No death penalty could be legal without the approval of the Roman government. Therefore, the first step was that the Sanhedrin had to pass a death sentence. Then, they had to have it approved by the Roman government. Now, in this case, from start to finish, the trial by the Sanhedrin was in strict violation of their own law. It was in every respect an illegal thing, hurried through to avoid any opposition or a protest arising. Then, first thing in the morning, a night hearing, that was illegal, first thing in the morning, they descended on Pilate. Now, Pilate was a political appointee, a very poor and sordid politician, and he knew that the policy of Rome was one of conciliation, that they were afraid of a rebellion breaking out among the Jews, and so at all costs, the attitude was one of conciliation. Avoid offending them. We don’t want to give any excuse for an incident, and so his first reaction was, “This man is innocent. There is no ground whatsoever for executing him,” but they pressured him, and they threatened to write to Caesar accusing him of supporting someone who claimed to be king. Now, this could be very, very embarrassing politically for Pilate. It could have meant his job, especially when our Lord said, “Yes, I am a king, but my kingdom is not of this world.” Well, that wouldn’t have bothered Caesar. His first reaction was, “He does claim to be a king? Well now, what are you doing acquitting such a person?” and by the time the facts would be straightened out, Pilate figured he would be in serious trouble and perhaps lose his position, and so very reluctantly, he gave in, as he did on many another occasion, and the Sanhedrin knew he was a man whom they could break, and so they exerted that pressure. So, while Pilate cannot be absolved of responsibility, he was clearly guilty. The primary responsibility rested on the Sanhedrin. They were the ones who condemned him to death and exerted pressure upon Pilate to confirm the sentence, but the arrest, the trial, everything, was by the Sanhedrin. There was simply the confirmation by Pilate.

Now, this is an important point because there is a concerted effort to do away with the element of guilt, but the guilt of the people was clear-cut. There was no getting around it.

[Audience] Rabbi {?} further {?} and said that {?} not be blamed for this {?} any more than the {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, there was a difference in that in that it was not an act of social disorder. In other words, it’s one thing for some rioting to break out. This is an act of lawlessness against everyone, so that if tomorrow there is some rioting in Watts, or a man kills a prominent official, as Oswald and some others apparently killed Kennedy, we cannot be blamed for this because this is an act of lawlessness against us, in that we represent law and order in this country. We are on the side of law and order, so that any act of violence is an act against established authority and law and order of which we are a part. So, instead of being guilty if there is any rioting in this country, we have to say we are among the intended victims. It is another thing when an official body representing the religion and political life of a nation, having the full approval of the people, deliberately sets out to commit a crime. That’s an entirely different thing, and when this is a crime planned over a period of three years, because we know from careful studies that have been made of the Gospels and their technical language, that within a matter of a few weeks after our Lord began his ministry, he was excommunicated, so that very early, the death penalty was planned and the whole nation knew it. There was no getting around that knowledge, and yet, they didn’t lift a finger to prevent it. They were ready to be there to be healed, but they were not ready to protect when their lawfully established religious and civil authorities were planning the foulest crime in all history. There’s a difference between the two, and that’s why this kind of talk is so wicked as the talk during the Kennedy assassination was wicked, in that all of us were blamed for it. It was a crime against us as well as against Kennedy. Kennedy was the one who was shot, but it was an offense against established law and order, and that includes us. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] No, it is not a Christian faith. It is basically anti-Christian although it claims to believe in many of the things we do, but it is basically humanistic, and it is a science of mind type of thing. What you do is to believe in the basic powers in man, and where they use the Bible, let us say, well, Jesus basically was divine like all men are, and that he was {?} human, but he had all kinds of divine powers in him which he utilized and all of us need to do the same thing and to realize ourselves as Jesus realized himself, and this is basically and radically hostile to Christianity, but of course, today, anti-Christianity usually comes masked as Christianity, or as a good friend of it, and you hear all kinds of absurdities, sometimes in the name of Christ. Going to Santa Ana this morning, a woman who was on a church board as well as Sunday School superintendent of one of the major churches in Southern California was speaking on what her church meant to her, and what Christ meant to her, and Christ was just like Mary Poppins in that what Christ thought was, what is it?

[Audience] A little bit of sugar makes the medicine go down.

[Rushdoony[ Yes, a little bit of sugar makes the medicine go down. Now, in case you didn’t know it, that’s the Gospel, and this was this woman’s testimony and she was very sincere, and she obviously believed herself to be a wonderful Christian, but she made our Lord just like Mary Poppins. A little bit of sugar makes the medicine go down.

[Audience] But {?} Christian scientists, and they call themselves Christian scientists not, you know, science of the mind, and they claim to go by the Bible, but one thing {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, Mary Baker Eddy was a monist. Now monism believes that there is only one reality which is totally the same, mind. The universal mind, and everything else is illusion, and all of us are a part of this one divine mind, and in terms of this, she reinterprets the whole Bible to make it read exactly what monism would have, but monism is basically closer to Hinduism than anything else, so that her system is not Christian nor is it science.

[Audience] {?} but they say that {?} you know, {?} matter, or something.

[Rushdoony] That’s right, and if you enter into divine mind sufficiently you overcome illusion. Illusion, or Maia{?}, is matter, and of course, this is precisely the point of Hinduism. The world of matter is simply illusion, and the wise man realizes it doesn’t exist and lives entirely in terms of mind, and mind is everything. Matter is nothing.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Because we are not perfect minds as yet. Yes?

[Audience] You said {?} therefore, {?} original sin {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. That quotation was from Genesis 8, and verse 21, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.” So, the point that is made there is this, that man who was created good and whose original nature was good, has through the fall, become evil so that now evil dominates every area of his nature so that the term that has been used by theologians from St. Augustine to the present is total depravity. Total has reference to the fact that every aspect of his nature is depraved. It doesn’t mean that it is total in that there is nothing else in him, but this dominates every area. In other words, his mind is governed by evil. His imagination is governed by evil. His will is governed by evil. Every aspect of his being is governed by evil, and not until he is regenerated is this changed. When we are regenerated, instead of being governed by evil, our nature is now governed by Christ. So, the point that is made here and is repeated, of course, by the prophets and Paul has a great deal to say about this in Romans. It is precisely this, that man’s being, every aspect of it, is corrupted, totally.

[Audience] But {?} we include that {?} we’ll never be true {?} if all of man were evil. is being totally evil {?}

[Rushdoony] Oh yes. Well, the answer to that, of course, is the Virgin birth. Now, just a Adam was created wholly good and was as fully human as we are, so Jesus Christ, while on his mother’s side inheriting humanity, was a miraculous birth as Adam was, and he had human nature as well as divine nature, but his human nature was by special creation, even as Adam’s, without sin. So that in Christ, there was a perfect humanity, but without the taint of sin as with the rest of us. Now, he was tempted in all points like we are. We are told emphatically in scripture, so that there is no temptation that Jesus Christ underwent that we do not also experience, yet without sin, we are told, because he never yielded to any of these temptations. So that it isn’t sin that’s our humanity, but sin which is the disease that has infected our humanity. So that Jesus Christ inherited our humanity without the disease, withstood the temptation to which Adam had succumbed, and became the Second Adam, the fountainhead of the new humanity. That’s why the term for the church in the early centuries was the new humanity. Did you belong? And this you find in the liturgy of St. Basil. Did you belong to the old humanity of Adam which was lost in sin and depraved, or did you belong to the new humanity of Jesus Christ? And the liturgy of St. Basil, which is a very beautiful liturgy of the early church, rejoices in the fact, the responses of the congregation is their joy in that they are a part of the new humanity whose destiny is the new heavens and the new earth.

Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] Recently, by way of rebuke{?}, could you give us the names again of the two types of {?} months ago {?}

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, yes. The two kinds of sin, as the Bible speaks of them, Hamartia, and Hamartia refers to actual sins. What you do when you tell a lie, or if you get drunk, which I don’t assume any of you do, but just speaking of you as an impersonal there, but Hamartia has reference to actual sins that we commit. Now, John says that the saint can commit Hamartia, and he who says he is without sin, Hamartia, is a liar, because none of us are perfect. We all have our sin. They may be small ones. They may be great ones, but we commit Hamartia, but the other sin which no Christian commits but which is the characteristic sin of all unbelievers is Anomia, and Anomia means anti-law, or lawlessness. It means being opposed to the fundamental principle of law coming from God, of a law from outside of you telling you what to do. It is living in terms of Satan’s temptation, “Ye shall be as gods, knowing (that is, determining for himself what is) good and evil.” Every man his own god, every man his own law, so that every man says, who is guilty of Anomia, “Why should I have any God telling me what to do? I’ll make my own rules. I’ll be my own law.” This is Anomia, and no Christian is guilty of Anomia. He is converted from this. He can be guilty and is to his dying day of various acts of Hamartia, small or great, usually small, but this is a very different thing than Anomia, which is in the heart, and is a fundamental principle of lawlessness. So that the person who has this sin, Anomia, hates the law. The basic aspect of his being is a desire to break the law, and there is this radical perversity in relationship to law.

Now, I’ve been of late doing a great deal of studying when time permits, in Romanticism, because I want to, in dealing with the philosophy of history, deal with the influence of the Romantic’s mood in history, and of course, the Romantic mood for the past two hundred years has been dominant in our culture. It governs our art today, and Romanticism has a fundamental characteristic: perversity, and a Romantic love always has this characteristic to it. It wants what is forbidden. It’s never happy with what it has, and so the Romantic lovers and the poets, for example, Percy and Bische Shelley{?}, and Lord Byron, only liked the woman they couldn’t get, and when they got her, they quickly despised her. She was dirt because now she was no longer forbidden. They had her, and this element of radical perversity, wanting what is forbidden and lusting after it, trying to do everything to get it, and then there is nothing to it, is basic to the Romantic mood, and it’s significant that we’ve had some very high placed people, including a justice of the Supreme Court, say that the essence of life is desiring something that you cannot get, rather than attaining these things. This is the perversity of Romanticism, and as a result, it has a destructiveness. It has to destroy what it has in order to get what it wants, because it is forbidden and it despises what it wants when it gets it.

Now, this is Anomia, and the Romantic Movement represents Anomia. Look at art today. The one idea there is to break every kind of rule, and it has to shock. When it loses its shock value, then it’s obsolete. So, you go from one kind of art, pop art, to op art, and so on. Each year you have to have a new shock value, and some of the art magazines speak very frankly of this. Its shock value has to be there, in that you’re doing what it forbidden. You are declaring something is art that nobody would consider to be art. Yes?

[Audience] I just wanted to be monopolistic here, but I have a question.

[Rushdoony] Good.

[Audience] {?} somewhere in one of the tapes I heard that you had mentioned the problem recreating the world, and yet I understood the {?} been completed and finished, and I can’t quite recognize {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning in six days, but we are told that the purpose of all things is at the end of the world, to re-create heaven and earth, a new creation, which will be perfect, in which there will be no death or dying. Now, God has begun this work of recreation spiritually, so that every time anyone is saved, he is recreated in Jesus Christ, spiritually. At the end of the world, in the resurrection body, of course, he attains re-creation physically, so that with Christ’s resurrection, the new creation of heaven and earth began. He established, in his resurrection, the fountainhead of the new humanity, himself as the Second or last Adam, and step by step, as believers are converted and brought into this new creation, the new creation in its totality begins to come to perspective, and the destiny is this eternal and glorious world in which there is no death nor dying. Does that help clarify? Yes?

[Audience] {?} Christian {?} church, and every time I go there, I always {?} they feel that if you haven’t declared being saved and being baptized {?} really not saved at all, and in order to do this, there a lot of things you have to give up, like smoking and {?}, and a lot of other things, and I’m wondering, I can’t quite do that, and {?}

[Rushdoony] No, because our salvation stands not in terms of what we do but in terms of what Jesus Christ has done, and if we accept him as our savior, we are saved. If we believe that our sins are forgiven by his atoning death, then we are saved and that’s it. Now, in these other matters, of course, there are different Christians, very earnest and fine people who have different views, but I believe that this is an area of Christian liberty, and I don’t go into what I believe on these things because I don’t believe I have the right to tell people what my standards are, because I cannot impose them on believers. I can only declare what the word of God declares. So that, because we have the liberty, as the Holy Spirit guides us, and as we prayerfully consider various things, we are under God and responsible to God in these areas, so that no one can be a judge of your salvation in terms of these things, but in terms of your confession of Jesus Christ. Now, if you show, by flagrant contempt, of the means of grace and of God’s word and of Christian morality that you have no regard for these things, then your confession, of course, can be judged an invalid one, but we cannot judge of a person’s salvation in terms of specific acts in these areas. We have to go in terms of their profession of faith and their basic stand in terms of the word of God, and the Ten Commandments, and the general teachings of scripture. One more, yes?

[Audience] This may be a foolish analogy, but {?} and anomia, is there any parallel with modern {?} where we have two kinds of crimes mentioned here, one is unintentional, the other is intentional?

[Rushdoony] No, not quite, because a Christian can intentionally commit a crime. It’s a fearful thing to do, but he can, and this does not change the fact that he is still a saved man, and it’s not anomia. It can be due to his weakness and his background. I’ve known Christians who came from a very, very ugly and sordid background. When I was on the reservations, among the Indians, most of the Indians, their family background was one of a fearful sort, and many of them had been alcoholics since the time they were ten or twelve years old. Now, it was not uncommon for them to be guilty of some very serious offenses, and yet they were true believers, and this was apparent in the grief they suffered and their earnest repentance for the sins that they committed. Often, knowing what they were doing, but because of their weakness they still did.

And one of the most earnest Christians I ever knew came from a background (I referred to him before), he was a big bruiser, a semi-pro football player in his day, and I believe two or three generations on his father’s side had died as alcoholics. Now, he has some very serious weaknesses and problems in that area, but it didn’t change the fact that he was a Christian, even though he sometimes admitted, he went out knowingly, knowing what he was going to do and got drunk, but he was still a believer, and ultimately he did overcome his weakness.

Well, our time is up and we stand dismissed.

End of tape