Eighth Commandment

Responsibility

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Restitution & Forgiveness

Lesson: Responsibility

Genre: Speech

Track: 80

Dictation Name: RR130AR80

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Exodus 21:28-32. “If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death. If there be laid on him a sum of money, then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid upon him. Whether he have gored a son, or have gored a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done unto him. If the ox shall push a manservant or a maidservant; he shall give unto their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.”

In Exodus 21:28-32, we have brought to sharp focus one of the important doctrines of scripture, the doctrine of responsibility. According to this passage, even animals are responsible in the sight of God. We have seen that scripture gives us case law. Case law gives us a minimal principle and states that if it be true in this minimal case, then certainly it is true in all larger cases. Thus, it follows that if an ox is responsible for his actions, then how much more so any and every man?

In this situation, there is a responsibility also of the owner of the ox. If the ox’s previous behavior indicated that he was a dangerous animal, and, scripture says, the owner “hath not kept him in,” then the owner is also responsible. In other words, responsibility is not a one-way street. This is an important point. We shall see what its implications are, but responsibility is never a one-way street. Both owner and animal have a responsibility, this being the case with an ox. Now St. Paul made clear with regard to the muzzling of an ox that treaded out the corn, how much more so is it true of man?

As a result, of this particular passage and many others like it, we can say that a parent is responsible for his child if nothing is done to curb the child, to punish or to bring to judgment in irresponsible or delinquent child. If a man is responsible for his animal, if he hath not kept him in, how much more so for the child? Thus, the parent is absolved of guilt only if the parent has done everything to prevent the delinquency of the child.

On the other hand, the responsibility of the parent does not absolve the child of his responsibility. The goring ox is always guilty. In every case of delinquency, the child is always guilty. The owner is only guilty if his negligence is proven and the parent similarly. The prior responsibility is always that of the acting party. The owner or the parent is an accessory to the crime only if he is negligent in his responsibility.

Then, we must state further that transgression beyond a certain point ends responsibility. The law of the delinquent son in Deuteronomy 21:18-21 makes it clear that the parents’ responsibility to provide for and protect a child ends with a child’s radical delinquency. Their duty and moral responsibility is one of separation from that child, of denunciation. Responsibility is never a one-way street.

Thus, the responsibility of man and wife, of parents and children, and of children for parents ends beyond a certain point. Let us illustrate now, because this matter is one that is much misunderstood in our day and age. It is misunderstood because humanism absolutizes the relationship between man and man. The Bible says to us over and over again that the only absolute relationship is between man and God, that only God has an absolute claim on us, that humanism has tended to make us absolutize human relationships. For example, one of the greatest of the clergymen in the Victorian Era was very much admired for his patience and loyalty to his wife. His wife was a moral tramp. In fact, she periodically left the house to work in houses of prostitution. That clergyman, one of the most prominent in all of England during the Victoria Era, did not divorce her. Again and again he went into the house to plead for her return to the home, or with the aid of authorities, took possession of her and brought her forcibly to the home. Of course, she promptly went back. He was much admired for what was regarded as a high degree of faithfulness, but was it admirable in him or was it actually wrong? The law of God does not absolutize the relationship between man and wife, and it does make clear that her adultery gave him every ground for divorce.

Another illustration, of a man who had three children, two well-to-do sons, neither of whom wanted the care of him when he became aged and infirmed. His daughter, whom he never cared for, he was never interested in girls, cared for him for over ten years. During most of that time, he was bedridden. During all that time, he never thanked her once for her care, never gave her or his grandchildren any Christmas or birthday presents, ignored his son-in-law, a very fine man, as though he did not exist, gave presents to his sons and grandsons, and left his estate to them. Now, the daughter, a very fine Christian woman, felt she was being godly by caring for her father in spite of this, never saying a word to him or to her brothers. Was it godly? Responsibility in scripture is never a one-way street. The relationship was actually lawless, not godly.

Another illustration. A mother who was a militant liberal and a religious modernist made her home with her daughter and son-in-law, both of whom were devout and thoroughly orthodox in their faith. Every day, she ridiculed their ignorant and reactionary ideas to them and to their children. As devout Episcopalians, they always bowed their heads and had grace at the table. She ridiculed even that. She denied flagrantly and openly the authority of her son-in-law in the home. Again we must say, responsibility is not a one-way street. She had no right to light in that family.

Still another case, because these are so revelatory for what passes for very wonderful Christian faith today. A daughter who was expected to remain unmarried and take care of her parents, when all the other children had married, because they were not well. She had no friends because her parents insisted on being included on in all her activities, and they were ugly, thoughtless people. As a result, she soon had no friends at all, no visitors in the home, and was doomed to being an old maid in a very unpleasant home, out of what she regarded as Christian duty. Again, we have to say this situation was lawless.

This past week, there was an interesting letter in the Ann Landers column. It read, “My problem is a 20 year old brother who has been confined to a wheelchair for three years. The doctors say Lee has a paralysis which appears to be permanent. I am seventeen and I have two sisters also in their teens. We have tried to be kind and considerate, but the more we do, the more demanding Lee becomes. He is driving all of us crazy, and this includes mom and dad. His demands are unreasonable. He orders us around as if we were slaves. ‘Get me the newspaper, I have to have a cold drink, a cup of coffee, a piece of candy. If there’s none in the house, go to the store, get off the telephone, I want it. Find my blue sweater. Polish my shoes. I need a cushion. Get me a pencil.’ Never a please or a thank you. Lee criticizes mom’s cooking and insults our friends. He has no friends of his own because he argues with everybody. My sisters are getting ulcers from him and I’m suffering from terrific headaches. My mother shakes like a leaf every time she serves dinner for fear Lee won’t like it. What can we do?”

Of course, her advice is worthless. The only advice in such a situation which would be godly is to say that he has no right to life in that home. Responsibility in scripture is always a two-way street. We can never absolutize any human relationship. We can never say that we have an absolute loyalty, come what may, to any person. Responsibility is a two-way street. This is why the law provides for ending marriages, for ending a relationship with a son, for ending any relationship when it becomes lawless.

Not only does transgression beyond a certain point end responsibility, but if responsibility is maintained beyond that point, it is robbery. Where a juvenile delinquent is tolerated or protected, or a lawless parent in the house is tolerated and protected, the other members of the family are robbed of their due. I could go over each of these illustrations and cite the damage that was done in those situations to other members of the family, because a lawless person as allowed to prey on the person’s feelings. The scripture makes it clear that unconditional honor, and unconditional service are due to God alone, not to man. St Paul said, “Render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.” In other words, St. Paul is precise. Give to them their due, not more than that, not your life, not an unconditional honor or service, but only what is their due. No relationship between man and man can be absolutized because we have, under God, no unconditional or absolute tie which binds us to any person, either to obey them, or to love them, or to serve them. To say that we do is humanism, and this is why today the humanists are taking this point and pushing it to the “nth” degree. “We must love everyone no matter what they are or what they do, no matter how criminal they are.” It’s the same point. If we have no right to love and to tolerate, and to put up with any criminal no matter what they do, can we tolerate a criminal within the family circle?

Humanism has absolutized human relationships, whereas the only absolutist is God and his law. Not only does absolutizing human relationships involve theft with regard to other people, but it also involves theft with relationship to God, because it is an infraction of God’s order to indulge evil. It takes away from God’s established and ordained law order. It is a violation of God’s order to tolerate, or to continue, man’s disorder. Responsibility is not a one-way street. If the ox is accountable, how much more so man? If it is no excuse in the ox that the ox is ill, or old, or very young, but irrespective, the ox suffers the penalty for his actions, so it makes no difference whether the person is a teenager, or a parent, or a relative, or a husband, or a wife. Responsibility always remains, but modern man is hostile to the doctrine of responsibility. He replaces it with sensitivity, sensitivity being an awareness of humanity.

The past week, there was an interview with a rebellious nun of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters here in Santa Monica. She and the other nuns are in total defiance of authority. Now, it’s an authority they accepted. No one forced them to become a nun. They’re free to walk out at any time, but they have defied Cardinal McIntyre, they have shown their contempt of every disciple imposed upon them, and yet this rebellious nun says, “These men, these church officials, have no right to make a judgment when they don’t know us.” Now the implications here are tremendous. What she is saying is that knowing the issue, the moral issue, is irrelevant. They have to know us and be sensitive to our feelings as individuals. She does not deny, in fact, she boasts of their total disregard for authority, but the important point is, be sensitive to us. In other words, there is a total denial of moral responsibility in favor of sensitivity to humanity, which means total toleration.

Last week, in the L.A. Times West Magazine, Steve McQueen was complaining about the Midwestern farmers, among whom he grew up. Why? They are very intolerant, and he went on to say, “When they understand that black people make love, and they make it good, then we’ll be on our way. We’ve got to learn to live together.” In other words, what he asked for was no moral responsibility but only sensitivity. It is the Midwestern farmers’ moral beliefs that are offensive to McQueen. The Midwestern farmers, like others, knows that the Negro can make love. What he objects to is that he has no sense of responsibility in his lovemaking, or anything else.

When he was asked about his future, McQueen said with a shrug that, “I’ll make mistakes, but the main thing,” and then he stopped sharp and shook his head. “No, there is no main thing.” He was so right. In a world of brute factuality, in a world where there is no God, there is no meaning. Therefore, all facts are equally important and equally meaningless. All people are equally good and equally worthless. As a result, there can be no “main thing.” This is why this whole emphasis on sensitivity breathes at one and the same time such a total insensitivity, a barbarism. Why? Because all things, being equally valuable in the sight of any man, all things then are equally worthless because there is now no moral criteria. No judgment possible. It is a world, therefore, without moral responsibility, but a world without responsibility is a world of the dead, as our Lord said, speaking his wisdom ages ago, “All they that hate me love death.” Therefore, in all human relationships, the nearest and the dearest, there can be in terms of scripture, no absolutizing of that relationship between man and man, husband and wife, parent and child, friend and friend. There is always, standing between them as the only ground of their relationship, the law word of God. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee for thy word. We thank thee, our Father, that thy word governs us, that thy word gives us away wherein we can walk in peace and safety, and in joy. Grant, our Father, that again between man and man thy law word may prevail. Make us sensitive to thy word, joyful therein, and obedient in all things. O Lord, our God, we thank thee that death is ordained for them that depart from thee, and we pray, our Father, that we may, by thy grace, become a witness to life to those who are perishing, may once again recall men and nations to life, in Jesus Christ, and in thy word. In his name we pray. Amen.

Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Many people misunderstand the commandment with regard to forgiveness. Christians are to forgive one another even seventy times seven, but we must understand what forgiveness means in scripture. Forgiveness is a legal word. It means charges dropped because satisfaction has been rendered, and once in awhile, charges deferred pending, and pending. Now, when you forgive seventy times seven, it always means that you forgive because the person has made restitution. You don’t forgive unconditionally. You forgive if there has been restitution. Then, forgive and forgive and forgive.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, but that doesn’t mean you forgive them.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Right. You write off a person. I know that I had to write off someone, a friend, in another part of the country this year, and I don’t hate them, I can’t forgive them, I have no right to. Their sin is, first of all, against God, but I forget them. I’ve written them off. Another question? Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] I can’t quite hear you.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. We do not have the right to forgive unless we are involved in the offense, you see. In other words, if the offense is against us, we forgive when restitution is made. If it is against God, God alone forgives.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] But the owner of the ox was fined, oh, I didn’t hear that part. Yes, the owner of the ox still was involved. If he had not kept the ox in.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, right.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Exactly. If it were a free Israelite, a member of the covenant, then it went through the court and there was a value set by the court for the person. If it were say, a father who was the support of the family, then the owner either paid the penalty with his life, or paid an indemnity. In the case of a servant, which literally here means slave, almost always a foreigner it would have been, then a set price was set, thirty shekels of silver, so that without exemption, this was not a matter for litigation. The price was set. Yes?

[Audience] {?} but I think {?} I mean {?}

[Rushdoony] You’re right. The paper has a responsibility for printing such opinions, but of course, this is the kind of opinion that really comes out in the editorial pages, therefore, they are going to seek out and glorify such opinions. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] I’d like to know {?} about love {?} I’d like to know {?} and the law {?}

[Rushdoony] The two can never be separated. You cannot love apart from the law.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Well, there are quite a few questions here. First of all, you asked about Romans 7:7. “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” In other words, what St. Paul here says is that the law, because it speaks so clearly, reveals a man to himself, and it leaves a man without excuse, so one of the functions of the law is that it makes us know that we are sinners. So, this is an important aspect of the law.

[Audience] {?} Love, love, love {?} the law. The law {?} cannot show love.

[Rushdoony] Yes. You cannot have love without the law. This is impossible. I used the illustration some time ago of say, a young man saying to a girl, “I love you. What do we need marriage for?” and she would have a right to say, “You don’t love me, because if you loved me, you would have respect for the law, because love and law go together.” The thesis today, of course, is that what children need is love, but children have been getting all kinds of this supposed love, and the consequences we can see, and yet, I’ve cited this illustration before also, one of the remarkable things of a generation ago was the Captain Dollar Orphanage up in the San Rafael area in Northern California, maintained by Captain Dollar of the Dollar Steamship Lines. Captain Dollar had an orphanage there for every homeless child. It was a barracks type situation. A handful of men and women, very thoroughly Christian men and women, operating these barracks in which these kids of different ages slept. Well, it was about all the matrons could do to know the name of each child, but what they did give to those children was a godly discipline and a godly training. They knew scripture, and the remarkable thing is that every one of those children turned out to be such thoroughly godly people. They didn’t have love. The matrons didn’t have time when they had a hundred kids to look after each of them, to take time to love each of those children, except in a general sort of way, and they wouldn’t have worked there if they didn’t have a heart full of love, but they could give those children discipline, and they were happy, healthy successful children. The state incidentally, shut down the Dollar Orphanages, at least a quarter of a century or more ago because, in terms of modern child psychology, they were all wrong, and it put the children instead into foster homes, and the foster home idea has not worked out, because there is no godly principle in most of those foster homes. There was in the Dollar Orphanage. Yes?

[Audience] {?} What does it mean {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, I deal with this in my book The Foundations of Social Order. Hell there, is a translation of the Greek word “Hades,” the state of death, and Hades refers both to heaven and hell, and it refers just to the condition of being dead. So, what it means is, that for three days, our Lord was in the state of death. It does not refer to where he was.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] The Apostles Creed is a church confessional creed that comes from the centuries between the Apostolic period to the Nicene Council. We have the basic outline of it from the Apostolic Age. It wasn’t necessarily written by the apostles. When it’s called the Apostolic Creed or the Apostles Creed, it means it was the faith presented by the apostles. Our time is just about up, and there are a couple things I’d like to pass on to you. On one of the back pages of the paper this week, there was reference to Senator Strom Thurman’s statement with regard to the high price we are paying for chrome, because the United States has chosen to support sanctions against Rhodesia a cheap supply source for the metal, and he pointed out that the chief chrome mines in Rhodesia are owned by U.S. firms which formerly used the ore to operate their plants in the united States. With this supply cut off, he said, the country is rapidly depleting its stock pile of chrome ore, and is paying inflated prices to Russia for chrome. Since the embargo, he said, Russia has raised its prices from $26 a ton to $56 a ton, which is more than double, and in addition, requires U.S. buyers to take a ton of low grade ore along with every ton of usable ore. When a nation is that stupid, does it have a right to live? Yes?

[Audience] An article a couple weeks ago, they had {?}

[Rushdoony] Well, if you can find suckers like that you might as well make money. Then, this past week, the pornographic play Hair was staged for the mental patients at Camarillo State Hospital as therapy. Then, one other item which you may have also noticed, at the Apollo launching, NASA invited twelve astrologers and a witch to be present. No Christian thinkers and theologians. The astrologers and the witch were surprised to get the invitation, but NASA invited them. Now, what is the established religion of NASA. They objected to the Bible reading and then they invite astrologers and witches.

One important announcement. Don’t forget our Christmas Festival this Saturday, the announcements are on the back. Those of you who are coming to help at the Festival, or to bring things for the selling, park behind the building in the multi-storied parking building. Your tickets will be validated. The entrance to the building where the Festival will be held is off of the drive behind the building, between the building and the parking building. Have your parcels or your goods wrapped, labeled, and priced.

[Audience] Five p.m.

[Rushdoony] Five p.m. if you are coming to help or bring anything. Thank you.

End of tape