IBL06: Sixth Commandment

Coercion

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Prerequisite/Law

Genre: Speech

Track: 45

Dictation Name: RR130Y45

Location/Venue: ________

Year: 1960’s-1970’s.

Our scripture is Leviticus 24, Leviticus 24: verses 17-22.

Leviticus 24:17-22

“17 And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death.

18 And he that killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast.

19 And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him;

20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.

21 And he that killeth a beast, he shall restore it: and he that killeth a man, he shall be put to death.

22 Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the Lord your God.”

This passage sums up many familiar concepts that we have been dealing with in connection with the sixth commandment “thou shalt not kill”. It states very plainly that the law of restitution governs all criminal offences. In particular it is applied here to the sixth commandment. There must be restitution for the killing of a beast. Beast for beast. For any injury done to a neighbor; the nature of the injury governs the nature of the compensation. The restitution required for death or murder is capital punishment.

Now very clearly these laws govern cases of coercion. Today coercion is very much discussed in academic circles and among our student revolutionist. The dream is of a society without coercion. Anarchist of course is the clearest expression of such a philosophy and of course communism believes there must be the that first there must be the dictatorship of the society, a society in which there is no coercion. It is important for us to analyze this philosophy of volunteerism or a world without coercion in connection with the sixth commandment, because it is the philosophy that is seeping into every area of our world today. It has increasingly infected and taken over vast sections of conservatism. The name that is very commonly given to this philosophy is libertarianism. And the new libertarians in particular are strong anarchistic and strongly dedicated to a world without coercion.

One such libertarian, a very eloquent man, is Carl Hess who in the 1964 presidential campaign was Senator Goldwater’s writer. Carl Hess says concerning this philosophy and I quote “Libertarianism is the view that each man is the absolute owner of his rights, to use and dispose of it as he sees fit. For all man’s social actions should be voluntary and that respect for every other man’s similar and equal ownership of life is by extension the property and fruits of that life is the ethical basis of a humane and open society.” Hess goes on to say, and I quote, “Each man is a sovereign land of liberty with its primary allegiance to himself.” Unquote.

In other words, a man’s life is so totally his own that there can be no law of God or man governing him. There can be no coercion on any individual; each man is in effect his own God. He can use his life as he sees fit, he can take his life if he wants to, and no man has any rights to interfere. For Hess, in other words, man is not a sinner but is rather his own god. For Hess, in fact, the state is the great evil and the source of sin. Hess goes on to write and I quote: “Just as power is the god of the modern liberal God remains the authority of the modern conservative. Liberalism practices regimentation by simply regimentation, conservatism practices regimentation by -not quite so simply- revelation. But regimentation oil revealed the name of the game is still politics.

The great law in conservatism is that deep fissure down which talk of freedom falls to be dashed to death on the rocks of authoritarianism. Conservatives worry that the state has too much power over people, but it was conservatives who gave the power over to the state. Murray Rockfard writes in Ramparts[?] has summed up this flawed conservatism in describing a new younger generation of writers, the conservatives who thought that the real problem of the modern world was nothing so ideological as the state versus individual liberty, or government intervention versus free market... the real market they declared was the preservation of tradition, order, christianity, and good manners. Against the modern sense of of reason, life is atheism and boorishness.

For many conservatives the bad dream that haunts their lives and their political positions, which many sum up as law and order these days is one of riots, and the life. To my knowledge there is no limit that conservatives would place upon the power of the state the suppress riots.” Unquote. Now Hess is right at one point. He says the conservative position rests on Revelation, on the Bible, on the preservation of Christianity. And at this point he is absolutely right! And of course the weakness of conservatism is precisely this, it denies it’s foundation, it wants the fruits of Christianity without the roots. And it wants the conservative position without the conservative faith.

Capital punishment does rest on revelation. If you believe that God has ordained a particular law order and has declared that those who violate his law order at certain points must die by way of restitution, then you will accept the death penalty without questions. But, if you are a humanist and you believe that man is his own God, you’re going to deny the validity of the death penalty even while you are killing people! After all, tin principal the soviet union has denied during most of its history the death penalty; and it’s killed more people than any other agency in all of history. But theoretically, they deny the death penalty. They are human. Every man is his own god and no man should be coerced! But they are the great instruments of coercion, because they are unwilling to face the implications of their position. What those implications are we shall deal with shortly.

LIbertarianism today which passes for conservatism is really a radical relativism with regard to everything except man. It talks about free market economics, but it does not believe in economic law. There are libertarians for example in the Los Angeles area and most of you could think of several who conduct seminars in this area, in Orange County and here. They claim to be teaching a free market economy. They will use free market economists... but in effect what they are teaching is a free market for all ideas and practices.

So that, when you push these people they say that I do believe it, since I believe in this total free market, in the right of marxism to practice marxism, I believe in the right of homosexualism to practice homosexuality (and Hess is in favor of this), I believe in the right of cannibals to be cannibals, I believe in the free market of all the ideas and practices. In other words, everything is equally false and equally true. In such a philosophy there is no truth to free market economics because there is no truth outside of man. As a result his position is an absolutism with regard to man. Man is his own God and there is no truth outside of man, therefore no system of economics, no system of religion, no philosophy can be true, only man as he is whatever he is is the truth.

These libertarians are like our existentialists {?} be are very obviously consistent humanists. And this is why Ramparts[?] had as it’s writers such supposed conservatives and Murray Rockfard[?] and the new leftist anarchists and marxists, all of them, meeting at one common point: their anti Christianity and their humanism. So here are those who believe in Marxism and here are those who supposedly upheld a free market, altogether in Rampart[?], united in their faith in man. The goal is a total free market of ideas and practices because there can be no truth outside of man.

Now, we could say to these people if all men were angels then you would indeed have the paradise on earth your total free market envisions. Because of all men are angels then you would have only an angelic community whatever these angels did. Because angels will act like angels and therefore let angels free to do as they please and you will have an angelic community... but let men who are sinners free to do what they please and you’ll have precisely what the world has been throughout history. A place of sin and of bloodshed.

Now, Hess calls his position a rational one, but it rests on a faith doesn’t it? And a greater faith than any of us possess! Because if you are going to believe that man is good in the face of all history, is not yours the greater faith than that of the Christian who believes that man is a sinner? does not all history testify to the evil and the sin which is in man? All we have to do is to pick up the paper almost any day and we find what man becomes when he is free to do as he pleases. In the past couple weeks for example, law and order, the authority of the state is broken down in {?}stock.

Here is a dispatch from Hockeystock[?], and I quote the dispatch in full. “Political turmoil in east Pakistan has spawned numerous peoples corpse in the interior that are summarily issuing sentences of death by clubbing or knifing government sources and travelers reported Tuesday. Madness is sweeping the rural areas, said one traveler on arriving here. He said he has spent the past week in villages and towns north of Stock{?}. No one is safe, he said. Servants can turn against masters. He said, the peoples courts have no juries, and always issue the death sentence which is carried out immediately by peasants wielding clubs and knives. That’s the situation, as more and more dispatches have indicated. If anyone has a grudge against anyone they simply finger him, he is brought before the peoples court which is a kangaroo court, and he is immediately clubbed or knifed to death.”

But how does a liberal, how does a humanist cope with this kind of fact? With THIS fact? The answer is very obvious. This dispatch had a title.... and the title was a very obvious give away. The title said “Madness Sweeps Pakistan” . Madness sweeps Pakistan. In other words, not sin, but madness! This is the thesis! Not sin, but madness. Man’s problem is not that he has a sinful nature, when he does evil it’s some kind of temporary madness.

The same kind of recent issue a Saturday review, carried a book review on Stalin’s reign of terror... and again we find the same thing. Did it say, this was an example, all these mass murders by Stalin of the evil of the sin in Marxism, of the depravity of Stalin? No. It called it mad {?}. Madness. In other words, it will not describe sin as the reason for madness; but let us examine this a little further before we draw our conclusion.

This growing lawlessness that we see all around us is of course a part of this failure to recognize sin in man. It’s a part of this radical relativism today, that sees no law and worships man. An example of this radical relativism which heeds no law was a recent inquiring reporter item in a Northern California newspaper, the San Jose Mercury for Wednesday, March the 19’th. And the question the inquiring reporter asked in Fremont California was “Should unrestricted abortion be legalized in California?”. And this answer, typical of those that were received, came from a retired salesman, he said and I quote, “Yes. A woman should be able to have one if that’s what she wants. It’s up to the individual. In a way it is taking human life, but if it’s a medical necessity then regardless of the persons wishes it should be done.” Unquote.

Now this is a very interesting statement because it reveals so clearly the religious presuppositions of this salesman. First, he admits that abortion is murder, he says it IS taking a human life. But second, he says that this right is reserved to the woman who has the child, it is up to the individual. That life is under her, therefore it is under her to govern. Then well, the question comes. If because she is over that fetus, in authority, can she have the same authority to murder a born child that she’s rearing up? Or does she have the same authority to murder her aged parents if she chooses? And we must conclude, yes. Because he says, if it’s a medical necessity regardless of the persons wishes it should be done. In other words, if the state decides there should be an abortion, whatever the woman thinks it must be done. In other words, the higher power always prevails.

The mother over the child, the man over the woman, the stronger man over the man and the woman, and the state over them all. In other words, there is no law, except what the individual wishes. It’s up to the individual or the group of individuals, and the stronger they are the greater their rights. This is why we find among many primitive people or so called primitive people that the sin is never, for example when a man murders or rapes, someone else, but it’s on the other person because he was weak enough to have it done to him! And this is precisely the position that are moral anarchism, whether it is from the left or the so called right, is leading us too. And they cannot face the fact of evil. They cannot see that given this moral anarchism men are going to do precisely that. Kill at will, as in Pakistan.

Because they have no doctrine of sin, they hold to the myth, the faith, that all people are really good at heart. For example, Steve Allen said just this past week and I quote: “I’m not completely convinced of it, but I think there’s almost no evil intent in the world.” Unquote. Now of course this takes us right back to what we were discussing last week! How our world today has separated intent and action. The Bible says intent and act are linked inseparably, the biblical view of man is not schizophrenic. Intent and act are linked.

But Steve Allen rests on the humanistic ultimately the ancient Greek dualisms which separate intent and act. So that, no matter how evil the act is that evil cannot be ascribed to the intent. Because the intent by definition is always good. And this is why the plea of insanity has been manufactured in the modern world. Man is by nature good; therefore if he commits evil it is an act of madness. It cannot be sin. And so today we have a case going from California to the supreme court in an attempt to abolish the death penalty. It’s cruel and unusual punishment. The case involved is of a man who in less than ten years has committed three murders. And the plea is that this man does not have an evil intent, he’s there’s just a kind of madness in him, and therefore it would be cruel and unusual punishment and unconstitutional to execute him. This is the basis of the appeal.

As a result today we have the growing breakdown of law and order. We have the growing collapse of civilization, because of this dualism which separates intent and actions. And we have the monstrosities that prevail today. I cited earlier the Saturday review article on Stalin which refused to speak of the Soviet murders by Stalin and his regime as evil. It was only madness. On the opposite page from that analysis or Stalin and his mass murders was an article about the red guards of soviet or red china. And the title was “The Good in the Red Guard”. This was written by Alfred Moravia, a wealthy Italian writer whose thesis was that man is best off when he lives in terms of the barest necessities. Just bare existence, then man is at his noblest. Therefore China is near perfection as a humanist society, because life there is at the barest existence level. Now, this is an interesting article coming from a wealthy writer who can tour the world at will. And the Saturday review publishes it with a straight face, why?! Because of this radical schizophrenia! This inability to see the evil intent in an evil act. And so there is no connection in their thinking between what Moravia is and what Moravia says!

It cannot be by definition. But the scripture clearly forbids this kind of thinking... it declares that every evil act “He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death.” must be punished. Surely be put to death, no exceptions. The evil act requires evil intent. The only exceptions are when it is accidental and it’s subsidized in the law. When an axehead breaks and it kills a man and there is not an evil act, but only an accident, if there is criminal negligence, then there is criminal responsibility. But otherwise every evil act requires an evil intent. The humanistic perspective is schizophrenic, the biblical is not.

Coercion in terms of scripture is bad when it is evil coercion, when it is unlawful coercion, but Godly coercion is required against evil doers. And without Godly coercion the world is surrendered to evil doers. If we do not coerce the evil doer. He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death. We surrender the world to murderers! No man wants a hose of water turned on in his living room. If there is a fire in your living room, then that hose of fire is a welcome thing! No man wants coercion {?}, but to bear in his community... but if there is evil, robbery, murder, any kind of violence, then legal coercion against that violence is a welcome and necessary relief.

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The point that the scripture here makes, the absolute requirement. He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death. Rest as we have stated on the absolute unity in his conception of the doctrine of man. Man is a hope. Man in his intent and his act are unified. When this faith in man as a whole is destroyed as it has been in our modern society. When intent and act are separate the doctrine of responsibility goes and with it, law and order. By trying to abolish coercion humanism is assuring it’s triumph in the form of {?} and there can be no relief in sight until there is a religious change in man, until man again comes to a biblical doctrine of man, to a biblical doctrine of sin.

Apart from that we shall soon revert to the jungle law where the crime is to be weak, and if your wife is great and if you are killed it is your fault for you had no business being so weak. This is the law in much of the world. It will be in what was civilization. Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly father, we give thanks unto thee for thy word and for it’s certainty. Recall us as a people to thy word, O Lord, and reestablish us as a Godly people. So that we may have law and order that we may have the joy of salvation, the security that comes from establishment in thy word. Make us, our father, speak in lights of grace unto this dark world so that there may be again a new building, a new nation, a reestablishment of the foundation our forefathers lay. And that with a new birth of liberty we may be a people under God and to his glory. Grant us this we beseech thee in Jesus name, Amen.

Are there any questions with respect to our lesson first of all?