Justice

Terminal Stupidity

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Law

Genre: Speech

Track: 03

Dictation Name: RR174B3

Location/Venue: ________

Year: 1960’s-1970’s.

My subject in this session is terminal stupidity. Isaiah gave us the best description of it in the sixth chapter verses nine and ten.

Isaiah 6:9-10. “He said, “Go and tell this people: “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’

10 Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

The common evil in our time is to equate virtue with opinion. For our humanistic society a good man is one who is a liberal, who is against racism, against capital punishment, for world peace, against nuclear weapons, for education as a means of salvation, and so on and on. This same man may not like various minority groups and may even hate them secretly. Although an advocate of peace and an opponent of nuclear weapons and in favor of gun control he may be very difficult to leave with and may be an ugly quarrelsome person in his behavior but because his opinions are ostensibly the right ones he belongs in the camp of the liberal angels who are going to save the world by enlightenment. Meaning, education.

The solution to sexually transmitted diseases, we are told, is now more education. Knowledge of the facts is held to be the means of salvation for man and society. Now, a popular view or a popular version of the liberal faith can be seen in all the popular propaganda which aids has precipitated for, say, sex. In all this knowledge has replaced morality. The goal of safe sex is safe sin. This is of course a very remarkable goal. [audience chuckles] It presupposes both the death of God and his moral order; for safe sin to exist there can be no God, because if God exists there can be no safe sin.

We are very bluntly told the wages of sin is death. But the safe sin faith does epitomize the faith of humanistic man, it also set forth it’s terminal stupidity. Whether in politics, education, economics, sexuality, or any other sphere... humanistic man dreams of safe sinning. He still believes the ancient lie “Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day he eats thereof then your eye shall be open and ye shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.” That is, determining good and evil for yourself.

The consequence of sin is finally terminal stupidity and death. This is the judgement of scripture. The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. The liberal fool gains his virtue by contrasting his beliefs -by definition good- with his opponents. The conservative fool and the church fool do the same thing. They all say, we are the good guys and they over there are the bad guys. I recall more than forty years ago, when I was on the Indian reservation, the reaction of the American indians to the old cowboy and Indian films. It was not a pleasant place to be, in an auditorium with Indians watching cowboy and indian films.

I warned some friends of mine from Georgia not to go, but being up there in the mountains, a hundred miles from any bus or train line or theater, when i movie was being shown they went and I told them what kind it would be and that they would not enjoy it. When the indians attacked the wagon train, these watching indians whooped with delight! They were standing up in excitement. When the indians were driven off, the indian audience groaned, or shouted for another attack.

At the end, there were two frightened people after the performance. Well, the indians are like us and they too believe in the good guy bad guy syndrome and division. Our Lord deals very bluntly with this problem. In his account of judgement he tells us that church members will be present. They will come forward calling him Lord and he will send them into damnation.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, “depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was in hunger and ye gave me no meat, I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink. I was a stranger and ye took me not in, naked and ye clothed me not, sick and in prison and ye visited me not.” Then shall they also answer him, saying, “Lord, when saw we thee in hunger or in thirst? Or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison and did not minister unto thee?” Then shall he answer unto them and say “verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not unto the least of thee, ye did it not to me.” And ye shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal.

The ungodly want safe sin. This is stupidity. But too often, church people want safe virtue! This too is stupidity. In a fallen world that hates God, the godly will not be loved. They will be hated and attacked, so don’t expect bouquets from the opposition. You will not get them.

Saint Paul in Hebrews 11 gives us a record of men of faith. It is an account of trials, troubles, and suffering, and also of victories at one and the same time. He concludes with these words:

“32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword.They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.

39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”

What Paul has done here is to put together persecution, torture, and victory. Persecution to death, being sawn asunder, with the triumph of his people and his kingdom. This is what Dennis was talking about. No cross no crown, as the old Christian motto has it. We are very plainly told that faith not only results in victories, but for the hour, defeats. Unless we are in the battle we can’t experience neither defeat nor victory, only surrender andirrelevence. These men of faith alone subdue kingdoms. And uncompromising stand can means death, but it can then also mean a better resurrection then release from death by denying the faith.

As against scriptures description of faith we have too often in the church a trivializing of it. I read an account in January in the Christian observer written by William D. McColley. He said, and I quote:”My children in a Christian school recently were urged to come to a gospel meeting where a preacher was going to use his head to judo chop twelve thick slabs of ice. The whole motivation in organizations that do this is to get a response by whatever means necessary, the reformed faith trusts in the power of God’s word to convert sinners. We believe that the gospel without human elaboration is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who hears and believes.”

In fact, our experience of God’s grace is entirely a response to God’s invitation. As Jesus said, ye did not choose me but I chose and appointed you to bear fruit.” End of quote. Well, perhaps the only inducement at least for me to going and seeing a preacher use his head to judo chop through twelve slabs of thick ice would be the hope of seeing the preacher lose. The consolation is that being guilty of such stupidity, he is already lost before the Lord.

A letter that I received a few weeks ago from a Northern European country tells a very familiar story. This woman wrote: “Several months ago I began receiving the Chalcedon Report, and I want to express my appreciation to you for your work. I found the December issue with it’s position paper on bigotry in the name of tolerance to especially helpful. Here, tolerance is toted as such a desirable Christian quality that God’s truths are blurred or downright obliterated. At a conference I attended recently I discovered that a ministry team was planning to use a letter written by a popular TV personality who is also a flagrant homosexual.

This letter which espoused this individual’s dearly held Christian beliefs was to be distributed to high school students as an example of a contemporary witted Christian. I had just finished reading the aforementioned issue of the report, along with several back issues, thus I knew I could not remain silent. Armed with the truths I had just read I confronted one of the leaders and challenged him to keep God’s standards versus what the world deems acceptable.” Unquote.

It is a dangerous thing to seek to please men rather than God, but it is a common course of action. Those who claim to be evangelical or orthodox or an old fashioned catholic do so all too frequently. In one publication, a church publication supposedly dedicated to sound thinking in the church, an article on the church and the family was written by a very prominent professor. He was well known for his publications from coast to coast. When this man said and I quote, and this is a periodical ostensibly devoted to reviving the church, he said: “Although i will define the archetypal family as consisting of a married couple and their children and I believe a kind of primary dignity belongs to that form of family, I want to say strongly that that is not the only form of family that exists or that needs to be affirmed and supported by the church.

Indeed, these families are probably in the minority in sheer numbers. Single parent families are common and need our special care and support. Pairs of adults of the same sex who have committed themselves to living together as a family and groups of adults who have agreed to do so for whatever reason are frequent in our larger cities. Wherever we find our relationships of faithful mutual support it will be important to include them in the larger pattern of family life. It does not detract from the worth of such relationships, however, to give a certain primary concern to the relationship of a married couple and their children and to see the health of the family in that sense as vital for all other forms of family life.

As well.” Unquote. When confronted by John Lofton this particular author defended the biblical validity of faithful homosexual unions. Is not this terminal stupidity? One verse of onward Christian soldiers begins like a mighty army moves the church of God. Nowadays too often the church moves more like a group of grass dodgers headed for Canada. Nothing is less desired than a responsibility; our leading churchmen are too often like the civil war general George Cintron Mathelon, one of america’s most popular military leaders insofar as the opinions of the common soldiers is concerned.

Mathelon was excellent at training and parading troops. He made sure they were in good uniforms and that their food was excellent, but he did everything possible again and again to avoid battle. He didn’t want to mess them up they looked so good! He would exaggerate even when he was outnumbering the confederate forces two to one or three to one. He would tell Lincoln, we are faced with a force several times greater than ours and we dare not lose. No wonder the troops loved him! Church leaders who stress a feel good enjoy joy religion are naturally very successful. Whereas those who prepare believers for God’s service are faced with draft dodgers.

Recently a man whose concern is medical research telephoned me to ask a question. The question led to some general discussion and the area of concern for this man is the correlation between a person's total outlook and frame of mind and his physical health. He believes we have not yet found the full extent of the correlation. He stated that he expects in time to find that a particular ailment is indicative of a general malaise, so that behind a specific ailment there is an extensive field of profits. He does not believe this is necessarily true of all problems but that we have not yet explored the extent to which our mental and spiritual outlook can affect our being.

Now this is surely true in the field of church life and elsewhere. Thus in literature, scholars have seen that behind D. H. Lawrence’s exaltation of love there is much hatred of both men and women. Lawrence is well known in his circle for his refusal ever to concede he was wrong. Writing of Lawrence’s lady (chatterley's?) lover Doctor William B. MD suggested that and I quote “Lawrence writing this novel in a state of impotent rage could have had the motive to degrade womanhood which he could no longer satisfy sexually to the level of a passive female animal.” Unquote.

For Lawrence, other people existed to serve him. He was a typical sinner and he used them usually very crudely. Virgin Russell himself -no slouch at using people- wrote of Lawrences radical egoism saying and I quote “In sex alone he was compelled to admit that he was not the only human being in the universe. But it was because this admission was so painful that he conceived of sex relations as a perpetual fight in which each is attempting to destroy the other.” Unquote.

Richard Aldington who also knew him said and I quote “Lawrence always argued for victory, never to discover the truth.”Unquote.

Now in all this D.H. Lawrence represented a very modern goal. Victory or success or power as a substitute goal for God and his truth. He was actually a mediocre writer at best, but he is exalted as great and there is a journal put out by scholars in D. H. Lawrence studies in which they had an exegesis of texts from Lawrence! You would think, reading the journal, that you were reading commentaries on a bible. Well we should not be surprised by this; representing as he does the kind of terminal stupidity that is so popular. He has been exalted into ostensible greatness.

About thirty years ago a pastor in northern california wrote a gracious and friendly letter to a prominent evangelist. He was troubled by that man’s compromising statements and actions. They were friends from way back. The evangelist did not deny the charges but instead justified them, saying that by his method more souls were being saved. Well a humanistic mentality will place more emphasis on humanistic results than on the word of God. Pastors and churches are rated by numbers not by faithfulness to the Lord. It seems that a pastor using his head to judo chop through twelve thick slabs of ice has more appeal to many people than using one’s head to proclaim faithfully the word of God.

That pastor no doubt had done what Dennis spoke about “parked his brains” upon conversion. Pope Benedict the 14’th whose dates are 1675 to 1758 was an interesting man. He was a learned man who founded chairs of physics, chemistry, and mathematics in Rome. He rebuilt churches, he encouraged literature and science. He was a kind of one man renaissance, if he had been anything but a pope all kind of books would have been written about him today. He was well known, let me add, for his sincere piety... but his faith was not the governing power in his life. It was a kind of fire life insurance that he had. He was tolerant of cardinal Dubois debauchery, and for him strictness of obedience and character was carrying religion too far

He called the cardinals around him -a few of whom happened to be very strict morally- oxen. He felt theirs was a wooden approach to the faith. At one point after another pope Benedict the 14’th demonstrated himself to be a man of great detainment. But the faith was peripheral to his life. What can we say about such things? He was an appealing person, it was not any particular failing that we must rigorously condemn in him, but the lack of a thoroughly governing focus on God and his truth. Other things had priority with him, and this is the characteristic weakness of modern man. Humanist and churchman. The uncompromising dedication of saint Paul who wrote “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain” is missing from most men.

For most professing christians their faith does not govern, reshape, reactivate every area of their life and thought. A doctrine which has plagued the church over the centuries is at the root of this. It is a doctrine that views grace as an addition, an additive to nature, rather than the total regenration of all things. In this view man needs grace to complete his life. You’ve got it made, but you also need Jesus cause that’ll put the cherry on the icing. But our faith tells us the word of God tells us it is grace which sets us free, which makes all things new! There is a dramatic difference between these two views, for in this ancient error grace completes our life -gives us certain assurances- and provides us with a fire and life insurance policy.

From a biblical perspective however grace must be seen as the power of God unto salvation, condenming the old man in us and remaking our whole being in terms of Jesus Christ. A new heart is given to us that is the core and focus of our being in totally altered and remade. If grace is merely an additive then we are able to continue as before with the same general focus we had as unbelievers, but with a plus in our lives. Would those to whom grace is merely an additive there is no need to change the world around them, all that is needed is to add Jesus as the cherry on the icing.

The sharpest current example of this is the view that if homosexuals profess Jesus, they are saved. The truth isif they are saved they not homosexuals they are a new creation. Now the source of this belief is the medival doctrine of donum super aditum, of super added grace. It destroyed it, the medival synthesis. But this view of the scholastics was perpetuated in prostestantism by the arminians. Man having the endowments of nature needs only to have grace added to him and his natural powers enable him ostensibly to choose that addiction.

This view has crept into reformed circles through the doctrine of common grace and into every communion in the world today! And what has happened since this doctrine of the donum super additum has destroyed the churches is they’re no longer seeking to bring all things into captivity to Christ. They are no longer working for God’s kingdom. They are bystanders because what the natural man has is fine, what man needs is the cherry on the icing... Jesus.

Now given this presupposition which generations ago crept into every communion, antinomianism is a logical consequence! Man has enough natural endowments to create a just social order for himself, to frame laws out of his being, and live in a good community without the neccessity of God and his law in every sphere of life and thought. Grace is super added to give peace of mind and assurance about the world to come and forgiveness for sins. It gives us a very handy God, who is always around to help us when we feel a need for him. This is what you’d call spare tire theology. You feel very insecure driving around without a spare tire in the trunk, but you hope you never have to use it!

The driver hopes never to use the spare tire but is grateful that he has one, and such a theology views God in pragmatic terms. Spare tire theology is eager for a world of safe sin. Truth is not the goal, success, power, and a trouble free life are. And this is terminal stupidity. Thanks you. [audience applauds]

[audio ends]