Loss and Restoration of Justice

The Future of Justice

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Law

Genre:

Lesson: 3

Track: 13

Dictation Name: RR265B3

Date:

[Announcer] Alright, at this time I’d like to introduce our speaker for our final segment, Dr. Rushdoony.

[Applause]

[Rushdoony] Our concern in this final session is with “The Future of Justice.”

One of the great myths which has plagued the modern age is the concept of neutrality. The human mind is never neutral, nor is the human mind autonomous. It is the creation of God and at all points and in all places, man is totally dependent upon God. And because man is not god, he can never for a moment claim to be neutral, to be objective, and to transcend his humanity in such a way that he can assess facts apart from the bias of his position. Man is a creature. He is God’s creature, and is totally dependent on Him.

There is another companion myth which gives us one of the most persistent and evil views of reality. It is commonly asserted that an independent realm of values exists above and over God, man and the universe. This idea comes from the ancient Greeks who held that the good, the true and the beautiful are concepts, moral values, above and over man and the gods. Morality, thus, is not a religious fact; it is a supra-human and a supra-religious fact. The only time the Greeks departed from this concept of the supra-creaturely nature of moral values was when they ascribed ethics to the state and the state as the creator of ethics.

Now how in the world did they get to this position? Beginning with the concept that moral values are above and beyond God and man, how then did they ascribe morality to the state and say that morality is the creature of the state? The state establishes morality. The origin of this was in the Greek idea of platonic ideas, or forms or patterns, universals. These universals are rational universals and because the philosopher-king embodies and virtually incarnates reason and becomes a man of reason, he therefore is the voice of these universals which are above and over God and man. As a result, in Plato’s Republic, the philosophers-kings as the voice of reason could correct the morality of the gods. They could prescribe life and death for man in terms of their say-so. They could declare that these things were valid: abortion for the lower classes, their total control, their treatment as the animals of the state, and much more. Similarly, Aristotle could first of all formulate his politics and then derive his ethics from his politics because in the realm of politics, the philosophers, as the voice of reason, expressed the universals of all creation.

When we understand that concept, we realize something of the problem we face, because one of the most persistent dreams of man throughout history has been to incorporate the ancient Greek ideal of the rational, the philosophic man, now the scientific elite as the voice of the universals of creation, as the voice of reason and therefore as the only people qualified to rule over God and man. As those who, because they incarnate, they embody the truth, the universal, must be given freedom to rule as they see fit. It is their reason, their status as the philosopher-kings, the scientific social elite, or whatever name they go by that makes them the only fit rulers. They are the neutral powers, they are the voice of reason, they are therefore the only fit rulers.

The Doctrine of Creation is immilitated against this because Creationism tells us very clearly that there is nothing in heaven or earth that God, the Lord, did not make. By Him are all things made, and without Him was not anything made that was made. As a result, there can be no universals apart from God, no neutral realm, no reason that cannot incarnate itself in man and become the new logos of creation. The sad fact, however, is that although the Church, from its early years, in some degree accepted the Doctrine of Creation, it limited it to something that God did a few thousand years ago, and that is in the Bible, but combined that with the Greek idea, the Greek pattern, the Greek thought of philosopher-kings, the Greek concept of independent, neutral universals.

Consequently, throughout Christian history, this virus of Greek Universalism colored the thinking of men, and we have had as a result, a tension, age after age, between those who see themselves as called to rule as the voice of reason and the humble Christians, who, putting their trust in the Word of God, somehow believe that it is God that through His Word, read by the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, that speaks alone the True Word. We can be very grateful for our Christian future, to Charles Darwin, because when Darwin formulated in its final phase, this Greek concept of development, and when Evolution became a doctrine which openly vied with scripture, it forced the antithesis. It made more difficult the confusion of this Greek concept of ideas, universals, the neutral values, and biblical faith. Either we now believe the Bible and its every word, that God created heaven and earth, in the space of six days and that there is nothing in heaven or earth that God did not create and that there are no universals, no ideas apart from God. And that reason can only find itself as the servant of God, thinking God’s thoughts after Him, that we are being compelled to separate ourselves from this vein, this virus of Greek philosophical thought.

The rise of Darwinism led to the rise of Creationism. It’s not an accident that we have seen develop the school of presuppositional philosophy which says that we begin not with some abstract philosophical concept, but with God and His Word. Herman Dooyeweerd in the Netherlands, but supremely, Cornelius Van Til in this country, have developed the implications of this Creationist thinking. There is no neutrality, no neutral facts, no brute factuality in all creation. All factuality is God-created and is understandable only in terms of God. The meaning of all facts comes from God. As a result, we cannot accept anything that militates against the triune God and His creative power and His word.

Now, in this long tradition of confusion, we have had varying strands of law. I’d like to deal with two, because the question of Natural Law very often comes into such a discussion. Going back to the Middle Ages, where we had a great deal of thinking on Natural Law, there were two strands, and all-too-often today, people are confused when they look back and they confusion has run deep into our thought, both Catholic and Protestant. Nicholas of Cusa, whose dates are either 1400 or 1401 – about 1464, said, “Every decree is rooted in Natural Law. And if a decree contradicts it, it cannot be valid. Whence, since Natural Law is naturally in the reason, every law is known to man in its root.” Now in a sense, there is a vein of truth here in that the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork. On the other hand, the world is fallen, and man is fallen and so man’s apprehension of these things is not a valid apprehension. Paul tells us in the first chapter of Romans, that the natural man holds, or literally holds down, holds back, suppresses the truth of God in unrighteousness. So how can man have any valid apprehension of a natural law? Moreover, what Nicholas of Cusa did was to identify this natural law with reason, which was the Greek presupposition. As a result, under the Greek influence, Natural Law concepts have been assimilated into the concept of neutral universals which are separated from God.

However, there was a second strand in medieval thought. Going back much earlier to Gratian, circa 1148 or thereabouts (as far as we know; we have no authentic dating), but we do know that that is when he was teaching, and in his prime. And Gratian said, “Mankind is ruled in two ways, namely by Natural Law and by customs. The Law of Nature is that which is contained in the Law and the Gospels.” Now this of course, was clearly in terms of biblical faith. God’s Law is the Natural Law, or the Law of Nature because it is the Law of God over man and over nature and in the nations and over the nations, written on the tables of our hearts, in every atom of our being which however much we suppress with our sin, is still there.

As we face this fact of law, we must recognize that it is the written word which gives us the clear and plain Law of God and therefore the Law of Nature, the Law of Nations and of man. Then we need to see this in the light of what our Lord said at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount. “Everyone therefore that heareth these words of mine and doeth them shall be likened unto a wise man who built his house upon the rock.” (I stress “the” there because in the Greek, the article is there. Unfortunately, in the King James, my favorite translation it is rendered a rock. It is the Rock, Jesus Christ). “And the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell not, for it was founded upon the rock. And everyone who heareth these words of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish man who built his house upon the sand and the rains descended and the floods came and the winds blew and smote upon that house and it fell and great was the fall thereof.” Paul said, other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ. Christ in His person is the foundation. But His person cannot be isolated from His work, from God the Father and God the Spirit and from the every Law of God by which man must live.

We are freed from the law of sin and death by the Spirit of life, Paul tells us in Romans 8:2, but only, he goes on to tell us in the fourth verse, that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled, put into force, in us. We are a new creation in Christ, not to be lawless, but to be law-keepers, covenant-keepers.

But Humanism builds upon man, upon sand, and cannot endure. Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. The sad fact is that there are many who want to compromise position. One very able and notable writer, Russell Kirk, has written, just recently, “We cannot separate Christian morals and the rule of law.” However, then he goes on to say, “My Puritan ancestors of Massachusetts Bay, like their fathers, the Geneva men of Elizabethan England, hoped to make the laws of the ancient Jews into a code of their own time, a foolish notion.” Then he goes on to say a little later, after saying that we have to derive them in some broad way, from Christian faith, not, he said, from the literal Word, from the plain word of scripture, because, he said, “Such a tense,” (that is to ground them on the written Word of God) “at legal archaism, being absurd, failed before they properly began, for the particular laws of the people, ineluctably mirror the circumstances of an age. Hebraic legal institutions no more suit 17th century England than the English common law of the 17th century would have been possible for Jerusalem in the 6th century before Christ. No, what Christianity or any other religion confers is not a code of positive laws, but instead some general understanding of justice.”

Now this sounds good, but it is a very sorry position. To say that God is archaic, or obsolete when He talks is to say that God is a God who changes, and what God said to Moses, He is probably ashamed of today. I know a lot of churchmen talk that way. And Russell Kirk is not alone in this position.

Moreover, to say that it must be some general understanding of justice is nonsense. What is a general understanding of justice? Is there anything like a general understanding of righteousness possible? Or a general understanding of morality? When God says ‘Thou shalt not kill,” He goes on to specify very specifically in a number of case laws, what this applies to. What constitutes murder? It includes kidnapping. It includes a number of offenses. It includes abortion. It’s murder in the sight of God. It’s very specific. God does not leave it to our general understanding of justice because He knows what our general understanding of justice is—it is injustice! And so He’s very specific and says, “This is the way. Walk ye in it.” He does not say when He declares, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” I’ll leave it up to you to define adultery. He is very specific. Very specific. Of course, even then, men have tried to change that. The rabbis argued for a time that it was not adultery if it was not with your neighbor’s wife, [Laughter] because they said the Tenth Commandment says, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,” which means that the Seventh has to be interpreted in terms of that. So if she lives a mile away she’s not your neighbor’s wife and it’s all right. And we have a great many people including several writers who are regularly featured in evangelical publications who will argue that homosexuality is never forbidden in the Bible. And it is only people who misread the Bible who give us that interpretation. You see, if you leave it to the general understanding of the justice of man, every kind of evil is justified, just as today we have efforts to vindicate in terms of a concept of what is right, child molestation and incest. And there are organizations whose purpose it is to defend the justice of both, this in terms of the general understanding of justice.

Whose justice is to prevail? Whose general understanding? Mine, or theirs? If it’s left on a human basis, everybody can say my word is as good as yours. And if it comes to a vote, we’re in a sad predicament when 51% of the voters decide that their general understanding of justice can legislate and can prevail, which is exactly what has happened with abortion and with homosexuality.

[Prompt to turn over the cassette]

[Dead air space]

[Message resumes]

…can legislate and can prevail, which is what is exactly what has happened with abortion and with homosexuality. And the efforts now are to break down the laws against incest and against child molestation.

Moreover, the great sin of all these people as they approach the Law of God is to insist that we cannot be strict; we cannot apply it too literally. That, you know, they call legalism. I don’t know what is legalistic about taking God at His word. If I say what God says, thou shalt not steal, commit adultery, bear false witness, and so on, that this is to be taken in some general sense, then I will have to take God’s word, when He says we are saved through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ in some general sense also, which doesn’t do much for me and my security in my salvation. In other words, what people are saying as they approach the Bible and what some general understanding of justice is, that they want God’s Word to be a rubber yardstick.

Now we cannot approach the IRS and plead not guilty on the grounds that we did pay our taxes 7 years out of 10, so on a general basis, we’ve been a good taxpayer. The IRS will not buy that argument, and I’m sure God does not buy any such argument either. In fact we are told he who breaks the Law at one point has broken it at all points. He’s a law-breaker. Neither can we plead innocent after we have murdered a man by saying, you must realize, I passed up 101 chances to murder other people, so you’ve got to see me in terms of this general perspective how innocent I am on the whole. Isn’t it the same principle? If it’s a general understanding, you have destroyed all law and you’ve destroyed salvation as well. You’ve taken away its meaning.

But of course, neither the IRS nor any other State or Federal agency buys such an argument. That demand for imprecision, for only a general understanding, is used by men only where God’s Law is concerned. I’ve had too many men plead with me when they’re confronted with what they have done that they really have been basically faithful to their wife. Well, it was only one, or maybe two or three women that they committed adultery with, but I’ve really been faithful to her and I love her. And I’ve found only one answer to that. You are faithless and you hate her, because love is the fulfilling, the keeping, of the law. And if you didn’t keep the law in your relationship to your wife, you were not showing love, you were showing hatred for her. Now that’s the Word of God. It’s a plain word. It doesn’t set well with our fallen human nature. And as long as we are not perfectly sanctified, which will not happen on this side of glory, the Law of God is not going to set well with us at times because it’s going to hit us squarely between the eyes. It’s going to tell us how in word, thought, and deed, we are sinners. That if we are left to ourselves, that we are not under the discipline of God’s Spirit and guided by His Word, we’re going to be lost sheep.

Sin is the transgression of the Law, and the wages of sin are always death. And the very fact of that means the triumph of God’s Law. There is no peace, saith my God, for the wicked. And faithfulness to God is the only foundation for social security, true social security and reconstruction. It provides us with the building plans for God’s Kingdom. It gives us the covenant word of peace and of grace. It gives us the foundations which Christ, as the great cornerstone, wants us to use. Zechariah 14:20 says that in the kingdom of God, even the utensils and the means of transportation will be holiness unto the Lord. Now, this can come only with total obedience in every area of life and thought.

We need a society where we can say with Amos, let judgment, justice run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream. I believe this is beginning to take place, because, as I’ve said in the previous hour, if we make justice a monopoly of the state, we have no justice, no righteousness in the land. Justice has to be an aspect of the life of every man, every home, every church, every school, every man in his vocation, of society as a whole. And we must see righteousness, God’s justice as our calling. We see it as we begin by tithing to the Lord’s work; to the church and to every Christian agency that is furthering His work. We see it when churches begin to say we have a responsibility because we are members one of another. Are we showing God’s justice, His righteousness to those in our fellowship? What are we doing to care for the shut-ins? For those in need?

One church in Atlanta, which has taken the name of Chalcedon for itself but has no connection with us apart from membership in Christ, has a help line. They have prevented abortions. They’re seeing to the adoption of those children. They have set up among other things, and interest-free loan fund in terms of the Word of God, for their members. So far, they have not had a single person fail to repay it, although they say in terms of scripture, if, through circumstances beyond your control, after six years you cannot repay. The debt is cancelled. It’s helped many a young couple in their trials and problems, and many an elderly couple.

Going across the country, you can see increasingly more and more groups doing this sort of thing. Our current issue of The Journal of Christian Reconstruction, edited by Dr. Kelly, is dedicated to practical reconstruction and what is being done, and it will tell you about samplings of all kinds of activities in the country whereby people are ministering to those who are coming out of prison, to those on drugs, to juvenile delinquents and to others. I submit that long before we conquer Washington, we will have taken over the country with this kind of thing. And this is something all of us can do. And we can begin right now; the future of justice is in our hands, because we are to be God’s instruments of righteousness.

Remember I called attention to Romans 8:2 and 8:4. We are told that we have been saved, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us. God wants His righteousness, His justice to flow across the face of the earth. And there’s only one instrument through which it can flow. It is the believers; the believer in his personal life, his family life, school, church, vocation, society, and the State. This is how it will be done; it is exactly what is being done today. Calvin said that every judge should be a walking law because the law is a walking magistrate. We need to say that every Christian must be a walking law, a walking magistrate, and when we say that we are not saying what some people seem to think the law means, that it gives them the right to clobber everyone. Rather, the laws make us better members one of another, to show us how we can minister to one another with the righteousness, with the justice of God, to bind Christians one to another so that they are together not because they sit in the pews of the same church, but because they have a common life in Christ and care for one another.

John Whitehead said we have a responsibility to pray for the Christians in the Iron Curtain countries. We most certainly do. We need to remember the Christians who are under persecution in Africa and in Asia. I mentioned earlier, the hill people of the Chittagong Hills in Bangladesh, where my son was all of March. And Mark said that the most moving experience was to hear one of their young men, one of their young leaders talk about their experiences, being driven off their homes, put into concentration camps, picking wild leaves with little or no nutritional value to keep from starving, and yet as he prayed, it was without any bitterness. He expressed a hope earlier that they could find ways of earning a living and re-establishing themselves. And he prayed that God might use those experiences to make of His people a new Israel of God that out of their captivity would come a chosen people who would serve the Lord. I pray God that it be not necessary for us to go through a captivity to feel that calling because by our conversion it is our calling.

Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. We have a work to do. We are called to be builders. Let us go to it. Thank you.

[Applause]

[Recorded voice] This message was originally taped by the Chalcedon Foundation. The Chalcedon Foundation is a group of scholars committed to Christian Reconstruction in our day. They have published a number of books as well as The Journal of Christian Reconstruction. The Chalcedon Foundation believes that Christians should press the Lordship of Christ in every area of life and should be working toward a Christian society. A free newsletter and more information can be obtained by writing to:

Chalcedon

P.O. Box 158

Vallecito, California 95251

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