Systematic Theology – Work

The Babel State

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 6 of 19

Track: #6

Year:

Dictation Name: 6 The Babel State.

[Rushdoony] Let us begin with prayer.

All glory be to Thee oh God our Father who in Thy grace and mercy has come into this sinful world Thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ, to overthrow the powers of darkness, to establish Thy kingdom, and to confound all workers of iniquity. Give us grace therefore in this blessed season to walk in the confidence that Thou art on the throne, that Thy will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. Make us ever joyful in Thy government and confident in Thy victory through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.

Our subject this morning is the Babel state, and our text is again Genesis 11 verses 1-4. Our particular concern today however is with verse one; the Babel State, Genesis 11:1-4.

“And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.

4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”

As we saw last time the goal of Babel men, or bramble men, is back to Babel. With this in mind let us look again at these verses, in particular verse one in Genesis eleven. “The whole earth was of one language and of one speech.” The word one which is used here and in verse six is different from the word one used in verses 3 and 7; in Hebrew it means “united”. The whole earth was of united language and of united speech. The whole earth was thus united in a common anti-God purpose.

An orthodox Rabbinic scholar, Rabbi Mayor Silotovitz {?} has translated this “the whole earth was of one language and of common purpose.” However, there is another possible rendering because the word “language” in verses 1,6,7, and 9, is a Hebrew word for “lip”, and it is virtually the same word as another which means “to bring together” or “to accumulate, to increase”. Lips, after all, come together; and so when you bring something together you cumulate. So it can possibly mean something else, that the whole world was of a United or common possession, that is the common ownership of all things. Now there is no certainty on this point, but this interpretation is an old one, one of the great medieval Rabbinic commentator’s, Isaac ben Judah Abrabanel, whose dates were 1437-1508, held definitely that what this meant was that the personal ownership of property was denied in Babel. In other words, the goal of Babel was a radical unity apart from and against God, a total community without God.

The Garden of Eden had fixed borders. Cain built a city and he walled it, he protected it because as a guilty man he felt fearful. We are told that he became a city builder rather than he built a city, that’s the literal reading. This phrasing calls attention to his personality rather than to his work. He had settled in the land of Nod, and Nod means wandering, so that he was a restless man, a wandering man even though he dwelt within a city. There was an inbuilt hostility in the line of Cain, and the creed of Lamech was a creed of vengeance and death. Man’s hostility to man rests on his rebellion against God, his insistence “my will be done” and so we have a warring world, but a world which seeks unity against God. Of this warring world David said “I am for peace, but when I speak they are for war” The fallen man’s goal age after age has been a unity after the model of the tower of Babel, as a substitute for the Garden of Eden. Babel was a substitute Garden of Eden, yet sin isolates man from man because every man plays at being His own God, and man as God does not want to be indebted to or in bondage to any other man.

When the recession began one Christian school in a poor area of the bay region began to collect food from wholesale houses, damage cartons and the like, and began a food distribution program. Some people when they found out this was not federal or state welfare refused to accept the food, they did not want to feel indebted as they felt Christian charity would make them feel. This should not surprise us, after all Helmut Schoeck in his book Envy cites the statement from one culture “whoever helps me is my enemy.” Whoever helps me is my enemy, in such a culture theft is preferred to charity; and we have increasingly a we become a Babel society, that same attitude. “Let’s use the federal and the state governments to steal from others, but we will not accept charity.” Schoeck says also, and I quote: “The envious man is by definition the negation of the basis of any society.” Bramble men, when they are in power, develop the principles of envy in politics, economics, and every other sphere, and the result in confusion and destruction. Envy is made the basis of politics, of law, and of the state, and the state deserts justice for social justice; another term for envy and power legislated. Babel then substitutes controls for justice because is the mean of exercising envy and power.

This is the modern state, a Babel state, its destiny is confusion. John Lewcocks {?} has said concerning the world of our time “The greatest states have accumulated unequal power and have suddenly found that they are becoming powerless.” No tyrant state has possessed power which is routine today in the modern state, and Lewcacks has called attention to the contradictory aspect of our modern word. Integration contradicted by disintegration. The accumulation of power at the top, and the vast leakage of power on all sides, and truth is bypassed increasingly in the name of social justice.

Lewcacks by the way called attention to the very different perspective of the American puritans who depended not on the state, but on work, and who saw science and intellect as instruments to further man’s dominion under God.

Cotton Mather in 1723 called for the cultivation of science and invention to put, and I quote, “the world in much better circumstances than it is in. We try for machines to render the wind, as well as the water, serviceable to us, and extend our empire into all the elements.” Now this goal rests on the image of God in man, on the dominion mandate. The Babel state however seeks to control, not to advance. It seeks false ungodly dominion grounded in power not work, nor science and invention. The result is a pursuit of power in politics, in economics, the pursuit of ugliness in the arts, and of emptiness in everyday life. Ungodly dominion is a dominion of negation, of hostility to God. As Kamu said, and I quote: “Since God claims all that is good in man it is necessary to deride what is good, and choose what is evil.” We have this inversion. Power replaces work in the Babel state as the driving force, and work is regarded as the task of slaves. What production there is, is for self-exultation and conquest, not for the advancement of all.

In Red China in the Soviet Union production only marginally aides the people, the welfare of the state is the goal. Babel probably was, therefore, Communist society. “Let us build us a city and a tower” we are told. And verse 8 tells us that the work was stopped before its completion, but in verse 5 God speaks of the city and the tower in the past sense, as already built, because God viewed the tower of Babel and Babel itself as in effective completed, because it was an evil intention and purpose in full maturation, in process of realization.

In Babel men resumed the task which was in process before the flood. At Sodom, at Gomorrah, in Assyria, Babylon, Rome, and in all the modern states, men are continuing that task and the results are still the same. Mans Babylonian heart is judged by God in every age, and we have as Paul declared in Hebrews 12:18 following, that great shaking of the nations age after age, until only those things which cannot be shaken shall remain. Thus God smashes every effort of the Babel state and of the Babylonian heart. God is the true owner of all things and men can only hold things in stewardship, in trust, from God. The state itself is called a minister, one who administrates for the owner. But it is not only the state, but all men, all institutions, all agencies, are stewards and servants of God and their work is such; also, it is under God. It is interesting that God gave Adam and Eve the command to work before He told them what they could eat.

Boundaries were placed on the Garden of Eden, on Adam’s diet, on his activities, on everything; as on ours because the earth is the Lord’s.

But in Babel this order was reversed. All was the property of Babel, Abrabanel {?}, was right. Stewardship and responsibility are since Babel, in every Babel state, to the state, and work is essentially for the state. The work we do now, over six months of it, go to pay our taxes. All our boundaries today are set by statist law. But the end of Babylon is described in Revelation 14 verse 8; “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” The church at its worst in history has never equaled the state in its evil, in its abuse of power. We see it the mark of the self-willed blindness of man, that the profess to fear the church more than the statist tyranny which prevails. I encounter editorials as I travel about these church and state trials in which the editors profess to fear the growing tyranny of the church, not the state, and the fact that the state is persecuting the church is seen by them as a necessity of preventing the tyranny of the state taking over the country. This is self-willed blindness.

I said that while there is no certainty about the meaning of the word, does it refer to language or to common possession? But certainly everything in Babel and in the Babel state since indicates that this is a goal of Babel. Why then, when so great a scholar as Abrabanel, very early and apparently on ancient precedence, said that it means a united language and a common possession of property has this interpretation at least not been cited? At least not been passed on as a possible ready of the text? Well, the foibles of scholars are very real. Plato is more honored among scholars than many a Biblical saint, and so academicians have always been prone to give weight to the idols of the academy, and certainly such a reading of the text would give no ground for their love of Plato.

To illustrate the foibles of the academy a recent issue of Biblical archeology review cited the fact that many scholars quote, “Cringe when they hear or read the term ‘Biblical archeology.’” Somehow being a Biblical archeologist makes them disreputable; the term Biblical should not be there in their estimation. One scholar in reviewing Grollenberg’s Atlas of the Bible complains of the book because Grollenberg occasionally allows theology to come in. He cites as an example of a statement which he says “many readers will find offensive” and he calls it a “highly questionable historical statement.” It was this comment by Grollenberg, and I quote “But for Christians the destruction of the temple was a material confirmation of a spiritual certainty. For them the glory of Yahweh no longer dwelt in the temple in Jerusalem but in the glorified body of Jesus. The building destroying by the Roman Legions had lost all meaning and purpose with the glorification of Jesus.” Now Grollenberg did not give this as his opinion, he simply said this was how Christians felt, and certainly the gospels indicate that they did, and that Jesus had said, and it was cited against Him in His trial, that the temple would be destroyed but be rebuilt by His resurrection, but it was offensive for Grollenberg to introduce such a thing into an atlas.

Or to give another example indicating how the spirit of Babel is in so much Christian scholarship. Fortress Press, a religious press, Lutheran, published recently Eric W. Gritsch’s Born Againism: Perspectives on a Movement and at the very beginning of a book about Born Againism in the United States this scholar professes that he is perplexed as to what is meant by Born Againism, but decides that it amounts to something like the fusion of millennialist and perfectionist strains of American Protestantism. Now how can you write a book about born againism in America when you begin at the very beginning by saying you have no idea what the terms means, and how can a Christian scholar make such a statement when it is so clearly spelled out in the gospels?

But this is the academy which indicates that a great deal of the church today belongs to Babel and liberation theology which is a form of sentimental Marxism which has captured virtually every seminary the world over, is a form of Babelism, it is very much with us. Man’s Babylonian heart creates towers of Babel in every area of life, but the destiny of all such towers is confusion and destruction; the things which are being shaken so that only those things which are unshakable may remain. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God we thank Thee that the world is in Thy hands and that Thy shaking shall bring down the towers of our modern Babylon’s. Grant oh Lord that in the midst of these shakings we may be a part of that which is unshakable, that we may stand by Thy grace in the midst of all things in Christ and be more than conquerors in Him, might be the instruments and the making of all things through Him, and might rejoice that Thy will is being done. Bless us to this purpose in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now? Yes John?

[John] It seems like the federal government is participating in an act of theft in so far as its taxing policies and re-distribution of the wealth gained thereby. Then those who are receipts of that wealth are in fact accessories after the fact of theft.

[Rushdoony] Yes, I would say in many respects…[interrupted]

[Audience member]…{?} By buying stolen goods.

[Rushdoony] In many of the grants of the federal government that is true.

[Audience member] I would think that without Christ that’s got to only aggravate the situation in the minds and the hearts of the receiver because somehow or another he must know, you know, that he’s guilty of theft, that there’s something wrong, and I think that motivate a lot of the hostility many of the people in ghetto’s and elsewhere, that might be one of the factors in terms of motivating the hostility, they see no way out of it.

[Rushdoony] Yes, it’s not only in the ghettos, it’s in the corporations and in the farmlands all over America. Couple of months ago farm journal had an editorial ridiculing the idea that the Soviet Union was a week state. It was a powerful and a strong state, it had the world’s best steel production, the best food production, why were they buying our wheat? Why they were buying it to feed to our cattle, and we should be ready to sell to them. They were strong, and shutting off our technology and grain to them would do no good, it would only hurt us, not them.

Now this in the face of studies like that of Sutton, that 90% of their technology comes from us, and analysis which indicated that by the late 60’s almost 50% of their food came from outside the country, it takes some dishonesty to produce that, so the theft is in the hearts of all men.

Yes Otto?

[Otto] That scholar who slighted the business of the temple, the Christian view of the destruction of the temple, said “although this may be offensive” who do you suppose he expected would be offended?

[Rushdoony] Beginning with himself, yes. Because they are ungodly and they are offended by anything which reminds them that this is not a game. They’re not thinking of the unbelievers Otto, not that some of them won’t be offended, but they themselves are offended even more because it reminds them that they are supposed to be Christian scholars, and that’s the last thing they want to be. After all I went to seminary and I visited in a number of seminaries, and they just about curl up and die in shock if anyone speaks like that. You’re not supposed to do so, and their anger is tremendous. I could tell you some interesting stories from my seminary experiences of their horror of this kind of thing, and at Christian colleges and universities I’ve had the most hostility in speaking at some of these because I speak from a standpoint of Christian orthodoxy. Their anger is incredible.

No, first time I ever spoke at Notre Dame the speaker who had preceded me at the invitation of the student body, was, I believe her first name was Virginia at Ty Atkinson {?} a blasphemous woman who spoke of the Virgin Mary as prostitute, she was paid 2,000 by the student body, I got 500, and one of the professors, a professor of political science, a Jesuit, had to rescue me from the students they were so infuriated by what I said. So, and that’s typical, typical. I was supposed to have, at a Christian university, not Catholic, I was supposed to have had dinner with the faculty, they recruited a handful of student body leaders to sit at the table with me in the faculty dining room because none of the faculty would sit with somebody who spoke so clearly in terms of Christian orthodoxy, they found it painful to hear.

Yes?

[Audience member] I have a little trouble with the word “optimum” We know that there’s one absolute with the word optimum and man cannot be God, but in teaching how does it fit in with the educational world?

[Rushdoony] Optimum?

[Audience member] Is it negative?

[Rushdoony] Well, the word optimum is a rubber yardstick word because it can mean different things at different times. You can say there’s an optimum performance you want to performance you want of fourth graders, but you can keep raising that standard, so it’s a loose word.

[Audience member] I’m thinking of terms that…I’ll never jump 29 feet, why should I continue to keep struggling to jump 29 feet? I’m wasting my time, I’m spinning my wheels you know.

[Rushdoony] Well, I know. I can recall when I was a boy the fastest man alive was a Finnish runner, Nurmi and no-one ever thought his record would be equaled. Of course it’s been passed so many times that now I imagine you don’t get into the finals unless you can do better than Nurmi did. So the optimum in Nurmi’s day and ours is very different.

[Audience member] Can I ask you one other thing? When you were speaking of Notre Dame was Manion there? Was Manion the head of the {?} department?

[Rushdoony] No, he was no longer there, he had previously been dean at the law school but he was now in charge of the Manion Forum, a radio network. The law school of course was very different always.

Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience member] How contemporary were the two experiences that you just related, and have you…

[Rushdoony]…On campus?

[Audience member] Yes, and have you had any very recent similar experiences?

[Rushdoony] Now I don’t except campus invitations. This was somewhere at the beginning of the 70’s, about ten years ago, first half of the 70’s. That type of experience when I was on campus was routine, the so-called Christian schools were the worst places to go to.

Yes?

[Audience member] Why have you stopped campus appearances?

[Rushdoony] I don’t have the time, that’s one reason, especially since the trial work has begun. And second I feel that with a one shot appearance you reach one or two out of a thousand, and while some wonderful things have happened out of those few, there are better ways to use my time. The few appearances I have made in recent years have been at law schools, and those have been rewarding in some cases, and after results. I’m not saying I wouldn’t if there were a really good opportunity where I felt in particular there were men who were ready to carry forth, or were already carrying forth, a Christian perspective in that particular field.

Yes?

[Audience member] From what I understand Jack Abram {?} and some others are beginning to create a minority audience on campus.

[Rushdoony] Well I’m glad to hear that and I think some good work is being done on campus, but of course right now we are exerting an influence on campus through groups like maranatha, which takes our perspective and teaches reconstruction to students.

[Audience member] I’ll be glad to volunteer if you have any things which you think we ought to speak about but you can’t attend.

[Rushdoony] Very good, I’ve already suggested your names, both of you a couple of times.

Well let us bow our heads now in prayer.

Our Lord and our God Thy word is truth, and Thy word opens up the meaning of all things, gives us guidelines and a program of action, make us ever strong in Thy word and by Thy Spirit, give us grace day by day to serve Thee with all our heart, mind, and being. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.