Systematic Theology

Lesson #10

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject:

Genre: Speech

Track: 10

Dictation Name: RR10??

Location/Venue: ________

Year: 1960’s-1970’s.

In this session we shall be dealing with what I call Anti-Abstractionism. The idea of course has reference to the doctrine of God. The idea of God, or some substitute for God, keeps cropping up in anti-christian atheistic philosophy...with good reason. Without the doctrine of God, every philosophy faces very serious problems. The universe, then, is meaningless. A world without God is not only empty of meaning but also of direction, purpose, and reason. Science becomes impossible in a universe that is totally without meaning. Man’s life, then, is also radically and totally absurd. As a result, man again and again resorts to some idea of God while calling it something else in order to preserve the freedom of man. He requires a backdrop of meaning.

As a result, even though the doctrine of evolution insists that chance is ultimate, all the same the philosophers of evolution keep trying introduce step by step into that chance process, an element of meaning, direction, and purpose. Of course the whole thing is nonsense. Even to speak of a chance process is a contradiction, because a process means an orderly sequence of events, and chance is never ordered. To say that the universe, a monument of order, so that on the one hand these evolutionists speak of determinism, and yet on the other hand they speak of totally a product of chance. And totally, at all times, functioning by chance involves massive logical contradictions.

There’s no question that unbelief requires miracles far greater than any the Bible has ever given us, required a suspension of logic. It requires a staggering faith to believe, somehow, there can be total chance, and yet meaning and order and the antithesis of chance. But man must have everything that God provides, but he does not want God. He will attempt to gain both God without God and his own freedom again and again.

There was a book published in 1920 which I think in its title summed up the quest of sinful man: God Without Thunder. There you have it. Modern man wants a God who gives him all the advantages of God without being God, and without making any claim on man. Well of course, we have a majo school of theology that has risen which offers precisely that: Karl Barth and the Barthesian school. Everything that has followed Barth, while it has departed from much in Barth, still clings to this essential aspect. Barth saw the emptiness of the universe without God. He faces in a particularly intense form the crisis of modern man. Barth wanted two things: first of all the freedom of man to be his own God, without saying so. Man had to be his own Lord, his own law. But second, Karl Barth wanted the full assurance of the full insurance of the doctrine of God; the biblical doctrine against an abyss of meaninglessness. And so Karl Barth affirmed all the Biblical doctrines as limiting concepts. That is, he said, we will insist that these are necessary categories of thought but that doesn’t mean these are literally true. So Barth affirms infallibility, inerrancy, the virgin birth, the resurrection,... without believing any of it.

He had to have authority so that the world would retain meaning, but no meaning that could lay a claim on man, cause that is what man does not want. He wants a God that will give the full backdrop of a universe of total meaning, but never a meaning that will say, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” Now, Paul, long ago warned Timothy against all such attempts at an abstract doctrine of God, a God without thunder, a Barthian God who would provide insurance for man but never challenge man’s freedom. He wrote, in 2nd Timothy 3:1-5:

“3 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”

Having a form of Godliness, but denying the power thereof. You see, all such men have an abstract doctrine of God. They can affirm every article of the creed, they can claim to believe the Bible from cover to cover in a way that Barth did not - but their faith fits Paul’s classification. If they are to all practical intent denying the power of the word of God.

Now let me illustrate what it means to have an abstract God. I’ll not mention any names because I think some of you would immediately know of whom I am speaking... A professor who claims to be a pillar of orthodoxy and to believe the Reformed faith and every word of the Bible, recently became very very angry with a student who wrote a paper in which he took seriously Biblical law. Actually believed when the Bible said something, it meant what it said. The professor called in the student, rebuked him sharply, told him his point of view was not Christian; and finally after a considerable amount of debate back and forth, the professor said with some scorn and contempt: “I suppose you even believe, in terms of Deuteronomy 21:18-21, that rebellious children should be dragged out and stoned to death?” And he spoke of that passage of scripture with contempt.

Well the student said, “Now, lets drop for the present whether that law is still valid or not - although I believe it is, and I believe it applies to all incorrigible delinquents and all habitual incorrigible criminals. But lets drop that. Do you believe that this law was intended by God to be obeyed in the time of Moses, at the time of Christ? Do you believe that for those fifteen hundred years or so, God actually meant that that law should be obeyed? If so, why are you treating it with such contempt? Do you think God was absurd or insane when he gave that law?”

“Well,” the professor said, “We’re not asked to take the law seriously like that. I don’t believe God meant that laws like that should be ever obeyed.” And he went on to explain his position that God was just trying “teach”.

Now, let us consider the applications of that. If God didn’t mean this, then did he mean “thou shalt not kill”, and “thou shalt not commit adultery”, or was he just trying to throw a little scare at us so we would go easy on doing those things? What was his professor saying about Biblical law? He was saying that it was a limiting concept or a limiting notion, and when he said that God’s word was the limiting notion in such serious matters - where the death penalty was involved in some cases - he was saying that the God behind the word was a limiting notion, a limiting concept, and not the living God. His God, despite all his profession of faith, is an abstraction. He had the form of Godliness, but he was denying the power thereof.

Well lets take another example. There are many many people who call themselves fundamentalists or evangelicals, in this case the man called himself reformed - this professor - who talk a great deal about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, but never about biblical law. They detach the Holy Spirit from the word and get involved in all kinds of spiritual exercises, spiritual gymnastics, as it were; but are not connected with the word. I know one man, a very likable man, who believes the way to the higher life is to get up and spend two hours in prayer every morning. That’s the way to be a better Christian... There are a great many men in his profession who could tell him how to clean up the place where he’s working with a little application of God’s “Thou Shalt Nots”, but no, he prays about everything and does nothing.

His God is an abstraction, because he has abstracted the holy spirit from the scriptures, and he has abstracted himself from life. To the degree you depart from the word, you depart from the spirit who gave the word.

Abstractness is the besetting sin of the Christian church today. This is why it is involved in paper Christianity.

I was very much delighted, in fact, excited this week, to get a telephone call from Washington, DC of a man in congress. He’s very excited. He’s discovered that God has something to say about everyday affairs in his law, and so he rattled off an outline of things he’s going to work on in congress. Why? Because he believes in the living God, and the living God has told him what has to be done about some very practical things. Is he going to pray about it? He’s going to act! There are people today who refuse to get involved in the fight against homosexuality in the name of being Christian. There are actually people who claim to be fundamental or reformed who say that the laws of Leviticus 19 concerning sexuality are culturally conditioned, and that what the Bible has to say about relationship of male and female is culturally conditioned.

Where is their God? If he doesn’t speak in the word he’s an abstract idea of God that they have formed He’s an idol,a false image that they have created.You see, if I define the spirit filled life in terms of things that I find easy to do - like spending two hours in the morning in prayer and feeling I’ve really done my work, I’ve been close with the Lord; or spending three hours in studying Biblical commentaries, or doing exo spiritual exercises which are pleasing to me; then I have defined the holy spirit of God in terms of my spirit and the word of God in terms of my word, and I am guilty of idolatry.

I have an abstract god who is not related to the living God, although I may be using the words of the Bible to clothe that god. In fact, if I define the spirit filled life apart from scripture, then I make my spirit the holy spirit. Abstractionism gives us at best a God who is a wise counselor who gives us an inspiring word, and unhappily, that’s all some people have when they go to the Bible. An inspiring word, from a wise council. This is the word of the Lord, it is a command word, I am required to read it and to know it even when I find it very uninspiring, because it rubs me the wrong way by telling me things I’d rather not hear. But I must listen. It is an inspired Word even when it is not inspiring to me. You see, the Bible forbids reduction and abstraction. The Bible tells us, for example, in Deuteronomy 4:1-2 that “We can neither add nor subtract from scripture, which is one word, a unity.”

In Revelation 22:18-19,

“18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”

Revelations 22:18-19, the canon closed we are told that words cannot be added to or subtracted from that one word. There can be no abstraction of anything from it, no reduction. It’s a totality of the word that gives us the living God, and we approach it in the totality of our being. Biblical law tells us very very definitely, Leviticus 21:1-5, that every priest of God must be a whole man he cannot be maimed. Deuteronomy 21:3 tells us that every member of the congregation must be a whole man; this did not mean that those who were crippled, or eunuchs, or maimed could not be believers, but what it does tell us is that all those who had a position of vote and leadership in the {?} had to be whole men.

That the whole of man’s being had to be brought into the kingdom, the whole of it had to hear the word, the whole of it has to obey the word....total word, the total man. Now that’s a literal commandment, but it also has a tremendous meaning behind it, because what God is saying is that the whole of our life is under his word, the whole of our life must serve him. That just as we cannot abstract God out of his word and create an idol, but we believe the whole word of God, so it is the whole man that must serve God with all his heart, mind, and being. We can neither abstract God and make an idol out of him with our own ideas, nor can we abstract ourselves out of this totality of obedience, and service, and life in and under God and his word.

To depart from the Bible is to depart from the living God. It’s the word of God which reveals man, not the word of man. It is the word of God which reveals God, not the word of man. For what scripture declares to us is, “Hear ye the word of the Lord.” Abstractionism therefore is forbidden in scripture either with respect to God and his word, or with respect to any aspect of our lives. We are entirely his, and entirely under him, and we are called upon to love him and to serve him with all our heart, mind, and being.

Are there any questions, now?

Yes?

[audience member speaks] What do you do when the civil law prohibits you from carrying out Biblical law, as it has done in the {?}.

[Rushdoony] Such as what?

[audience member speaks] The stoning of homosexuals.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Homosexuals are to be executed according to Biblical law. Stoning was the Biblical method, we’re not tied to the methodology, but we are tied to the requirement of the death penalty. We cannot take the law into our own hands. We need to work for a society in which God’s law is kept, and we need to recognize that there is judgement on a society which bypasses God’s law. So, we are under judgement. Whenever and wherever to any degree--

[short pause]

--we depart from God’s word, God spells that out very very clearly and it’s not by our might, but by God’s word that we must stand. We can take heart on that homosexual issue that lately there has been a real evidence of resistance to homosexuals. The fact that in such liberal communities such as Dave County, Saint Paul’s, Wichita, and Eugene Oregon of all places, the homosexuals got defeated so soundly is remarkable news.

It is encouraging.

Any other questions?

[short pause]

[audio ends]