A Reformed Classic
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
A Reformed Classic By Michael W. Kelley No Other Standard: Theonomy and Its Critics, Greg Bahnsen (Tyler: Texas, Institute for Christian Economics, 1991), 345 pages, scriptural and general indexes. Contra Mundum, No. 3, Spring 1992 Copyright 1992 Michael W. Kelley Among present-day theological apologists, none stands higher than Greg Bahnsen. He is at the forefront of his profession. For sheer depth of insight, breadth of analysis, consistency of reasoning, vigor and incisiveness of argument, not to mention finesse of style, Bahnsen is unparalleled in talent. By most scholars in the field this appraisal would be received with an amused, even perfunctory, condescension; by some with an almost violent revulsion. The reason, of course, is that Greg Bahnsen is a “hated” theonomist. To make matters worse, he is an articulate advocate of theonomic ethics, a thinker whom the guardian aristocracy of the theological citadels cannot hope to match in debate, let alone refute. To the masters of institutional and academic theology, theonomy is viewed as a fringe movement, if not quite heretical then a sinister error. Some may even view it with begrudging respect; but none will ever allow it a legitimate voice in the curricula of theological and ethical discourse. A man of Bahnsen's caliber ought to have been appointed to the “Van Til chair” of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary. The fact that that institution prefers to have, in succession, less able occupants of that position is evidence of the indefatigable opposition that anyone who professes the theonomic viewpoint in ethics can expect to encounter. To settle for fifth best when the best is available is a clear indication of the impoverishment of academic wisdom even in an institution that prides itself on its supposed heritage of intellectual excellence. The aversion to theonomy runs deep. Theonomy has emerged in recent decades as a “movement” which has disturbed the repose of the theological and ethical world of (so-called) evangelical Christian thought. At first, its detractors did not quite know what to make of it; then for a long time it was regarded with a studied indifference; finally, its growing influence excited apprehension among intellectual elites who then formed a rational distaste and a fierce antipathy to it. Theonomy was subjected to denunciation, ridicule, caricature and assailed with a ferocious clamor. Articles began to appear, notorious for the invective that was directed against this malignant ethical system. However, being longer on acrimony than on 1 substantive rebuttal, most lacked credibility as serious theological debate. Soon the amazing output of theonomic writers was bound to attract attention in the theological establishments. Consequently, the faculty of the aforementioned seminary produced what it considered as the official “Reformed” response to theonomy.1 Such endeavors, far from silencing the printing presses of the theonomic zealots, merely stir them to greater exertions in advancing the cause. It is by reason of this confrontation between theonomy and its detractors that Greg Bahnsen has produced No Other Standard: Theonomy and Its Critics. No Other Standard is Bahnsen's finest performance to date. This is not to suggest that his Theonomy in Christian Ethics is anything less than a landmark accomplishment.2 It is simply meant to point out that the former work best exhibits the surpassing qualities of Bahnsen as an apologist and as a theological polemicist. It is clearly the best defense of theonomy yet published. The work is distinguished by its consistency of argument, its reasoned insight into Scripture, its eloquent and versatile control of the written medium3, and above all by its honest devotion to God's Word as the sole authority for man in the realm of ethics for every (including the “civil”) area of life. Bahnsen clearly is a thinker and author who makes the case on Biblical grounds better than any other, theonomist or non-theonomist alike. It is a work that deserves to be placed in the company of such outstanding polemical treatises an Machen's The Virgin Birth of Christ and O.T. Allis's The Five Books of Moses. That theonomy represents something unique in the area of theological ethics is not a claim that theonomists would deny. Bahnsen admits as much: “Theonomic ethics is a definable and distinct school of thought.” (p. 19) But this in itself is no argument against it as Scripturally sound. For while it is true that theonomy is of recent appearance, and although it is easily distinguishable from other points of view, it is, however, a “school of thought” that has roots in a venerable and recognized theological context—viz., the historic Reformed theological tradition. For proof of this one may consult, for example, the Westminster Confession of Faith (19:I,II&V) which reads: “God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, and perpetual obedience....This law, after his fall, continued be a perfect rule of righteousness....The moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others....Neither doth Christ, in the Gospel, any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation.” It is hardly credible to assert, as do the critics of theonomy, that its position represents some strange new aberration in ethics. As the Reformed 1 William S. Barker & W. Robert Godfrey, Eds., Theonomy: A Reformed Critique, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1990). This work comprises various contributions from faculty members of Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia & California. 2 Greg Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1984). What is of outstanding importance in this work is Bahnsen's magisterial exegesis of Matthew 5:17-20. 3 As a literary production the book is brilliant. There is only one major flaw in this regard, and that is the persistent grammatical abuse know as the “split infinitive”. E.g. (incorrect) “to thoroughly examine”, (correct) “to examine thoroughly”; (incorrect) “to greatly overstate”, (correct) “greatly to overstate”, and so forth. This literary faux pas is a common mistake with writers nowadays which needs to be pointed out. 2 doctrinal heritage has been the only one to take seriously the law of God in ethical conduct for “justified persons as others”, it cannot be alleged that theonomy is anything other than a further development and a contemporary application of this foundational confession. Furthermore, the core principle of the Reformed tradition—viz., Sola Scriptura—is as much at the heart of theonomy, perhaps more so, than is sometimes the case in those who oppose it. Consequently, it will not do to allege that there is a “Reformed critique” of theonomy without a better consideration of what has been “historically” Reformed. Still, although its roots lie in Reformed soil, it does represent a distinct approach to ethics in that it advances the core insight of Reformed doctrine along lines that the earliest reformers might have had intimations of, but no clear and compelling reason to trace out as have the theonomists. This is because the theonomists inhabit a world that has all but severed connection to its Christian past, whereas a Christian values-system as the ethical basis of culture and civilization (certainly in the West) was all but taken for granted by its theological forebears three hundred years ago. As modern culture and society proceeded to work out its humanistic ethical assumptions the results became obvious: Western Christian civilization, or what was left of it, entered a period of profound crisis, which is where we are at present. Believing that God's word is to be man's sole authority for all of life, and believing the problem to be ethical at bottom, and apprehending that the ethic of humanism was the source of the problem, it was deemed essential to 'reconstruct' a more self-consciously Biblical ethic. Consequently, for theonomy, the law of God, the only standard of right conduct that was adhered to by the reformers, was simply examined far more meticulously and with greater attention to the present situation than had hitherto been done. Now it is just this emphasis on the law of God that has brought forth such a storm of criticism—and this, not so much from the thought-world of humanism as from so-called Christians! What is more, from so-called Reformed Christians! In Bahnsen's view, the basis for this perfervid disapprobation turns on the question of authority in the area of ethical conduct. Any ethic, if it expects to come to expression in human behavior, must take hold of man's conscience as a “law”. If it is a Biblical ethic; i.e., if it has its source in God and His will for man, then it is absurd to deny that it can be anything other than “God's law”. It is this assertion that has led the opponents of theonomy to denounce it as a new “legalism”. But this claim, as Bahnsen observes, rests upon a false dispensational and antinomian hermeneutic that predisposes the mind of the interpreter in his approach to the study of Scripture. For the law of God, it is said, possesses validity only for the period of the Older Testament and not for the New Testament era in which the church presently exists. The argument is proffered, viz., that with the passing of Israel from the stage as the center of God's redemptive program, the so-called Mosaic law,4 which was given solely to govern the life of Old Testament Israel, disappeared as well. There has been a change from old to new, and with it a new conception of ethical stipulation as 4 There is a persistent refusal on the part of theonomic opponents to recognize that although the law first appeared in comprehensive and propositional form with Moses it does not follow that it is anything less than “God's” law, hence permanently valid.