• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

WESTMINSTER’S CONFESSION The Abandonment of Van Til’s Legacy OTHER BOOKS BY GARY NORTH Marx’s Religion of Revolution, 1968 [1989] An Introduction to Christian Economics, 1973 Puritan Economic Experiments, 1974 ~1988~ Unconditional Surrender, 1981 [1988] Successftd Investing in an Age of Envy, 1981 The Dominion Covenant, Genesis, 1982 [1987] Backward Christiun Soldiers?, 1984 75 Bible Questims lbur Instructors Pray XnJ Wont Ask, 1984 Moses and Pharaoh: Dominion Religion Versus Power Religion, 1985 The Sinai Strategy: Econom”cs and the Ten Commandments, 1986 Conspiracy A Biblical View, 1986 Unholy Spirits: Occultism and New Age Humanism, 1986 Honest Money, 1986 Fighting Chance, 1986 [with Arthur Robinson] Dominion and Common Grace, 1987 Inherit the Earth, 1987 Liberating Planet Earth, 1987 Healer of tb Nations, 1987 Is the World Running Down, 1988 Trespassing for Dear Life, 1989 When Justice Is Aborted, 1989 The Hoax of Higher Criticism, 1989 Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus, 1990 Millenniulism and Social Theory, 1990 Christian Reconstruction: What It Is, What It Isn?, 1991 [with Gary I)eIvfar] Books edited by Gary North Foundations of Christian Scholarship, 1976 Tactics of Christian Resistance, 1983 The Theology of Christian Resistance, 1983 Theonomy An Informed Response, 1991 Editor, Journal of Christian Reconstruction (1974-1981) WESTMINSTER’S CONFESSION The Abandonment of Vim Til’s Legacy Gary North Institute for Christian Economics Tyler, Texas Copyright, Gary North, 1991 Van Tll cover photo courtesy of Westminster Theological Seminary. Torn picture reproduction courtesy of Robert Langham Photography. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data North, Gary. Westminster’s confession : the abandonment of Van Til’s legacy / Gary North. P“ cm” Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-930464-54-0 (alk. paper) :$14.95 1. Theonomy. 2. Calvinism. 3. Dominion theology. 4. Law (Theology). 5. Reformed Church - Doctrines. 6. Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia, Pa. and Escondido, Ca.). 7. Van Tll, Cornelius, 1895-1988. 8. Sociology, Christian - United States. 9. Religious pluralism – Christianity - Controversial literature. I. Title. BT82.25.T443N69 1991 230’.046- dc20 91-’7200 CIP Institute for Christian Economics P. O. BOX 8000 Tyler, Texas 75’711 This book is dedicated to the most accomplished instructor I had at Westminster Seminary, Norman Shepherd who combined Machen’s eschatological optimism, Vim Til’s presuppositional apologetic, and Murray’s precise theological language. He was a loyal de- fender of Westminster’s original confession. TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword . ..ix Preface . .. xix Introduction . 1 Chapter 1: The Question of Inheritance . ...20 Chapter 2: Calvin’s Divided Judicial Legacy . ...48 Chapter 3: A Positive Biblical Confession Is Mandatory ..7’3 Chapter 4: A Negative Confession Is Insufficient . ...99 Chapter 5: The Question of Law . ...119 Chapter 6: The Question of God’s Predictable Historical Sanctions . ...148 Chapter 7: The Question of Millennialism . 166 Chapter 8: Sic et Non: The Dilemma of Judicial Agnosticism . ...189 Chapter 9: Abusing the Past..... ...234 Chapter 10: An Editor’s Task: Just Say No! . 259 Conclusion . ...295 Appendix A H. L. Mencken’s Obituary of Machen . ...312 Appendix B: Honest Reporting as Heresy . 317 Appendix C: The Paralysis of the Parachurch Ministries 342 Appendix D: Calvin’s Millennial Confession . .349 Appendix E: Julius Shepherd . .357 Books for Further Reading . .361 Scripture Index . .369 Index . .372 About the Author . .386 It was Dr. Van Til who shocked the new students into doc- trinal awareness. No fact is unrelated to the God of the Bible, he declared. All truth, to be known aright, must be seen in the light of the revelation of the Creator and Redeemer. By God’s grace we, his redeemed creatures, think God’s thoughts after him. Christianity is not probably true; it is truth. All merely human philosophy and science is challenged and found want- ing. God upholds all things, including unbelievers. The believ- er and the unbeliever have everything in common metaphysi- cally, but epistemologically they have nothing in common. In our proclamation of God and his grace, we present the triune God as the sole ground for all our salvation from sin, for all of life, and for all our thinking.l If it is indeed not our King’s intention for the civil authority to enforce the first great commandment, then among the five alternatives Bahnsen offers as possible standards for civil law, natural revelation as indeed “a sin-obscured edition of the same law of God” “suppressed in unrighteousness by the sin- ner” is that to which we must appeal. William S. Barker2 1. The OrthmbX Presbyterian Church, 1936-1886, edited by Charles G. Dennison (Philadelphia Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 1986), p. 324. 2. Barker, “Theonomy, Pluralism, and the Bible,” in Wfllam S. Barker and Robert W. Godfkey (eds.), Thmnomy: A Re&m.ed C- (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Academie, 1990), p. 240. FOREWORD One desire ha been the riding jmsian of m~ life. One high motive has acted like a s@r upm my min$ an soul. And sorer tkun that I should seek escape from the sacred necessity that is laid upon W, let the breath of life fail m. It is this: Thut in spite of all worldly opposition, God? holy ordinances skull be established again in thz home, in the school and in the State for the good of the people; to carve as it were into the conscience of the nation the ordinances of tke Lord, to which th Bible and Creation bear wihwss, until the nation pay homuge again to God. Abrahum Kuyper (1897)1 Calvinism is in crisis. It is shrinking, both numerically and in terms of its cultural impact, and has been since 1660, when King Charles II returned to the English throne. How did this happen? Calvinism was once a dominant force socially in Nor- thern Europe, not because there were many Calvinists, but because they were influential out of proportion to their num- bers in charitable works, scholarship, science, and business. Yet Calvinism today is unknown to most people. Why? There are many reasons, but the most significant one that Calvinists could and should have prevented was this: the intellectual and spirit- 1. Cited by John Herdnk de Vnes, “Biographical Note,” Abraham Kuyper, bcture.s on Calvinism (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1931), p. iii. -. x WESTMINSTER’S CONFESSION ual leaders within Calvinism have, for over three centuries, voluntarily surrendered the culturally relevant aspects of Cal- vinism by accepting the dominant humanist worldview that has assailed the Church. Eventually, Calvinists even abandoned the idea of Christendom – one ofJohn Calvin’s fundamental assump- tions: the precious legacy of Augustine, the post-Nicene Church fathers, and the early monastic orders.z Meanwhile, the hu- manists robbed them blind. From 1660 to 1789, the humanists took the fundamental doctrines of Calvinism and secularized them. They stripped these ideas of all biblical theological content and produced a new man-centered worldview, which became dominant in the West. First, they took the doctrine of the sovereignty of God and made it the sovereignty of nature and nature’s finest prod- uct, autonomous man. The twin idols of nature and history again became the idols of man, as they have been throughout pagan history.s Second, the Calvinist doctrine of the priesthood of all believers became the foundation of modern democratic theory, beginning with the Levellers in the Cromwell period. Calvinism’s concept of the right of the laity to vote in church elections became the model for politics. Third, the Calvinist view of God’s law and man’s God-given ability to recognize it and apply it to this world became the foundation of modern science and technology. Fourth, Calvinism’s doctrine of God’s sanctions in history - blessings and cursings – became, in the writings of the anti-Calvinist Scottish common sense rational- ists,4 the concept of the impersonal market forces of supply and demand. Fifth, Puritanism’s unique concept of the triumph 2. Roland Bainton, ChristenAm, 2 vols. (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966), 1, ch. 5. 3. Herbert sehlossberg, Idds fm Destrsdiiw Chri#ian Faith and Its Gmfrontatim with Atian Socidy (Washington, D. C.: Regnery Gateway, [1983] 1990), p. 11. 4. The right wing of the Enlightenment. Foreword xi of the kingdom of God in history became the foundation of the Enlightenment idea of mankind’s inevitable progress. Importing Alien Goods What is even more remarkable is that once secularized, these doctrines were then re-imported by Calvinist intellectual leaders, and were baptized by them, but without re-establishing their original biblical and covenantal foundations. These alien categories - based on the doctrine of autonomous nature and autonomous man – were then reported by Calvinist leaders to be in full accord with the fundamentals of Calvinism. There is no better example of this baptism of alien intellectual categories than late-Puritan theologian Cotton Mather’s praise of New- ton’s unitarian and Deistic concept of scientific law. Mather titled his book, The Ch&iUn Philosopher (1721). So, the initial strength of the West’s humanist worldview after 1660 was based on stolen goods. Calvinism re-imported these goods and thereby lost control over its own intellectual destiny. Steadily, Calvinist intellectuals drank from unitarian- ism’s temporarily overflowing well (natural law theory) in order to refresh themselves. But that well steadily became polluted as the covenant-breaking presuppositions of autonomous man began to erode the foundations of humanist civilization. The unitarian humanists steadily ran out of stolen Calvinist wealth to deposit in their moral and epistemological bank accounts, Shifting metaphors, the Calvinists found themselves trapped on board an alien ship. They had adopted the categories of hu- manism as universal, natural, and religiously neutral categories. This humanist ship began to sink.

Load more

  408

Copy Link