https://reformedlibertarians.com/021
Kerry:
This is episode TWENTY-ONE.
We’re discussing The Two Kingdoms and Christian Cultural Activity.
I’m Kerry Baldwin, here with Gregory Baus. And we’ll be talking about a particular view of what has been called a “two kingdoms” doctrine, and the possibility of a distinctively Christian view of the believer’s cultural activity.
In this episode we summarize a few key points from episodes 4 and 19 that relate to taking a distinctively Christian view of a believer’s cultural activity. Then, we summarize the basic Two Kingdoms view we’re addressing, and distinguish it from some other Reformed Two Kingdoms (or twofold Kingdom) distinctions. We mention the agreement of our orthodox Neo-Calvinism with Reformed Two Kingdoms views, and our particular area of disagreement with a Scholastic view. Then we address an all-too-typical objection to our use of the term Scholasticism. And we also highlight several particular points of agreement with the concerns of David VanDrunen. Finally, we conclude with examples from one’s concept of a saltshaker, a view of logical norms, a parallel with interpreting Scripture, and a view of the limit on legitimate civil governance. These examples broadly illustrate how an orthodox Neo-Calvinist view differs from a Scholasticized view about how Christians can and should have a distinctively Christian view of culture, even when it concerns general or creational revelation exclusively, and are not matters specifically addressed in Scripture.
Gregory:
Back in episode 4, How Should Christians View Culture and What Are Some Mistaken Views?, we discussed the first subsection of the Reformed Libertarianism Statement about culture. We talked about how everyone’s cultural activity is necessarily grounded in their inescapable religious belief of one sort or another, the significance of the fall into sin, common grace, the common curse, general (or creational) revelation, redemption, and eschatology, all in relation to culture. We mentioned the subjective sanctification of Christians’ cultural activity, and touched on a Neo-Calvinist (or Reformational) view in contrast with Scholastic and Biblicist (particularly theonomic) views.
Kerry:
In this episode, we’ll be picking-up on those themes. But as a reminder, some of what we explained was that by culture we refer to the human activity of having dominion over the earth as God’s images; being fruitful, filling, ruling, and subduing the world, cultivating and keeping it, as well as the results of that labor, the secondary environment of human production within the natural environment. Created reality, including human nature, has both a so-called ‘Structural’ dimension of the laws and norms by which God constitutes things as what they are, and governs them, and a so-called ‘Directional’ dimension of relative human conformity (or lack of it) to God-given norms for human action.
Gregory:
After the fall into sin, rather than immediately bringing the final judgment and justly condemning all humanity to everlasting death in body&soul, God had mercy and extended a common, non-saving grace to all people, postponing that final judgment. Common grace involves God’s continuing to preserve the creation order, the structural dimension of His image in humanity, and common human society. And this common grace was later made more explicit after the great flood in the Noahic covenant. God also gave a special redemptive grace to some, establishing His church in the Covenant of Saving Grace, later made more explicit in the Abrahamic covenant of Promise, which was fulfilled by Christ in His inauguration of the New Covenant, yet-to-be consummated in His bringing the glorified New Heavens&Earth.
Kerry:
Whether Christian or non-Christian, after the fall, everyone remains fundamentally religious, having some religious belief or other. One’s ultimate trust is either in the God of Scripture through Christ, or it’s in an idol, a false divinity. And further, all human action, including cultural activity, is grounded in, and guided by, the one religious belief, or by the other.
Gregory:
While by the fall, all people naturally-descending from Adam lost the deepest positive Directional dimension of their imaging God, those who are regenerated by God’s redemptive grace are renewed, Directionally, in Christ’s image, in true righteousness, holiness, and knowledge. And while Christians are centrally re-directed towards God, they can still sin, suffer the effects of sin, and deviate from God’s norms. Nevertheless, redemption provides the possibility for Christians, in some measure, to discern and live in positive accordance with God-ordained norms. At the same time, while those who remain unregenerate are in a basic condition of mis-direction away from God, by God’s common grace, they can, in some measure, act in an external accordance with certain norms.
Kerry:
Along with common grace, however, God also imposed a temporal common curse. This involves a temporal subjection to futility, the frustration of human labors, numerous pains and misery, and temporal bodily death. Humans, having broken the Covenant of Works, are no longer able to fulfill the original eschatological goal of the pre-fall cultural mandate. Christ Himself alone obtains that goal on behalf of His people in accomplishing and applying redemption, and ultimately consummating it. And, having, since the fall, introduced a differentiation in human society (outside the typological theocracy of the now obsolete old Mosaic covenant) between common cultural activity, and the objectively holy administration of His redemptive kingdom in the institutional church, Christians should seek to subjectively sanctify their common cultural activities in service to Christ, even while such activities in no way contribute to bringing the glorified Consummation.
Gregory:
In episode 19, on the Myth Of Religious Neutrality, we presented a reading of excerpts from the article “On The General Relation of Religion, Metaphysics, and Science” by Roy Clouser. There it was explained, in more specific terms, how one’s inevitable religious belief guides (whether consciously or not) one’s basic view of reality, which in turn necessarily guides particular concepts and theories in any academic field of study. The more predominant model of Scholasticism, of the general relation of religious belief to theories, with its view of a merely external check of logical compatibility, was contrasted with the largely neglected model of Neo-Calvinism that views the additional question of reductionism in concepts and theories to be of crucial significance.
Kerry:
One of the key ideas explained was that reductionism (that is, taking any kind or kinds of things of creation to have a metaphysical or ontological priority over other things such that other kinds of things are unreal or depend on it for their reality), amounts to a form of idolatry, that is, amounts to ascribing the status of divinity to that kind or kinds of things. And that remains the case, even if one stipulates that God created that kind of thing with supposed metaphysical priority, because according to Scripture nothing created mediates between creation and the Creator. Everything other than God was created by God in Christ and each kind of thing solely and directly depends on Christ for its existence; all things are held together by Him alone. The upshot of this Neo-Calvinist understanding is that concepts and theories can and should, then, be viewed in a distinctively Christian way that not only avoids logical incompatibilities between particular Scriptural doctrines and views of what is creationally-revealed, but also avoids all reductionism since it’s at odds with the more basic perspective Scripture reveals.
Gregory:
Now, how can we summarize the particular view of God’s Two Kingdoms that we’re addressing? In the most basic terms, this view of Two Kingdoms recognizes that, after the fall into sin, God introduced a distinction or differentiation between two ways of His rule, which (importantly) are not in opposition to each other, but are nonetheless distinct.
Kerry:
Right. One way of God’s rule is what may be called “common grace.” This concerns how God in Christ preserves and governs created reality, or the creation order, including societal order, common to believer and unbeliever alike. This is sometimes called the “civil kingdom,” but it involves not only politics or civil governance, but the natural order, and creational norms for all cultural activities and societal relations other than the institutional church. This preservation was made explicit after the flood in what is called the Noahic Covenant.
Gregory:
Another way of God’s rule is what may be called “special (or saving) grace.” This concerns how God in Christ administers His spiritual or “redemptive kingdom.” In the present age or epoch, this involves the institutional church, and especially believers, and their participation in salvation, the inaugurated eschatological blessings of the coming, not-yet-consummated, new heavens and earth. This was revealed in the Covenant of Grace first given in the so-called Protevangelium of Genesis 3:15, then made more explicit in the Abrahamic Covenant, and fulfilled in Christ with the inauguration of the New Covenant.
Kerry:
This two kingdoms view has been especially elaborated and developed by our friend David VanDrunen. And with reference to common grace, he has emphasized the role of what is called “natural law”, as it has been understood historically in Reformed thought, that is, a view of moral obligations revealed in created reality, or “general revelation.” We understand broader creational law to include this.
Gregory:
It’s important to note that this common grace and special saving grace Two Kingdoms view is somewhat different from, though not opposed to, other Two Kingdoms (or twofold kingdom) distinctions made by the Reformed in the 1500s through the 1700s. Like John Calvin (in the 1530s) and others, the Reformed distinguish between God’s ruling over the “internal” kingdom of conscience and the “external” kingdom of outward societal life. And like Francis Turretin (in the 1670s) and others, we also distinguish between Christ’s general providential rule over all things, and special saving rule over believers. Further, the Reformed have always distinguished (outside the unique and temporary administration of the old covenant theocracy) between God’s rule as ordained through civil governance on the one hand (not to mention other societal spheres), and through His church on the other.
Kerry:
Building on these, Abraham Kuyper (in the late 1800s and early 1900s), however, especially developed the distinction between common grace and special saving grace, and that, in connection to the Noahic covenant and the Covenant of (Saving) Grace. As confessionally Reformed believers and orthodox Neo-Calvinists we affirm all these Reformed Two Kingdoms distinctions. In order to be clear about the common grace – special saving grace Two Kingdoms view that we’re particularly addressing in this episode, we’ll refer to it as a “Neo-” Two Kingdoms view.
Gregory:
Various Reformed Two Kingdoms views have been caricatured and mischaracterized as imposing a false dualism on reality and human life that cuts off some part of it from God’s sovereignty or His law, or makes part of it into either a religiously-neutral realm, or a sinful realm which Christians must avoid. However, none of the historically Reformed distinctions we’ve mentioned actually do this.
Kerry:
Of those advocating a Neo- Two Kingdoms view, VanDrunen is not only one of the most prolific, but is also the most sympathetic to the concerns of our own covenantal, confessionally Reformed, orthodox Neo-Calvinism. His view seeks to affirm that there is a fundamental religious antithesis (or opposition between regenerate faith in God through Christ and unregenerate faith in some idol) that affects every part of life, including common cultural life. Accordingly, such a Neo- Two Kingdoms view also affirms that there are some unique things about Christians’ cultural activities, for example, that their actions should and can be in more-than-mere-external conformity to God’s norms, as well as motivated by true faith, and for the sake and goal of God’s glory. VanDrunen’s view affirms that Christians’ basic, overall perspective on cultural activities can be distinctively Christian, and they should be critical of the effects of sin in misinterpreting creational revelation, seeking to interpret it consistently with their faith, through the lens of Scriptural teaching. Where there can be an important disagreement with the Neo-Calvinist view we promote, however, has to do with what interpreting creational revelation through the lens of Scripture entails or doesn’t entail.
Gregory:
Most of VanDrunen’s criticisms of what he takes as Neo-Calvinism are of a theologically-aberrant distortion of it. We agree with the majority of those criticisms and address a primary one in an article I wrote (on our website) titled “Five Versions Of Two Kingdoms and Foundations For Christian Cultural Activity.” That primary distortion we reject has already been mentioned. Namely, the erroneous view that after the fall, redeemed believers are able to fulfill the eschatological goal of the cultural mandate as it was given before the fall, to obtain the glorified New Heavens&Earth. Rather, we affirm that only Christ obtains that for believers on their behalf by His accomplishment, application, and consummation of redemption. After the fall, the purpose of the cultural mandate for those united to Christ is to serve and love God and neighbor by it, until the Final Judgment. So, we reject the distorted forms of Neo-Calvinism, and affirm its orthodox form.
Kerry:
One of the reasons for so much overlap between VanDrunen’s views and ours is, in part, due to our mutual appreciation for not only Kuyper’s views, but also the Reformed biblical-theological, covenantal, redemptive-historical work of Meredith G. Kline. We’ll have more information about him in the shownotes. Kline’s theological work represents the sort of confessionally Reformed, orthodox Neo-Calvinism we affirm. Our friend Michael Beck has also done some valuable work in his book Covenant Lord And Cultic Boundary, and discusses it on his podcast Two Age Sojourner. There he relates Kline’s views to a Neo Two-Kingdoms view, and contrasts it with the Biblicism of both theonomy and John Frame, as well as to distortions of a Neo-Calvinist view. It would have been helpful if Beck properly distinguished Herman Dooyeweerd’s actual views (which he mischaracterizes) from those who distort Neo-Calvinism, but his overall discussion of Kline’s thought is commendable.
Gregory:
Yes, the exact points for which Kline criticizes the (infelicitously labeled) “neo-Dooyeweerdians” are among the points on which they explicitly disagree with Dooyeweerd, and among the many points on which Dooyeweerd and Kline agree! Those who Kline criticizes would better be called anti-Dooyeweerdians on those points.
In any case, some of Kline’s students or appreciators, unfortunately, have distorted Kline’s insights (about common and saving grace) in a kind of Scholastic framework that fails to acknowledge the fuller extent to which Christians’ view of creational revelation and their common cultural activity can be distinctively or uniquely Christian. Despite some advocates of a Neo- Two Kingdoms view, such as VanDrunen, seeking to affirm the religious non-neutrality of common cultural life, what might be called a “scholasticized” or Scholastic Neo- Two Kingdoms view ends up affirming a religiously-motivated ethical or moral non-neutrality, but not a fuller, more robust view of religious non-neutrality in a view of creational revelation or cultural life as such in matters not specifically addressed by Scripture.
Kerry:
We should pause here to head-off an often-heard, but facile, objection posed by some fellow Reformed believers about how we use the terms ‘scholastic,’ and ‘scholasticism’ (in this and in previous episodes). Following the work of Richard Muller, and others, recent emphasis has been placed on the fact that, historically considered, as the term was used, for example, during the Reformation or post-Reformation periods, Scholasticism can be understood primarily as certain methods of academic study, discussion, and instruction, and not identified with any particular theology or specific philosophy.
Gregory:
The term Scholasticism, used primarily as method or methods, may refer to a general scholarly approach held largely in common by those of differing particular theologies, not only various specific Christian theologies (whether Reformed, Lutheran, or Romanist), but also to varieties of Jewish theologies and Islamic theologies. In this methodological sense, even a so-called Reformed Scholasticism, for example, may be distinguished from confessionally orthodox Reformed theology as such that can be expressed in a variety of other forms, whether rhetorically/homiletically, devotionally, catechetically, or in terms of a more philological or so-called ‘humanist’ method, and so on. A difference in manner of presentation doesn’t necessarily entail a real difference in what is being presented; a particular, given view of something can be presented in a variety of ways.
Kerry:
Further, Scholasticism as primarily academic method or methods, can be distinguished from what may be called variously theologically-modified or accommodated Aristotelianism, or modified Platonism-NeoPlatonism-Aristotelianism. Such modified Aristotelianism and other ancient Greek philosophical views (variously developed and accommodated to Islamic, Jewish, and Christian theologies) was the broader or general philosophical context in which scholastic method developed. If older scholarship tended not as explicitly to distinguish its use of ‘Scholasticism’ as academic methods from the context of variously modified Aristotelianism in which a given theology and its academic methods were expressed, such a distinction is not entirely missing, if present implicitly.
Gregory:
For example, The Catholic Encyclopedia 1912’s entry for “Scholasticism,” written by Bishop William Turner, states explicitly-enough that “Scholasticism is a term used to designate both a method and a system.” And that system, generally, may also be called variously modified Aristotelianism. Turner might have said the term ‘Scholasticism’ can designate either one or the other. In any case, an objection arises from those who mistake Muller’s point, and wrongly insist that the term has only ever been used to mean, or can only properly be used to mean a method exclusively. However, Muller never claimed and doesn’t claim that. Those who raise the objection to using the term scholasticism to refer to variously modified Aristotelianism have distorted Muller’s more carefully expressed point.
Kerry:
Our use of the term ‘scholastic’ is in an entirely appropriate, tho in what many consider a “secondary,” and later-established sense of variously accommodated Aristotelian philosophical views (whether metaphysical/ontological, epistemological, or axiological/ethical views). Using the term ‘Scholastic’ this way may make some bristle, but only if they have an ideological axe to grind and/or are unable to follow the simple, historically-sensitive, and well-established distinctions we’ve just explained. It’s simply inaccurate, and not actually Muller’s claim as we understand it, to say that scholasticism is exclusively a method and cannot be used accurately to refer to a variously modified Aristotelian philosophical context.
Gregory:
If you have trouble understanding what’s being argued in this and earlier episodes (because you dogmatically insist that ‘scholastic’ must exclusively be used to refer to an academic method), then substitute “variously accommodated Aristotelian” or “modified ancient Greek philosophical” when you hear us use some form of the word “Scholastic.” In that light, the Scholastic Neo- Two Kingdoms view we’re criticizing fails, to some degree or other, to recognize religious non-neutrality when the particular issue in question is a matter of only general or creational revelation, and isn’t also a matter of specific Scriptural teaching as such.
Kerry:
So, to reiterate, there is an orthodox Neo-Calvinism, to which we hold, that affirms that after the fall, God instituted a distinction between common grace and special, saving (or redemptive) grace; a distinction between what is preserved in created reality, common to all people, and what is redeemed in salvation, particular to those united to Christ. Orthodox Neo-Calvinism affirms this basic Neo- Two Kingdoms view. But further, such Neo-Calvinism affirms a thorough-going religious non-neutrality in all of human life, including our view of creational revelation and cultural activities. Neo-Calvinism rejects restricting religious non-neutrality to morality, or to points of specific Scriptural teaching. Rather, Neo-Calvinism affirms that even concerning points other than morality and particular Scriptural teaching, there is a religious non-neutrality also in matters exclusive to creational or general revelation.
Gregory:
That’s right. And in contrast, there is also a Scholastic or Scholasticized Neo- Two Kingdoms view, which, to one degree or another, fails to recognize the fuller religious non-neutrality in matters exclusive to creational or general revelation. Such a view doesn’t take adequate account of what interpreting created reality through the lens of Scriptural teaching entails. And so it fails to see how, when something is not a matter of the teaching of Scripture as such, interpreting general revelation on the basis of all Scripture does teach, can result in a Christian view of something in ways that are distinct from a non-Christian view of it.
Kerry:
VanDrunen wants to recognize that a Christian’s basic, big-picture perspective on reality and cultural activities can and should be Christian in the full sense of that term, viewing general revelation through the lens of Scriptural teaching. He acknowledges, for example, the fact of God in Christ creating all things, that He upholds the natural and societal orders in common grace, and the facts of both humanity’s bearing God’s image, and being fallen in sin all constitute a distinctly Christian basic understanding of reality. At the same time, VanDrunen is clear he wants to avoid any “simplistic” categorization of some cultural activity as Christian or non-Christian, and urges caution and modesty in claiming the title Christian for our common cultural activities. We certainly agree with VanDrunen on these points.
Gregory:
VanDrunen has argued that the normative standards for cultural activity should not be understood as themselves uniquely Christian, but common to believer and unbeliever alike. And further, he emphasizes that there are many different concrete ways that Christians can normatively engage in any given cultural activity, and that Christians are not immune from sin and the effects of sin in their cultural activity. Especially in light of these things, VanDrunen warns against Christians seeking to bind the moral conscience of others in matters where Scripture does not. Here too we agree with VanDrunen on these points. However, none of these things mitigates the religious non-neutrality of cultural activities, or means that Christians should not or cannot view them in a distinctly Christian way, even in matters other than morality, narrowly speaking, or of specific Scriptural teaching.
Kerry:
In addressing the sort of concerns VanDrunen raises, Roy Clouser has used the illustration of one’s view of an ordinary object of experience, such as a saltshaker.
“ Even the concepts of ordinary objects of experience differ if we take into account the ways they assume the properties combined in them are related [relative to what one takes as an ultimate explainer, to what is (consciously or not) taken as having self-existence]. If I sit at the lunch table with a philosophical “physicalist” or materialist and I say, “Pass the salt,” he knows what the saltshaker is. He picks it up and passes it down to me.
However, his concept of that object isn’t entirely the same as mine. At a surface level (a level at which all we care about is the object that has the salt in it), yes, it’s the same. But a complete concept of a thing includes everything that is true of it (which is why we never actually possess a complete concept of any individual thing).
Gregory:
Now suppose my concept of the saltshaker includes that it’s beautiful. I say, “That saltshaker is beautiful, isn’t it?” My materialist friend might even agree at the common sense level. However, if we probe the contents of our concepts more deeply, it will turn out that he doesn’t believe there’s really any such thing as beauty [as I believe there is]; [in the physicalist or materialist view] there’s only matter [or, the physical]. Or if he does admit there are non-physical properties such as beauty, he insists they are entirely and exclusively the creations of physical properties and laws. In other words, if we were to examine our concepts in enough detail, we would discover that at a deeper level we’re not agreeing on what the object is that we’re talking about. ”
Kerry:
So, even one’s view of the ordinary objects of experience is religiously guided. Just as there can be a physicalist -religious view, given its metaphysical reductionism; there can also be a Christian -religious view of ordinary objects, grounded in Scripturally-informed beliefs without reductionism.
Obviously, there’s no surface-level, externally “Christian” or “non-Christian” way to pass the salt, or to dig a ditch, or to fix a leaking pipe, or to add 2 and 2. Pointing out this obvious and superficial fact is not, contrary to what many advocates of a Scholastic view seem to believe, an actual objection to a Neo-Calvinist view. Neo-Calvinism doesn’t claim that regeneration or redemption in Christ gives anyone new or improved sensory perception, make them smarter or more competent, or change the process of cognition or the laws of logic. Christians don’t use different languages than non-Christians, brush their teeth any differently, or on a surface-level do any external actions differently than non-Christians.
Gregory:
However, culture and cultural activities are more than just the surface level of external actions, customs, and artifacts. It also involves deeper layers of societal relations (a variety of inter-individual, and communal relations), that reflect, at a deeper level, numerous values of various kinds (not just moral ones), that in turn reflect, at an even deeper level, various beliefs, some (consciously or not) our most basic ones about the nature of reality. At bottom, our basic view of the nature of reality is necessarily guided by what we take to have metaphysical priority or to be self-existent upon which everything else depends. And the various levels or layers of cultural activity exist in a dynamic of reciprocal interaction; our view of reality and other beliefs and values influencing societal relations, customs, and technology, and vice versa.
Kerry:
It goes without saying that Christians and non-Christians don’t live in different temporal realities. The world God has made, and preserves through common grace, is what it is for everyone. The issue at question between a Scholastic and Neo-Calvinist view of common cultural activity is whether, and if so, then in what ways, Christians can interpret creational revelation (even when it isn’t a matter specifically taught in Scripture) through the lens of Scriptural teaching, in ways that are distinct from non-Christians.
Gregory:
In episode 4, we gave the following example and explanation. Scripture doesn’t specify the laws of proper reasoning; it doesn’t tell us what the logical laws are, such as the norm of non-contradiction. God doesn’t command us or give an imperative in Scripture “Thou shalt not contradict thyself mentally.” And even if He did, that wouldn’t be a moral norm, binding one’s moral conscience, but an analytical norm, a logical imperative. This, like many other cultural norms, is revealed by God in creation. It’s exclusively a matter of general or creational revelation, and the same for both believers and unbelievers. However, what one’s understanding of what anything, including for example logic, is or means, is influenced or directed (consciously or not) by a more basic view of reality, which in turn is most basically directed by an inevitable ultimate-religious view of what one takes as having metaphysical priority or self-existence, upon which everything else depends.
Kerry:
And through one’s redemption, one’s regeneration and union with Christ, a Christian can (and should) understand what logic is and means, in light of what we understand, to make it mean what it does mean, through the lens of all Scripture does teach, in a distinctively Christian way. When a believer experiences the world God has made, as created reality, held together in and by God in Christ alone, and experiences the impossibility of a thing, or things about it, being, at the same time and same sense, both the case and not-the-case, then that reveals we shouldn’t think of things otherwise, as contradictory, or in a contradictory way. That’s natural, or general, or creational revelation. And the basis for a Christian’s interpretation of the world, and so of what God reveals by it, can in that way be different from a non-Christian’s. And in episode 19 we explain this in more detail.
Gregory:
This matter of interpreting creational revelation is, broadly speaking, not entirely different from interpreting Scripture. Doesn’t the Bible simply say what it says? Doesn’t it say what it says, whether a Christian or non-Christian reads or hears it? Of course. But what are we to conclude from that obvious and superficial fact? Does pointing that out somehow imply that there can be no difference for anyone in understanding what Scripture is or means? Is this some kind of objection to, or defeater for, all orthodox Reformed hermeneutics and exegetical conclusions? No one would seriously try to defend that claim. In the same way, the fact that created reality and creational revelation is what it is for everyone, that there are different concrete ways that Christians can normatively engage in any given cultural activity, that Christians are not immune from sin and the effects of sin in their cultural activity, and shouldn’t be simplistic, and should be careful and modest about applying the term “Christian” —none of this entails that Christians shouldn’t seek to or can’t view their cultural activities in a distinctively Christian way, even when it’s not a matter of specific Scriptural teaching as such.
Kerry:
As a final example, we’ll consider the idea of limited civil governance. Historically, the Reformed have largely (and correctly) opposed absolute monarchy as illegitimate and tyrannous. The overall (Scripturally-informed) perspective from which they did so was largely correct, even if, in various concrete details, they did not have a clearer understanding of what God reveals (in Scripture and/or creation) as the fuller limitation He normed for legitimate civil governance.
Gregory:
VanDrunen specifies several things that constitute, in his view, Scriptural teaching on civil governance. For example, he says the institutional church is obligated to teach, and Christians are obligated to believe, that legitimate civil governance and civil governance-law is normatively limited by God in its jurisdiction, that is, in what it may legitimately coercively-enforce. In his book Politics After Christendom, VanDrunen has argued that this God-normed limitation on legitimate civil governance may be understood from Scriptural teaching as what he calls an exclusively “protectionist” purpose. Further, VanDrunen affirms that the exclusively protectionist purpose of civil governance entails the illegitimacy of monopoly or monopolistic claims on civil governance. Reformed libertarians agree with this view, even if VanDrunen is not entirely consistent in applying it to de facto monopoly states, as we do.
Kerry:
In any case, let’s suppose for the sake of argument (or for the sake of this illustration) that the God-ordained norm of an exclusively-protectionist limit on legitimate civil governance is not itself a matter of particular Scriptural teaching, but is only a matter of what God reveals in creation itself. If non-Christians can recognize and affirm such a limit on legitimate civil governance from general or creational revelation apart from Scripture (as in fact some do), they do so on the basis of some non-Christian religious ground (consciously or not). One of the facts about the universe, which is the same for Christians and non-Christians alike, is that legitimate civil governance is limited to an exclusively-protectionist purpose. And even non-Christians can recognize this fact.
Gregory:
But what does this mean? Does this situation mean that unless there is particular Scriptural teaching on the exclusively-protectionist limit of legit civil governance that Christians could not, nonetheless, interpret this creationally-revealed fact through the lens of all Scripture does teach? Does it mean Christians cannot have a distinctively Christian view of the exclusively-protectionist limit of legitimate civil governance? If Christians can take a distinctively Christian view of what is revealed in creation on this point, does that necessarily involve their improperly binding the moral conscience of others where Scripture does not?
Kerry:
Our answer to these questions is the following. Just as non-Christians can recognize the fact of an exclusively-protectionist limit on legitimate civil governance, and they inevitably do so ultimately upon the basis of some non-Christian religious ground, so too, Christians can and should interpret this fact about how God created the world, revealed in creation itself, through the lens of all Scripture does teach, and so have a view of limited civil governance that is distinctively Christian, even if we suppose Scripture doesn’t specifically address it. Christians will, of course, disagree about whether God has created the world that way, just as non-Christians will disagree about whether limited civil governance is normative on their own respective religious bases. Nevertheless, that Christians can and should seek to interpret creational revelation through the lens of Scripture, and thereby take a distinctively Christian view of something, does not entail that they are binding anyone’s moral conscience where Scripture does not.
Gregory:
Admittedly, Reformed libertarians, however fallibly, believe that Scripture actually does specifically address the God-normed exclusively-protectionist limit on legitimate civil governance, and that Christians are obligated to interpret Scripture correctly and to believe it. But even aside from that, Christians can and should view creational revelation and their cultural activities, including political views, on distinctively Scripturally-informed, Christian grounds, and so view it in a distinctively Christian way. And seeking to do so is not at odds, in any way, with affirming the distinction and proper relation between common grace and saving grace. A Neo-Calvinist view is not at odds with Reformed Two-Kingdoms distinctions, including a Neo- Two Kingdoms view, even if it is at odds with a Scholastic distortion that denies a distinctively Christian view is possible in matters exclusive to creational revelation. Further, such an orthodox Neo-Calvinist view no more improperly binds anyone’s moral conscience than does a Scholastic view.
Kerry:
That’s all for this episode. As always, give it some thought; we’d love to hear your comments or questions. And Lord willing, you’ll hear from us before long in 2025.
