To this day there are those who are still confused about Yeshua and the way he confronted the religious leaders of his people, the Israelites. The confusion is found among Christians who mistakenly think the problem with Judaism is that it is bound to the Torah, whereas Christians are released from the Torah. A similar confusion exists among many Jews who mistakenly think Yeshua was not the promised Messiah because he did not accept the Torah as explained by the official Jewish interpreters.

The truth of the matter is that both the Jews and the Messiah held a high view of the Torah. What brought them into conflict was their different methods of interpretation.

What is the reason for this confusion? R. Travers Herford, in his book, Talmud and Apocrypha,^[2] outlines the background to the development of Judaism following the Babylonian exile. Herford highlights the importance of Ezra’s call back to Torah, and the oath that the Jewish people took at that time, the “binding covenant” (Neh. 9:38).

Since there was no Old Testament canon at the time of Ezra, Herford recognizes the importance of the Torah which “ranked above all the rest of Scripture” Thus, “the Torah stands as the primary though not the only source of the later Jewish ethical teaching.”^[3] Over time, other documents obtained importance in Jewish ethical teaching, the documents that form the Old Testament, the Prophets and the Writings.

Why, then, the hostility between Yeshua and the Pharisees? They both agreed on the importance of the Torah and the prophetical books. What they did not agree upon was the method of interpretation. It was the way they interpreted the Scriptures that divided the Jews from the Messiah, and continues to do so today.

Unfortunately, many Christians follow the Pharisees rather than the Messiah on this issue.

What became a matter of interpretation for Judaism was the idea that some of the Scriptural content was ethically higher than other parts. Although all the parts of Scripture were considered equally divine, they were not of equal importance. Thus, Yeshua’s words about tithing mint, dill and cummin, but neglecting the weightier matters highlighted this practice. This idea also lay behind the question, “Which is the most important commandment?” Yeshua’s reply, by pointing to the summary of the Torah, indicates they are all equally important.

Judaism developed not only the idea that some Scripture was of a higher ethical value than other parts, but that their “advancing ethical consciousness” was capable of determining which were the higher ethical components. As Herford says, “they naturally drew from it that to which their own ethical consciousness responded.”^[4]

Judaism developed two systems of approaching God’s law, the halachah and haggadah. These two systems revolve around the idea of obligation. When the Rabbis made halachah, it was necessary to accept and obey. Haggadah, on the other hand, carried no such obligation. But it was halachah that the Messiah attacked so mercilously. “Woe to you, you blind guides! You say, `If someone swears by the Temple, he is not bound by his oath; but if he swears by the gold in the Temple, he is bound.’ You blind fools! Which is more important? the gold? or the Temple which makes the gold holy?”^[5] Here the Messiah draws attention to their conflicting halachah. In an effort to “comply” with Torah, the Jewish rabbis had merely undermined the real meaning of Torah.

In the early Maccabean period, Jose ben Joezer was influential in developing “the idea that the Torah contained more than the written word, that there were Torah which never had been written, and which, therefore, was none the less valid though no written text contained or confirmed it.”^[6] Hence the formal introduction of the Unwritten Torah, and those who proclaimed its teaching “did so on the authority of their own reason and conscience, and not by seeking their authority in the written text.”^[7] They did this, even though they had little foundation for it. But since the religious life of the people became less associated with the written Torah, it became the “replacement theology” of Judaism, and hence the confrontation with the real author of the written Torah, the Messiah.

Thus, Unwritten Torah “transformed the Torah from being only a written document already ancient and in danger of becoming obsolete into a continuous revelation keeping pace with the ages. . . .”^[8] The Unwritten Torah “made possible an ethical advance in the teaching given . . . by actually annulling an express command in the written Torah and replacing it by a halachah in accordance with a higher moral standard.”^[9] Such an approach “threw upon the teachers the responsibility of giving, as Torah, that which in their own mind and conscience was the highest, truest, and best.”^[10]

It is not too difficult to see how Judaism became known for its lack of uniformity in belief in the broader ethical issues. Apart from the Shema, acceptance of the unity of God, beliefs were not necessarily uniform, even though the idea was to enforce halachah rulings. Thus, says Herford, “there never has been in Judaism any declaration of belief holding the same position as the Creed holds in the Christian religions.”^[11] When there is no fixed theology, there cannot be a Creed — an “I believe” — that has broad acceptance.

It has been noted by some modern scholars that Judaism has developed no systematic theology, and this is considered a favorable response to Scripture. Christians, it is suggested, should emulate Judaism and come to the Scriptures in the same manner. The Hebrew mindset does not seek certainty in its doctrine. Such a view is Greek in origin, so it has been claimed. Yet this same Hebrew mind that rejects “certainty” is absolutely certain there should be no certainty. This is nuts!

Once you go down this path you create your own contradictions. There’s no certainty in doctrine? Are you certain about that? Because if you are, you simply contradicted the idea that there should not be certainty.

Such a view about systematic theology, however, reveals a large ignorance on the part of the proponents. All thinking is “systematic.” The only question is whether a person’s systematics will be biblical or not.

To come to the Scriptures in the same manner as the Pharisees in Jesus time is to invite the same condemnation. “If you understood Moses and the Prophets, you would know who I am,” declares Yeshua. You can imagine the confusion in the minds of the Teachers at that time. They were the experts on Moses – self-declared experts – teaching the people of Israel how to obey the commandments.

Yet Yeshua’s biting condemnations were never withdrawn. While ever the Pharisees held to the idea that they only needed to draw from Torah “that which their own ethical consciousness responded to,” you begin to the see the problem. Judaism had effectively found yet another way for man to be in control of determining truth and error, right and wrong, good and evil. He was still not prepared to sit in absolute subjection to the word of God as the supreme authority. Rather, it was his “advancing ethical consciousness” that equipped the Jew with the ability to create a hierarchy out of God’s commandments. Such a process allows man to sit as the final arbiter of what is and is not important. And this is what brought the conflict between HaMashiach and the Jews, and the words of Jeshua: “by your tradition you make null and void the word of God!”^[12]

The same situation exists today in Christianity. You do not have to look very far or wide to find Christians playing the equivalent of “pin the tail on the donkey” when it comes to selecting which of God’s commandments is valid, and how far it should be taken today. For some, it is time to dust off the old coat of written Torah and explore the new universe of Unwritten Torah. This becomes the “higher ethics” of contemporary Christianity which too has unhinged itself from written Torah.

The Pharisees were flabbergasted at Yeshua’s suggestion they did not really understand Torah and were “blind guides” to the people. Their response to his accusations? Kill him! Today, however, the blind guides continue to use their “advancing ethical consciousness” to tell us how to creatively select from Torah. In the process, they kill both the Torah and the kingship of the Messiah.

The words of Yeshua, in response, are just as valid today: “Blind guides! – straining out a gnat, meanwhile swallowing a camel. . . . [Y]ou appear to people from the outside to be good and honest, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and far from Torah.”^[13] The Jewish rejection of Yeshua as the Messiah is thus a rejection of his method of interpreting Scripture. Thus, he could throw this challenge to them: “But don’t think that it is I who will be your accuser before the Father. Do you know who will accuse you? Moshe, the very one you have counted on! For if you really believed Moshe, you would believe me; because it was about me that he wrote. But if you don’t believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”^[14] In the name of Torah, they were “far from Torah”. They had even interpreted Torah in such a way that they did not recognize what Moses had written about the Messiah.

These words of condemnation from the Messiah should cause us to consider our own attitude to Torah. Do we, in the name of Torah, place ourselves “far from Torah”? Am I under the description of a “blind guide”?

What would Yeshua have to say to the Christians today to get them to reconsider their views on both the words of the Torah and the Messiah’s method of interpretation.

[[10]]Ibid., p.68f.[[10]

[[14}}John 5:45-47.[[14]]

Myth – a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence. – Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

When Marcus Tullius Cicero introduced Greek philosophy into the Roman Empire, he helped set the stage for one of the most volatile debates as Christianity spread throughout the Empire. Cicero was a statesman, lawyer, politician, and a gifted orator. He was, following the Greeks, an ardent defender of the freedom of the will, what is referred to as “libertarian free will.” Cicero was not just a famous Roman citizen, he was a philosopher in the Greek tradition.

This is the idea that in order for man to have choice and true contingency it cannot be as Luther argued, and Augustine before him, the free will of a created being, as distinct from the free will of an uncreated being. Man’s free will in order to qualify for the name, it is argued, must be identical to God’s free will. They may not phrase it exactly like this, but this is what the demand for libertarian free will requires.

The debate has raged for well over two millennia. Can anything new be added? Maybe nothing new, but an improved emphasis on the key issue at stake here is important.

The Problem Defined

Defenders of libertarian free will fall into a pattern. They deny God’s infallibility, they deny his omniscience, they deny his immutability, they say God is everlasting but he is not timelessly eternal, and, naturally, they deny any concept of the eternal decrees. Any God who knows the future infallibly destroys human choice. If God knows now that you are going to get run over by an 18-wheeler tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 pm, then there is nothing you can do to prevent that. You cannot choose to take another route and thereby avoid the collision with the trailer.

It follows they reject the idea of the eternal decrees of God, whereby everything that comes to pass occurs because God planned it that way and ensured it would transpire. To them, this idea destroys human choice and contingency. Proponents of libertarian free will see a logical incoherency with the idea that somehow God can decree whatsoever comes to pass and yet, at the same time, hold man responsible for his actions. They see God’s eternal decrees as fatalism, destroying human contingency and genuine choice, believing God’s will and man’s will cannot coincide at the same time on the same issue.

In order to defend libertarian free will, its proponents must therefore deny what has traditionally been understood about God. How do they do this? What’s their rationale for this?

Mirror Theology

They get their views by looking into a mirror. There they see a being – a human being. They notice things, make observations, and then draw conclusions such as this. That person in the mirror is a self-conscious being. Here the person in the mirror is aware that there is subjectivity and objectivity to his self-awareness. He (subject) is aware of something else (object). So far, so good.

Not only do they see a being in the mirror, but they also see a person. To be a person, they suggest, requires things such as “remembering, anticipating, reflecting, deliberating, deciding, intending, and acting intentionally.” These activities are evident in the temporal person in the mirror before them. Again, so far, so good.

They see in the mirror a self-conscious person but also a person who has choice. A person looking into a mirror can remain looking in the mirror or he can choose to look elsewhere. There is nothing in the mirror that indicates man is a puppet dangling on the strings of the Master Puppeteer. All they see is free choice and contingency. Again, their observation is accurate. But it’s not their observations that are the problem; it is the conclusions they make from their observations.

They draw their conclusions – conclusions that are not essential from their observations. First, they conclude that consciousness “requires a precondition of temporality.”^[1] A timeless God would have “no contrast between attention and nonattention.” In other words, he cannot exhibit the characteristics of being a person like the one seen in the mirror. Self-awareness “necessarily implies mental transition.”^[2] For example in order to be a self-aware person requires “that God must be able to shift his attention from the object of His consciousness to Himself as the subject of that consciousness.”^[3] If he cannot do this, he’s not self-conscious. So the traditional view of God is rejected and a changing God who is subject to the conditions of time is substituted. “Any being who is self-conscious must exhibit change. . . . In other words, self-conscious beings logically must be temporal beings.”^[4] As a result, both time and change are now everlasting conditions of the God who is no longer eternal in the traditional sense.

Second, they similarly conclude that you cannot be a person and exhibit the characteristics of the timeless God. Attributes of personhood as seen in the mirror are determined to be the standard of personhood which applies to both God and man. A person without a past has nothing to “remember”. Since they want a God who “remembers” in just the same way the person they see in the mirror remembers, they conclude that the orthodox view of God is the wrong one.

This argument gets really interesting when they move into the concept of a tenseless God. If there is no past, present or future for God, he cannot recognize that the Battle of Avarayr took place before the Battle of Waterloo. For him, everything is timeless, so there is no past present or future. In the free will view, only a being that is temporally located can speak of the past and the future, as well as the present.

And finally, the point of contention, choice. If God has eternally decreed everything that comes to pass, you have no genuine choice. They conclude, therefore, that the eternal decrees mean fatalism. In their desire to avoid fatalism, however, some people turn to another false idea, deism, or a modified deism. This is the belief that God does not intervene in the activities of the natural world, or if he does, it is only ex post facto – after the fact. Libertarian free will requires the god of deism, because this seems to be the only way to avoid fatalism.

In summary, the eternal decrees have been thrown out, so too have omniscience, infallibility, immutability, and everlasting time is a substitute for timeless eternity. This, they assert with confidence, is what “logic” demands of the “facts” – the facts they have observed in the mirror.

So you are tempted to ask: how do they know God’s consciousness requires “a precondition of temporality”?^[5] And if they could answer this question coherently, without contradictions, would that not mean they were capable of penetrating the mind of God exhaustively in order to make the conclusion? Since they cannot penetrate the divine being to answer this question, it must be they simply assumed God must be like the person they see in the mirror.

It is true that “remembering” is a part of what it means to be a human person. And God certainly uses the phrase “remember” when the writer of Exodus says, “God remembered his covenant.” But a similar question arises to the one asked above. While it may be true that created beings remember things from the past, how do they know that God’s remembering is identical to this? They offer no proof for their assertion; they merely assume that God’s remembering is identical to the kind of remembering done by the person in the mirror. Then they conclude that “in some fundamental way, we shall have to treat God after the model of human personal being.”^[6] In other words, God is to be made in the image of man.

From the Mountain Top

In addressing the ideas of the “openness” of God and the idea of libertarian free will, it is clear that “logic” is going to be held out by those on both sides of the argument. Both sides insist theirs is the only coherent response to the issue of free will. But in amongst all of the talk, one lone voice stands out apart from the rest. That’s the voice that insists – demands – that free will assumptions are put to the test of real logic – presuppositionalism. Among other things, this is a recognition that arbitrariness has no place in the discussion. It’s also the understanding that people arrive at their conclusions because they have already predetermined the truthfulness of their position. This is as true for the traditional theists as it is for the free will theists.

But now comes the real issue: which of the two explanations of God and man is coherent? And what are the criteria for coherency? In other words, what are the rules of logic? Or, what are the preconditions of intelligibility? That is, in order for this to be true, what needs to be in place? In order to respond to these questions, you first need to get your doctrine of God and your theory of knowledge sorted out.

The traditional view of God is wrapped up in the via negativa approach in its description of God. In other words, other men have peered in the mirror just like the free will theists, and made opposite conclusions. If what I see in the mirror is created human being, says the traditional theist, then God must be the opposite (negative) of that. If I see a being that is finite, then God is infinite; if I see a being that is changeable, then God is unchangeable; if I see a being that makes choices, these cannot be the choices of an uncreated human being, but the choices of a created being. For it is a created being that is seen in the mirror.

In that mirror, however, both sides of the free will debate see a human being that is limited. It does not matter how we understand the outworking of those limitations, everyone recognizes in the mirror a person who has not reached his full potential. They see an object where actuality and potentiality are yet to be fully realized And so, the traditional theists understand that in God – uncreated being – potentiality and actuality are both fully complete. “In God,” says Van Til, there is eternal accomplishment.”^[7]

What does this mean? It means that God is not becoming God, he has never been anything else. He is not becoming anything. He is fully God. He’s not learning new things, gaining new powers, improved understanding, nor has he any unrealized potential. For example, if God can choose not to be God, this means that he has the potential to do that, but just hasn’t done it yet. Maybe he’ll get around to it one day.^[8]

What does this do for a theory of knowledge? It means that all knowledge is tied up in the concept of the God as the one who is eternally and fully accomplished. Without this, there is no “true truth,” to borrow a phrase from Francis Schaeffer, just random guesswork. There are no laws of science, no laws of logic that can supply the foundation for a universal statement of any kind. Instead, you end up with Kantian solipsism, for you cannot get law and order out of randomness or chaos.

There’s an interesting declaration by God in Isa. 45:18: “For thus says ADONAI, who created the heavens, God, who shaped and made the earth, who established and created it not to be chaos, but formed it to be lived in: ‘I am ADONAI; there is no other.’” Here you see the express declaration that God has created order in the universe, not chaos. This is the very foundation of scientific law or even the laws of logic. But this does not deter the free will theists who suggest that God has actually created “the necessary conditions for the existence of the chaotic element in history. . . .”^[9]

If this were true, then the free will theists have created an enormous hurdle to overcome. If the universe is one of chance then no laws can function, including the law of contradiction. So every time they try to use “logical possibility” as a grounds for their view, they have completely undermined their own position. This is the ultimate embarrassment, to find your own views contradict themselves. But, since there is no law of contradiction they can say whatever they like. They substitute incoherency for coherency, then wonder why orthodox Christian dogma is what it is.

If God is completely self-sufficient, then, as Van Til argues, he is both absolute rationality and absolute will. Among other things, this means that since God is fully complete and self-sufficient, there is nothing to which God might be held accountable. For example, God is not accountable to some standard called the Good, a Platonic concept. He is the standard. There is nothing by which he can measure himself. He is the “I AM who I AM.” He is not the “I AM” of Plato’s Good; he is not the “I AM” of earth; he is simply “I AM who I AM.”

Ask this question: To whom or what is God accountable? Who is going to delegate to God responsibilities then hold him accountable for how well he carries them out? You might think it’s a dumb question, but it’s at the heart of the free will debate. Here’s why.

Free will theism demands that in order to be responsible, man must have libertarian free will. That means he cannot be unduly influenced by anyone – especially God – in his decision making. He must be in all respects like God concerning freedom of choice.

With this in mind you can see why the orthodox view of God became the dominant view. There was no logical alternative. Any concept of human free will as a first cause threw mankind into an intellectual bind. For starting from himself, man cannot climb the ladder of logic and knowledge. In fact, he does not know if he is even on the right ladder, since his presuppositions don’t provide the framework for him to get a valid reference point. It’s like trying to use a GPS system without a satellite.

The Meaning of Sovereignty

The free will theist, thus, confuses uncreated and created being. He attributes to the divinely uncreated being, God, the attributes of humanity, and thus makes God in the image of man. In so doing, he destroys any concept of a God who is fully complete within himself. And without that, you don’t have a God who exercises sovereignty over his creation.

Oh no, says the free will theist, we still believe in the sovereignty of God. We still believe in omniscience; we’ve just redefined it. God does know all the potentialities, all the possible choices you might make. He just doesn’t know which one you will make until you make it.

Now if God is not the absolute, self-determined God, he is certainly discovering the choices of his creatures’ “free” actions. It’s as if God is in a game of cosmic chess. He sees on the chessboard of the universe all the possible moves that can be made. But he doesn’t know which piece of the game of life will be moved until someone moves it. At that point, God learns something new. Now he’s no longer anticipating. Now he knows the actual decisions of his creatures. Now he is no longer in a state of indecision, waiting to find out which way you are going to move. Now that you’ve moved, God can respond; but not until he’s learned what you have done.

Then you ask yourself, how can God provide an accurate and absolutely reliable Scripture if he’s still learning? How can his predictions in Scripture be relied upon? When you read God’s challenge in Isa. 44:7, “Who is like me? . . . let him foretell future signs and events,” their view makes God nothing more than a cosmic poker player who’s calling a bluff over his opponents. Maybe he can tell the future, maybe he can’t. Who’s willing to use this as the ultimate criterion for their definition of the true God?

“Well,” says the free will theist, “he knows the future for some people completely, but he doesn’t know it for everyone.”^[10] On what basis can they say this is a universal truth about God? How do they know this is even remotely true unless they know which ones he knows it for? Again, they assume to know exhaustively the mind of God.

Soon you will get a reply. It is “logical possibility” that drives the free will theist. Free will theists believe that if they can suggest a “logical possibility” then this is proof of their claims. Just as an inebriated person might claim that pink elephants are a “logical possibility,” there is no necessity that pink elephants really exist. Similarly, just because free will theists claim the “logical possibility” of time without change,^[11] this is not a proof that there really is any time that has no change whatsoever. In other words, just because you can conceive of something does not make that conception true. To prove the idea of time without change would at least require proof that aging does not take place, or else proof that aging is not a change. Just saying there is time without change does not make it a true statement.

Here is the line in the sand. On one side are the Christian theists who build on what the Old and the New Testaments teach about God. On the other side of the line are the open theists who insist that God is not self-determinative, that he is at this moment being determined by your choices, my choices, and the choices of billions of people currently on earth, that he is not in total control of his creation, since he has abdicated that position. To whom, you ask? Why God has abdicated his self-determination to man, of course. God will now become what man determines by his “libertarian free will.”

What is Man?

If God is absolutely self-determinative, however, what does that make man? If man is created – created even in God’s image – then man cannot be self-determinative. Created man, rather, is determined by his environment, the environment in which he finds himself as a created being. He was not created and placed in a vacuum. Rather, he was placed in a universe that has God’s “invisible qualities – both his eternal power and his divine nature – clearly displayed” (Rom. 1:20, CJB, see also Psalm 19.). Further, at creation man was in the Garden, in the presence of God, knew God intimately, and knew that God had laid down an ethical demand. It is this environment that makes man’s choice genuinely moral, not as a first cause, but as a second cause. Adam was created with perfect character and in this environment he and Eve rebelled against their Creator.

It is this environment that is denied by the idea of libertarian free will. For them, Adam had to be away from all “influence”. He had to be “free” to act univocally (lit. one voice) rather than analogically (similarly, or an imitation). He had to have no character, because it was up to him to create character by his libertarian free will choices. Yet, as Van Til explains, it is this very issue of univocal versus analogical action that defines the difference between the self-determinative God and the God-determined creature. For only a self-contained, fully complete and self-determined God can act univocally, from within himself, whereas man must receive his true knowledge from another source and reproduce it. Man cannot create knowledge starting from himself. The creation account indicates that Adam and Eve needed God’s special revelation, apart from creation, to know there was a tree whose fruit should not be eaten. They could not have determined that for themselves.

Whatever Happened to Sin?

What’s at stake here? Sin! Man cannot act univocally unless he, like God, is self-sufficient. But if man is self-determinative, then sin becomes an impossibility for him, just as sin is an impossibility for God. In the words of Van Til,

“Christians need to become fundamentally conscious of the fact that man cannot think and cannot act truly unless he thinks and acts analogically. The very presupposition of man’s being able to sin is that from the outset God created him a perfect moral character. And the very possibility of sin implies the plan of God as its background. Man cannot sin in the blue. Does this make God responsible for sin instead of man? On the contrary, this is the only way in which man can be considered responsible. Only an analogical act is a responsible act.”

The demand for libertarian free will is a demand for man to be as God. And if this were true, there would be no sin for man and no need of a special act of redemption by God.

No wonder you find the open theists talking the language of Cicero. Like their Roman counterpart who followed the bankrupt ideas of the Greek philosophers, the modern day Cicero’s are going to argue that God cannot be what Scripture says he his, that man cannot be what Scripture says he is, and as a consequence, Scripture cannot be what Scripture declares itself to be.^[12]

The Myth of Libertarian Free Will

Libertarian free will creates the idea of a self-limiting God in order to make way for an unlimited free will in man. But you cannot argue this way and maintain genuine human responsibility and accountability. If the very essence of God is his self-determination, then libertarian free will introduces its own incoherency into the debate. Van Til again: “In the first place it would be self-contradictory for God to limit himself. It is of his very essence to be self-determinative. And since he is eternal he cannot be self-determinative at one time and no longer self-determinative at another time. The idea of self-limitation of God sacrifices the self-sufficiency of God.”

Thus the God of libertarian free will is a self-limiting God who, in turn, is no longer self-sufficient. If he is no longer self-sufficient, then he is no longer absolute will and absolute rationality. He is, instead, fallible, changeable, and potentially somewhat capricious. Now with that background, how do you expect to be able to solve issues? Such a God cannot even give you a valid starting point, an infallible revelation from and of himself.

How can man find true freedom of the creature if he ‘liberates’ himself from the background of the absolute plan of God? In order to achieve this kind of freedom man “has to start his moral activity in a perfect blank, he has to continue to act as a moral blank and he has to act in the direction of a moral blank,” argues Van Til.

This is an impossibility for man, a nonsense. Yet this is the myth proposed by the proponents of libertarian free will. That somehow, man can escape completely any environment of God, and from this perfectly blank state he can bring forth genuine human freedom. But it is not this kind of freedom Scripture indicates, since “true freedom for man consists in self-conscious, analogical activity.” Hence, when Scripture refers to any idea of man’s liberty, it is within the context of God’s law, as man acts the way God designed him to act rather than the way he determines he is willing to act.

According to libertarian free will, God is bound by the free decisions that men make. In freeing man, they have merely hog-tied God, the reverse of the orthodox view.

Is God Irresponsible?

When Van Til says that only an analogical act can be a responsible act, the immediate opposite comes to mind. Does it mean that univocal acts are irresponsible acts? If so, does this mean that God’s actions – truly univocal – are irresponsible?

The answer to these questions is tied up in the concept of responsibility and accountability. Accountability is to be held to an ideal, a standard. God cannot be held to any concept – say, Plato’s Good – any more than he can be held accountable to anyone other than himself. By definition, then, God’s actions are always “responsible” because they cannot be anything else. But to say it like this is to imply that the application of the word “responsible” to God is inappropriate. You can only use the phrase “responsible and accountable” if there is an external standard by which the actions are measured. No such standard exists in relation to God.

Man, on the other hand, is created being, and therefore his origin begins and continues in the background of God. Not only is man created, but he is placed in an environment created by God. Therefore man’s actions are “responsible” actions precisely because he is an analogical creature. Not only made in God’s image, but also put into an original moral environment by one instruction: do not eat.

This is why man’s responsibility is only possible because of God and his creation. It is this backdrop that creates true responsibility and accountability – not for man as a first cause (univocal) but for man as secondary cause (analogical).

God Overboard

All this, however, is thrown overboard to gain libertarian free will, despite their best protestations. They argue that God is “dynamically omniscient,” or “the description of God as a timeless being is not reconcilable with the logic of the concept of person.” Or they offer the startling conclusion that “since tensed facts can be known only by a temporary being, God must be temporal.”

A timeless God is not reconcilable to which standard? Logic and the concept of person. There’s the key. They have a man-centered view of what it means to be a person, they add to this the finite logic of man, and attempt to make statements of universal proportions about God.

Did these views come from Scripture? No. They were derived by “logic” and peering in the mirror of humankind. Then these conclusions were taken as the principles by which Scripture would be read. In other words, they start outside the Scriptures, in nature, attempt to read their conclusions back into the Scriptures, and end up with Rushdoony’s idea of “an alien faith.”

Conclusion

Once you grasp the central starting point of libertarian free will – created order – you understand that its idea of theism and yours are not even close. This is a rerun of the tempter’s lie in Eden: eat of the fruit, and the created order will henceforth determine what is true or false, right or wrong, good or evil. This is an epistemological framework from below, not from above, and like the devil in the temptation of the Messiah, exhibits a profound misuse and misunderstanding of what Scripture teaches.

If libertarian free will were true it would place man’s actions in a univocal void – away from God, and therefore away from responsibility and accountability. By eliminating God’s eternal decrees as the backdrop to man’s activities, libertarian free will instead places man in the position of God – responsible only to himself. This cannot be even close to the truth, given the language of Scripture in the early chapters of Genesis. Further, if man is ultimately univocal, then his salvation depends on himself. All he has to do is make the right choices. He cannot be so “dead” in sin that he needs the regenerating work of the Spirit of God. That would, in effect, deny his libertarian free will.

It makes you wonder why God went to all the trouble if all it needed was man to make the right “libertarian free will” choices.

Of course, it is not just regular businesses that fail. Banks fail, too. More than one prominent fund manager has gotten into difficulty owing to the use of debt. This should come as no surprise to us. When financial institutions (e.g. banks) borrow “short” and lend “long” you know that there is great potential for financial ruin for many people.

It is a strange, if not ludicrous, idea that a bank or any other institution, can borrow money from “depositors” with the promise that the money is “at call,” yet lend that same money out for periods of up to 25-30 years. You’re told that banks are the safest place for your money. This may not be correct, even though government guarantees depositor funds up to some amount. (A government guarantee is about valuable as the paper they use for money.) The banks are playing the game: borrow short, lend long, and pocket the difference.

What many people don’t understand is the legal relationship they have with a bank. They believe, falsely, that when they deposit money in the bank their relationship with the bank is that of depositor to trustee, and that the bank is holding their money in trust to be returned on demand. Such is not the case, however, and there is legal evidence to prove otherwise. There is some evidence for this view, for your bank statement indicates the bank holds your account as their liability. But, there is more.

At one time in English history bankers were legally considered to be bailees. A bailee, according to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, is a person with whom a delivery in trust is made, upon a contract (expressed or implied), that the trust shall be faithfully executed. Thus, bankers contracted to return the specific goods given to them in trust for safe-keeping.

However, with the development of metallic coinage, a shift began to take place in the legal relationship that existed between bankers and those who made deposits with them. According to Dr. Mark Skousen,^[2]

The change was an evolutionary one. During the 17th and 18th centuries, bank customers filed suit over fractional reserve banking and the legal status of customers’ deposits. In nearly every case, the courts ruled consistently that the banker was only a debtor and not a bailee or trustee. Why? Principally because money or coins in storage were not specifically identifiable. This was the sine qua non in any case involving theft or robbery of property – the stolen property or goods must, according to the courts, be identifiable. But individual customers’ coins could not be identified. Thus, because of the fungible nature of money, the banker could not be held accountable as a bailee. The courts treated the banking situation just as they would any other case dealing with fraud or theft; they simply did not see the special nature of money deposits; thus, ‘the bailment of money, in the shape of loose and therefore unidentifiable coins, where the bailor’s only action for the recovery of the money is one of debt.’^[3]

The issue was not laid to rest in England until the early 19th century. Again, some depositors challenged the traditional rulings of the English courts, arguing that “banks should be held to a degree of responsibility little or nothing short of that which belongs to the class of bailees under which common carriers, innkeepers, and others are ranked.”^[4] However, “The court, in Pitts vs. Glegg, laid it down, in 1833, that sums which are paid to the credit of a customer with a banker, though usually called deposits, are in truth loans by the customer to the banker. . . .”^[5]

Note the shift in thinking. The bankers do not have to return the actual money deposited with them because of the difficulty of identifying the money as belonging to a particular depositor. They are to return the amount, that is, the equivalent value of the deposit, however. (Only lawyers, judges, and economists could come up with the difference between the money and the amount) But where will they get the money to pay this amount? The current practice is from another depositor who has just placed his money in the bank. This game ends, however, when people stop putting money into the bank while current depositors withdraw their funds. Then everyone learns the bitter lesson: the storage house is empty.

There you have one of the best kept secrets in the financial world: bankers are borrowers, and when you deposit money in the bank you are little more than an unsecured lender to the bank. This information will be small comfort to those who have lost their life’s savings in the past, believing in the fiction that their money is safe in the banks. It will be even less comfort to those who have just lost their savings in the collapse of other financial institutions.

Next time you deposit money in the bank and think you have somehow avoided the pitfalls of fellow savers who have lost their money recently, think about these words of Lord Cottenham, in the case of Foley vs. Hill, in 1848:

The money placed in the custody of a banker is, to all intents and purposes, the money of the banker, to do with it as he pleases; he is guilty of no breach of trust in employing it; he is not answerable to the principal if he puts it into jeopardy, if he engages in a hazardous speculation; he is not bound to keep it or deal with it as the property of his principal; but he is, of course, answerable for the amount, because he has contracted, having received that money, to repay to the principal, when demanded, a sum equivalent to that paid into his hands.^[6]

It is of little consolation to those who have lost everything to learn that “the courts did feel, however, that the use of the term ‘deposit’ was misleading, though they still permitted its use by bankers.”^[7] Everyone’s been relegated from the status of depositor to that of unsecured lender to the bank.

TRULY, fools and their money are soon parted. Which is why those who follow the biblical teaching will do their best to avoid debt, not only as a borrower, but also as a lender. Borrowers, apparently, cannot be trusted — especially when the borrowers are governments who lack any semblance of fiscal responsibility, and bankers, who are legally protected from their moral obligations by the politicians who make the law.

It is not always easy to balance theory and practice, yet that is the challenge of business. At the end of the day, we may theorize as much as we like, about prices, markets, the quality of our goods, or our selling skills. But if our business is to survive, we must take our theorizing and fuse it with practical realities.

Management as a necessary practice in every business, but especially small business. If a business has grown beyond a certain size it has already learned that management in some form is essential. What smaller businesses need to realize is that management is the key to growth and without it the business is usually
retarded.

Think of a business as you would think of a child. A child is born, grows through certain stages, eventually reaching adulthood, and then spends the rest of its life expanding its knowledge and abilities. Maturity is a journey, not a destination, an ongoing activity unless we want to stop the maturity process.

Too many organizations are kept in childhood. They never grow up. They remain small, stunted in growth, like a child that suffers from malnutrition. The reasons for this are not hard to find. Either the organization fails to grow because it is starved of funds, or else it fails to grow because it is starved of management. These two reasons are related quite often.

Frequently, small businesses succeed in spite of themselves. There are multiple reasons why people go into business in the first place, but not everyone starts a business because they have the management skills to do so. For many people a business is a way to get an income and to get more direct control of their work activities. The results are not always as expected. Every business functions with five key areas. These areas are inescapable. They exist whether we acknowledge them or not. Successful businesses, however, recognize these areas and work on them to improve their function within the business. These key areas are:

An organization — yes, even a not-for-profit — functions by developing activities under each of these areas, then assigning these activities as responsibilities to employees. In the start up, one-person business, it is easy to see who gets all these responsibilities: the business owner. And here is where the trouble often begins.

It takes an extraordinary person to be able to take on all the responsibilities in the business. In fact, it rarely happens successfully. And there is a reason for this. There is more work in each of these areas than one person can expect to handle. The fact that it can rarely be done, however, does not deter many from trying. The results are usually burnout of the business owner or, more likely, the burnout of his wife, with deteriorating life-style and a business that hangs like a millstone around the owner’s neck. How he wishes he had never started this enterprise, and often longs to return to the good old days of a regular wage and less stress.

How did the business owner get himself into this mess? He arrived there by not understanding that each of these five key areas needs to be addressed before any business should be started. Then the problems would have been foreseen and some action plan developed to either prevent certain things form happening or at least manage the issues as they arise.

If you take the first of these key areas and ask what are the functions of the business owner, you create a list that includes amongst them, the necessity to provide the working capital for the business. Well, says the business owner, how much capital do I need to provide? The person to answer this question is the executive officer, whoever he might be. In the one-person business, this happens to be the business owner, who now must provide himself with a credible business plan. But plans cost money, so the business plan needs to have a list of revenue and expenses that go with it. “If we do this, it will cost us so many dollars,” says the business plan.

And now the business owner can respond and either agrees to provide the capital or else demand that the business plan be altered. The trouble in the one person business, however, is that the business owner will not demand that the executive officer provide him with a business plan that allows him to determine if he has the necessary means to finance this business. No, says the one-person business, I can step around these conventions of planning and just launch the business. All will be well. And if the business owner is a Christian, he often backs this up with the ultimate insurance policy: God will ensure my success in spite of my poor planning.

Unfortunately, not all businesses started by Christians are successful, so either God is a failure, or else you might consider that God wants you to operate in a different manner. God, of course, is under no obligation to bless us, though He promises to do so as an act of grace. Christian business owners must confront the same market conditions as non-Christians. And at the end of the day, a business needs to be managed, irrespective of the religious belief of the owners. This is the food that stimulates growth in the business and if we fail to feed the business with good management we can expect it to have stunted growth or it may even die young.

The problem of the business owner is compounded even more when he asks the executive officer (himself) to provide a business plan and he discovers that the executive officer cannot read a profit and loss statement, does not comprehend a balance sheet, and cannot even tell the difference between a debit and a credit. (And this is made even more difficult if we ask the executive officer does a debit add or subtract an amount, a trick question for those who don’t understand accounting.)

The business owner is in over his head already, without considering the other areas of the business. It may well be that the business owner has selling skills, or he may be a brilliant engineer and can weld steel better than most, but it is a rare occurrence to find a business owner who can do these activities. And even if he can do them all, the needs to ask this question: Who is doing the selling while the financial officer is entering data into the computer and producing management reports? The answer, of course, is that no one is doing the selling job, just as no one is cutting the steel, operating the printing press, or providing whatever service it is that this business offers. Neither is anyone managing the marketing and sales area, managing the production area, or managing the finance and administration area. In other words, this one-person business is short on management. On top of all this, if the same person doing all this work is the executive officer, then no one is fulfilling this function because the executive officer is absent from his desk while he is the
salesman, the delivery man, the order taker, the receptionist, or some other task in
the business.

And therein lies the difference between a small and a large business, a successful business and a not-so-successful one. It is not that the larger and successful business has a perfect system of management, as so many have discovered in recent corporate failures. But the business with proper management practices gives the business a much better success rate. For example, the one-person business operator longs for the day when he can make a million dollars. But he does not realize that in order to make that million dollars, it might cost him $3,000 a day in expenses for each day he works (approximately 240 days a year on a 5-day working week). And if he does not keep track of the money owing to him and keep this in check, for every day he has to finance the business from his own pocket, he has to find that $3,000 to pay the bills. If he collects his money in 45 days, but pays all his suppliers in 35 days, then he needs to find an additional $30,000 just to keep the business afloat. Almost no business owner thinks about this when he starts up his business. The ones that do are usually management-hardened executives from larger corporations who have decided to go it alone. (Buying into a franchise is sometimes, but not always, another way to start up a business with management practices in place.)

The one-person business owner, however, finds a willing partner to aid him: his wife. In many instances, she can’t do the work of the business, is not a sales person, doesn’t understand marketing (how many people really do?), so she will be given the accounts to do.

“We’ll get a computer, honey, and you can do the accounting.” While many wives make marvelous debt collectors, they are not always so good a producing the management information necessary for their husband’s success. And as she is often combining this with home duties such as feeding the children, changing diapers, cleaning the house, running children to the doctor, dentist, and the myriad other things of which many husbands are not fully aware, it does not take long for desperation and burnout to set in. “I want out of this business” is a familiar refrain from many wives. It is understandable — and to be expected.

Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his book, “Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity”, has this to say about Judaism:

God is waiting for the sinner. Up to the last day, God is waiting for his return. Man has to respond. The question of original sin is not of primary importance for the Jew. The problem is not how shall I be saved. The problem is how shall I serve God at this very moment.

Elsewhere in this book Heschel is critical of Christianity because it does not recognize, or at least, some Christians never read, the Old Testament.

This is an interesting criticism. To which the Christian might validly respond, but Jews do not acknowledge Jesus as Messiah, and read the New Testament.

Both arguments have some validity. By themselves, however, neither position explains the unique differences that separate Judaism and Christianity.

For example, Heschel appears unfamiliar with certain traditions within Christianity that have attempted to uphold the Torah. Read the Westminster Confession of Faith Larger Catechism and its answers to the questions of the Ten Commandments. Similarly the Heidelberg Catechism. Both Catechisms draw largely from the Torah in their explanation on how those commandments are to be obeyed. You only have to read Rushdoony’s trilogy, Institutes of Biblical Law, to discover the revitalization of a long tradition of Christian adherence to the Torah.

Now while there is evidence that the Old Testament is in low esteem within Christianity in our age, what is also evident is the revival of Biblical Law that is occurring. It is challenging conventional wisdom, and there are many who have moved away towards a closer relationship with the Torah. Some people haven’t moved far enough, but at least they are moving.

But for Heschel, his adamant demand is this: “Christians must abandon the idea that the Jews must be converted. This is one of the greatest scandals in history.”

It is easy to understand why. His earlier statement indicates that doing something is what is important, not “getting saved.” For Heschel, doing something is more likely to get you into God’s presence than overcoming the problem of sin. This is the dividing line. We can do good works now, but how do we overcome the penalties that we deserve for past errors and omissions? Even if we could live a perfect life from this point on, there is the past to deal with.

It is the theory of the Atonement, thus, that separates non-Messianic Jews and Christians. Thus Dr. Heschel has a half-truth, for doing something — the right thing — is important in Christianity. But so too is the person of Jesus Christ and the New Testament claims that He is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, and therefore the sacrificial Lamb who makes atonement for the sins of His people.

His statements provide the dividing line between Judaism and Christianity. The debate revolves around the person of Jesus Christ. Is He the Mashiach (Messiah), Anointed One, the one promised in Daniel 9:26? Is he the promised Deliverer, prophesied elsewhere in the Old Testament?

Heschel is right on one point. The key is the Old Testament. And this is why the gospel of Matthew, for example, goes to great lengths to link Jesus of Nazareth with the Old Testament. For if Jesus cannot obtain his presence and authority from those Scriptures, then Judaism is correct: the Messiah is still to come.

Later, Heschel says, “A Jew, in his own way, should acknowledge the role of Christianity in God’s plan for the redemption of all men.” The key words here are “in his own way.” This apparently does not mean accepting the Nicene Creed, the Trinitarian formulation, nor the Chalcedonian treatment of the two natures of Christ. It means accepting the Judaistic interpretation of Christianity. This is a little like Mormonism and Mohammedanism: both acknowledge the Old Testament, provided they are read through the grid of a later interpretation offered by these cults.

So we are back to the original question: Is Jesus the Messiah, the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy?

But more than that, Heschel is keen to show that the Christian view of YHWH is apparently not “Jewish.” For example, he claims the idea of God’s omnipotence is Mohammedan in origin. This is a unique theory of origins. Is there nothing in the Old or New Testaments that might allude to the all-powerfulness of God? With such an apparent mistaken idea about God, what possible assistance could God require from Christians in advancing His idea of salvation? It must only be to the extent that Christians propose Judaism that it can help with the redemption of all men.

It is then a small step to also deny the omniscience of God. Pretty soon you have a God who cannot save without the cooperation of man, a God who does not determine the future, because for Him, the future is unknown until he peers into his crystal ball to see what outcome will occur.

A god who does not know everything of course cannot speak with absolute authority on anything. Tomorrow this god might learn something new and then change his view about something.

So not only is the idea of a Scripture that contains “true truth” abandoned, but so too is the possibility of knowing that anything is true. In fact, you even give up the idea of knowing for certain that God is not omniscience.

At the bottom of this is the trilogy of Presuppositionalism. Your epistemology (how you know) is dependent upon your metaphysics (who you are), which in turn governs your morality (right and wrong, truth and error). While people come to the Bible with their presuppositions unchallenged by Scripture, the Scriptures will be interpreted through the wrong set of colored glasses. The unchallenged presuppositions of people such as Pelagius, Erasmus, Descartes, Fuerbach, Kant, Rouseau, Neitsche, Niebuhr, Barth and Heschel are a testimony to this problem.

How can you tell? By the way Scripture is used to justify statements. For example, if the Bible does not teach the omnipotence of God, then what does it teach? What do those passages that are used to support this teaching by Christians really mean, especially the Old Testament passages? We’re never told. This is not argument or reason from the Scripture: it is simply dogmatism of the worst kind. For it treats people as idiots who must accept the statements not because they are true, but because of who said them. We are back in the land of Greek philosopher-kings.

Begging the question is always the sign of an insecure argument. Hellenism has certainly influenced Christianity. But the reverse is equally true, and that’s how Christendom came into existence. It may not have been perfect, and Hellenic influences abound. So too do the Old Testament influences.

It is Scripture that allows us to find our way through the fogs of Judaism, Hellenism, Marcionism, Montanism, Pelagianism, Seballianism, the teachings of Augustine, Maimonides, Luther, Calvin, Knox, or anyone else. If you don’t believe that, you might as well read “Das Kapital”.

If Scripture cannot be read and understood, then you are indeed lost with no way out, unless you follow the latest guru of Judaism, Christianity, Mohammedanism, Mormonism, Humanism, and the many other ideas that offer salvation in return for your allegiance.

You may be right. I don’t know much.

But I do know my Project Director, Carol. She’s almost my age , and one of the hardest workers in the company. She works to support her husband and daughter. Why?

For one thing: health insurance.

You see, Carol had her own consulting business. Making decent money, her husband, 10 years older, was in real estate. They had been paying their health insurance for 19 years. On time, too.

Then it happened. She had a car accident. Her back was broken in two places. Three months later, her husband had the first of three heart attacks. She sued for the insurance money, got paid, but had to settle earlier than was possible in order to get money.

Her husband was in hospital, ready for an operation, when the news came. Your health insurance has been canceled.

For an American, those six words are some of the deadliest it is possible to hear. “Your health insurance is canceled.” Now what do you do?

You do what Carol had to do: find a company that would employ her, and want her bad enough they would put both her and her husband on the health insurance plan.

Now Carol’s a conservative who on most issues would probably vote towards the right. But not on health care. Not when it comes to her and her family. She’ll vote for Obama — every time. So will her husband.

Why? Because the party that mouths “free market, free market” doesn’t have a plan to resolve the problems Carol and her family had to face, and continue to face: expensive health care and no insurance.

Obama gave her health care insurance at affordable rates, so that if she gets laid off again, she’ll still have health care that can take care of her husband and herself.

Is it as good a health care system as the free market? Who cares? Neither Carol, nor her family. What they care about is affordable health care and one another, not the free market.

What they care about is access to quality health care. That is more important to them than free market.

How many other Americans think the same way? Many, many of them.

There are no free market alternatives available to Carol. The free market has spoken: “Uninsurable: Not Wanted Here.” If there are affordable alternatives, neither Carol nor many other Americans know of their existence.

So you can guess who will get her vote next election. Whoever offers Obamacare.

It’s here to stay. Get used to the idea.

To hear tell, geocentricity, the ancient Biblical doctrine that the earth is fixed motionless at the center of the universe, died over four centuries ago. At that time Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astrologer, suggested the sun and not the earth was the center of the universe (heliocentrism). Copernicus knew his proposal was heretical to Christian thought and the Bible. Thus he delayed the publishing of his idea for about thirty years. For the next hundred years a debate raged in scientific and theological circles. By 1650 the consensus shifted from geocentricity to heliocentrism, even though there was no scientific evidence favoring either model.

Geocentricity has not been without its spokesmen over the years. Among the educated scientists who attested to geocentricity were three generations of Cassinis (astronomers who dominated French astronomy from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries), and astronomers and educators ordained by the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church well into the twentieth century. Others, such as John Jasper (a famous black, nineteenth century Baptist preacher from Richmond, Virginia) and William Lander (a nineteenth-century English writer) were quite vocal in their belief that geocentricity is truly a Biblical idea. They, as well as reformers such as Luther, perceived the world (and Christians, in particular) would not only bring into question the authority of the Bible but also weaken science itself by embracing heliocentrism.

The first of these two concerns, how the Bible’s authority can be perceived as weakened by heliocentrism, stems from the fact that the Bible teaches geocentricity, and that in a very firm manner. I have documented several thousand Bible verses that have geocentric overtones and have yet to find a single heliocentric verse. These geocentric verses range from those with only a positional import, such as references to “up” and “down” with respect to the heavens, to the question of just what the earth was orbiting the first three days of creation while it awaited the creation of the sun, to overt references such as Ecclesiastes 1, verse 5:

The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

Also Joshua 10:13:

And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

The Bible seems clear enough. As the nineteenth-century mathematician Augustus de Morgan put it in A Budget of Paradoxes, those who try to get around the Bible’s wording “make strange reasons. They undertake a priori, to settle Divine intentions. The Holy Spirit did not mean to teach natural philosophy: this they know beforehand; or else they infer it from finding that the earth does move, and the Bible says it does not. Of course, ignorance apart, every word is truth, or the writer did not mean truth. But this puts the whole book on its trial: for we never can find out what the writer meant, unless we otherwise find out what is true. Those who like may, of course, declare for an inspiration over which they are to be viceroys; but common sense will either accept the verbal meaning or deny verbal inspiration.”

De Morgan has stated the issue quite succinctly. Either God writes what he means and means what he writes, or else he passes off mere appearances as truths and ends up the liar in the final analysis. The ultimate issue is one of final authority: is the final say God’s or man’s? This is also borne out by the fact that the church’s abandonment of geocentricity is pointed to again and again by anti-Christians, such as the twentieth-century philosopher Bertrand Russell and astronomer Ivan King, as having paved the way from the ancient God-centered outlook on life to the modern man-centered or humanistic outlook.

The Copernican Revolution, as this change of view is called, was not just a revolution in the field of astronomy; it also spread into other areas of science as well as into politics and theology. Historians readily acknowledge that the Copernican Revolution spawned the bloody French and Bolshevik Revolutions. It also set the stage for the ancient Greek dogma of evolution to come out of its hiding place in the field of sociology and to become scientifically “legitimate.” This, in turn, led to Marxism and communism. It is reported that Marx even acknowledged his indebtedness to Copernicus, without whom Marx believed his ideas would not have gained much acceptance. For after all, if God cannot be taken literally when he writes of the “rising of the sun,” then how can he be taken literally in writing of the “rising of the Son?” It is thus a small step to total rejection of the Bible and the precepts of morality and law taught therein.

The second of the two concerns over heliocentrism, as expressed by the reformers and Christians throughout the last several centuries, is that geocentricity is better science than heliocentrism. Now both models attempt to explain how pieces of the universe work together, but geocentricity tries to model the universe as a coherent whole while heliocentrism models the universe piecemeal. For example, in deriving the equations used in computing orbit calculations for artificial satellites, heliocentrism assumes that only the earth and satellite exist, whereas geocentricity’s derivation of the formulas take earth, satellite and universe into account. The resulting equations are identical, but geocentricity is the more complete model and thus, philosophically, better science than heliocentrism.

Now some will argue that since the satellites sent up by NASA use heliocentrically-derived equations, that our space program is a testimony to the success of heliocentrism; but this erroneously assumes that the geocentrically-derived equations would be different. Such has been shown not to be the case. The equations of motion are identical in both models. At least a half-dozen scientific papers since 1916 have shown that to be the case. The only difference between the two models are philosophical and teleological.

To illustrate the differences and to further support the claim that geocentricity is better science, consider what space looks like on very, very small scales. Modern science often talks about space as being “foamy” at a size called the “Planck length” (about 0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 001 inch). At that scale, modern science (with its heliocentric foundation) claims that particles of about 0.00001 gram each spontaneously appear out of nothing, exist for a brief instant, and then vanish without a trace. In these bubbles of space’s “foam,” it is said, there is nothing, a perfect vacuum.

The Biblical point of view, on the other hand, is different. According to the Bible the sun, moon and stars are all inside a firmament. According to modern geocentric theory we start glimpsing the firmament through the fabric of space at the Planck length. In that small volume of space (“bubble”) there is 0.00001 gram of firmament exposed. This firmament turns out to have a huge density (about a 3 followed by 93 zeros grams per cubic centimeter). Compared to it, the sun, moon, planets and galaxies, indeed the universe as we know it today, are as nothing.

The advantage of the firmamental model is that it can easily account for a number of experimental observations which are harder to explain heliocentrically. These include the Sagnac effect, Faraday disk-generator paradox, earth’s night-time electric field, and ball lightning. And so both heliocentrically-based quantum mechanics and geocentrically-based firmamental mechanics explain the same phenomena at the Planck scale, albeit with different philosophical assumptions: one assumes that space is filled, the other that space is empty.

It has been shown that the firmament, thusly conceived, must rotate once every 24 hours, or else the universe made up of atoms would cease to exist in an inconceivably small fraction of a second. So the firmamental model actually requires the biblical 24-hour period. The every-day material objects of the universe are not at all aware of this rotation. Indeed, it can be shown that if they were aware of it they would cease to exist.

The firmamental model also has some fruits which have yet to be realized. The firmament presents us with a tremendous source of energy. This source can be tapped by existing technology. It has yet to be done because heliocentrism has blinded men to that energy source. However, in recent years some have made specific proposals about tapping into that energy source. The amount of effort required to perfect the technology would be considerably less than that expended by the moon program of the 1960s. It may even be possible to construct an effective “anti-gravity” machine based on its principles.

As far as scientific evidence for or against geocentricity is concerned, there is no “proof” either way. True, many (but not all) introductory astronomy and physics texts make the claim that some of the material they present (stationary satellite, Foucault pendulum, orbital mechanics, distant stars travelling faster than the speed of light, etc.) constitutes proof of the rotational and orbital motions of the earth, but in the advanced physics texts these are admitted not to offer any such proof at all.

The final word is that the only way we can prove the earth to be moving is to assume that the universe is, as physicists call it, the smallest isolated system. In plain English this means that the only way one can know for certain whether or not geocentricity is true would be to leave the universe, take a look around outside, and then come back to tell what is happening on that greater scope. Since God is infinitely greater than and extends beyond the universe, what God says must present the ultimate case. Hence the “proofs” people offer for the earth’s motions are only proofs if there is nothing (and, particularly, no God) relative to which the universe is turning. In short, there is no absolute scientific proof against geocentricity. Nor, for that matter, is there any such proof for heliocentrism.

So, is the earth really moving? Since there is no scientific proof against geocentricity and the Bible consistently proclaims it; and since the geocentric theory is more comprehensive than its rival and thus philosophically better; and since it offers some very tangible technological benefits, why not answer the question in the negative?

[A footnote to this article was added by R.E. McMaster: “The geocentric world view provides the consistent philosophical basis for the free-energy machines of Joseph Newman, John Bendini and Howard Johnson, among others.”]

FOOTNOTE: If you are REALLY serious about understanding this topic, There’s an abridged version of Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right by Robert A. Sungenis, Ph.D. and Robert J. Bennett, Ph.D. The original version is TWO large volumes of theological and scientific debate. Must reading!

For example, in his Harmony of the Four Last Books of the Pentateuch, in his introduction he makes these comments. He claims that “God protests that he never enjoined anything with respect to the Sacrifices: and he pronounced all External Rites but vain and trifling.”

The first part of this statement is rather startling. God never “enjoined” (i.e. imposed) Sacrifices? This is statement is an amazing misrepresentation of the Torah. If there is one thing that is very clear, Sacrifices were not only commanded, but also expected, from God’s people.

Did God really pronounce “all External Rites but vain and trifling”? There’s a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’ answer to this question. It is certain clear that God says that External Rites without faith have no meaning and value in his sight. Time and time again God tells his people that he does not want sacrifices that were external only. The sacrifices were to come from a life of faith and obedience. But this does not mean that God did not want the sacrifices; he just wanted them done the right way.

Having dismissed the Sacrifices, he soon resolves the question of the Political Ordinances. He says, “nothing will obviously be found in them, which at all adds to the perfection of The Second Table.” You might be tempted to ask, “was The Second Table of the Law perfect without the Political Ordinances? Now Calvin does not answer this question directly, you have to figure out what he really means. Since Calvin was a very clear communicator, he leaves is with very little doubt on this question. For Calvin, the Second Table was understandable in its perfection without the Political Ordinances. For Calvin, the moral law equalled the Ten Commandments only. The idea that all the other laws were “case law” applications to further explain the meaning of the Ten Commandment seems remote to Calvin.

The laws of the Torah, argues Calvin, “are not, to speak correctly, of the substance of the law.” Not of the substance of the law? This is an incredible admission. Fortunately, Calvin did not always follow his own advice, so his commentaries on the Pentateuch have some value. But it is now easy to see why Calvin dismissed the laws on usury so readily; he did not think such laws were valid. But he did think usurers should be run out of town.

But we have still not finished with Calvin. For in the same context, before writing these comments, he says that “due care must be taken to affix them [the "many Precepts" - IH] to their respective Commandments in order to present the Law as a whole.”

So here you see Calvin his a fourfold division of the Torah: the Moral Law (Ten Commandments), Precepts, External Rites (Sacrifices), and Political Ordinances. In order to discover which of the 600+ laws of the Torah belong under which heading, you’ll have to read Calvin’s comments everywhere on the Pentateuch.

Needless to say, the Scriptures themselves do not provide ready categories such as this. So Calvin will have some freedom to determine that with his advanced (or higher) ethical consciousness, he can provide the categories which somehow the biblical writers failed to make so clear. Along the way, Calvin’s advanced ethical consciousness permits him to determine which of the laws of God are not longer necessary (e.g., Sacrifices).

It is Calvin’s ambiguity on the Torah that attracted Rushdoony’s criticism of Calvin, and Rushdoony has good grounds to be critical. And, as Rushdoony explains, this view of Calvin helped turn people away from Biblical law and towards Enlightenment thought as now man, unaided by explicit divine revelation, will solve some of the ethical problems all on his own — using his enlightened higher ethical consciousness.

This view of Calvin opens the doorway immediately to subjectivism, the root of Pietism and the modern Protestant movement which dismisses the written Torah as God’s revelation for godly living in all areas of life, and substitutes the “discovery” of revelation through prayer and a non-literal reading of much of Scripture.

Calvin’s neoplatonism is seen in his reference to the “Spiritual Worship of God.” In such worship, there is no place to “speak correctly of the substance of the law, no avail of themselves in the Worship of God, nor are required by the Lawgiver himself as necessary, or even as useful, unless they sink into this inferior position.” In other words, perhaps God assigned some very small value to the Law, and it’s only as we assign such as similar value are the laws of any use to us. You will read Psalms 9, 19 and 119 in vain to find such a view expressed about any of the laws of God.

But now the “Spiritual Worship” is to take place without “External Rites”. IN other words, true Spirituality is inward. That is not the message of the Messiah, nor St. Paul, nor any of the Old Testament prophets. Greek influences remained in Calvin, despite his successes elsewhere in this regard. But in the matter of the Torah of God, Calvin is not a reliable guide.

See also The Myth of Calvinism.

Trying to get a business man to operate in terms of principles can be a challenging exercise at the best of times. But the businessman is a success to the extent that he provides good product and service, plans and manages the business, and treats his employees with some kind of professionalism. Planning, means setting future goals, then working towards them. It also means holding employees accountable in some form to the plan, or at least holding them accountable to the portion of the plan for which they are responsible.

But the frustration is equalled by trying to get church leaders to operate like businessmen and put plans into place then work the plan. Instead, you get words like this: “We have plans but we don’t make them public. That’s the way of the world. We’re spiritual over here, and God will bless our spirituality.”

God blesses the farmer who plans his crop, tills the soil, plants the seed, and harvests the results of God’s blessing with rain and sunshine. And it is unlikely that the farmer who fails the practical steps will receive God’s blessings. Although, sometimes we are the recipients of God’s blessing in spite of ourselves. Thank you, Father.

If you want to know why so many churches are small, they are small because they operate on their own version of R2K theology — at the practical level. As with farming, God has ordained a way for His blessings to be received. Farmers, business owners and church leaders are nowhere exempted from the practical steps that bring forth fruit in life. They have activities, but no plan, no direction. So they spin their wheels with endless activity that appears to get them nowhere: the congregation is just as ignorant of the Scriptures five years later, and the number of people in the congregation goes up and down depending on who moves in and out of the community.

There’s no church growth, because there’s no church growth plan. And no plan that leadership can be held accountable to.

Underneath each one of us is a propensity to be our own God — and that means refusing to be held accountable in some place in our lives. For some it can be in family, in others it will be in their business, and for a third group it will be in the “spirituality” of church management.

It is our willingness to avoid accountability that hinders our effectiveness.

The mistake of this view is obvious. It’s origins are in neoplatonism’s notion of the dichotomy between spirit and matter. But what is not so obvious is that the common response to R2K also contains its own error. The respondents to R2K theology call for functional separation of church and state, but both are under God’s law. While that sounds good and proper, the error is this.

The Scriptures speak of the formation of one special nation, Israel, and God’s laws were given to govern it. But no matter how you read the Torah, there was no national government. That is, there was no “state” as in “nation state” as we understand and use that concept today. What made Israel was not its national government (there was none), but its commitment to abide by the Torah – the instructions of God — and family, or community. We’re all the sons of Israel.

There was no national ministry of defense, no national social security system financed by compulsory taxation, no national education system, no national health, no space program and no national military complex. And there were no taxes instituted in the Torah that could be used for financial support of a national government.

The establishment of a national government occurred with the establishment of the monarchy in Israel (1 Sam. 8:1ff). Only then were taxes mentioned to finance the monarchy, and at this time they were spoken of negatively – a punishment for rejecting YHWH as King. Same was said of conscription into the service of the national government.

Flow through world history and you find one unique period in the Christian West when the idea of the nation-state was abandoned. This was the period after the collapse of Rome, and the rise of the feudal system caused government to be local under the count or baron. The word “feudal” has its origins in the word “covenant” of the Scriptures, and it is not surprising that the feudal system was an attempt to use the Scriptures as a model for government. During this period, the nation-state disappeared. I wrote about its return in Origin of the Species – 2.

The idea of the nation-state is foreign to the Torah. Yes, Israel was a “nation” without a national government. Only local self-government, elders at the city gate, later called the ekkelesia – see Whatever Happened To The Ekklesia?

In Israel there was no separation of church and state at a functional level because there was no church as we know it, and there was no state. And that is because Israel — the “nation” — was the church — the called out ones. The two were one, under YHWH. Or that’s how it was supposed to be.

The closest you get to a modern church is the concept of the priesthood, and the priests were, in the final analysis, the court of final appeal in disputes (Deut 17:8-13). The priests were the equivalent of the Supreme Court, and it was assumed that when they gave their opinion, their opinion was final.

Radical R2K theology is certainly wrong, but it cannot be overturned by yet another wrong argument. There can be no separation of church and state in the Torah model, while there is certainly an argument for separation of church and state in the modern age.

But that leaves the question: why should there be a nation-state government? If this idea is wrong, then the best we can get to is local self-government, in which case it is not separation of church and state, but ruling of the local community by godly mean with appeal to the modern priests as the final court of appeal.

There are no cities with this model, nor can there be while the nation-state is in existence and claims illegitimate jurisdiction for itself. I recognize the separation of church and state idea is functional separation while both are under God, but the problems of our world today are the very result of the manifestation of the nation-state and the unbiblical justification for existence. When the nation-state is eliminated, and there is a return to local self-government, maybe we’d be in a better position to respond properly to radical R2K theology.

The separation of church and state argument, which has lead to ideas that a clergyman cannot remain in office in the church if he is elected to government, also needs to address the separation of family and the state, or family and church. Does a father cease to hold office in his family just because he is elected to public office? The answer is obvious. There is certainly a functional separation. But here’s the difference. God ordained the family. He has not ordained the state, and its existence is a constant reminder of man’s rejection of YHWH and man’s unwillingness to live by His Torah.

Is the church now Israel? If the answer is yes, then Christians have become members of a new nation, one without boundaries, and one that exists inside every nation-state today. In this model, Christians are, and must be, treasonous to the nation-state within which they reside because they reject the self-proclaimed right to existence of the national governments and therefore its self-proclaimed authority. This was the position of the early church that led to the persecutions. Abolish taxation and return the law courts to local jurisdiction and there will be no nation-state. There will be, in its place, local self-government as modeled in the Torah.

Both R2K theology and its opponents fail to address the underlying reasons for the existence of both church and state, and therefore neither one has strong biblical justification for its position. Stalemate.

What is needed is checkmate. And checkmate will come about when Torah becomes the standard of life, and people stop seeking any kind of refuge in the nation-state, and pick up the reins of responsibility and establish justice in the city gate – that’s local, in case you missed it. This is the origin of the town and country police departments in America, phenomena not seen in the Australian system of government, and a key part of America’s Christian heritage. In this picture, election of the local county judge is more important than election of Presidents, Congressmen or women and Senators.

Taking back the mechanism of government from the nation-state should therefore be a key agenda item for reform. And there are occasional indications of the opposition to the national government when local governments attempt to assert their authority against the wishes of the nation-state.