BY THIS STANDARD-Greg L. Bahnsen

[Wilsonwas]

Originally Posted by Esaias

I and my family live theonomically to the best of our ability. Unlike the leftist socialists like yourself, we do not demand that other people pay our way through life and shield us from reality.

But once again, your entire message here on this forum can be summed in one short statement: Jesus may get you to heaven, but Uncle Sam will take care of everything else here and now. You consistently demand everyone put their trust in government programs, cannabis oil, psychoheresy, and anything and everything BUT Jesus Christ. You like to throw out the scare tactic of "Sure you can trust in God, but what if it doesn't work? What about those whom God lets down?" You seem bent on poisoning everyone's faith in God.

Hey, we get it. You absolutely do NOT want society to obey God, live for God, follow God, or follow the Bible. Cool. Others do. Including Jesus. So enjoy your life while you can. I've got literally three times as many children as you have, and the adult ones are Bible believing, antivaccine, homeschooled, theonomic apostolic believers currently positioning themselves to get married and build large, Bible believing, theonomic, homeschooling, antivax apostolic families.

So in twenty years you and your personal opinions will be utterly and totally irrelevant.

If we just let the most left leaning person in the world continue to talk they will eventually talk everyone to the right.

Dont like theocracy in any condition other than the millennial, but I like socialist SJW types even less.
We have been down this road, and nobody is talking me out of my minimalist/voulenteerist/libertarian position.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Wilsonwas

If we just let the most left leaning person in the world continue to talk they will eventually talk everyone to the right.

Dont like theocracy in any condition other than the millennial, but I like socialist SJW types even less.
We have been down this road, and nobody is talking me out of my minimalist/voulenteerist/libertarian position.

Recently I have been looking more deeply into the entire "social compact theory". And I have concluded it is pure humanistic hogwash. What's interesting is it seems to be the basis for BOTH socialism and "libertarianism".

Rather than adhering to some "ism", perhaps you would consider looking into the Biblical concept of "the Kingdom" and what that really entails, and how it applies to social structures. Unless you believe that "minimalist/volunteerist/libertarianism" is what the Bible teaches is the Divinely ordained and preferred form of society that Christians are to seek?

[Amanah]

Originally Posted by Esaias

Recently I have been looking more deeply into the entire "social compact theory". And I have concluded it is pure humanistic hogwash. What's interesting is it seems to be the basis for BOTH socialism and "libertarianism".

Rather than adhering to some "ism", perhaps you would consider looking into the Biblical concept of "the Kingdom" and what that really entails, and how it applies to social structures. Unless you believe that "minimalist/volunteerist/libertarianism" is what the Bible teaches is the Divinely ordained and preferred form of society that Christians are to seek?

Our society not only accommodates sin, but promotes it, glorifies and protects it, therefore people can't stomach the idea of penalizing it.

True liberty would be to live in a society where murder, rape, sodomy, kidnapping, child trafficking were very rare.

The priests who rape children while being protected at the highest level decade after decade would be deterred by wanting to avoid capital punishment.

There would be no young children coming out as gay and killing themselves because they would not be brain washed by a society promoting sin.

if we keep going to the way we are going Christianity is going to be outlawed because the bible will be labeled *hate speech*

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by Esaias

Recently I have been looking more deeply into the entire "social compact theory". And I have concluded it is pure humanistic hogwash. What's interesting is it seems to be the basis for BOTH socialism and "libertarianism".

Rather than adhering to some "ism", perhaps you would consider looking into the Biblical concept of "the Kingdom" and what that really entails, and how it applies to social structures. Unless you believe that "minimalist/volunteerist/libertarianism" is what the Bible teaches is the Divinely ordained and preferred form of society that Christians are to seek?

Biblically speaking, ancient Israel could be classified economically as agrarian socialist, or perhaps even distributist. (Please note, agrarian socialism isn't "big government" socialism.)

We don't have to reduce the United States to an agrarian state of goat herders to please God. I've been to other countries, Canada, Belgium, Netherlands and a couple other less exotic places under less than desirable circumstances. The world is advancing. America will be weakened and exploited by those nations who are advancing, especially if she reverts back to the 1800's.

I have good friends who are Christian Anarchists. They sound very much like you. But instead of wishing to drag American into their vision, they seek the right to live as they choose, apart from the government, as much as possible. They are antivax, they grow and raise the vast majority of their own food, they home school, make a living through trades, and live rather communally. Now, they aren't theonomic in the sense of your vision of theonomics. They do believe in living in community, the law is "love Jesus and love your neighbor as yourself". They don't believe in incorporation, ministerial licensing, marriage licensing, etc., etc. In fact, they don't even believe in voting or participating in the system if at all possible to avoid doing so. They tend to lean on herbal and home remedies. They midwife, they rarely go to the hospital, if ever. They are very peaceful. They have voiced condemnation against what they believe to be the exploitation and abuse of God's creation and the harm it causes others. They are definitely separate from the world.

They aren't trying to resurrect ancient Israel and preach a fascist gospel that will topple the United States and kill people who disagree. I like these guys. They aren't out to force anything down anyone's throat. They simply declare their right to live off the grid or as separately as they desire, while bringing in like minded folks. I can respect that. In fact, I've often considered deeper involvement with them.

But Christian Reconstructionism compared these precious pacifist people is a fascist, genocidal, power mad, religio-political hybrid, beast like creature.

I have no problems with folks who sincerely wish to live their lives a specific way. Be they Quaker, Amish, Mennonite, whatever. What I disdain is the Reconstructionist goal of becoming the very beast it's denouncing... while using God as justification for their bloody fascist vision.

If there were a vision I could grasp in good conscience, it would be the Christian Anarchist vision. Christian Anarchists generally believe in:

- Radical separation of church & state.
- Obeying laws that serve the common good.
- Practice pacifism.
- Oppose war.
- Oppose serving on juries.
- Oppose oaths.
- Abstain from voting.
- Oppose discrimination in all forms.
- Do not pledge allegiance to the state.
- Support homeschooling.
- Support herbal and natural medicine.
- Support trades and apprenticeship.
- Do not support church incorporation.
- Do not support state minister's licensing.
- Oppose state marriage licensing.
- Oppose institutional religion.
- Oppose political partisanship in the church.
- Oppose institutionalized religious hierarchy.
- Embrace communal fellowship.
- Believe in stewardship over ownership.
- Believe in distribution of any tax revenues for the common good.

And these people aren't on a political quest to one day again their vision through some political take over. They just up and decided to live it.

How would a Christian Anarchist fare in a Christian Reconstructionist society? Because they would oppose the very same authoritarianism under a Christian Reconstructionist society as they do in a secular society.

[Tithesmeister]

Originally Posted by Aquila

Biblically speaking, ancient Israel could be classified economically as agrarian socialist, or perhaps even distributist. (Please note, agrarian socialism isn't "big government" socialism.)

Does there exist any modern civilization that is not predominately agrarian in practice. In the context of tithing, I have been told many times that Israel was an agrarian society, as though they were some strange, primitive, neanderthal people. They were agrarian as opposed to what? Hunter gatherers?

These comments will usually be made by a person whose lifelong citizenship is United States, which is arguably the most agrarian country in the history of the world. We have the most efficient system for producing food that the world has ever known, yet we tend to think of the Israelites as an agrarian society.

What's up with that?

[Amanah]

Originally Posted by Tithesmeister

Does there exist any modern civilization that is not predominately agrarian in practice. In the context of tithing, I have been told many times that Israel was an agrarian society, as though they were some strange, primitive, neanderthal people. They were agrarian as opposed to what? Hunter gatherers?

These comments will usually be made by a person whose lifelong citizenship is United States, which is arguably the most agrarian country in the history of the world. We have the most efficient system for producing food that the world has ever known, yet we tend to think of the Israelites as an agrarian society.

What's up with that?

we are an industrial society (maybe post industrial), even agricultural is industrialized.

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by Tithesmeister

Does there exist any modern civilization that is not predominately agrarian in practice. In the context of tithing, I have been told many times that Israel was an agrarian society, as though they were some strange, primitive, neanderthal people. They were agrarian as opposed to what? Hunter gatherers?

These comments will usually be made by a person whose lifelong citizenship is United States, which is arguably the most agrarian country in the history of the world. We have the most efficient system for producing food that the world has ever known, yet we tend to think of the Israelites as an agrarian society.

What's up with that?

Not sure. There's nothing wrong with being an agrarian society. The foundation of any culture, no matter how advanced, is its agrarian foundations. For without produce, food, grain, and farming, no such nation can exist. It is a philosophy rooted in collective farming and cooperatives with workers, and even the poor, to ensure that none went hungry. The relationships in an agrarian society were deeply interrelated, and so to work together for the common good was in the best interests of everyone to ensure survival. In the trades found in ancient Israel we also see trade guilds, cooperatives, and apprenticeships. Tradesmen actually felt their labor was worthy of the barter and contract. They were not wage slaves. If you had need to hire skilled tradesmen, you would approach a guild and hire them for the work based on contract.

In today's more urban technological society we see shades of this in collective bargaining (trade unions) and local farming cooperatives. Corporatism has nearly eviscerate this way of life in our modern world, reducing everyone to a wage slave who stands alone without any sense of solidarity with others in their field. Divide and conquer. And divide they did.

The philosophy that none in a society would truly starve to death and perish in destitution was picked up by social democrats in Europe in the 1900's. As society became more industrial, urban, and technological the harvests became paychecks, the guilds became unions, etc. The key to understanding all of this "socialism" of whatever form it is, is the concept of solidarity. Sadly, we lack solidarity in our families, communities, churches, trades, career fields, etc. We're such rugged individualists... we glory in substandard wages and our personal struggle... even if we die coughing in an indigent bed without any healthcare. To a society that is predicated upon solidarity, such is a horrific tragedy. We live together, work together, raise families together, provide for one another. If one of us languishes and dies without care, we all are lesser for it. This isn't some communistic collectivism... this is simply how societies have survived since ancient times. The corporate mantra in our hijacked capitalist system is that collectives are bad. Really? For whom? The corporation, that's who. Because if we had solidarity, we'd demand our share... for it is our labor that makes the CEO filthy rich and brings shareholders profit. And they don't want to relinquish what is rightfully ours. And so CEOs make hundreds and often thousands of times a year more than their average employee who struggles through insurmountable trial to simply pay the bills and put food on the table for their family. The corporate conglomerates of our society are the modern plantation. And we're all salves. They've hijacked actual capitalism where in goods and even services are capital, often cooperative,.... and switched it with a fascist corporatism that has turned even war into a most lucrative business venture.

It's sickening.

But in short, the tithe was an agrarian land tax placed on land owners to help care for the needs of the Levites, the poor, and the temple. They didn't even have the word "socialism" in their vocabulary. They called it, "justice".

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Aquila

Not sure. There's nothing wrong with being an agrarian society. The foundation of any culture, no matter how advanced, is its agrarian foundations. For without produce, food, grain, and farming, no such nation can exist. It is a philosophy rooted in collective farming and cooperatives with workers, and even the poor, to ensure that none went hungry. The relationships in an agrarian society were deeply interrelated, and so to work together for the common good was in the best interests of everyone to ensure survival. In the trades found in ancient Israel we also see trade guilds, cooperatives, and apprenticeships. Tradesmen actually felt their labor was worthy of the barter and contract. They were not wage slaves. If you had need to hire skilled tradesmen, you would approach a guild and hire them for the work based on contract.

In today's more urban technological society we see shades of this in collective bargaining (trade unions) and local farming cooperatives. Corporatism has nearly eviscerate this way of life in our modern world, reducing everyone to a wage slave who stands alone without any sense of solidarity with others in their field. Divide and conquer. And divide they did.

The philosophy that none in a society would truly starve to death and perish in destitution was picked up by social democrats in Europe in the 1900's. As society became more industrial, urban, and technological the harvests became paychecks, the guilds became unions, etc. The key to understanding all of this "socialism" of whatever form it is, is the concept of solidarity. Sadly, we lack solidarity in our families, communities, churches, trades, career fields, etc. We're such rugged individualists... we glory in substandard wages and our personal struggle... even if we die coughing in an indigent bed without any healthcare. To a society that is predicated upon solidarity, such is a horrific tragedy. We live together, work together, raise families together, provide for one another. If one of us languishes and dies without care, we all are lesser for it. This isn't some communistic collectivism... this is simply how societies have survived since ancient times. The corporate mantra in our hijacked capitalist system is that collectives are bad. Really? For whom? The corporation, that's who. Because if we had solidarity, we'd demand our share... for it is our labor that makes the CEO filthy rich and brings shareholders profit. And they don't want to relinquish what is rightfully ours. And so CEOs make hundreds and often thousands of times a year more than their average employee who struggles through insurmountable trial to simply pay the bills and put food on the table for their family. The corporate conglomerates of our society are the modern plantation. And we're all salves. They've hijacked actual capitalism where in goods and even services are capital, often cooperative,.... and switched it with a fascist corporatism that has turned even war into a most lucrative business venture.

It's sickening.

But in short, the tithe was an agrarian land tax placed on land owners to help care for the needs of the Levites, the poor, and the temple. They didn't even have the word "socialism" in their vocabulary. They called it, "justice".

You are literally the poster child for the insanity called liberalism. Do you have any idea how you repeatedly come across to others?

No, you don't. You can't have any idea. You're a liberal. All you have are talking points.

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by Esaias

You are literally the poster child for the insanity called liberalism. Do you have any idea how you repeatedly come across to others?

No, you don't. You can't have any idea. You're a liberal. All you have are talking points.

And... all of that was just a personal insult. You have to refute what I wrote if you wish to make an actual point.

Because you're views make you look like the poster child of the Christian Nazis.

Men like me and Jesus will always have to defend sinners from beasts like you.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Esaias

Recently I have been looking more deeply into the entire "social compact theory". And I have concluded it is pure humanistic hogwash. What's interesting is it seems to be the basis for BOTH socialism and "libertarianism".

The social compact theory, also called the social contract theory, is the basis for the concept of "natural rights". the theory runs essentially thus:

Man is by nature in his original state an independent unit, sui juris, completely equal to every other man, and entitled by nature to exercise his entire will. Natural liberty is defined as the freedom to do whatever (the man) wished. John Locke refined this definition by stipulating that natural liberty was the freedom and priviledge to do whatever one wished "within the bounds of natural law", but this boiled down to the same thing, because man, as the highest known animal and endowed with reason, was the final arbiter of what constituted natural law. So man gets to define for himself what the boundaries of his liberty are, which is nothing other than saying man has "the right" to do whatever he wishes.

Natural rights were identified with this "natural liberty", and were claimed to be basically the right to secure one's own existence and to secure whatever makes oneself happy. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are the philosophical assertion of the Lockean theory of natural rights, natural liberty, and the social contract.

The theory proceeds to explain that because there are so many of these naturally independent and free individuals, whose wills often clash, that therefore men banded together by a "social compact" or agreement. This social compact or contract consisted of an agreement to bind themselves to one another, relinquishing certain of their individual natural rights or liberties specified in certain rules that restrained those certain natural rights, and agreeing to submit to the authority of certain men whom they all chose to appoint to government. The authority granted to these governing persons was to be used to secure the remaining rights to the rest of the population. The "certain rules" or terms of this compact make up the "organic law" or constitution of the society. Later person entering the society by birth or immigration are assumed to have consented to this compact or contract, and thus are assumed to owe their allegience to the organic law, the rules thus stipulated, the chosen government, and the relinquishing of those certain specified rights for the proffered protection of the remaining rights.

This is the Hobbes-Locke theory of the origin of human governments. It is also the foundation for the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, and is the philosophy upon which much of British and practically all of American jurisprudence rests. Blackstone, the famous commentator of English Law, recognised that the theory was in fact false, in regards to the actual facts of history. There never was a time in which a bunch of free, wholly independent humans "banded together and ceded certain of their unlimited rights, to form a social compact or covenant" etc. However, Blackstone, and most other jurists and political "scientists", maintain that the fiction must be assumed, in order to justify and even imply a source of political authority and civic obligation.

This theory is the basis for libertarianism, which asserts that "that government is best which governs least" on the basis that it is better to enjoy the maximum amount possible of one's natural rights, ceding the least amount possible to government. Socialism, on the other extreme, maintains essentially the opposite view, that the rights of the society far outweigh the individual's natural rights. Yet, it too is based in this same theory of a social compact whereby "free men surrender certain natural rights to form a society to which they and all future members of that society are bound by implied consent". This is also the basis for "liberal democracy", or classical liberalism (not at all to be confused the modern so-called "liberalism") which formed the basis for the American theory of law, rights, and government.

Of course, there are immediate objections to this theory which spring up to the mind of the critical thinker: "If government has certain rights which individuals do not have, how did the individuals cede those rights to begin with to government?" For example, government has the right to execute criminals and traitors, but individuals do not. Have individuals ever had the right to execute whom they determined to their own satisfaction to be criminal or otherwise dangerous? If not, then how did government ever come by such a right? Did individual men ever have the natural right to forcefully take the property of their neighbour? If not, how ever did they "give" that right to government?

Also, if the theory's historical claim is not in fact true (most admit it is not), then the system founded on a lie is necessarily false. If the theory incorrectly explains the origin of government, society, rights and obligations, then the theory must be incorrect, and must therefore have no authority in jurisprudence. The adherents of this theory admit that it has no facts upon which it rests. It is purely a hypothetical, a speculation, an opinion founded on nothing but a desire to provide an explanation for society, government, civic obligation, and "rights". Locke himself admitted as much.

Again, if this theory is correct, and a man were to reclaim his "natural state", and announce he had no allegience to ANY society, government, or social compact, and retained ALL his inherent natural rights, EVERY society on earth (especially those founded on the very theory in question, and upon which such a hypothetical person relied), every society would brand such a person as an outlaw and a brigand, or at best mentally ill and a crank. So even the holders of the theory do not truly believe it.

Moreover, the theory is utterly at odds with Revelation. The Scriptures show that man, created by God, is under Divinely imposed obligations, which inhere to man's nature just as surely as his physical instincts do. In other words, man's moral obligations to God are as much a part of man's state as his instincts, physical constitution, etc. As soon as a human comes into existence, there is a Divine claim upon him. A child is born into a family, and has familial obligations which arise - not from any supposed "assent to form a compact", explicit or implied - but from the fact of the familial relation. Thus so it is with society. A person born into a society is born with certain obligations to that society, because those obligations stem from the individual's moral obligations to God, which in turn derive immediately from the person's creation and formation by God.

The theory is atheistical. A Christian believes the Bible. One who believes the "social compact" theory of human society must assert man is an independent unit without any derivation from God. The theory itself supposes man is born an independent unit with unlimited "natural rights" and no actual obligations, until man "consents" to form society and creates upon himself his civic duties. Which in turn makes man to be the source of all rights and obligations. Which in turn makes man the final authority in morals. There simply is no room for a Divine Creator in such a scheme.

There are a number of absurdities which necessarily follow from the adoption of this godless humanistic theory, including the absurdity that government is a necessary evil adopted in order to restrain natural rights for a supposed common good, which in turn means that all government in inherently immoral. But if all government is inherently immoral, then the supposed civic obligation man binds himself to is likewise immoral, and the supposed "compact" itself becomes immoral and thus inherently and naturally non-binding! The theory is literally self-refuting!

Hobbes is rather consistent, then, in maintaining that originally there was no such thing as "right" other than the ability to enforce one's will. "Might makes right" is the actual, natural, necessary, and logical outcome of such a theory. Morals, under this theory, become literally nothing other than fictions invented in society for the sake of expediency. That is where this theory leads.

And, against all this absurd monstrosity of human "wisdom" stands the Bible, the revealed Word of God. Christians cannot be consistently Christian while supporting and adhering to this humanistic theory of the "social contract".