Philosophical Theology

Until the relevance of Old Testament (OT) civil law is clearly defined for the gospel age, theological and exegetical arguments will remain inconclusive. This article highlights a defining question, which is intended to force relevant theological and exegetical support for one of two distinct positions. 

There is an epistemic cost to the ‘no longer required’ position regarding OT civil law. It will be demonstrated that the opposing view to a distinctly Westminster civil ethic makes it impossible to know God’s mind on judicial equity relative to Israel’s understanding under covenantal rule. If the ‘no longer required’ view is correct, then God has either changed his mind on what constitutes judicial equity for the nations, or he never intended the OT civil law to illustrate abiding equity. By eliminating OT illustrations, either scenario makes it difficult to determine what God expects of civil magistrates today relative to the distant past. Furthermore, only one view aligns with the sufficiency of Scripture in equipping man for every good work, and only one avoids divorcing natural law from special revelation. At the very least, apart from relying on Scripture, it’s undeniable that rulers have a dismal track record of agreeing on what should constitute crime and determining suitable punishments (e.g., death, restitution, rehabilitation, warning etc.). 

Before diving into the argument, it is useful to familiarize ourselves with some basic logic and common forms of argument, allowing us to honor God more fully as his image bearers. 

The law of the excluded middle is a beautiful thing! 

The law of the excluded middle (LEM) is a fundamental principle of classical logic that helps identify and examine disagreements over opposing views. The usefulness of LEM is that it enables opposing views to be reduced to a binary choice. Accordingly, LEM strips away the dross of middle ground, which helps clarify what is truly at stake between two sides. 

The application of LEM is straightforward enough: by removing the gray area and presenting only two contradictory options, proving one false automatically proves the other true. This principle is universal because a statement and its negation cannot both be true. Therefore, demonstrating that a negation leads to absurdity proves the original statement. This method, often referred to as an indirect proof (or proof by contradiction), is best illustrated with a concrete example. Hopefully it’s not one that is too personally familiar!

Assume you wanted to prove your innocence in a murder that required the murderer to be at the scene at the precise time of the crime (say, midnight ). 

LEM: Either you were at the crime scene at midnight or you were not. (There is no in-between.) 

Evidence: You were somewhere else at midnight. 

Fact: The murderer was at the scene at midnight. 

Result: You are not in the set of possible suspects. 

Takeaways from the argument:

The argument cuts through the noise and focuses the options on two. Things like motive, means, opportunity, emotional state, and preparation become moot if the alibi is indubitable. Of course, the evidence for being somewhere else can be challenged, and that is fine. Notwithstanding, the point of the illustration shows the clarifying usefulness of LEM.

The argument demonstrates the truth of innocence by showing that the only alternative (guilt) leads to an impossible situation (being at two places at once), which entails contradiction. (The basic argument employs a disjunctive syllogism that relies on identity and set theory.)

Finally, the argument is indirect rather than direct because it demonstrates where you were not (i.e, at the crime scene at midnight). The indirect aspect is perhaps clearer in the employment of modus tollens, which relies on a conditional premise rather than a disjunction. 

Assume the opposite of what you’d like to prove: 

1. You committed the murder at midnight. (Assumes the opposite)

2. If you committed the murder, then you must have been at the crime scene at midnight. (Conditional premise based on the assumption.)

3. You were not at the crime scene at midnight. (Contradiction)

4. It is false that you committed the murder. (Modus Tollens 2, 3 and 4)

5. You did not commit the murder. (Law of negation)

By combining these two arguments, we can create this robust defense:

1. LEM: Either you were at the crime scene at the precise time of murder (midnight) or you were not (i.e., it is false that you were). 

2. If you committed the murder, then you must have been at the crime scene at midnight. 

3. You were not at the crime scene at midnight.

4. It is false that you committed the murder.

5. Therefore, you did not commit the murder.

Applying tools of inference to OT civil ethics.

Premise: Either God requires all civil governments to apply the equity of OT civil law today, or he does not. (There is no third way!)

Of course, as stated above, the requirement can be shown to be false by considering that at no fault to some civil governments, they aren’t even aware of the OT civil law. (All men are accountable to natural law, but it’s safe to assume that those who’ve not come in contact with special revelation, at no fault of their own, are not held accountable to it.)

Given the observation pertaining to culpability and ignorance, we can refine the original statement: 

1. Whenever possible (assumed hereafter), God requires all civil governments to apply the general equity of OT civil law today, or he does not. 

2. If God does not require all civil governments to apply the general equity of OT civil law today, then it’s impossible to know God’s mind on the subject. (The subject being concerned with determining crimes and just punishment.)

3. It’s not impossible to know God’s mind on the subject. 

4. It is false that God does not require that all civil governments apply the general equity of OT civil law today.

5. Therefore, God requires all civil governments to apply the general equity of OT civil law today.

Immediately we can notice that assertions pertaining to (a) no theocracies today, (b) the civil law finding its fulfillment in excommunication and (c) the eschatological typology of the OT, all reduce to dross with respect to the argument. They might bolster preference for abrogation but they don’t engage the present argument. Those sorts of rejoinders, which have been dealt with elsewhere, may be used to bolster the “no longer required” position, but they fail to address the force of the present argument, which is an epistemological ultimatum. If we grant the “no longer required” position, then it should be acknowledged that “it’s impossible to know God’s mind on the subject.” Let’s just be up front about that one.

The usefulness of GR:

GR orders transgressions in a natural continuum of lesser to greater. But what it can’t do is unique to special revelation, which includes distinguishing sins and crimes, and revealing suitably precise penalties in a fallen world. For if GR could do all that, then it would identify too closely with the OT civil law, which would then oblige nations to their use. Yet such divine obligation contradicts the principle of the indifference of permission, leading to a double-bind.

A few more clarifications before looking at further implications:

After addressing some common misunderstandings about contrary vs contradictory statements as they relate to deontic ethics, we will flesh out the epistemological ramifications of the “no longer required” view. 

Deontic logic (obligation, permission and prohibition):

If it is false that God requires the implementation of the general equity of OT civil law, then obviously God does not require it. However, this does not imply that civil governments must not apply it, as some have reasoned especially in relation to applications relating to the first table of the law. It’s critical to recognize that God’s requiring and his forbidding are not contradictory considerations but contrary ones. In other words, although it can’t be true that God requires and does not require the civil law, both premises can be false. (God makes it permissible to do so but not necessary.) Accordingly, we should be mindful that the opposite of must is not must not but rather need not. Therefore, if it is false that God requires X, then without further argument to the contrary we can only infer that X is not necessary.

Assuming the opposite:

We will assume that the Westminster civil ethic is false, which would mean that God does not require the general equity of the civil code to be applied in contemporary contexts. Such an assumption leads to the following conditional statement: 

If God does not require the Westminster civil ethic today, then either he prohibits or permits it.

Examining the two remaining options: 

Prohibition: 

If God forbids it, then we may not allow for any OT penal sanction to be obligatory. Yet if we allow for some OT laws, (with or without an appeal the Scripture), then we are no longer in the forbids in toto camp. But then how do we avoid the fallacy of special pleading in distinguishing permissible OT civil laws from forbidden ones? Prohibition proves too much. It caters to arbitrariness or else handcuffs civil magistrates! (An argument that OT civil laws may be implemented only if no appeal to Scripture is made will not be addressed here.)

Permission:

If there is no Scriptural obligation to implement, yet we assume that God has beliefs on how civil magistrates should operate, then God has either hidden his mind on the matter by providing no revelation or else relegated the nations to general revelation (GR) along with a moral option to implement Scripture or not. 

Two forked paths off the road of permission:

Permission with hidden will:

If God has hidden his mind, then common grace of GR is not useful and we should expect chaotic laws where driving five miles over the speed limit requires death and serial killers get a minimal fine. Obviously, God according to common grace has not utterly hidden his mind, which leads us to the question of the sufficiency of GR and our individual judgment of Scripture’s usefulness as a guide.

Permission with divine guidance:

GR, which does not change, cannot forbid Israel’s civil code for today, lest OT Israel lived in irreconcilable tension and God authored confusion during the period in which both forms of revelation were operable. Accordingly, there can be no conflict with OT civil law and GR. And although GR cannot forbid OT civil law even today, we may not infer it mirrors it either due to contradiction. After all, if GR mirrored OT law, then to make OT equity optional would be to make GR optional on those points of similitude. In other words, if GR binds us while reflecting OT civil law, then to make OT civil law optional is to loose the nations from GR too! Otherwise, GR binds us to OT civil law, in which case OT civil law is not optional. This double-bind underscores the intended complementary nature of revelation.

This in invites the question of how useful is GR for governing societies.

As we just saw, GR is binding. We also observed that GR cannot forbid the civil law due to the problem of revelatory contradiction, nor mirror it due to the double-bind conundrum. Consequently, GR and OT civil law move in the same direction but they are not identical shapes. 

Let’s remind ourselves of the argument:

1. Whenever possible, God requires all civil governments to apply the general equity of OT civil law today, or he does not. 

2. If God does not require all civil governments to apply the general equity of OT civil law today, then it’s impossible to know God’s mind on the subject. (The subject being concerned with determining crimes and punishment.)

3. It’s not impossible to know God’s mind on the subject. 

4. It is false that God does not require, that all civil governments apply the general equity of OT civil law today.

5. Therefore, God requires all civil governments to apply the general equity of OT civil law today.

Questions for further reflection:

Where in Scripture does God release civil governments from the equity of what God once considered just, limiting our knowledge?

Exegetically, what does the whole counsel of God teach about the normativity of judicial equity since the cross and nations being less equipped for this good work?

How might one justify which sins should be considered crimes, and what suitable punishments should be meted out given that GR eternally condemns the least of all transgressions?

If it is impossible to know God’s mind on the subject, then does God have no beliefs or has he hidden his beliefs?

If God has beliefs on this subject, why has he hidden them since the cross?

A final plea:

Hopefully this framing of the issue makes evasion more difficult and honest engagement more likely. 

And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you. Your eyes have seen what the LORD did at Baal-peor, for the LORD your God destroyed from among you all the men who followed the Baal of Peor. But you who held fast to the LORD your God are all alive today. See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today? Deuteronomy 4:1-8