Pastor Hess, you should check out the Fathers of Lutheran Orthodoxy on Lulu, a classmate of mine runs it, and they sell things like Hutter for much less than you’ll find elsewhere.
Father Hess, I wonder, what are yours and early Lutheran’s thoughts on Theonomy? If God’s Law as found in the civil laws of Israel is just, good, and wise, why should we not then simply apply those? The following Greg Bahnsen quote really gives the idea a lot of weight in my view of things.
"The civil magistrate cannot function without some ethical guidance, without some standard of good and evil. If that standard is not to be the revealed law of God (which, we must note, was addressed specifically to perennial problems in political morality), then what will it be? In some form or expression it will have to be the law of man (or men) - the standard of self-law or autonomy."
The early Lutheran thoughts on theonomy are summed up in this aphorism by Johann Gerhard: "For Christian commonwealths are not simply tied and bound to the judicial laws of Moses."
Franz Pieper, the Missouri Synod theologian of the early twentieth century writes more in this vein in his "Christian Dogmatics" vol. 1, p. 532: "Holy Scripture also determines exactly which laws applied only temporarily and locally, for instance, only to the Jews under the covenant of the Law, and are therefore not the divine norm for all men of all times. A great and harmful confusion of consciences of men is, even to our day, caused by generalizing temporary and local laws. With reference, for instance, to the commandment given Ex. 31: 14-15: 'Ye shall keep the Sabbath....everyone that defileth it shall surely be put to death,' and Lev. 19:26: 'Ye shall not eat anything with the blood,' and Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 (the catalog of clean and unclean beasts), the New Testament distinctly says: 'Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days' (Col. 2:16). We get this result: Only that is divine Law for all men which is taught in Holy Writ as binding on all. Not even the Ten Commandments in the form in which they were given to the Jews (Exodus 20) are binding on all men, but only the Ten Commandments as set down in the New Testament, as we have them, e.g., in Luther's Catechism."
The early Lutherans did make laws closing the bars during the Sunday divine service, and forbidding people making a racket in the streets while preaching was going on. I could go and get out Bugenhagen's Church Order and get quotations, but this is a long enough comment already. Luther also believed blasphemers had to be punished by the state; this was a significant part of why, later in life, he thought the Jews should be driven out of Lutheran lands, because they blasphemed Christ in their public daily prayers.
But the reason for this was they understood that the civil magistrate has the duty to uphold the Law God has given to all men and written on all men's consciences--the moral law, found in the ten commandments. He has not prescribed to all nations the form civil law is to take. While the Lutherans sometimes advocated for certain penalties prescribed in God's Law--Luther thought adulterers should be executed, and so did basically every orthodox Lutheran theologian--they did not think God had prescribed for every nation the form of their civil law, just as He hasn't prescribed to fathers the exact way they are to train their children in the admonition of the Lord, and the exact punishments they are to dispense to their children for specific sins. Fathers are given a free hand to make whatever laws they think most beneficial to their children, and of course what is going to work in one household will not work in another, and it is the same with nations. Governing Englishmen the same way you would govern Arabs indicates a failure to use wisdom.
I don't know a lot about theonomy, or modern reformed thinking in general, but from what I understand, theonomy is frequently coupled with presuppositional apologetics, and the common thread between the two seems to be a downplaying or lack of recognition that fallen people are still capable of recognizing God's law and this-worldly wisdom. I have seen some comments from Stephen Wolfe saying things like this. I don't know enough to comment on that, but I think that tendency in modern Lutheranism is bad. Human reason is capable of perceiving the existence of God and the moral law and making laws in accordance with it, because the Law of God is written in our consciences and the existence of the world testifies to God's omnipotence and wisdom.
This is a really great primer, and explains the topic very well!
*Richard Levine, not Rachel. It's hard to find his real name, as most sites these days actively scrub it.
Nugget from 2015: https://muricaderp.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/doctor-my-eyes-rachel-levine-goes-to-harrisburg-and-i-go-to-barfsburg/
I corrected it to give his given name together with the name he gave himself upon beginning to pretend to be a woman in public.
Pastor Hess, you should check out the Fathers of Lutheran Orthodoxy on Lulu, a classmate of mine runs it, and they sell things like Hutter for much less than you’ll find elsewhere.
Thanks for the heads up
It’s also available as a downloadable PDF from the Lutheran Library — https://www.lutheranlibrary.org/208-jacobs-hutters-compend/
Father Hess, I wonder, what are yours and early Lutheran’s thoughts on Theonomy? If God’s Law as found in the civil laws of Israel is just, good, and wise, why should we not then simply apply those? The following Greg Bahnsen quote really gives the idea a lot of weight in my view of things.
"The civil magistrate cannot function without some ethical guidance, without some standard of good and evil. If that standard is not to be the revealed law of God (which, we must note, was addressed specifically to perennial problems in political morality), then what will it be? In some form or expression it will have to be the law of man (or men) - the standard of self-law or autonomy."
Much appreciation for any response you may give.
The early Lutheran thoughts on theonomy are summed up in this aphorism by Johann Gerhard: "For Christian commonwealths are not simply tied and bound to the judicial laws of Moses."
You can find his whole section on the civil magistrate here: https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1475-1640_a-golden-chaine-of-divin_gerhard-johann_1632/page/350/mode/2up
Franz Pieper, the Missouri Synod theologian of the early twentieth century writes more in this vein in his "Christian Dogmatics" vol. 1, p. 532: "Holy Scripture also determines exactly which laws applied only temporarily and locally, for instance, only to the Jews under the covenant of the Law, and are therefore not the divine norm for all men of all times. A great and harmful confusion of consciences of men is, even to our day, caused by generalizing temporary and local laws. With reference, for instance, to the commandment given Ex. 31: 14-15: 'Ye shall keep the Sabbath....everyone that defileth it shall surely be put to death,' and Lev. 19:26: 'Ye shall not eat anything with the blood,' and Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 (the catalog of clean and unclean beasts), the New Testament distinctly says: 'Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days' (Col. 2:16). We get this result: Only that is divine Law for all men which is taught in Holy Writ as binding on all. Not even the Ten Commandments in the form in which they were given to the Jews (Exodus 20) are binding on all men, but only the Ten Commandments as set down in the New Testament, as we have them, e.g., in Luther's Catechism."
The early Lutherans did make laws closing the bars during the Sunday divine service, and forbidding people making a racket in the streets while preaching was going on. I could go and get out Bugenhagen's Church Order and get quotations, but this is a long enough comment already. Luther also believed blasphemers had to be punished by the state; this was a significant part of why, later in life, he thought the Jews should be driven out of Lutheran lands, because they blasphemed Christ in their public daily prayers.
But the reason for this was they understood that the civil magistrate has the duty to uphold the Law God has given to all men and written on all men's consciences--the moral law, found in the ten commandments. He has not prescribed to all nations the form civil law is to take. While the Lutherans sometimes advocated for certain penalties prescribed in God's Law--Luther thought adulterers should be executed, and so did basically every orthodox Lutheran theologian--they did not think God had prescribed for every nation the form of their civil law, just as He hasn't prescribed to fathers the exact way they are to train their children in the admonition of the Lord, and the exact punishments they are to dispense to their children for specific sins. Fathers are given a free hand to make whatever laws they think most beneficial to their children, and of course what is going to work in one household will not work in another, and it is the same with nations. Governing Englishmen the same way you would govern Arabs indicates a failure to use wisdom.
I don't know a lot about theonomy, or modern reformed thinking in general, but from what I understand, theonomy is frequently coupled with presuppositional apologetics, and the common thread between the two seems to be a downplaying or lack of recognition that fallen people are still capable of recognizing God's law and this-worldly wisdom. I have seen some comments from Stephen Wolfe saying things like this. I don't know enough to comment on that, but I think that tendency in modern Lutheranism is bad. Human reason is capable of perceiving the existence of God and the moral law and making laws in accordance with it, because the Law of God is written in our consciences and the existence of the world testifies to God's omnipotence and wisdom.