An Informed Faith

Some men say with a show of horror, “How can you go back to Biblical law?” The answer is, we haven’t even come up to it yet, with its justice and freedom!

It is ironic, given the injustices of humanistic law, that men declare God’s law to be “barbaric” and “primitive” and affirm the validity of modern humanistic law. Greek law was brutal towards all save the limited number of elite, and Greek society was a slave society in which the elite few regarded their will as justice. The idealization of the Gr

The ultimate implication in natural theology is the autonomy of man. A true “natural theology” will recognize what Scripture and the confessions tell us about God the Creator; it will not attempt to go from nature to God but will begin with God’s enscriptured Word and will know nature in terms of it. Autonomous reason is then rejected, and all thin

There can be no understanding of Cornelius Van Til apart from this premise. Autonomy, literally self-law, is man’s attempt to supplant God’s law with his own, which, however much in many versions makes claims to be godly and moral, separates itself from the God of Scripture. Man becomes the determiner of “law,” which is more opinion than law. Theon

Basically, our choice as lawgiver is either God or man. If we reject God as lawgiver, we have rejected Him as our sovereign, our ruler. The first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1771, defined law thus: “The command of the sovereign power, containing a common rule of life for the subjects.” The law a person recognizes as his law tells us who

Behind all this is the question of authority: is it from God, or from man? If God is the sovereign authority over all things, then His law-word alone can govern all things. Religion, politics, economics, science, education, law, and all things else must be under God, or they are in revolt. If the ultimate authority is man, then all things must serv

In various areas, notably the doctrine of the atonement, he is the key orthodox theologian. In philosophy, his premise was, credo ut intelligam, I believe in order that I might understand. As against this, Abelard, an Aristotelian, sought to understand in order to believe. Whereas for Anselm faith precedes understanding, for Abelard (1079–1142) und

In his important study, The Heresy of Democracy (1955), Lord Percy of Newcastle declared of democracy that it is a “philosophy which is nothing less than a new religion” (p. 16). The justification for all things is not to be found in the triune God but in the people. Virtue means meeting people’s needs, and the democratic state, church, and God hav

Is the alternative the solution? Was Jefferson right in declaring that the best government is the least government? Given the growing and oppressive powers of the state, it is tempting to think so. Without all the oppressive regulating and taxing agencies, how much easier our lives would be! Or would they? I once lived for some years in an area of