Truth unchanged, unchanging

***QUOTE***

Travis White said:

Steve:

First, I want to make it clear that I have loads of respect for you. I read Triablogue daily (I've read every single post for months now) and it's truly my favorite site on the entire web. You do a fantastic job and I praise God for your amazing work in dismantling all kinds of heresies and atheists. I know of few, if any, who do it better.

Second, I want to make it clear that I see the possibility that my disagreement is merely borne out of my misunderstanding you here.

But it appeared to me, at least, that your initial post here seemed to imply that the "harshness" or "brutality" (without a value judgment being rendered, I realize) is due to the brutality around Israel. And this seemed to be communicating the point that the penal sanctions of the Older Testament were given because the nations around Old Testament Israel were brutal and not because those penalties are precisely what is deserved by the crimes for which they are prescribed.

That just doesn't appear to square with Scripture, in my estimation. The Bible seems to make it clear that the laws of the Older Testament prescribe what they prescribe simply because that is exactly what the crimes for which they are given deserve--that is, "an eye for an eye." The author of the book of Hebrews, moreover, proffers an argument for the justice of hell on the premise that, according to the Mosaic law, "every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution" (Heb. 2:2). The term "just retribution", I think, communicates what I am getting at here: that the particular penal sanctions of the Mosaic Law were given just because they are what those particular transgressions deserve.

Of course, granting what I'm claiming here, the atheist's objection to the Mosaic Law, Christian ethics in general, and Christian socio-political ethics in particular, still can't even approach getting off the ground at this point for reasons you have already so aptly mentioned, not the least of which their lack of objective moral absolutes with which to measure Biblical law, and which could serve in an alterative moral system.

Could you clarify a bit or let me know what you think about my thoughts here? It could be that I merely misinterpreted you, perhaps by taking your claim regarding the brutality of the pagans round Israel, and the fact that you didn't mention the inherent justice of the laws as meaning that you didn't think those laws were inherently exactly what the crimes deserve.

To be as transparent as possible, I'll freely admit here that I'm coming from a staunchly theonomic perspective. Thanks, Steve.

Soli Deo Gloria!

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Hi Travis. Always nice to hear from you.

Readers of T’blog should take the occasion to mouse over to Mr. White’s fine blog.

1.I wasn’t talking about the penalties, per se. That came up in the combox in response to my post, but not in the course of my post.

2.Unbelievers object to things like OT holy war, “slavery” (e.g. indentured servants, war captives), gender-specific regulations, imprecatory Psalms, &c.

They also object to some or all of the capital offenses.

This material is not all of a kind.

3.To evoke a distinction I drew in my post on just-war criteria, there’s a difference between retribution and self-defense.

Retribution is supposed to be proportional. But self-defense need not be proportional.

Indeed, proportionality in self-defense might be self-defeating.

Self-defense, to be effective, will defend the subject by any means necessary, although it may not be licit to win at any cost.

4.In the past you yourself have noted that we have two sets of precepts covering the laws of war in the Mosaic code: one for holy war and the other for conventional war.

This is, to some degree, adapted to the concrete circumstances, right? To the threat level and the measures appropriate to repel the threat.

A war can be punitive, defensive, or both.

The tactics used in war are not necessarily punitive. They may merely be practical. The most efficient way of winning.

5.Divine legislation never punishes the guilty more severely that he deserves.

But it may punish him less severely. And where the threat-level is lower, there are times when one can afford to be more merciful.

6.I’m also not drawing a principled, diachronic line between then and now, but simply using temporal or circumstantial distinctions for illustrative purposes.

For the distinction I’m drawing is applicable to any time and place wherein the same conditions are operative.

Going back to the OT laws of warfare, two sets of laws could function simultaneously. They differed in place, but not in time.

So the situational context can be a differential factor.