Some 2k proponents limit capital punishment to murder, by appealing to the “common grace” covenant (as they classify it) which God made with Noah (e.g. Gen 9:5-6). But there are several basic problems with this argument:
i) The justification is grounded in their appeal to Scripture. Indeed, to the OT. To Klinean covenant theology. But in that case, they believe the Bible ought to norm public policy. Ought to norm modern statecraft and modern penology.
So it’s no longer a question of whether the Bible ought to norm the law for believers and unbeliever alike, but where in the Bible we should look to norm the law for believers and unbelievers alike.
Yet proponents of 2k typically invoke general revelation rather than special revelation as the common source and standard of morality and law for believers and unbelievers alike.
So there seems to be a central contradiction in appealing to the Biblical witness to God’s covenant with Noah, even if we accept their idiosyncratic interpretation of the Noachic covenant.
ii) The Noachic authorization for the death penalty carries over into the Mosaic covenant (Num 35; Exod 21:18).
Yet 2k proponents say the Mosaic covenant was abrogated by the new covenant. But if there’s carryover between the Noachic covenant and the Mosaic covenant, then the provisions of the Mosaic covenant can’t be treated as if they were uniquely cultic or theocratic. For, by Klinean lights, the Noachic covenant is a common grace covenant. But if key elements of the Noachic covenant carry over into the Mosaic covenant, then the Mosaic covenant also exemplifies common grace as well as special grace. In that event, it’s not a purely timebound arrangement. Rather, it instantiates certain timeless principles. So it can’t be treated as if it were an all-or-nothing arrangement.
iii)By the same token, the injunction concerning capital punishment in Gen 9:5-6 comes on the heels of the injunction concerning exsanguination (vv3-4). Yet exsanguination also carries over into the Mosaic law (Lev 17; Deut 12).
Therefore, you can’t draw a cut-and-dried dichotomy between the “common grace” covenant that God made with Noah and the (allegedly) typological covenant that God made with Moses. Put another way, you can’t say the Noachic covenant represents culture while the Mosaic covenant represents cult. For there’s overlap.
iv) Indeed, exsanguination, as well as the kosher laws generally, are something we’d ordinarily association with the ceremonial law rather than the moral law. With cultic holiness. Ritual purity. So how can that be present in a “common grace” covenant (i.e. the Noachic covenant) as well as the Mosaic covenant?
v) Moreover, capital punishment is not an isolated penalty in Biblical justice. Rather, it’s a special case of a broader principle–the lex talionis. An eye-for-an-eye. Hence, capital punishment can’t be segregated from Biblical justice in general.
vi) Ironically, this 2k argument is also at odds with Klinean hermeneutics. According to Kline:
The counterarguments often drawn from statements concerning man’s diet in Genesis 1:29 and 9:3 are not cogent. In Genesis 1:29 the explicit assignment of the plant world to man for food is not restrictive, as though that were the only kind of food permitted him…These considerations show how unwarranted is the assumption that the silence of this passage concerning man’s use of animals flesh as food must be intended as a prohibition as such.
The authorization in Genesis 9:6a for this ultimate prerogative of man’s common grace endowment with dominion is accompanied by the statement that he is the image of God, the likeness and vicegerent of him who exercises absolute dominion over all (v.6b). In Genesis 1:27-30 man’s identity as image of God is stated first (v27a) and then the significance of that is expounded in terms of man’s investment with the God-like glory of dominion (vv28-30). In Genesis 9:2-6 the dominion is set forth first (vv2-6a) and then man’s image-of-God status is cited at the close as the explanation of his magisterial appointment (v6b).
The subject of man’s dominion over animals (9:2) leads to the topic of animals serving as food (9:3), and that to the prohibition of eating the life-blood (9:4), which leads to the matter of shedding man’s lifeblood and the judicial response to (murder (9:5,6).
Kingdom Prologue (2000), 54-55; 253, 254.
a) Notice, on this analysis, that the Noachic authorization for capital punishment is a part of literary unit which also includes the command regarding carnivory, animal sacrifice, and exsanguination.
b) And in that regard, Kline objects to the argument from silence. He points out that this command is not proscriptive.
And DVD argues that Genesis 20 shows us the existence of a natural law all men know (which is true as far as it goes). Gen 20 says: Abraham replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’
ReplyDeleteDVD argues that this "fear of God" theme shows a natural law at work. But a problem with Genesis 20 is that it sure looks like adultery is considered a crime; indeed, a crime worthy of death. Note:
"But God came to Abimelek in a dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.”
Now Abimelek had not gone near her, so he said, “Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? 5 Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister,’ and didn’t she also say, ‘He is my brother’? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands.”
As Lee Irons has said, the 2K appeal to NL could turn out to justify a state any theonomist would be happy with,
Paul makes a great point. There are many non-Jewish/Christian cultures throughout history that have had the death penalty for adultery and homosexuality.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that NL could be interpreted in such a way that theonomy would be the result.
So it’s no longer a question of whether the Bible ought to norm the law for believers and unbeliever alike, but where in the Bible we should look to norm the law for believers and unbelievers alike.
ReplyDeleteYet proponents of 2k typically invoke general revelation rather than special revelation as the common source and standard of morality and law for believers and unbelievers alike.
So there seems to be a central contradiction in appealing to the Biblical witness to God’s covenant with Noah, even if we accept their idiosyncratic interpretation of the Noachic covenant.
I don’t see the merit in trying to argue from Gen. 9 that capital punishment should be restricted to murder (I’d be interested in who it is you have in mind here), but I don’t see this “central contradiction.” There’s a difference between invoking Scripture qua Scripture in the public square in connection with the formation of public policy, and believing that Scripture communicates what certain “common grace” norms are (or ought to be). And further, general and special revelation, though distinct modes of revelation, overlap in content revealed.
ii) The Noachic authorization for the death penalty carries over into the Mosaic covenant (Num 35; Exod 21:18).
Yet 2k proponents say the Mosaic covenant was abrogated by the new covenant. But if there’s carryover between the Noachic covenant and the Mosaic covenant, then the provisions of the Mosaic covenant can’t be treated as if they were uniquely cultic or theocratic.
You speak of the provisions of the Mosaic covenant as if one has to say the same thing about all of them. Which 2k proponents say that all the laws in the Mosaic covenant are uniquely cultic or theocratic, or have only cultic or theocratic normative dimensions?
For, by Klinean lights, the Noachic covenant is a common grace covenant. But if key elements of the Noachic covenant carry over into the Mosaic covenant, then the Mosaic covenant also exemplifies common grace as well as special grace. In that event, it’s not a purely timebound arrangement. Rather, it instantiates certain timeless principles. So it can’t be treated as if it were an all-or-nothing arrangement.
Kline doesn’t treat the normativity of the laws in the Mosaic law as an “all-or-nothing” arrangement. (If there are self-styled “Klineans” who do say this, I’d like to know who they are and where they say this.)
iii)By the same token, the injunction concerning capital punishment in Gen 9:5-6 comes on the heels of the injunction concerning exsanguination (vv3-4). Yet exsanguination also carries over into the Mosaic law (Lev 17; Deut 12).
ReplyDeleteTherefore, you can’t draw a cut-and-dried dichotomy between the “common grace” covenant that God made with Noah and the (allegedly) typological covenant that God made with Moses. Put another way, you can’t say the Noachic covenant represents culture while the Mosaic covenant represents cult. For there’s overlap.
I agree that there is more going on in the Gen. 9 provisions than merely “common grace” ordinances. Nevertheless there are stark contrasts between the covenants in terms of scope. The Noahic one, unlike the Mosaic, is made with the whole earth, with every living creature, etc. As for the prohibition against eating blood, this seems to involve a third category, admittedly not “common grace,” but neither straightforwardly Mosaic (cf. Acts 15). Kline suggests (in Kingdom Prologue) it pertains to the cultic/altar community, but in a way that is broader than the Mosaic/theocratic cultus per se.
iv) Indeed, exsanguination, as well as the kosher laws generally, are something we’d ordinarily association with the ceremonial law rather than the moral law. With cultic holiness. Ritual purity. So how can that be present in a “common grace” covenant (i.e. the Noachic covenant) as well as the Mosaic covenant?
I think one has to admit that not everything that is said has the same scope of application. But one can give principled explanations, it seems, for making distinctions. The humans disembarking from the ark were simultaneously the only existing instances of humanity in general as well as the redeemed people of God. The latter can explain the cultic element, and the prescription of capital punishment for murder is grounded in something universal, not redemptive (man’s being made in the image of God).
(I think Vos, in Biblical Theology, gives an interpretation of the proscription against eating blood that would give it a more universal tenor (involving the sanctity of life); which would also allow one to defend the “common grace” thrust of the covenant. But I think Kline rejects Vos’s idea here.)