1991 issue 2 - the decline of america & thomas aquinas - counsel of chalcedon

8/12/2019 1991 Issue 2 - The Decline of America & Thomas Aquinas - Counsel of Chalcedon

1/6

The Decline

o

merica

&

Tltomas quinas

by

oe Morecraft

The Early ecline ofAmerica .

. . , .

to

repentance but she was too blind

and

too stubbom to

repent.

Like

Israel,

the seeds of America's present declinewere

sown

by

the

same hands

who first erected this "city

set

uponahill."

As jW:atas

the first generation ofAmericans

were (early to late-middle 1600's),

they

fl iled to pass on

. their

vision to the

second and

third

generations.

n

17rJl

Increase Mather could write:

You

that

are

aged and

can

remember what New England

was

fIfty years ago,

that

saw these churches in their first glory,

is

there not a sad

decay and diminution of that glory How is the gold

become dim "

- .-

Forfiftyyears these

early Am ericans,

thePurltans,enjoyed

undisturbed socialpeace and increasing prosperity. This

was

notby accident It happened becausethese

were

men

and

women who made every effort

to

reconstruct

the

America

is

in

the midst of the most serious spiritual church, society andeveryotherinstitution andfacetoflife

declension in

her history, and it is affecting every aspect in the light'and direction

of

theworld-viewof

the

Bible,

of our life and society. We have changed gods. And our inherent in their Calvinistic

theology.

The Puritan was

newgodsarefailingus,andweareexperiencingwc:nening notlikeotherpeople. HecametoNorthAmericatobuild

consequences. When did

this

decline begin? Tenyears a Holy commonwealth under the Word of Christ. He

ago? Fifty years ago? When did Israel's decline begin, probed endlessly the implications of biblical truth and

which eventually led

to

herdestruction at thehands cifthe law to himself and his society. He sought assiduously

to

Babylonians? Jeremiah gives

uS

the

anS

wer:(Jer.32:

31

C

draw every

pOssible

implication and application

from

33); everyverseintheBible. Andasaresultthesecourageous

"Indeed . his city (of Jerusalem) has been

to

Me a

provocation

of

My anger and.My wratbFROM THE

DAY THAT THEY BUILT IT, (998 Be), even to . his

day, (586 BC); thatit should be removed frombefore My

face, because

of

all the evil of the sons of Israel and the

sons of Judah,whlch they have done

ib

pro.voke Me to

anger- they, their kings, their leaders, their priests, their

prophets, the men

of

Judah and the inhabitants

of

Jerusalem. And

they

have tumedtheir back to Me, and

not their fa e; though I taught

them

, teaching again and

again, they would not listen

and

receive instruction."

"From the day that they built

it Jetusale.rn)

: What

sobering words The.seeds

of

Jerusalem's decline and

destructionin586BC;

were

sown bythe

hands of

the

very

people who made her a great city, as the capital of

Jehovah's theocracy and the center of ISrael's worship

under King David around998 BC. GodSentprophetafter

prophetthroughouttheinterveningcenturiestocallIsraeI

.

.

he Counsel of Chalcedon February/March 1991 Page 6

Christians laid the Joundation. upon which this

constitutional republic was built,

this

countIy, which,

under God' s blessing upon their efforts, became

the

greatest and freest nation on the face of he

earth.

The Shift From Augustine to Aquinas

What

happened?

There is

ample

documentation in the

publications of

he

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,

aI).d in

modern

research on P1,uitanism,

that

the second

and thirdgeneration American did not continue theplans

and vision of their fathers.

This

declension, interrupted

occasionally

by

spiritual revivals,

advanced

in each

succeeding generation until Unitarianism and

Anninianism got a stranglehold

on

New England in

the

late eighteenth century. So the question

is

: how did

the

first generation American l>uritans

fail

' their

second

generation?

The answer is

to

be found in this: the first generation


2/6

AmericanPuritans,Christiangiantsamongmenthatthey killed the Holy Commonwealth. Later generations of

were,

"had one glaring weakness in their otherwise Americans wanted

to

preserve the benefits

of

Puritanism,

perfect system, the single but fatal inconsistency in an but they wanted to discard the old theology

of

their

otherwise monumental consistencY, wrote Perry Miller Puritan fathers. And so here we are.

inTheNewEnglandMind: the Seventeenth Century. The

weakness was that "in the Puritan mind confidence in the

certainty

of

God's word was matched by an equal

confidence in the infallibility oflogic," continues Miller.

In other words, theAmericanPuritans,as all sinners, were

not consistent with their first principle, that all of ife in all

its

aspects and details must be governed by the Bible.

THEIR TIiOMISM SOMETIMES CROWDED OUT

TIiElRAUGUSTINIANISM. Theirweakerdescendants

seized upon that inconsistency

and

developed it into

Unitarianism, Deism, Transcendentalism, etc. until it

became the full-blown anti-christian humanism of the

twentieth century.

Augustine, (354-430 AD), believed that, in order to

understand

any

aspect of life, i t must

be

understood in the

light

of

the written word

of

God . The Protestant

Reformation in the sixteenth century was a revival of

Augustinianism, especially in the writing and preaching

of John Calvin. The Puritans were British Augustinians

who came to this continent toworkout all theimplications

of their Reformation faith

and

world view.

Thomas Aquinas, (1225-1274

AD),

believed that the

Bible is necessary to understand some things, such as

salvation and the sacraments, but th t human reason is

fully

capable of understanding many areas

of

ife, such

as

politics, econo Ilics, etc., without reference to the Bible.

This

view supplanted Augustinianism as the centerpiece

of Catholic thought in the Middle Ages, and with th t

transition came the corruption of the Church. The

Renaissance exploited Tho Ilism.

t

taught that, i f the

Bible

is

unnecessary

to

understand some aspects

of

life

and society, it is unnecessary to understand any area

of

life and society.

In

fact, it is an obstacle to the acquisition

and

advancement of knowledge in general, and must be

discarded. So says today's humanism, which grew out

of

the Enlightenment and the Renaissance, which grew

out of the weakness of Thornism, which attempted to

synthesize Christianity with pagan Greek and Roman

philosophy, butwhichwinds up prostituting Christianity.

The Augustinian American Puritans never shook off all

the influences ofThomism. And

this is

what eventually

The most devastating legacy ofTho Ilism in this country

is the idea of "natura1law." This theory originated in

Greek and Roman thought. Connie Marshner, a

contemporary Thornist, defmes

the

natura1law theory in

this

way: "Though intellectual fashions change, an

objective moral order, knowable by man and within the

reach of mankind can be reasonably seen as the most

stable basis ofpersonal, national and international order

and happiness." Future 21: Direction or America In

The 21

st

Century, pg. 129). The anti-christian direction

of his viewpoint is seen inMarshner's comment that "the

natural law is independentofdivine revelation, since its

first principles are common to mankind

as

a whole, on

philosophical precepts, not on religious precepts, (nor

biblicalones-JCM),andcanbeunderstoodandaccepted

by anyone, (regenerate or unregenerate-JCM), willing

to master the intellectual rigors

of it

(pg.

132)

.

Thefirst generation AmericanPuritans would never have

said such a thing. In fact, they said the opposite.

In

1638

theFundamental OrdersofConnecticut declared: " ..well

knowing where a people are gathered together the word

of

God requires that

to

m int in peace and union of such

people there should be an orderly anddecentgovemment

established according to God, to order and dispose

of

the

affairs of the people at all season as occasion shall

require

..

" And in

1642

theNew Haven Colony officially

stated that "

..

when the plantation began andgovemment

was settled, that the judicial law

of

God given by Moses

and expounded in other parts

of

scripture, so far

as

it is a

hedge and afenceto the moral law, andneitherceremonial

nor typical nor had any reference to Canaan, hath an

everlasting equity in it, and should be the rule of their

proceedings."

The Counsel of

Chalcedon

FebruarylMarch 1991 Page 7


3/6

However, their inability to appreciate fully the flaws and

dangersofPlatonicreasonandAristotelianlogic,coupled

with their inconsistent application of their biblical

presuppositions, opened the door for men like Thomas

Jefferson, John Locke, Benjamin Franklin, and others of

th t generation, to attempt to lay the foundation for

Americanrepublican political philosophy in the theory

of

natural law and natura1rights. This has proved fatal

to

our

nation. Muchof he departure from our Christian heritage

as anationCan be attributed to the beliefinandapplication

of this unbiblical theory. It has led us farther and farther

from God, liberty, justice, morality, prosperity, peace,

and a regard for the sanctity of human life. t has led us

deeper and deeper into the suicidal tendencies of

humanism

Much

of

the departure

from

Our

Christian

heritage

as a

nation

can

be attributed

to

the

belief in and application ofthis unbiblical

(natural law) theory. t has led

us

faliher

and

farthel'ftom God,)ibrty,justice, morality,

prosperity,peace,aJld

~ r e g a r d for tbe santity

offilinla.lllife. Ithlis ledllSdeeper

and deeper

. nto

the suicidal tendcllciesofhumanism.

The

Refutation of Natural

Law

Gary North's critique

of

natura1law

is

totbepoint Moses

nd

Pharaoh

(pp.236-246):

Such a conceptionofnatura1lawrests on the assumption

of a universal human logic, the universal applicability in

history of that logic, and the universal recognition of his

logic and

its

universal applicability by all reasonable

men. It assumes, in short, the NEUTRAllTY of human

thought.

''The Bible explicitly denies any such neutrality. Men are

divided into saved and lost, keepers of God's covenant

and'breakers ofGod's covenant There

is

no agreement

between the twopositions.-Human reason, unaided

by

God's reveiation--untwisted by God's

grace-cannot

be expected to devise a universal law code based on any

presumed universal human logic. What mankind's

universal reason CAN be expected

to

do is to REBEL

against God and his law. Ethical rebels are not logically

faithful to God.

The Counsel of Cbalcedon FebruarylMarcb 1991 Page 8

\.

The Greek andRomait conceptofnatural. law rested on

. the presupposition of MAN'S AUTONOMY. Itrested

on the presupposition of NEUTRAllTY in human

thought The Bible recognizes this common heritage of

the image of od in man, but it sees

this

image as twisted

and perverse

in

rebellious man.

A crisis of confidence has appeared

in

the West which

has undermined the West's confidence in its own legal

institutions. a r o ~ d Berman's account of his erosion is

masterful: 'Whatis new today

is

the challenge to the legal

traditionasa whole, andnotmerelytoparticularelements

or aspects of it; and this

is

manifested above ll in the

confrontation with non-Western civilizations and non-

Western philosophies.

n

the past, Western

man

has

confidently carried his law with him throughout the

world. The world today, however, is suspicious-more

suspiciousthaneverbefore--fWesternlegalism. Eastern

and Southern Man offer other alternatives. The West

itself has come

to

doubt the universal Validity

of

its

traditional vision of law, especially its validity for non

Western cultures. Law that used to seem natura1 seems

only 'Western.' And many are saying that it is obsolete

even for the West.'

''The

acids

of the West's own humanism and relativism

have eroded the foundations

of

Western legality, which

has been one of the chief pillars of Western civilization.

fall cultures are equally valid, then their legal traditions

are lso equally valid as aspects of these

cOmpeting

cultures . Therefore, Hayek recommends that we refuse

to

save that dying elderly Eskimo who has been

left

to

perish in the snow

by

his peers. Is it any wonder, then, that

Hayek'seloquentpleaforanineteenth-centuryversionof

the rule of law has failed

to

gain the commitment of

scholars and social philosophers in the'twentieth? His

oWl1

twentieth-century relativism (irnplicitinnineteenth

century relativism) has eroded his economic and legal

prescriptions.

Men seek: a 'sovereigntY greater than themselves, a

sovereignty which can guarantee meaning to their lives

and success in their many ventures. IF GOD IS NOT

THE SOURCE

OF

LAW, AND LAW IS NOT

UNIVERSALLY VALID BECAUSE IT IS

REVEALED

BmLICAL

LAW, TIIEN ONLY A

HYPOTIIETICAL UNIVERSAL POWER STAlE


4/6

REMAINS TO GIVEMAN THE

SOVEREIGNTY BE

SEEKS (capitals JCM).

f

his also fails, then nothing

remains

to

assure mankind that his works have meaning

in time and on earth.

THE FAILURE OF NATURAL

LAW

DOCfRINE

WAS ASSURED WHEN MEN AT LAST

CEASED

TO

EQUATE

NATURAL LAW

WITH BffiLICAL

LAW

(capitals

JCM).

When

natural

law was at

last

recognized as 'natural' rather than revealed, autonomous

rather than created, then it gained its universality only

to

the extent that mankind is seen as a true universal.

But

with the rise o f relativism .. , the hoped-for unity of

man

collapsed. Now only power remains, not natural law.

Now only the rise of a new source of unity,

the

world

State, can guarantee man's legal

order

the unity

it

requires ..

Naturallaw

thereby ceases being natural. A

universal law can onlybe IMPOSED by the power State.

To

summarize:

NATURAL LAW

THEO'RY

ABANDONED

RELIANCE

ON THE REVEALED

LAW

OF THE GOD OF THE

BmLE

IN ORDER TO

ASSERT

IT

AUTONOMY AND

UNIVERSALITY,

ONLY TO LOSE BOll i ITS AUTONOMY AND

NATURALNESS (SELF-ATTESTING UNIVERSAL

VALIDITY)TOTHENEWSOVEREIGNTYOFTHE

POWER STATE (capitals JCM).

Wemust

alsorespondto the crisis

of

Western

law

withthe

answersthatBermanisunwillingtocallfor: therestoration

of

Christianity as the foundation

of

Western religion, the

restoration of this religion as the foundationof morality

and reason, and the establislunentof biblical law-and

nottherestorationofnatural awtheory-as the foundation

of social order. Nothing else will revive the West. Atrue

religious

revival-a

COMPREHENSIVE

REVIVAL

which restructures every human institution

in

terms of

biblical law-alone can establish theWest's foundations

oflong-term socialand legal order. A true revival alone

can

re-establish the long-term institutional foundationof

the free market economy.

The Faith Failure of Puritanism

This general decline in the life and thought of second

generation American Puritans is located

in the

decline of

the unity of Puritan thought and ...

the

piety

of

Puritan

life, wrote Terry Elniff

in

his book,The Guise o Every

Graceless

Heart He explains:

ThePuritan conceptofunity .. involvedacommonwealth

ofseparate spheresofcovenant activity--close, compact,

coordinate, but not confounded; independentbut inter

dependent.

The ideology ofPuritanism with its emphasis on limited

and

divided power, its spirit

of

non-autonomy,

and

its

insistence

on

the application

of

God's law as

an

absolute

and

sovereign authodty outside

of

man was

instituted

in

a form of government and socialorder which was based

on the consent embodied

in the

covenant, limited

by

the

law,

and

active both

in

preserving the social fabric

and the

individual liberty of its citizens. At

the

same time

the

Puritan theology developed an ethic

that

enabled its

adherents

to

live realistically

and

prosperously

in

the holy

commonwealth that

had been

created. (pg. 102)

Ithas

been

our

endeavor,he (the authorof he seventeenth

century Puritan book,New England s FirstFruits)wrote,

'to

have all God's own institutions, and no more than his

own, and all those

in

their native simplicity, without

having any human dressings; having liberty

to

enjoy all

that

God

commands, and yet urged

to

nothing more than

he

commands.' To have anything more than God

commanded was human autonomy;

to have

anything less

than he commanded was disorder and lawlessness. The

essence of non-autonomy was

to

have all that God

commanded and

no

more. To

the

extent

that

New

England accomplished that, to that extent she prospered.

THE PROBLEM NEW ENGLA ND

HAD

AND THE

DILEMMAS

SHE

FACED,

AS

WE

HAVE SEEN,

CAN

BE TRACED TO

HAVING

OR ATTEMPTING

TO

HAVE EITHER

MORE

OR LESS

mAN GOD'S

OWN INSTITUTIONS (capital JCM). What the

historians have called

the

declension

was

simply the

result of turning away from those institutions in one way

or another to human autonomy. (pg. 103)

The increasing encroaclunent of pretended human

autonomy

intoAmedcan

Puritanlife

and

thought resulted

in

a growing disharmony

and

disorder

in

colonial society.

Their goal

was

to maintain a complete harmony of

reason and faith, science and religion, earthly dominion

and

the

government

of God,

wrote

Perry

Miller

in The

Puritans.

But

they were not successful in maintaining

that unity of hought

and

life

under the

wordofGod

to

the

glory of God

in

coming generations.

The Counsel

of

ChaIcedon FebruaryIMarch 1991 Page 9


5/6

Human (pretended) autonomy is the sense of self

sufficiency and confidence in the ability ofhtimllI1 reason

to understand and order life apart from the guidance and

enlightenment of God's Word and God's Spirit The

focal points of this struggle between human autonomy

and non-autonomy in American Puritanism were church

membership, church establishment, the relationofchurch

and state, and church government Controversies in these

areas had implications forthe entire Puritan world-view.

Elniff writes:

"As the spheres separated more widely, the division

between church and state was more pronounced: the

church was seen as ruling in spiritual matters while the

state ruled in temporal and secular matters. The elements

ofauthority were seen as separate anddividedratherthan

as cooperating and unified. The individual looked to the

church on moral, spiritual, and theological matters, but to

the secular state for protection, welfare, prosperity and

justice-the keys topersonaiaggrandizement' Intracing

this development through the writingsof he Puritans, we

should be aware, warns Rutman, that there 'is a subtle

difference between a Winthrop or Cotton for whom the

goalofsociety was the pleasingofGod; a Samuel

Wi1la:rd

to whom ahappy, contented people was most pleasing to

God; and a John Wise to whom 'the happiness of the

people, is the end

of

( the state's) being; or main business

to be attended and done. ,

The transformation from the 'pleasing

of

God' to the

'happinessof he people' as the endof he stateis certainly

an example of the developing autonomous outlook, but

the more significant development is the acceptanceof he

division of he commonwealth, the acceptanceof he idea

that the interests of church and state were mutually

exc1usive, divided and distinct, andthatthemoreimportant

concerns

of

he people were hound up with the state rather

than the church." (pg. 109)

"The ultimate failure of the holy commonwealth came

with the decline

of

he concepts

of

unity and piety,

as

the

Puritans lost both the sense of the covenanted spheres

united in the Triune God and the reality

of

the spiritual

view of life. The concept of human autonomy was

expressed in the secularization of the state and in the

'intellectual somersaults' the Puritan made as he moved

back and forthbetweenhis secular and spiritual

interests."

(pg.117ff.)

The Counsel

of

ChaIcedon FebruarylMarch

1991

Page

10

With this synthesis in Puritan thought came the

deterioration ofpersonal piety. And becauseof this , by

the eighteenth century, colonial life was no longer

harmonious.

t

was shaken with all kinds of intemill

diso:rders. First generation American Puritan, William

Bradford, first governorof he Plymouth plantation, as an

old man, grieved over this spiritual declension he could

already

see

in the late 1600's. He said:

0 that these ancient members had not died or been

dissipated .or else that this holy care and constant

faithfulness had still lived, and remained with these that

survived, and were intimes afterward dded unto them.

But (alas) that subtle serpent hath slyly wound in himself

under fair pretence of necessity and the like to untwist

these sacred bonds and ties, and

as

it were insensibly, by

degreeS,

to dissolveor in a great measure

to

weaken, the

same. I have been happy, in

my

first times,

to

see, and

with much comfort

to

enjoy,

the

blessed fruits of this

sweet communion, butit is now apart ofmy misery in old

age, to fmd and feel the decay and want thereof

..

, and

with grief and sorrowof heart, to lament and bewail the

sarn.e.

However, it should be pointed out that this declension

advanced slowly in New England, becauseof he biblical

institutions the Puritans had put in place. Their biblical

conceptsofchecks and balance between various spheres

of authority, such.as the family, church and state; their

emphasis on thelimited,non-sovereign authority of hese

spheres; and their commitment that all spheres were

totally governed by biblical law, enabled this Holy

Commonwealth to be a productive, self-correcting, self

stabilizing, and institutionally balanced society "with

liberty and justice for all" for almost two hundred years.

In 1730, the hundredth anniversary of the founding of

New England, Thomas Prince spokeof his declension in

Puritanism. He did so, not in despair and hopelessness,

but to encourage his listeners

to

correct the situation and

enjoy the restored blessing of Ahnighty God. He said:

"But O Alas Our great and dangerous declension To

what an awful measure are they gone already, how

transcendently guilty do they make us, how threatening

do they grow

..


6/6

''Though 'its true

we

still maintain in general the same

religious principles and profession with our pious fathers,

yet how greatly is the spirit of piety declined among us,

how sadly

is

religion turning more and more into a mere

form of godliness, as the apostle speaks, without the

power, and how dreadfully

is

the love of the world

prevailing more and more upon this professing people

And tins notwithstanding

all

the zealous testimonies

which have from tim to time for above these threescore

years been borne against these growing evils.

true nature of our national crisis, but also hold the only

solution-thereconstruction

of

he United States in terms

of

the Puritan vision of a Holy Commonwealth on these

shores, avoiding the mistakes they made. This

is

not

nostalgia. But it is only as we build on the biblical

foundation the fIrst generation American Puritans laid

that we can take the future for Christ.

May Christians all over America recommit themselves,

by the grace

of

God, to pray for and work for the re

establishmentof he crown rights ofChrist, the King, over

all the earth, and

"Now then let the for the Christian

affecting view

of

Reconstruction

all these things, of all aspects of

both present, past American life

and future, excite and thought by

us

all

in

our

the infallible

several places to Word of God in

doourutmostthat

a.;;;;===========;;;;============;;;;.

he power

of

the

we may not share in the dreadful guilt of this declension, Holy Spirit to the glory

of

God. May we not rest until we

norhave apartindrawingon the lamentable consequences see, under the Lord's blessing, Christian individuals,

ofit. But let

us

lay it to heart and moum before the Lord, loving each other in Christian families, worshiping in

first our own apostasies and sins and then the apostasies Christian churches, educating their children in Christian

and sins prevailing among this people. Let us cry schools, working in Christian businesses, under the

earnestly for the Spirit of grace to be poured forth

on us

protection of a Christian Republic and Christian states,

and them, that the hearts of the children may be returned governed by Christian elected officials, with Christian

to the God

of

their fathers and may continue steadfast in judges administering biblica1law.

his sacred covenant. And being revived ourselves, let us

labor to revive religion in our several families, and then

rise up for God in this evil day, bear our open witness also

against the public degeneracy, and do what in us lies for

the revival

of

the power

of

piety among all about us."

(from

The People

ofNew

England

Put

In

Mind Of

The

RighteousActs

Of

he

Lord

TO ThemAndTheir Fathers.

"Not long after, the Great Awakening broke out. Forthe

Puritans,

it

seems, not even declension could be

autonomous," writes Elniff, pg

lB.

Conclusion

So where does this leave us in the United States today?

t means that today's Christians, armed with the old

Puritan vision and world-view, obtained from the Bible

alone, by means of the Protestant Reformation, must

recognize that we, and we alone, not only understand the

May thatday come when our beloved nation will publicly

and sincerely confess: " ...

we

the people of the United

States

of

America distinctly acknowledge our

responsibility to God, and the supremacy of His Son,

Jesus Christ, as King of kings, and Lord of lords; and

hereby ordain that no law shall be passed by the Congress

of hese United States inconsistent with the will ofgod, as

revealed in the Holy Bible." Amen

SO L T

IT BE n

The

Counsel of Chalcedon February lMarch 1991 Page

11

1991 issue 2 - the decline of america & thomas aquinas - counsel of chalcedon

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