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