“Paragraph 3 in the original Westminster Confession … gives the civil magistrate the power to punish heretics and blasphemers and to correct corruptions in worship and discipline. Paragraph 3 in the Savoy Declaration also says the government has the power to suppress the publication of blasphemy and serious heresies … Baptists strongly disagreed with both the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists that the government is given such powers by the Word of God.”
This question has to do with the limits of human authorities and more particularly with the jurisdictional boundaries of the civil government.
Before critiquing theonomy, we need a good definition. Some people today who use the word “theonomy” don’t mean anything more than “God’s law” because the etimology of the word theonomy is “theos” which means God, and “nomos” which means law. They only want to affirm that God’s law is supreme over man’s law. And they’re right about that. God’s transcendent moral law is the norm that norms all norms. Governmental laws should always be consistent with God’s law and human law must never violate God’s law.
But in this post, I’ll be using the word “theonomy” in a more technical sense, which is rooted in the historic usage of the term.
It is always a humbling and learning experience to read the responses to a blog series on a controversial subject. Iron does sharpen iron, as the Bible says, and I learn much from those responses. Some postmils have taken a little umbrage at my description of Postmillennialism as a millennium involving a distinct, golden age following the one in which we live.
Some of those who identify as theonomists today refer to themselves as “general equity theonomists,” believing that this identification lands them within the boundaries of Reformed confessional orthodoxy. But if it does, then the term “general equity” needs to be defined the same way the tradition defined it. The technical term “general equity” is used in both the Westminster Confession and the Second London Baptist Confession.
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