I was sitting (lying is more like it) on my couch asking myself why I can’t seem to think of something to write about the last week or two.  Yes, I am busy, no doubt.  But as I pondered I realized that I was simply overwhelmed with issues and don’t really where to start.  With so many problems all coming at the same time, one (this one, at least) has trouble choosing.  They all need to be addressed, but they can’t all be addressed, so here I am with a kind of mental block, or lock perhaps.  I wonder whether any of my Berean colleagues feel this way.

But I am going to force myself simply to choose something that is important and begin to write.  Here goes…..  Two minutes have passed and many thoughts are running through my head.   Ten minutes later, after reading a bit more, a topic hit me that should resonate with Christians, but which clearly shows the point at which Libertarians and Christians part ways.  I generally like Libertarian economic ideas, but not when they run up against my Biblical beliefs and truth.  The story behind this is that recently a young woman named Belle Knox (real name Miriam Weeks) gave a talk at Duke University in which she indicated her support of free markets (good for her) but also has been paying her way at Duke (cost, about $240,000 over four years) by acting in pornographic movies.  Ms. Knox also spoke about the high cost of tuition and what drives it, and this too was useful to hear.  For her it was all about her freedom to do that in order to pay her bills.  Now as I said, she had some very good remarks about the tuition “racket” caused largely by government loans pushing up the incentives to charge ever higher tuition.  She is right, and perhaps she would not have become a porn star if Duke hadn’t succumbed to the enticing ability to raise its tuition so high.  And her remarks about markets, for the most part, were also spot on.  But at the same time Ms.  Knox is a moral agent, whether she is a Christian or not.  What she has done is morally wrong and she should stop.  That much is clear based on the equally clear teaching in the Bible, our rule as Christians for faith and life (Let me stress that: The Bible is THE rule for the Christian for faith and life—no other source can be above it and all must be subservient, though useful at times, to it).

But the bigger question raised is how far will Christians go to support freedom when the clear teaching of Scripture sets a boundary and says “this far and no farther”?  This question applies both to the question of to what extent Christians would condone the personal ethical decision and how to what extent government ought to prohibit such actions as more than just morally wrong, but legally wrong—and on what grounds.  And that gets us to the even thornier question of that grounding; to what extent and in what way is Scripture valid for use in modern government, particularly in its laws?

I have written about this before, but here it becomes a bit closer to home.  In the example of Ms. Knox, what she is doing is immoral, but should it also be illegal?  And if so, on what grounds?  That means for Christians, we must be able to make an argument from the Scriptures that itself is valid, that is, a valid application from a text or texts, properly interpreted.  If we can’t then our arguments reduce to mere emotional responses.  But here also let me add that some might want to argue that even if an action should not be sinful in itself, its cumulative consequences may lead to societal breakdown and destruction.  This certainly is a valid argument, but it is not the same kind of argument as that from Scripture.  Scriptural arguments are a kind of Divine Command Theory ethics, while arguments about consequences are Utilitarian.  The latter has its place, but it is different.  So do we accept Divine Command Theory ethics in the moral realm?  Of course.  But do we accept these in the realm of legal-political ethics—questions having to do with civil government?  Sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t.  But we are sometimes arbitrary in what we choose.  Why is this command valid and that one is not?  This is where we should stop and think about a coherent theology about how to use Law in the legal realm.

So we have our work cut out for us.  And if we find a theological basis for consistently sorting out commands that are valid and those not relevant (I say relevant because no command has been abolished technically–see Matthew 5: 17—but only changed in its use).  Undoubtedly too we will find that we as Christians have stricter limits on human behavior than Libertarians, and on Biblical grounds.

If we want to find a way to distinguish laws that apply today and those that do not, we obviously need a complete Biblical theology that provides a basic framework for understanding history, particularly Biblical history—the relationship between Old and New Testaments and the continuity and discontinuity between the two.  Before I attempt to do that however, let me go back to Matthew 5: 17.  Whatever the word “fulfill” means, it does not mean “abolish,” which is also used in the verse in contrast to “fulfill.”  Thus, it seems all of God’s Law has some sort of use.  The ceremonial laws of course are not actually practiced, but they are useful for pointing to Christ.  It is difficult to see how moral commands could ever become somehow figurative or not to be taken as literal commands concerning moral behavior before God and in relation to other humans.  Judicial or civil laws may be more difficult, but we know they cannot be abolished.  How then are they used?  Given the fulfillment of all Law by Jesus, we also know some change has occurred.  So perhaps we are on solid ground at this point to say simply that the principles of the Old Testament civil laws remain valid and useful in society, but not the literal precepts.

If I am right, then our Divine Command Theory is founded on the Old Testament civil commands, as fulfilled by Christ’s advent, resulting in a principalized legal system applicable to society by government.  This would be consistent with Romans 13 and Matthew 22.  As a result, the Libertarian view of liberty to act as one please so long as no harm is done to others must be rejected to the extent that it conflicts with our Divine Command Theory.

I am aware of various arguments as to why the Mosaic commands are not really valid in the civil-judicial realm today.  Some argue that that dispensation has passed and that we are under grace, not law.  But my argument is about a judicial and civil use, which never did and never will and was never intended to save anyone, but was intended to restrain the wicked and provide a rule of law.  So that argument that the new dispensation has done away with the law does not apply.  Another argument is that the judicial part so the law were for Israel as a polity, and that Israel is no longer a political entity.  It is of course no longer existent as a political entity as established by God, but those commands were given by God, who does not change, and so they reflect God’s will in a very important way concerning what He thought (and thinks) about the best way to make a government and legal system operate with justice—the main point of all those legal-political commands.  Again, they were never intended to save one, but to restrain people living together in a political state and to establish a set of rules by which everyone would live.  They could not be wrong if God gave them, and any rules established would in principle have to conform to those commands to approximate God’s unchanging will on such matters.  Both of those arguments then fail to make their case.

To put all this simply and conclude, Libertarians may share some common ground with Christians, especially in the economic realm, but we cannot go all the way to the anarcho-capitalist version or the version advocated by Ayn Rand or Murray Rothbard or others.  The simple fact is that in the social arena, Christian legal-political ethics establishes boundaries that Libertarianism does not.  I know that many young people especially have been attracted to Libertarianism on account of its promise of genuine freedom to live their lives as they wish.  But Christians must be wary of this promise, since it may actually result in libertinism, or a kind of antinomianism.  The problem arises both in personal ethics and in social ethics.

I will conclude with a short word to my Christian Libertarian friends.  I agree with your concerns that freedom has been eroded in recent decades and that our political leaders have been at least partly responsible for that unhappy situation.  But you as Christians have to come to grips with the limits on freedom that Scripture establishes, certainly, as you would agree, in your personal ethics, as you already do for the most part, but also, as you might not readily agree, in your thinking about the proper scope and function of government in using principles from God’s Law.  No amount of argument regarding freedom as an ultimate value or self-ownership as a basis can do away with the necessity for any believer to take the Scriptures seriously in every sphere of life.