Think Tank 2012 Live-Blog: Two-ism and Politics (Calvin Beisner)

Speaker: Calvin Beisner (Founder and Spokesman, The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation)

Session: Two-ism and Politics

I want to discuss why Two-ism is incompatible with a one-world government.

Distinctions: global government/transnationalism vs. internationalism:

John O’Sullivan: “… to sign a treaty with clearly defined obligations to other nationts is ot exercise sovereignty, whereas to sign a treaty with a postnational entity obliging you to do whatever it demands is to surrender sovereignty. The former is internationalism; the latter is transnationalism, which first imprisons and then gradually eliminates nation-states in a euthanasia of regulations.”

Anyone who cares about the pursuit of happyness should avoid the seductive lure of world peace and world government. Peter Jones: “We live in an age of projects that ‘would bring the world together…”

Scriptural foundations against global government:

• Deuteronomy 17:14-20
• 1 Samuel 8:1-22
• Isaiah 33:22

Deuteronomy 17:14-20

In this passage, God’s people are about to make choices – among them, the choice of king.

There is a clear warning and a few basic ideas:

• The king is under the law, not above
• The king is not to become so constantly embedded with people from other countries that he forgets how closely related he is to his own people. He is supposed to rule over them and build relationships with them.
• How can one world government maintain close relationships with people?

If you are a One-ist, you don’t have a transcendent Creator to give law to everyone, so instead, you have the king as law.

In contrast, Samuel Rutherford noted: “The law is (ultimate) king and the king is subject to it, just as we are subject to it.

1 Samuel 8:1-22

The elders of Israel were acting as One-ists. Yahweh was merely a tribal God and not Creator of heaven and Earth. Thus, Yahweh says to Samuel: “I am going to give them over to a depraved mind.” They have exchanged the truth of God for a lie and became wise in their own eyes. They did not want to have to relate to the transcendent God; they wanted someone immanent. They came to worship the creature instead of the Creator.

Isaiah 33:22

Yahweh is our judge; Yahhweh is our lawgiver; Jahweh is our king; he will save us.

Belief in Two-ist government:

1. Belief in a transcendent Creator is necessary for belief that “all men are created equal” with “certain unalienable rights.”
2. belief that “all men are created equal” with “certain unalienable rights” is the indispensable ground of belief in government by consent of the governed—that is, government by representation.
3. Belief in government by consent of the governed is the indispensable ground of belief in a limited government.
4. Belief in limited government entails belief in the necessity of restraints on government.
5. Belief in the necessity of restraints on government leads to belief in the necessity of 
enumerated powers; division of persons; and separation of powers.
6. Belief in limited government entails belief in multiplicity of government.
   6a. multiple sovereign states rather than a single, universal government.
   6b. multiple gradations of government within a sovereign state (i.e., a federal system).
   6c. right of people to relocate and change their allegiance from one government to another
7. Belief in a transcendent Creator who is Judge, Lawgiver, King makes rejection of a single universal human government rational, for it assures us that the existence of such a government is not necessary for justice to prevail.
8. Belief in a transcendent Creator, human equality under God, unalienable God-given rights, government by consent of the governed, limited government, restraints on government, enumerated and divided powers spread among separated branches of government, and multiplicity of governments entails the rejection of a single, universal human government in principle.

CONCLUSION

Psalm 136: “…his steadfast love endures forever.”