Reformed Christian Politics and Theonomy

Last week, "A Study Report on Reformed Christian Politics" was released by two Presbyterian (PCA) pastors and Dr. Stephen Wolfe. Skimming through the report, it looks generally like a helpful contribution to the conversation on a Reformed approach to politics.

Thus far, the only chapter I have read in full is the chapter on theonomy. While I think that chapter is better than many other critiques of theonomy, and is worth reading on the topic, yet I think it errs when it says that theonomy strays from the Westminster Confession of Faith. What follows are my initial thoughts on that aspect of the report.

I think the report did a better job at exploring and explaining older theologians on the judicial laws of the Old Testament than it did explaining theonomy and theonomists like Greg Bahnsen. I do think there are some weaknesses in Greg Bahnsen's position, but not a difference with 19.4 of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

The report claims that Bahnsen equated the judicial laws and the moral law when he said that Old Testament standing laws are “morally binding” unless modified by revelation. But are not all laws of God morally binding upon those under them? Bahnsen noted that judicial laws can be modified, thus distinguishing them from the moral law.

Contrary to what the report says, Greg Bahnsen, like the Westminster Confession, looked to the general equity contained in the judicial laws as a guiding principle of application. And he recognized there are discontinuities in application due to redemptive historical and cultural differences between Old Testament Israel and us (see his comments in By This Standard (2008), p. 4 and Christ Is King (2025), p. 32-35). 

Did Bahnsen reject the authority of natural law in this interpretive process, as is claimed? While he did not use that terminology, he did assert that the moral obligations given in the law and in nature are the same and have a natural and universal obligation (see "For Whom Was God’s Law Intended?" and Christ Is King, p. 40), and he asserted that it was the moral requirements illustrated in the laws that were to be implemented. He did not reject the “expiration” of the judicial law, nor did he equate the moral and judicial laws. Greg Bahnsen wrote, “Although Israel as a political body has expired -- and along with it its judicial law as a constitution -- the general equity of those judicial laws is still required … Political codes today ought to incorporate the moral requirements which were culturally illustrated in the God-given, judicial laws of Old Testament Israel” ("What Is Theonomy?").

That said, I do think it is true that theonomy may underemphasize the role of natural law in discerning the general equity of the judicial law. Yet the concern the natural law be understood correctly, and not set against the moral law revealed in Scripture, was an important one. 

Also, 19.4 of the Westminster Confession does not simply speak of a "pedagogical function," but of a certain obligation. "To them also, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require." The laws themselves are binding today as far as their general equity may require. The question is, to what extent are the judicial laws of general equity and therefore binding in substance today?

The report recognizes there is variation within the confessional position. I think that theonomy should be regarded as one of these variations, rather than a view that differs from Westminster. In fact, despite statements to the contrary, I think the report helps to show that. That said, I agree that the position can be refined and that the theologians of past centuries can help us in this refinement. 

While I do not give much attention to how Bahnsen's views fit into the mix, you can find my own writings on the judicial laws of the Old Testament here: The Judicial Laws of the Old Testament and here: More on the Judicial Laws of the Old Testament.