Jean Jacques Rousseau #3 (Bible Analysis)

The information discusses the idea of returning to the Law of God as a solution to the economic reset proposed by Klaus Schwab. It emphasizes the importance of a change of heart and mind through the new birth, leading to a national covenant with God. It highlights the distinction between a social contract and a national covenant, with the former being humanistic. The history of constitutionalism is also explored, with examples such as Magna Carta and the U.S. Constitution. The limitations of constitutionalism in restraining governments and protecting citizens' rights are mentioned. The discussion touches on the concept of the fallen nature of man and the role of general revelation versus special revelation. Rousseau's ideas on natural religion and the Romantic movement are briefly mentioned. Hi everybody, and welcome once again to TheGreatBibleReset.com, which calls for a return to the Law of God, which is summarized in Exodus 20-24, as our only deliverance from the looming tyranny of Klaus Schwab's great economic reset. The renovation of man and society has to be an inside job, in other words, it must be a change of heart and mind that only the new birth can create. As men and women enter into covenant with their Creator, they are cleansed within. The natural progression is then outward to society, as reborn individuals come together, not in a social contract, but in a national covenant with God, to live in community under His Law. It's critical that we draw this distinction between the social contract and the national covenant with God, because the social contract is humanistic. It's critical that we draw this distinction because the social contract is humanistic to its core, and is the essence of constitutionalism. What is constitutionalism? Well, to answer that question, we have to step back for a moment for a review of the big picture view of Western civilization. You may recall that the dynasty of Alfred the Great ruled for close to 200 years at the end of the first millennium. It was during an era of relative freedom under the Mosaic covenant, and that covenant was actually written into the law code of Alfred's government document, word for word. This is what Moses had told the king to do in Deuteronomy 17, to write for himself daily a copy of the Law of God, so that his heart might not be lifted up above his brother. Everything changed in 1066 with the Norman or Viking invasion at the Battle of Hastings. Church and state were split at that point, with the state creating its own systems of retributionary law that were characterized by centralization of power and government. Subsequent to that, a series of six great revolutions have shaken the world over the next millennium as part of that global rebellion against the Law of God. It started with the papal revolution itself, from 1075 to 1122, but almost 50 years of warfare between church and state, and then reemerged with the century-long English Revolution in the 1600s. We might actually insert the Hundred Years' War in there from 1337 to 1453, during the approximate 300, or in the middle of the 330-year Plantagenet dynasty, but these revolutions became progressively more brutal, but their underlying assumptions are the same. It's always some new version of man governing himself apart from the Law of God, which was rejected in 1066 and the years immediately following. Now, one of the things we see throughout this period is the phenomenon of constitutionalism. What is constitutionalism? Well, we have, for example, the Constitutional Clarendon in 1164, in which Henry II lays out his dominance over the church and his idea of the common law, and this, you may recall, was resisted by Thomas Beckett. Then in the next century, in 1215, we have Magna Carta, which was based not on the Word of God, but on a grant of kingly power, on the authority of holy church and the law of the land, not the Bible. So we then have a revival of constitutionalism in the 1600s, with James Harrington's Oceana and John Locke's English Bill of Rights in 1689, and then finally, a century later, the U.S. Constitution, which is itself religiously neutral in the tradition of constitutionalism. Well, what happened in Phase I of the English Constitution was that Oliver Cromwell and Parliament went to war to get rid of James I and Charles I's divine right of kings. And for a fleeting moment, the Presbyterians had an opportunity to reintroduce a national biblical covenant of Alfred the Great, which they called the Solemn League and Covenant. The problem was they set it up as an establishment of the Presbyterian denomination, which Cromwell rejected or ignored. And this opened the door for the British commonwealth men, in particular James Harrington and John Milton, to revive the idea of a religiously neutral constitution based on social contract and human rights that would allegedly be acceptable to everybody. And this took root in the English Bill of Rights later in the century. This took root in the English Bill of Rights later in the century, inspired by John Locke in 1689, the English Bill of Rights, and then ultimately in the U.S. Constitution of 1787, almost a century later, exactly. Madison wanted a secular republic, which he thought would sidestep the religious wars that plagued Europe, and that he and Jefferson had articulated a year before the Constitutional Convention in the Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty in 1786, and that included such notorious statements as, a man's religious opinions have no more effect on his qualification for public office as his opinions about geometry or any other field of science or knowledge. The problem is God will not tolerate this kind of religiously neutral pluralism, because Jesus said, he who is not for me is against me. And so we declare ourselves against Christ by ignoring him. And so his judgment has inexorably worked its way out over 225 years of American history since then into our current desperate situation of God's judgment. And the only thing, folks, that's going to save us is a great Bible reset back to God's definition of Christian nationalism, which he spelled out for us in Exodus 20-24, it's a beautiful constitutional constitution for a Christian nation. Now Walter Hamilton's definition of constitutionalism in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences is, constitutionalism is the name given to the trust, which men repose in the power of words engrossed on parchment to keep a government in order, end of quote. Even the brutal French and Russian revolutions had a high sounding constitution regarding the rights of man, the human rights of the man. So constitutionalism has also been the subject of criticism by Murray Rothbard, who's a libertarian of the Austrian school, an economist. Constitutionalism has also been the subject of criticism by Murray Rothbard, who is an economist libertarian of the Austrian school, who attacked constitutionalism as being incapable of restraining governments and not protecting the rights of citizens from their governments. And he said, and this is a somewhat lengthy quote here, he said, quote, it is true that in the United States at least we have a constitution that imposes strict limits on some powers of government. But as we have discovered in the past century, no constitution can interpret or enforce itself. It must be interpreted by men, and if the ultimate power to interpret a constitution is given to the government's own Supreme Court, then the inevitable tendency is for the court to continue to place its imprimatur on ever broader powers for its own government. Furthermore, the highly touted checks and balances and separation of powers in the American government are flimsy indeed, since in the final analysis all of these divisions are part of the same government and are governed by the same set of rulers. And Patrick Henry pointed this out in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, the same flimsy checks and balances. And we see it in spades after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment, one of the wartime amendments, and you'll recall that the Bill of Rights was originally intended to restrain who? The federal government, right? However, in the 14th Amendment, the 14th Amendment turns the Bill of Rights on its head and turns those restrictions of power back onto the states instead of the federal government. It was a great reversal and a huge problem. Now Rousseau's noble savage theory cannot be found in the Bible. Instead, the Bible teaches that man is fallen and totally depraved, and that means that every aspect of his being, mind, emotion, will, has been corrupted. It's only the restraining influence of the Spirit of God that keeps man's evil nature in check. Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots, asks Jeremiah the prophet? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil, and that's Jeremiah 13, 23. And likewise Jesus said, out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, according to Jesus Christ. Rousseau was amiss, for example, in his family duties, yet he was a hero in the French nation. Well how does the natural religion as expounded by Rousseau differ from general revelation or God's revelation in nature? Most theology textbooks will define general revelation as that knowledge of God's existence and attributes that is evidence from the creation. And this revelation is intended, this natural revelation, is intended to alert man to his need and drive him to God's special revelation in the Bible and condemn him if he fails to respond. Now contrary to this, we have Rousseau in Emil denying the need for any special revelation because God has revealed himself more than adequately in the world of nature, according to Rousseau. This is not natural theology, in which man allegedly derives propositional truth from nature to conform to the Bible, but rather it is a subjective communion with God through the natural environment. So by drawing close to nature, man purports to draw near to God, and this nature worship is sometimes personified in the form of a female deity, hence we have Mother Nature, or we have Diana. Thus Rousseau gave a great boost to the Romantic movement, which entered its heyday in the first half of the 19th century, the next century, and this movement exalted emotion above reason. A corollary of this doctrine was Rousseau's belief that primitive man in his natural environment had been corrupted by civilization, thus he called for a dismantling of the institutions of society in order to rebuild on a simpler foundation, and this of course is a prescription for revolution. And according to Rousseau, the source of law, according to Rousseau, the source of law for civil government comes from the general will of the people, not from the word of God, which ironically is expressed through a ruling elite. This legislation is a product exclusively of human deliberation with no reference to any transcendent higher law of God or Bible revealed law. The general will was alleged to be the expression of the good will residing in the people, but in practice the ruling elite is unrestrained in its authority over the people. Rousseau considered laws to be acts of the general will, in defining the conditions of civil association. The problem, according to Rousseau, is that the people always desire what is good, but they do not always discern it, and so the general will is always right, but the judgment which guides it is not always enlightened. Unless the people have need of guides to articulate the general will for them, they must be compelled to conform their wills to their reason, and this is Plato's theory of the philosopher kings in all but name. Thus Rousseau places a tyrannical monarchy with a despotism far more absolute, all in the name of the people. And so to counteract that, we are presenting the biblical model legislation project in a free book you can pick up at greatbiblereset.com, and if you're in the realm of education grappling with the question of alternatives to the secular government school system, you'll find help with a free spreadsheet or cheat sheet at kingswayschool.us forward slash high school. And this spreadsheet lists out your alternatives and then compares them with about ten or twelve criteria that you'll need to evaluate your school options, and again it's kingswayschool.us forward slash high school to get your spreadsheet or cheat sheet. Now if you're struggling on the other hand with the demands of homeschooling, including how to pay, well including how to reconcile your thoughts with your team, and including how to pay for an outrageously priced college education which is looming on the horizon in just a few years, you can get the five simple steps you must follow to eliminate all that college tuition at kingswayschool.us forward slash homeschool. And pick that up. And we will see you next week for another exciting episode in our study of the classical authors.