even more rushdoony notes

Rushdoony notes for "Foundations of Social Orders":

The structure of society is built and when we begin to restructure it the Marxists interpret it as revolution. Law is an active morality. Every legal system is the moral code of society. It rests on religion. Law and morality is the manifestations of a religious faith. Religion is based under two god settings: theistic (faith in God) or political religion (the central institution is the ruler). They derive their ethics and morality from their politics. Politics is the true order. Man must guide and control because man is his own god. Predestination is by man. The state is the social organization of a creed or religion. It's the legal structuring of the moral side of the culture. It cannot be amoral. It is the religious structuring of society.

Also, the state cannot be neutral ...if it says it is then it really means that they are in the middle of abandoning one religion for another subtly. The state is no less religious than the church. Those are the two most religious aspects of a culture. In a Christian society they are equally religious. The state is the source of justice and the Church is the keys of the kingdom. The state is either just as religious or more then the church. It cannot be non-religious. The state as a tyrant is either focused on a man or on the state in general. It is always a religious institution of some sort. The state can have two functions. It can lean on the creed whether humanistic or Christian. It will be messianic if it's humanistic. If it's Christian it will be a ministry of justice to establish godly law and order.

Sovereignty - transcendental (beyond the world of God) or imminent (of this world and residing in man or an institution). God's law just be primary...over everything of us. In a Christian society the state has it's one job and that is to put forth justice over all people with Christian law. Each is governed by God and not the state because God is sovereign. When the state takes the sovereignty then it claims that it is most powerful and so it's word and law comes above and over everything. Two sovereigns cannot exist at any same time. They have opposing and neutral claims. The state claims that God does not exist. This is not possible however and so we can tell that the state is most assuredly not the sovereign. Caesar against Christ. This has happened throughout history and will continue to happen as the two religions fight in conflict with each other.

The doctrine of grace is also in conflict. Man's nature is complete evil and he struggles with it. He may handle it in different ways, but every religious system still deals with it. The state believes it can give out grace to all the evil of the world. There is evil found in many institutions as well as people. You just eliminate those things which cause evil among the culture. For Christians, the answer to evil is the grace of God and not of the state. Man's problem is not environment, but sin.

These are the problems that every social order must deal with. Now, they say that it is the environment's fault that people are the way they are now. We have moved from Christian to humanism. When a social order begins to crumble, the worst thing we can do is to make political defense the first line of defense. It's important, but it must not be the primary one.

If the creed you set is biblical, then the social order is again determined and you'll have a Christian social order. It will deny the sovereignty of God, and believe man is sinful so you must have checks and balances. You must have limited power and limited liberty.