Life and Doctrine

Reputation

Cicero “Let it be set down as an established principle, then, that what is morally wrong can never be expedient — not even when one secures by means of it that which one thinks expedient; for the mere act of thinking a course expedient, when it is morally {50} wrong, is demoralizing. But, as I said above, cases often arise in which expediency may seem to clash with moral rectitude; and so we should examine carefully and see whether their conflict is inevitable or whether they may be reconciled. The following are problems of this sort: suppose, for example, a time of dearth and famine at Rhodes, with provisions at fabulous prices; and suppose that an honest man has imported a large cargo of grain from Alexandria and that to his certain knowledge also several other importers have set sail from Alexandria, and that on the voyage he has sighted their vessels laden with grain and bound for Rhodes; is he to report the fact to the Rhodians or is he to keep his own counsel and sell his own stock at the highest market price? I am assuming the case of a virtuous, upright man, and I am raising the question how a man would think and reason who would not conceal the facts from the Rhodians if he thought that it was immoral to do so, but who might be in doubt whether such silence would really be immoral.

{51} In deciding cases of this kind Diogenes of Babylonia, a great and highly esteemed Stoic, consistently holds one view; his pupil Antipater, a most profound scholar, holds another. According to Antipater all the facts should be disclosed, that the buyer may not be uninformed of any detail that the seller knows; according to Diogenes the seller should declare any defects in his wares, in so far as such a course is prescribed by the common law of the land; but for the rest, since he has goods to sell, he may try to sell them to the best possible advantage, provided he is guilty of no misrepresentation.

“I have imported my stock,” Diogenes’s merchant will say; “I have offered it for sale; I sell at a price no higher than my competitors — perhaps even lower, when the market is overstocked. Who is wronged?”

{52}”What say you?” comes Antipater’s argument on the other side; “it is your duty to consider the interests of your fellow-men and to serve society; you were brought into the world under these conditions and have these inborn principles which you are in duty bound to obey and follow, that your interest shall be the interest of the community and conversely that the interest of the community shall be your interest as well; will you, in view of all these facts, conceal from your fellow-men what relief in plenteous supplies is close at hand for them?”

“It is one thing to conceal,” Diogenes will perhaps reply; not to reveal is quite a different thing. At this present moment I am not concealing from you, even if I am not revealing to you, the nature of gods or the highest good; and to know these secrets would be of more advantage to you than to know that the price of wheat was down. But I am under no obligation to tell you everything that it may be to your interest to be told.”

{53} “Yea,” Antipater will say, “but you are, as you must admit, if you will only bethink you of the bonds of fellowship forged by Nature and existing between man and man.”

“I do not forget them,” the other will reply: but do you mean to say that those bonds of fellowship are such that there is no such thing as private property? If that is the case, we should not sell anything at all, but freely give everything away.” b2

Note: The different positions  between Diogenes and Antipater is  a matter of reputation. If the residents of Rhodes were wealthy and could afford the grain at high prices then Diogenes could morally sell at high prices but would fail to enhance his reputation for public service before man and God. If the inhabitants of Rhodes were poor or starving then the common law of all property and the right of self preservation would allow local authority to take and distribute the grain freely in order to save lives, and by using the law to do what is right Diogenes would not gain a good reputation. If however Diogenes sacrificed his own interest for the interest of Rhodes in a time of famine his reputation would benefit before God and man.

Eldership

God of Israel “You shall rise up before the gray head, and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God. I am Yahweh.” Lev.19:32

Proverbs 13:1 “A wise son listens to his father’s instruction, but a scoffer doesn’t listen to rebuke.”

Cicero “It is, then, the duty of a young man to show deference to his elders and to attach himself to the best and most approved of them, so as to receive the benefit of their counsel and influence.” de.off122

Doctrine

When one uses the word Scripture we mean the Old and New Testament, and therefore the God I am referring to is the God of Bible. Hugo Grotius says in “The Whole Duty of Man According to the Law of Nature”  that the law of this God (in Scripture) is not repugnant to human reasoning, and we can extend this to say that since everyman shares in this spark of divinity called reason all are held accountable for their actions according to the standard of God’s law – no matter the religion, faith, or creed. Additionally, Thomas Jefferson says that all men by reason can determine right and wrong; however, Jefferson warns that bad doctrine can twist reason and corrupt it, and this warning by Thomas Jefferson is the same warning that the New Testament gives when its says “…watch your life and your doctrine…you could save yourself and your hearers.” Therefore, God’s law, being a support to right reason, can not bend to any doctrine that is not reasonable. However, the good news of the gospels according to the Apostle Paul is that God is working to restore reason to its original innocence. This process is called the atonement. When  Paul speaks of the end of the law, even the end of God’s law, he is referring to the restoration of man to his original design, to the law of innocence. Crime is the violation of reason, and by restoring man to the likeness and image of God, the soul becomes incapable of committing crimes because the soul exists through a healed conscience responding to divine impulse. In summery, the law of God and its punishments are for the unreasonable who violate reason are are corrupt while the punishment of the law is of no value to the reasonable who are naturally obedient to natural justice that emanates from the perfect law of God.

The first principle of criminal justice is the definition of good and evil in order to determine what actions are right and what actions are wrong. The use of “psychological impact” in determining good and evil or right and wrong is dangerous. What kind of standard would a nation get based on the exhaustive examination of satisfied and efficient Nazi officers who in good conscience guided by overwhelming “expert analysis” sought to evolve mankind by killing off the inferior race.  According to Wikipedia, “Gas chambers were used in the Third Reich as part of the “public euthanasia program” aimed at eliminating physically and mentally retarded people and political undesirables in the 1930s” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_chamber. We must ask, can the human race trust life and death decisions on our emotional responses? Absolutely not. According to God’s revelation, Jeremiah 17:9 say,” The heart is deceitful above all things,and it is exceedingly corrupt…” Emotional responses reflect personal convictions of the heart which are developed by doctrine, good or bad. In other words, we can not trust our feelings or our emotional well being. We cannot make how we feel as the standard of good and evil. As evidence, it is a duty for Muslims to perform jihad, and according to the Koran, it means the killing of infidels: Jews and Christians. Did the performing of jihad in the recent Boston Marathon bombing in the United States causing the death of innocent Americans have a negative emotional impact or even burden the conscience of the jihadists. Judging by the response of the agents of the crime, it did not, nor across the Islamic world who danced in jubilation. The death of innocent lives did not trigger the appropriate response of grief, remorse, and guilt  that should be associated with a crime committed against innocent persons instead it produced glee, satisfaction, and rejoicing. In the same light, one of the studies that Paula’s recommends in support of abortion is called “Psychological Responses after Abortion,” by Nancy Adler. Nancy Adler says research shows that woman after an abortion “most frequently report feeling relief and happiness.” (However, she admits her research is not conclusive, in fact, she writes,“Although much literature exists on the psychological consequences of abortion, contradictory conclusions have been reached.”) The question to be addressed can woman be deceived to the nature of their actions? Can proper emotional responses be perverted to a point that an evil action can result in happiness and relief?  History and experience is unequivocal in the answer; its verdict is without a reasonable doubt, yes, fraud and deception in residing in the soul responds approvingly to evil action, even censuring justice. Islamic Jihad, Nazi, Germany’s, and Planned Parenthood are historic examples that bad doctrine can bend reason toward wickedness. Their methodical work of tyranny is formulated by evolutionary research and modern scientism that has the power to corrupt the conscience of an individual, group or even a nation resulting in dysfunctional responses resulting in personal satisfaction, serenity, and jubilation for acts of a sinister nature. Let us add, that no one is exempted form this defiling of conscience by bad doctrine. Bad doctrine distorts convictions thereby dulling even eliminating appropriate rational responses to wrong doing, even encouraging its opposite. In criminal jurisprudence this is know as depravity. In true psychology its called a defiled conscience. No one is exempt from this trap, only the sound doctrine of God’s moral judgment impressed upon a weak conscience will reinstate the tribunal of the soul as the effective judge of good and evil resulting in proper and true responses to external realities. 1Timothy 4:16 says,” Pay attention to yourself, and to your teaching… for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.”

He says, “I would agree with you that immorality is gnawing on the soul of this country but installing a repressive theocracy is just plain frightening.”

Response: To counter the argument that a theocracy is repressive which is the propaganda of socialists is to review the history and the atrocities of the Socialist party of Nazi, Germany which was under the influence of  scientific atheism channeled through the superstition of Darwinism. Its acts horrified the world by seeking our Jews in order to yank out their gold fillings for profit and then burning them in ovens. This same scientific atheism moved Mao to ban the bible and annihilate an estimated millions of his own citizens because of belief  and China still destroys its own citizens without interference.  Let us not forget the Soviet Union and the KGB and the destruction of life and liberty the Russian people faced.

Sacrates: ” injustice is ignorance.”

This superstition or Atheism is supportive of an unbounded and absolute centralize power that works to reduce all citizens to slavery and subjects a nation to a legalization of perverse passions (homosexuality, transvestism, and prostitution) and to an institualization of  demonic ideologies, for example,  socialist sing in chorus of global  over population and the need of government sponsorship of abortion, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. However, a government under God would stand fast on the first commandment of the God’s revelation in Genesis for mankind to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.  If you look across the vast empties lands of America we have not come close to this fulfillment. Also due to abortion, the American  Union can not meets is obligations of Social Security, which is wealth transfer from the younger generation to older, because the current generation has been reduced by abortion in a total of fifty million plus and growing.  America has failed to learn the lessons of Rome where the city failed to give birth to enough Roman’s citizens to meet the needs of their military and thus had to rely on a  military supported  by aliens, and soon the Roman empire was overcome by immigration.

The best answer of the benefit of a nation under God or a Theocracy that can given is from Jesus who says in Matthew 11.30, “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” A true theocracy is filled with public servants  operating under the rule of law.  Jesus describes the difference between the kingdom of man and the kingdom of God or a theocracy when he says in Matthew 20.25-26  “You know that the rulers of the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant.” In fact, the fear one should have  is the rise of the secular state where man’s irregular and criminal passions are under no authority than man’s own opinion. When this happens, society moves quickly  into anarchy and democracy become a mobocracy collapsing into monarchy which is the end of liberty.

A theocracy is having God as Sovereign who determines the standard of good and evil and right and wrong for a nation. America is a theocracy. Our Declaration of Independence establishes God as the Creator of our inalienable rights and the Supreme Judge of our rectitude. The evidence of the American theocracy can be found in our national motto of “One Nation under God” and our Pledge of Allegiance that says we are “one nation under God.” A biblical theocracy is not a government with laws founded on a singular interpretation of Scripture support by a priest class that threatens heresy against any opposition. This is the apostasy of church corporations.  This corruption and anomaly is found currently and in history but it is a severe deviation of a federalism  or covenanted republican self government found in the Word of God which requires a national constituted authority by agreement of the people and at least by a majority (Ex.19:8), magistrates who are under law and not a law unto themselves (Dt. 17:19), the right of election (Dt.1:13), the right to a public trial (Dt.17:5), the  right to an appeal (Dt.17:8-9), the right to a impartial judge (Lev.19:15), the right to present evidence (Ex.22:13), right to a fair trial (Ex.20:16), the right to require two witnesses for the death penalty (Dt.17:6), right to restitution for theft (Ex.22.1), right to civil vengeance for a  murder (Num. 35.16), right to the protection of marriage (Ex.20:14), family protection of against incest (Dt 27:22), tort laws (Ex.21:29), free and open debate (Ex.32:9-14), and protection of personal liberty (Ex.21:16). These are just some of principles of justice of Kingdom of God and any community that profess to be in God’s kingdom must live by these principles or they are deceived and belong to Satan’s kingdom of one over the many(1 Sam.8:11-18),  failure of fair and free elections (1 Kings 15:28), corruption of eminent domain (Ex.21:5-16),  justice without appeal (Ex.21:13), trial without an impartial judge (Ex.21:11-14), allowance for false testimony (Ex.21.10), and arbitrary law (2 Sam.11:14-15), and moral relativism (Book of Exodus), freedom from double jeopardy (Gen.4:15) freedom from cruel and unusual punishment (Deut.25.3), freedom from be compelled to be a witness against oneself (Gen.4:9), freedom from ex post facto law (Gen.4:14)

Plato in his “Laws” discusses the failure of atheism to acknowledge the visible evidence of God. He says the evidence of a Divine Creator is obvious by the complexity, orderly and mechanical nature of the universe. Plato is support by Psalms 19:1 that says, “The heavens declare the glory of God. The expanse shows his handiwork.” So on judgment day when all are being judged according to their deeds, the excuse, “ I didn’t know there was a God” will not be a defense. A good defense is knowing and obeying the law of Moses according to Jesus in Matthew 19:16-17 “Behold, one came to him and said, “Good teacher, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?… Jesus said to him, “But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”

Pray public

1 Thessalonian 5:17 ”Pray without ceasing.” This is the rule. Education is the obligation of parents, and the focus of primary education is the responsibility of the home where prayer of the united family is central to a good home. When children are removed to public education, it is understood that teachers are filling the role of parents, and the classroom is replacing the child’s living room, and this adopted family ought to imitate the home and to pray in order to receive the blessings of God who has authority over all events and can orchestra the day. Additionally, America’s Declaration of Independence, a mutual compact among citizens, recognized the national obligation to prayer when the signers prayed to the Supreme Judge of the world. In the Book of Matthew, Jesus said “When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets… But you, when you pray, enter into your inner room, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” Jesus is not dealing with group or family prayer but with individual prayer; moreover, he is not concerned with prayer but with hypocrites who were displaying a false impiety by public exhibitions of prayer. As an individual Jesus directs us to have one on one prayer with the Father versus displaying our pray as a sign of piety to the world.

US Constitution subscription clause reads “…done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independance of the United States of America the Twelfth.”  James Madison says that that no phrase of the Constitution ought to be a dead letter but must harmonize with every other phrase. The US Constitution declares that Jesus is “our Lord” and harmonizing this with other phrases makes Jesus Lord over the legislature, executive and judicial branch of the federal government. Additionally, US Constitution subscriptions clause also reads “independence … the Twelfh,” and this ties the US Constitution to the Declaration of Independence which declares that all men are created (not evolved), and that we receive inalienable rights from a Creator, and our moral rectitude is defined by the Supreme Judge.  This means Constitutionally public officials can only recognized and prayer to Jesus as “our Lord” and to the God of Israel, Jesus’s Father, as the signers of the Declaration did.

Romans 13

Romans 13:1-4 “Let every soul be in subjection to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those who exist are ordained by God. 2 Therefore he who resists the authority, withstands the ordinance of God; and those who withstand will receive to themselves judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Do you desire to have no fear of the authority? Do that which is good, and you will have praise from the same, 4 for he is a servant of God to you for good.”

1. Paul in Romans cannot and does not declare absolute obedience to government officials. A. We are subject to every Authority which is set up by God; therefore, any authority acting contrary to God’s will is not part of “every Authority” but a violation of that authority and not from God.1. Peter rebukes an unrighteous civil order when he says,” we ought rather to obey God than men.”2. In the Book of Exodus Hebrew midwives are commended and blessed by God for not obeying the king who commanded the killing of Hebrew babies.3. The Prophet Daniel prays to His God thereby defying the law of the Medes and Persians, and God saves Daniel from punishment for its violation and give Daniel a testimony of just defiance to evil government.
2. Real authority according to God’s law  is the only authority ordained by God. However, there if pretended authority that is not ordained by God such as the authority of King Herod who murdered his own family members, the base Emperor Tiberius, Adolf Hitler, and other criminal who by fraud and deceit gain access to governing powers.
3. Paul message is rulers are not a terror to good works but evil. This is according to God’s authority. Those rulers who are terror to those who do good are not under God’s authority and have no authority from God.
4. Paul says a ruler is a servant of God for good, but if the ruler does evil by violating God’s law is he not a servant of God, but an enemy of God.a. See Saul who violated God’s commandment and was removed by God as King.
5. Authority is only authority when in accordance to God’s law and when magistrates violate that law they are acting without authority but in rebellion. This immutable principle is in the Declaration of Independence which says we have our inalienable rights from a Creator and our moral rectitude is based on the Supreme Judge. If American magistrates act against God’s law they are acting in defiance of American social compact and are without authority before God. They are tyrants.