1. Negativism and the Law (Remastered)

Negativism and the Law

R.J. Rushdoony

Our Scripture is Exodus 20:1-7.

“And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thingthat is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lordthy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” i

Our subject this week is, as we begin the Third Commandment, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” but one word, “not.” Next Sunday we shall begin a consideration of the Third Commandment, properly, a very, very important one, with considerations that link it very closely to modern revolutionary movements. But for the moment, we shall consider just one word that appears in this, and, all but one of the commandments; “no” or “not;” the negativity of the commandments.

Of all the commandments, only one does not contain a negative; the Fifth, “Honour they father, and thy mother.” All the others are negative in form. And indeed, virtually all the law is negative in the Bible. And at this point, the modern mind objects. Negativism is to it very offensive, tyrannical, and we frequently find, especially among the intellectuals and college youth, a longing for a positive conception of law and its function. The law, we are told, should have a positive note. It should be for something instead of being mere negation. Indeed, this aspect of law is dealt with by the Peace and Freedom Party, and its candidate for President, the Black Panther, Eldridge Cleaver, has called for a more positive note in all law. Indeed he has said that police officers should be abolished, because their work is essentially a negation, and be replaced by public safety officials, whose work would be positive.

While the phrase is a very familiar one, “public safety officials,” the French Revolution established public safety officials. The conclusion of public safety officials was, of course, the Reign of Terror. We shall see very quickly why negativism in the law is essential.

The basic statement of a positive function for the law comes out of antiquity where, of course, the law in our paganism had its positive function. But it is all summed up in the basic Roman legal principle; “The health of the people is the highest law.” This concept is now a part of World Law. It has been read into the Constitution through the General Welfare Clause. And of course, the framers of the Constitution had no such idea in mind, they never dreamed of it. But now, the General Welfare Clause in the Preamble has been read in terms of the Roman principle, “the health of the people is the highest law.”

Let us, before we look at this idea of law as a positive thing, examine the Biblical approach to law, which is negation. The idea of law as a negative thing confers a double-benefit upon any people. First, laws then deal with specifically and restrictively with a particular evil. “Thou shalt not steal.” “Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” and “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” In other words, the law is specific and is limited. It deals with specifically, and realistically, with a particular evil which it prohibits, which it declares to be illegal. Law, thus, has a modest function. Law is limited in its power, and therefore the state is limited. The state, as an enforcing agency, is limited to dealing with evil, not controlling all men.

Secondly, this conception of law, which we find in the Bible, ensures liberty. It means that, except for the prohibited areas, all of man’s life is free. When the law says, “Thou shalt not steal,” it specifically prohibits any interference with property. And it means, then, that the state has no jurisdiction with respect to property, except where there is theft. It is not given power over all property, only over the theft of property. And as a result, the state is totally limited, then, to dealing with evil. When you say, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain," and “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” then you limit the law. To these areas where it deals with speech it means you have freedom of expression otherwise. As a result, the negativity of the law is the preservation of the positive life and freedom of man

The whole concept of the law as a negative statement means that the law must concern itself with evil, with governing, with controlling evil, not with governing and controlling good. And when the law gains a positive function, then it is not concerned with controlling evil so much as with controlling everything: with controlling you, your speech, your property, your life! If the health of the people is the highest law, then the concern of the state is everything in your life. Its concern is your physical health, its concern is your mental health, its concern is your spiritual health, so it’s going to govern your life from A to Z.  For when law has a positive function, the state has total jurisdiction to compel the total health of the people.

As a result, a positive law has a double penalty. First, it posits an omnicompetent state, a totally competent state. The state has a concern with the total health of the people. And if a state has a concern with the total health of the people, you have to assume that the state has the ability and the power and the knowledge to give total health to the people. Everything is now a part of the state’s jurisdiction because now everything can contribute to or hurt the health of the people. The law is now unlimited and the state becomes unlimited.

When the law has a positive function it becomes the business of the state not to control evil, but to control all men. A positive conception of the law is basic to all totalitarianism. Moreover, this means that no area of liberty can exist for man. There is no area of things indifferent, or to use the New Testament expression, “adiophora” of things that are not in the province of the law. All actions, thoughts, and concerns, the state must govern in the name of “public health.” The health of the people is the highest law.

And of course, the idea of an omnicompetent state, a totally competent state means an incompetent people. So when the state assumes a positive function, it means that the people are a negative factor. When the law, as in Scripture, is given a negative function, it is assumed that the people are a positive force. And under positive law, the state becomes nursemaid to childish, immature people who are not developed enough, not capable enough to take care of themselves.

Now at this point, people would say, “Well of course your Christian doctrine talks about people being sinners, therefore it is in agreement with our opposition, doesn’t it say that all people are childish?” Very definitely not. The doctrine of sin does not declare that men are childish or immature. Adam was created a mature man. Sin was not a fall into childishness, but a rebellion against responsibility. It was a mature act, it was a deliberate, mature rebellion against responsibility. Total depravity means rebellion against responsibility. It is not immaturity, it is a deliberate, willful rebellion. Man is a rebel, and his course is not childishness, not immaturity, but sin. It is not ignorance, but willful folly.

At this point, it is instructive to understand what the Scripture means by the word “a fool.” And I think since Proverbs teaches us most about fools, it would be worthwhile to examine a commentary on Proverbs, and a summation of what Proverbs teaches concerning the fool. And I shall quote this as a summation of the teachings of Scripture, and I shall not take the time to read all of the Biblical citations.

“The root of his trouble is spiritual, not mental. He likes his folly, going back to it “like a dog that returns to his vomit” (26:11); he has no reverence for truth, preferring comfortable illusions (see 14:8, and note). At bottom, what he is rejecting is the fear of the Lord (1:29): it is this that constitutes him a fool, and this that makes his complacency tragic; for “the careless ease of fools shall destroy them” (1:32).

In society the fool is, in a word, a menace. At best, he wastes your time: “you will not find a word of sense in him” (14:7, Moffatt); and he may be a more serious nuisance. If he has an idea in his head, nothing will stop him: “let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly” (17:12)—whether that folly is some prank that is beyond a joke (10:23), or some quarrel he must pick (18:6) and run to death (29:11). Give him a wide berth, for “the companion of fools shall smart for it” (13:20), and if you want to send him away, don’t send him with a message (26:6).” ii

This is the fool, and folly is built into a fool! It is his nature, it is his love, it is his being.

I recall some years ago, an interesting episode. A very remarkable doctor who was associated and on the faculty of a major medical school told me once of a problem, a minor one and yet an annoying one, that confronted him. A good friend who was a member of several clubs of which he was a member, a prominent businessman, a golfing partner, did have a serious ailment. And he was going to a doctor who had a very bad reputation, a doctor who had no humility and attempted to treat everything for which he was not competent, who assumed he was a specialist on everything when he was barely competent. And everyone was telling him, ‘Please, tell Ed to go to another doctor.’ And of course he refused. And as he told me, he said, “First of all, it’s not ethical for me to interfere, and secondly, although I like Ed, on a purely social basis, Ed is a fool. And if they talk him out of this doctor, he’ll go to another who is as bad or worse.” The conclusion of it was that the friends did talk him out of going to this doctor and the amazing part of it is he searched high and low for another doctor to go to, and he found almost the only one in that County who was of an equally low ability in character and reputation. A fool and his folly cannot be separated.

We have had in recent years a great deal of legislation, for example, in the area of medicine. And yet the other day, the Federal government admitted that since they began to control medicine, quackery has increased, it is now a $2 billion a year business. $2 billion! Have they altered the situation any by legislation? No. What has happened? A generation of fools will go after folly because folly is written into their nature. The government outlawed little black boxes that give magical cures years and years ago, and yet the ironic fact is that a current best seller by a very famous journalist and writer, which is a book club selection, has a chapter on the marvelous cures through this little black box.

Let us examine then a little more closely, a positive functioning of the law where most people do consider it good in the area where I have just been discussing; doctors. It is interesting to note that the Federal control and Federal and State legislations governing doctors was a work of the Rockefeller Foundation and family. It began about the time most of us were born. The Rockefeller family felt the state should enter into this area and control the doctors. Not too long ago, there was an anniversary volume written, I think, on the fifty years of the Rockefellers in this area, congratulating themselves on the tremendous progress in medicine. Now, the question we need to ask, “Has this progress been due to governmental control or the work of the medical profession? Has not the profession been responsible for its own progress?” And here is another fact; as the state controls increase, there are growing charges of malpractice and suits for malpractice. Why? As a matter of fact, the Federal government is busy now investigating doctors and drug companies. This book, for example, is based entirely on testimony before Congress about the evils of the profession. What is involved here?

Again, let us look at law and significance. One of the basic principles in any society in any law system is the concept of liability, this is an inescapable concept. You can abolish the word but the same concept comes back, it is inescapable in any society, in any law system. Now, if you have a negative concept of law, a negative state, that is a limited state, you have a positive conception of people, people are then responsible. But if you have a positive conception of the law, then you have a negative conception of people, they are not responsible. But does the state assume responsibility? No. The state then takes liability, which once was associated with people who violated a fundamental principle of law, and transfers it, not to itself, but to a responsible element in society; capable, responsible people.

Now let’s go back to ancient society, pagan society, whether in Europe or in Egypt or in Babylon, wherever you go. Now, history books only occasionally mention this, and they do not deal honestly with this fact. But, when you go back to pagan society, where the law has a positive function, what was the concept of liability? There was total liability by the responsible members of society. This meant that if a doctor treated a patient and the patient died, then the doctor was killed, he was guilty of murder, there was total liability. It didn’t make any difference whether the doctor was entirely competent and had done his best, and the patient was hopeless, he still died. Because liability is an inescapable concept, you’re going to have it in society. The only question is, “where?” And the more you develop a positive conception of law, the more you are going to transfer liability from a people who are deemed incompetent to the only element in society who is still maintaining responsibility. That’s why malpractice suits are increasing. The patient is no longer a responsible person, he is a child according to law. So the doctors are getting back the old pagan total liability. And it may not be too many years at the present rate of development before they will be liable to murder charges. This has already been hinted at.

So today a doctor does not even dare be a good Samaritan if there is an accident. Why? Whereas once any doctor would have stopped to treat people at an accident scene, today he incurs so fearful a liability that it is a dangerous thing for him to stop and give emergency help.

And what is happening in law generally? Well just this last week, Dr. Richard R., who is a professor at Berkeley and the University of California’s School of Criminology, spoke with horror of the fact concerning our laws against prostitutes and prostitution. Why? He describes prostitutes as, “alienated poor children looking for a better way of life.” Who’s responsible for them? Who bears the liability? Society. Society! “Oh,” but you say, “the prostitutes are a part of society and the pimps are a part of society and the criminals are a part of society, the mafia is a part of society.” Oh, no, no! They’re not, because, you see, they’re irresponsible. Who bears the liability? You do! Why? You are a responsible citizen. And so the responsible element in society bears the total liability. Until, when you reach the totalitarian stage, as with Marxism, who has to be liquidated? The Christians and the capitalists. They bear the total liability for all the ills of society, and you cannot escape liability.

So, if you’re going to have a positive function of the law, if you’re going to say doctors cannot police themselves, and the state has to police them, you’re going to end up with total liability. And you’re going to destroy, finally, that which you supposedly set out to protect.

And as a result, the responsible are penalized with total liability. Today if a man invades your home, whereas in the Biblical law this invasion occurs at night you have the right to kill him, now you are liable to prosecution for murder, according to our Supreme Court. Unless you had your back to the wall and there was no further room for a flight, and you gave him every warning to leave, and he was trying to kill you, then and then alone you have the right to kill him. And if someone, a hoodlum, climbs the fence into your back yard in order to break into your home, you have an excavation there, a post hole, or are putting in a new sewer line and he falls in and breaks his leg you are liable!

This is what happens when the law assumes a positive function. When the law loses its negativity, when the law assumes a positive function, it protects criminals and fools and penalizes responsible men. Either, then, we return to Biblical Law, to the Biblical doctrine of responsibility, to a negative, limited, concept of law, or we do have totalitarianism, and total liability for responsible men.

Biblical Law then is a necessity for the survival of responsibility.

Let us pray.

* * *

Our Lord and Our God, we give thanks unto thee for this, thy Word. We thank thee that thou didst make us to be men, mature men. And we thank thee that in Jesus Christ thou has restored us to responsibility. Give us grace, faith, knowledge and courage. And enable us, our Father, by thy grace, to restore this country to Biblical Law, to a true concept of liability and responsibility, to make again the function of the law the suppression of evil rather than the control of the good. That once again we might enjoy liberty under thee and might be a godly people. Grant us this we beseech thee. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

* * *

[Audience member] Could you comment on the significance of the Third Commandment? iii

[Rushdoony] The Third Commandment, and we’ll deal with that next week. And the significance of it.

Yes?

[Audience member] How do we enforce this law? There are many who won’t like it. iv

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, first of all, we have to proclaim the whole Word of God, and the implications of the faith. We cannot, of course, force it on anyone, but we have to teach it, and make it known and then leave it to the work of the Holy Spirit to introduce it into the hearts and minds of peoples. What we cannot do, God can do, but we do have the responsibility for the instruction of people.

Yes.

[Audience member] Could you comment further on the use of force in the French Revolution? v

[Rushdoony] Well, all the parties were really agreed on the necessity for the guillotine, it was just differences to degrees to the force to which it should be applied. Robespierre, of course, had a direct responsibility for the guillotine. And the idea you see, law having a positive function it was going to suppress the responsible people. And so, millions of people were killed in the Reign of Terror because liability was placed upon them, they were responsible for all the evils in society, not the prostitutes and the thieves and the hoodlums, who were the ones that they organized to stage the demonstrations and the marches. So the French Revolution in its every part was dedicated to this destruction of the responsible element.

Every totalitarian system will gravitate toward this, and that’s why Marx was afraid that any and every revolutionary society might end up in cannibalism. That is, the revolution killing of itself because finally it will kill off all the Christians and the capitalists, say, and then it will say, “Well who’s responsible? Alright, well, this wing of the party and that wing of the party,” so it will eat up responsible men. And Marx specifically tried to forewarn all revolutionists from reaching this point of cannibalism. But of course, it didn’t work. And the Communist societies have all done this.

One of the things that Wurmbrand has pointed out is that in his many years in prison, fourteen years. During that time, he saw come through the prison cell all of the Communist leaders. They all took their turns being tortured and being thrown into the dungeon. Since they’d wiped out the capitalist element and the Christians that were still alive were in prison, who was the responsible person left? Well, party dignitaries, so, this cannibalism sets in.

[Audience member] It seems that by blurring the line between good and evil, you reduce or remove responsibility. vi

[Rushdoony] Yes, there is a blurring of the distinction between good and evil deliberately, in order to eliminate the idea of responsibility. This is quite common.

Yes.

[Audience member] I’ve heard it said that there is no evil except in the eye of the beholder. vii

[Rushdoony] Yes. the statement is commonly made, there is no evil except in the eye of the beholder. This is existentialism or relativism. It says that the only evil that exists is the idea of evil, it is a purely relative concept.

Now this, of course, is basically the position of our courts today. You can try to abolish the idea of evil, but you cannot do away with the idea ultimately, because you are going to say there is liability in society, and who are the liable ones? They are the evil ones. You’ve got to affix responsibility somewhere. And Karl Marx said, “We will abolish the idea of God and the devil, but we will make a devil out of the group we hate and we will put them in Hell, in concentration camps, or put them to death.”

Because, you see, the idea of Heaven and Hell, as well as the idea of good and evil are inescapable. So that those who say they don’t exist end up by simply saying, “Your idea, the Bible’s idea doesn’t exist, but we’re going to create our own categories after we have abolished yours.” So they replace them with their own ideas as Karl Marx did; total relativism as he faced the world of Christianity.

But if you are totally relative you cannot say that you need a revolution, because, if everything is just as good as everything else, or if everything is just as evil as everything else, why have a revolution? Everything is the same. Why change? One thing is equal to the other. But, the Marxist and the Relativist uses the idea that all things are gray and evil is only in the eye of the beholder, in order to destroy our structure, our law structure. Then, having destroyed it, they come in with their own absolutes and say, “Christianity is evil. Capitalism is evil. Private enterprise is evil. Absolutely evil. Categorical evil, and Communism is good.” Thus, it’s an instrument used for destruction. Nobody can maintain that position honestly and totally, because then they cannot be for change, the status quo is the only thing.

Yes.

[Audience member] Aren’t there similarities between the positivism of the Soviet Constitution and the U.N. Charter? viii

[Rushdoony] Right. A very good point. Because you see, the Russian Constitution is a very positive statement of law, as is the U.N. Charter. Therefore, all power in both systems belongs to the state. And if the state grants you any liberty, it’s of their grace to do so. Whereas the U.S. Constitution, not only in the first 10 amendments, but in the main body, has hundreds of restrictions that it places on each branch of the government. So that it is a document which is filled with restrictions, it is a negative document from start to finish. The only positive statement is the preamble which wasn’t intended to be law, but to just to state their purpose in establishing it. But you see, they took the phrase ‘general welfare’ out of the preamble, and we know from the minutes of the Constitutional Convention what they meant by it, it was to provide a system of law and order. And they have read that in terms of the Roman and pagan concept, “the health of the people is the highest law.”

Yes.

[Audience member] What’s the reason for this battle against the negative conception of law? ix

[Rushdoony] Well, ever since the French Revolution, there has been, as Edmund Burke, who was alive at that time a great English parliamentarian, pointed out, a warfare between Christianity and revolution. And he said, “This warfare will continue until one or the other is destroyed.” So he said there will never be any real peace in this warfare, it is warfare unto the death, there will only be lulls in the visible fighting. So, the force of revolution that was begun at the French Revolution is still in process. The question is; “Will we as Christians recognize the warfare, and know what we have to go to, Biblical Law, in order to fight it?” And this is what very few Christians realize. It is a warfare between two systems of law, two diametrically opposed conceptions of man, and it is war to death.

Yes.

[Audience member] Didn’t the Pharisees, in their charges brought against Christ, have this pagan idea of the health of the people in mind? x

[Rushdoony] Very good point. Because the Sanhedrin knew they had no charge against Jesus Christ, but they said he must die for the health of the people, that is so that the nation might live. So on the grounds of the general welfare, the health of the people, they crucified Christ.

Yes, right here.

[Audience member] Isn’t contemporary child training effectively operating on the same presupposition?

[Rushdoony] A very perceptive observation.

Yes. Child psychology in recent years, by frowning on a negative training of children, has done much to further revolutionary trends, it has done much to undercut Christianity. Because, of course, Christian child psychology rests on the premise that the child is born a sinner. That is, his basic urge is to be independent of God and man and you bring him into subjection to law. So you begin to train him, immediately. The child first training is to drop, say, the night feeding. Then there is diaper training. All kinds of training. The child that does not get this negative training grows up wild. In other words, the sin in him is what finds expression. He becomes sinful to the utmost, rather than law-abiding, law trained.

The schools, of course, have been developing this, uh, to the nth degree, the idea that the student should have a right in the government of the school, which you’re finding increasingly, students demanding that they should be governing the universities. Sabio at Berkeley telling Clark Kerr what he wanted was, to take over the school and for Clark Kerr and the others to maybe do the janitorial work. That’s all the function they would leave them.

Now, this is simply the end product of no negation in the life of the child. And this of course is what the student rebels have been demanding. In France, during the riots a couple of months ago of course, you recall I pointed out over the sign in the main auditorium where it said, ‘No Smoking,’ the students had written, ‘It is forbidden to forbid.’ Now, this is the culmination of this whole trend.

We shall continue next week with the revolutionary implications of this entire aspect of the law as it bears on not taking the name of the Lord thy God in vain. We’ve so forgotten this area of Biblical teaching that we have no awareness of the tremendous implications, the revolutionary aspects that we touch on the minute we begin to explore this law.

Now there was a question about the election, will LBJ run again, and so on. I don’t know, I wish I knew.

And the Czechoslovakian situation. It is a case of Communists fighting against Communists and we mustn’t overstate the element of liberty that is involved there, it would be a serious mistake on our part because the Czech government is Communist. The basic issue was that the Czechs recognized that production was faltering, and they were being robbed blind by the Russians in the name of trade. To stimulate production they wanted to leave room for certain incentives, in order to be a better functioning Communist society. But the Moscow regime was afraid of even these limited incentives, and the general facade of being mild for fear it might lead to more. But there was never the slightest intention on the part of the Czech leaders to depart from Marxism, they are Marxists to the core.

It is a Communist family quarrel. It is like the quarrels we might see between Humphrey and McCarthy.

If I can have your attention just a minute more, our time is really up, but there are a couple of really interesting things that have come up in the papers that I think are worth giving a couple of minutes to.

This one item:

“Statistics show that 70% of the people of the United States live on 1 1/2 % of its territory. Current projections are for 80% to be crowded into the metropolitan areas by 1980. The wide open spaces are not filling up with the growing population. They are pouring their people into the dense cities where there is more money to help scramble above that poverty line, and higher prices as well as more things to spend it on. States like Montana and South Dakota are losing population, while the national total goes up. There is room on the plains and the prairies and there is money in the land but for fewer and fewer people.”

Then it goes on to say that this is true in other countries.

“The British moan about overpopulation, but the valleys of Scotland are empty.”

We can add to that, that many islands in Scotland that have been heavily populated for 5,000 years are now completely devoid of people, and have been for a couple of generations and famous stone structures and castles have just gone to ruins.

“The French are furiously trying to recolonize the provinces that people in Paris come from.”

And so on.

Now, this gives us a picture of the world that is dreaming about being overpopulated, but at the same time, areas once heavily populated are virtually abandoned now. There are areas of Switzerland, for example, where the farm population in once populated valleys with beautiful soil is virtually gone.

What does this lead to? As man separates himself from the earth, he begins to lose knowledge and becomes an exploiter. Lewis Mumford, whom no one can accuse of being even remotely conservative, has written recently:

“There are plenty of people working in scientific laboratories today who, though they may still call themselves biologists, have no knowledge of this culture except by vague hearsay and no respect for its achievements.”

“They dream of a world composed of synthetics and plastics, in which no creatures above the rank of algae or yeasts would be encouraged to grow.”

I don’t know whether you had teachers like I did, but in some of my science courses, I was actually told that the day would come when all germs would be eliminated by science when the reality is, most, almost all germs, bacteria, are very helpful and necessary to life.

“A biological factor of safety existed when 70 to 90 per cent of the world’s population was engaged in cultivating plants. “In the past century this biological factor of safety has shrunk. If our leaders were sufficiently awake to these dangers they would plan not for urbanization but for ruralization.”

… As insects are eliminated, Dr. Mumford points out, the plants that depend on them for fertilization are doomed.” xi

And he goes on to say that the lethal smog, the poisoning by spraying pesticides and herbicides is destroying insect life to the point where pollenization is going to become very difficult in some areas very quickly. And so he ends up by quoting the words of Don Ruskin:

“There is no wealth but life — Let it flower.”

With that, we stand adjourned.

i. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ex 20:1–7.

ii. Derek Kidner, Proverbs, An Introduction and Commentary (Chicago: Inter-Varsity Press, 1964), p. 40.

iii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

iv.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

v.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

vi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

vii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

viii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

ix.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

x.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xi. “Plant Dominion Key to Man’s Survival,” Oakland, California Tribune (Sunday, August 18, 1968), p. 13–CM.