Professor: Rushdoony Dr. R.J.R.

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 12 of 19

Track: #12

Year:

Dictation Name: 12 The Source of Authority

[Rushdoony] Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Seek Ye the Lord while He may be found, call Ye upon Him while He is near, let the wicked forsake His way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord and He will have mercy upon Him, and to our God for He will abundantly pardon. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God unto whom all power, glory, and dominion belong. We beseech Thee to make us strong in Thee and effectual so that we may serve Thee with all our heart, mind, and being. Might be instrumental in the tearing down of the things which are so that those things which are of Thee may alone remain; and that we may do our work well and cheerfully bear our burden and the burdens of others. Increase our faith that we may trust in Thy word and in Thy promises, and may ever be faithful to Thine every word. Give us patience to wait on Thee, courage in Thy service, and knowledge that Thy word is truth and Thy word shall never return unto Thee void. Bless us ever in Thy service in Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture this morning is from the gospel according to Saint Matthew the Twenty-eighth chapter verse eighteen through twenty, the great commission.

In any society there is an ultimate source of authority. In a general way the source of authority is either supernatural or it is of this world, something within the human order or the natural order. Where we locate our ultimate authority has profound implications for man and society. Over and over again men and nations have gone astray because their source of authority has been a fallacious and an evil one. Very common in the modern world has been the opinion of Rousseau and the social contract. That men project their man-made laws onto the Gods to enhance their own authority. Men invent Gods and ascribe to them the laws, or the orders of society as a means of strengthening their own position. For Rousseau it was not the Gods or God but the general will of mankind which was sovereign law and the source of authority and truth. 

In previous generations before Rousseau men had looked first of all to God for authority and law, and then with the enlightenment to Reason spelled with a capital “R” as some kind of inherent semi-pantheistic force inherent in the world of nature. Now with Rousseau men began to look to man’s emotional responses for authority for truth and for law. Man in his innermost being not consciously but unconsciously, for Rousseau, knew the truth. And it was the function of true philosophy to unleash that subliminal and unconscious knowledge. God was eliminated therefore as the source of authority, truth, and law. Not only so but what previously had been considered the higher and civilized aspects of men were set aside in favor of what had, until then, been regarded as the lower and less civilized aspects of mans nature. Thus man created for himself a new authority, the primitive in himself. Not surprisingly this kind of thinking was in line with the doctrine of cultural evolution which was developing. Man was at his best when he was most natural, that is most primitive. One of the quickest responses to this new thinking was in the arts, and the arts are still under this impulse; in fact they are carrying it to its logical limits to their own self destruction. 

A very obvious example of this was Paul Gauguin, a savage in spite of all the civilization around him and in spite of his own upbringing an...