theonomy

theonomy, from ancient Greek meaning “God’s law” (theos: “God”; nomos: “law”), the Christian theological view that biblical laws, especially the judicial laws of the Old Testament followed by ancient Israelite society, remain morally binding on all nations and hence should form the basis for civil law. Theonomy began as a movement in the 1970s. Its adherents have always been in the minority within Christianity, and, although the concept gained some popularity in the second half of the 20th century, it has remained a minority view. Key figures who promoted theonomy included R.J. Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen, and Gary North, who were associated with Christian Reconstructionism, a movement that seeks to reconstruct modern society on explicitly biblical foundations.

Core beliefs

Theonomic beliefs align with the Christian Reconstructionist aim to reestablish modern society on Christian principles. Whereas Reconstructionist doctrine emphasizes reshaping social structures and culture to orient them within a biblical framework, theonomists believe biblical law has always been relevant, especially the Mosaic Law, the legal code believed to have been revealed through Moses in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). This law includes moral instructions (the Ten Commandments), ritual prescriptions for worship, and civil statutes that governed social relations and legal life for ancient Israelites. Theonomists argue that these civil statutes in particular provide a model for contemporary justice and governance. According to theonomists, all civil governments are obligated to follow these statutes, and their rule is illegitimate when it extends beyond areas prescribed by God’s law. This reflects both authoritarian and libertarian tendencies in theonomic thought.

Theonomists are typically postmillennial Christians. Postmillennialism centers on a shared interpretation of Revelation 20:1–6 holding that Christ will reign spiritually through his church for a long period (symbolized as a “thousand years” in Revelation) before his bodily return. In this interpretation, the peoples of the world are evangelized after Satan, or the Devil, is bound by an angel and hence can no longer deceive humanity, and the Gospel spreads throughout the world. Then followers of Christ are resurrected to establish a perfect Christian society. Reconstructionists, who are all postmillennial, hold that this transformation of the world must be accompanied by the adoption of the Old Testament’s judicial laws before Christ’s return.

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Precursors

Theonomists were not the first to consider the enduring authority of Mosaic laws. In the early modern period (c. 16th to 18th century), jurists and philosophers debated the distinction between eternal and transient laws, sorting through Mosaic judicial laws to identify those that conveyed everlasting precepts versus those that were temporary. Protestant theologians adopted a threefold classification of Old Testament law, categorizing it into moral law (epitomized in the Ten Commandments), ceremonial law (used in rituals and sacrifices), and judicial law (the civil statutes prescribed for the Israelites). These theologians generally held that, although all three categories have spiritual value, only the moral law remains binding on Christians, whereas the ceremonial law was fulfilled in Christ, and the judicial law “expired” with ancient Israel’s political state. Some judicial precepts, however, were acknowledged as continuing to be useful.

Relation to mainstream Christianity

Like many Christians, theonomists believe in God’s transcendent moral law as the standard against which all other laws should be measured. This view of scriptural authority is encapsulated in the Latin phrase “norma normans non normata,” meaning “the norm of norms that is not normed”—that is, a law that has no higher standard against which it is defined. In contrast to the theonomic belief that the Old Testament’s judicial laws are still binding in modern times, the Roman Catholic Church and most Protestant churches believe that the judicial laws of the Hebrew Bible were fulfilled through, and therefore superseded by, Jesus Christ, who perfected the Mosaic Law by, among other things, extending its ambit into personal morality (for instance, extending the commandment against murder to one against anger, the commandment to love one’s neighbor to one on loving one’s enemies too, and the commandment against adultery to one against lust). The Protestant Westminster Confession of Faith states that, although the Old Testament was divinely inspired, its judicial laws “expired together with the State of that people, not obliging any other, now, further than the general equity thereof may require.”

However, theonomists such as Greg Bahnsen have argued that these laws serve as a “model of perfect social justice” and should be presumed to remain morally binding unless explicitly rescinded or modified in the New Testament. For many theonomists, this model is not only an ideal to contemplate but also a call to all Christians to recapture every institution, in God’s name.