Rousas Rushdoony: Law and Liberty: Law and Authority

   Rushdoony’s discussion on law now turns to the issue of authority, something that definitely needs to be discussed in modern America.  Authority as it pertains to law is essentially what is understood to be the foundation for that law.  In modern America, we have several different views on the basis of authority stretching from the individual, the people, religion, etc.  In fact, there are as many core authorities as there are different belief systems, and whether someone is making a statement in the arena of law, politics, science, religion, etc., that person either consciously or unconsciously appeals to  authority as the basis of their declaration. 

    The problem arises when men choose to accept the individual or other men as their authorities.  As Rushdoony points out, “when a man’s authorities are of this world, then man is in danger.  These authorities are then not only ultimate, they are also proximate or present…because they occupy the same ground man does, they limit and destroy the liberty of man.”(pg. 32)  Ultimately, the powers that be, the authority than men rely on will end up oppressing him because they can and will covet the same ground that their followers inhabit. 

    Rushdoony again correctly points out that,” the authority of any system of thought is the god of that system…To find the god in any system, locate the source of law in that system.”(pg. 33)  Man was created with an innate sense of dependence on God.  Due to this and the impact of the fall on man, he now desires to flee from God and in doing so inevitably desire to set a different god in His place.  There is no mistaking that the Christian religion and a Judeo-Christian, biblical understanding of law was foundational in the creation of our political/legal system.  According to Rushdoony, since our law was based in Christianity, our authority was God and His son Jesus Christ.  Because God is the ultimate authority, all the lesser man-made systems were understood to be circumscribed in power by that of God.  Today though, our legislative, executive and judicial system cannot move more quickly away from our historical foundations.  Where God was once our authority, today it is individual men, groups of men or any other manifold humanistic/relativistic sources.  Where God’s law was designed to lead men into true liberty, the law of man, by necessity being imperfect and arbitrary, can only lead to abuse and tyranny.  Make no mistake about it, the civil government as it currently sits, detached from a belief in its powers deriving ultimately from God, will by necessity by forced to take the role of God.  The problem for our citizenry is that the state does not love you, it does not care for you and it will use up you, your possessions, your family and everything else to insure its survival.  The man who desires to be free of the supposed chains of God’s loving rebuke will only find that at the end of the day he is enslaved by the very god he pursued.