I'm not avoiding anything. You are asking me to do something and then setting the parameters such that doing so is impossible.
Please describe for what Cyan is, but do so without evoking the concept of "blueness".
Constitutional Monarchy
- Thread starter Clete
- Start date
Please describe for what Cyan is, but do so without evoking the concept of "blueness".
Idolater
Popetard
Clete still has me on ignore so he doesn't mean me when he says, "no one has said a syllable that has brought a single inch away from the conviction".
Again this is all according to my understanding of what JR's been saying Enyart's proposal is.
Part of the precondition for Enyart's proposed constitution's operation is a polity which holds their individual freedom of conscience sacred.
Therefore it would almost make more sense to say that it is the subjects in such a realm who are vested with the supreme authority, because they each have an absolute veto, if they perceive the monarch's command under Enyart's proposed constitution is immoral and illegal/criminal.
The epitomes of rogue monarchs aren't found in Suetonius but the 20th century, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mao. None of those situations would occur under Enyart's idea, so long as all the subjects in such a realm are themselves good. For Enyart's constitution to devolve into something like the Red Terror the monarch would need a lot of immoral and cowardly toadies, just like Lenin and Stalin had.
Ironically in Clete's imagination if Enyart's proposal did suffer a monstrous monarch such as the four examples from the 20th century, or the awful Roman Emperors, it would be societally preserving to destroy the constitution/monarchy, instead of the truth which is that extra-judicial, anarchistic vigilantism would do the destroying.
This again all assumes I'm understanding JR's account of Enyart's idea, and, further, that that idea hinges on a polity who is moral and above all protects their freedom/power to follow their own consciences.
Then you cannot complain that your points have not been answered. Those “seven sentences” contained multiple claims, accusations, and misrepresentations of my position. I answered them individually because that is what actually moves a discussion forward. If you will not read the answers, that is not a defect in my argument.
Straw man.
I am not saying punishment is irrelevant. I am saying punishment requires authorized jurisdiction.
You keep treating “not punishable by a lower domestic office” as though it means “legally tolerated.” That is the same equivocation I have been identifying from the start.
The point is not that you have never made arguments. The point is that when those arguments are answered, you keep returning to the same assertion instead of addressing the answer.
It's kind of hard to know whether my arguments are compelling, and to then decry them as not, when you won't read them.
Then apply it to your own system, where a rogue final earthly authority is not the king, but the removal authority installed by the law!
No one is arguing that society must commit suicide, that wicked commands must be obeyed, or that tyranny is righteous.
The question is whether your proposed remedy is authorized and whether it actually solves the problem. My argument is that it does not, but rather gives sinful men a lawful mechanism to dominate, control, or remove the king under color of law.
You keep saying, “a rogue king is dangerous.”
Yes. I agree.
Now please answer the corresponding question:
What happens when the removers are rogue?
That analogy proves my point.
If your removal mechanism cannot be described without placing some men over the king, then placing some men over the king is inherent to the mechanism.
That's exactly what I've been arguing.
Your system may be possible as a different structure: a divided constitutional government, or a monarchy with a superior domestic removal authority over the king.
But it isn't possible as a system where final earthly civil authority terminates in the king.
If another domestic authority can prosecute, judge, and remove him, then final earthly authority terminates in that authority, not in the king.
That consequence is what I have been asking you to address, namely, what happens when the system you propose becomes captured by sinful men with evil intentions for the nation?
Mostly agreed, with one important clarification.
Subjects do not have supreme civil authority over the king. They do not have jurisdiction to command him, prosecute him, judge him (in the judicial sense), or remove him.
What they do have is moral responsibility before God, which means they must refuse wicked commands.
That distinction matters.
A subject’s conscience is not a rival throne. It is not a court above the king. It is a moral boundary: “I must obey God rather than man.”
So yes, a wicked king cannot simply turn the nation into a Leninist, Stalinist, Hitlerian, or Maoist regime by snapping his fingers. He needs cooperation. He needs officers, soldiers, judges, recorders, and subjects willing to obey wicked commands.
That is why refusal matters.
The system does not depend on pretending the king can never be wicked. It depends on the moral duty of everyone beneath him to refuse evil when he is wicked.
That is also why Clete’s comparison keeps failing. He imagines a rogue king with "obedient toadies," but imagines his removal mechanism being run by righteous men. If the people are corrupt enough to obey a monstrous king, they are also corrupt enough to corrupt, capture, or weaponize a removal process.
Yes, I most certainly can. The reason I can't bring myself to read it any longer is because you stopped saying anything new months ago and your repitition of the same responses don't answer the arguments any better now than they did 6 years ago when I started this discussion.
Your argument boils down to the only ones allowed to remove a king are his subjects through open rebellion against a rogue king. That takes us all the way back to my point about there sure seems like there ought to be a better solution to a rogue king that civil war. It's all just the same arguments over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.....................
Idolater
Popetard
There is. And it's in Enyart's proposal—though implicitly (according to my understanding of JR's description).
It's that, all that rogue king's subjects disobey and otherwise ignore him, when he orders them to sin/commit a crime.
That's it. No civil war needed. Just patience. He's got to die sometime.
Not honestly.
If you refuse to read the answers, then you do not get to claim the answers were not given or are insufficient.
That is about the same time you stopped answering my arguments at all.
And this is circular. You say you will not read the replies because nothing new is being said, and then you conclude nothing new is being said because you will not read the replies.
Do you not see the problem?
No, it does not.
My argument is not that the subjects have legal authority to “remove” the king through open rebellion.
My argument is that wicked commands do not bind. Subjects, officers, soldiers, judges, and everyone else beneath the king must obey God rather than man. That means they must refuse criminal commands, refuse cooperation with wickedness, and refuse to treat evil as lawful simply because the king commanded it.
That is not the same thing as a standing domestic removal process.
You keep translating refusal into civil war.
That is not my position.
If you do not want to read my words, then read Idolater’s:
A wicked king cannot turn his wickedness into law by speaking. He needs cooperation. If the people beneath him refuse wicked commands, he is not “legally tolerated” in any meaningful sense. He is disobeyed, resisted, rebuked, ignored where appropriate, and left to answer to God.
Your position keeps assuming that if there is no domestic office authorized to depose him, then the only alternative is national suicide or civil war.
That is the false dilemma that I'm calling you out on.
Now please answer my question:
What happens when the system you propose becomes captured by sinful men with evil intentions for the nation?
What happens when the removers are rogue?
I've read the answers, JR. We've been discussing this for 6 years!
You're right, it doesn't! What it does is say that just have to live with it or else refuse to obey and pray that the king doesn't murder them for it, which, of course, he would.
It isn't translating, it's just the logical progression. There are two and only two outcomes when a sufficiently tyrannical king decides to ignore the law. Either people refuse to obey and he kills them for it until the populous is sufficiently subdued, or the people refuse to obey and the king ends up getting killed himself while trying to kill them for it. That sound an awful lot like civil war to me.
It depends on the nature of that system and the nature of the "capture" of it. At worst such a situation would require a conspiracy of several individuals for it to even get off the ground. That is, it would be far more complex and difficult to pull of than for a solitary king to become corrupt.
Indeed, the way I envision it, I don't even see how it could be "captured". I'm not proposing any sort of bureaucracy but merely that the king can be prosecuted for severe crimes and seditious behavior; that his own actions would trigger a legal process that would proceed along clearly defined lines, where no one involved has any way of gaining political power.
Since you keep saying this is all repetition, let me summarize the actual defeaters of your position and the questions your position still has not answered, so that if you make an argument that falls under one of these defeaters, I can simply refer you back here.
1. You have not shown that “under law” means “removable by a lower domestic office.”
That is the main equivocation.
I agree that the king is under law. I deny that this requires lesser domestic officers to have jurisdiction to remove him.
A man can be guilty under law without every lower earthly office having jurisdiction to punish him. “Not removable by a lower domestic office” does not mean “above the law,” “authorized to sin,” or “legally permitted to do whatever he wants.”
You keep asserting that equivalence. You have not proven it.
2. You have not answered the final-earthly-authority problem.
Every civil system terminates authority somewhere.
If final earthly civil authority does not terminate in the king, then it terminates in the men who can remove the king.
So the question remains:
Who has the final earthly word?
If the answer is “the men who can prosecute, judge, and remove the king,” then final earthly authority terminates in them, not in the king.
3. You have not answered “who removes the removers?”
You keep pointing to the danger of a rogue king.
Fine. I agree that a rogue king is dangerous.
But your system creates another danger at the level of final authority: rogue removers.
You have now suggested that capture of your removal process would require several conspirators, and that this would be harder than one king becoming corrupt.
But that does not answer the objection.
It only admits that your system can be corrupted while claiming corruption would be more difficult.
Fine. Then the question remains:
What happens when it occurs?
What happens when the removal authority is corrupt? What happens when the judges are ambitious? What happens when the charges are fabricated? What happens when powerful men use the lawful process to remove a righteous king who stands in their way?
Do the removers have an authority above them?
If yes, who is it ultimately? Not “what,” but who? “The law” is not the answer, because we both agree that both the king and the removers are under law. The question is: who does the law authorize to remove anyone who goes rogue inside the removal process?
If the answer is another court, council, judge, or process, then the same question applies again: who removes them?
If the answer is “no one,” then your removers occupy the very position you say the king cannot occupy. They become the final earthly authority who cannot be removed by a higher domestic office.
So your system does not eliminate the problem. It only relocates it.
4. You have not shown where Scripture authorizes lesser domestic officers to remove the chief civil ruler.
This is not a minor detail. This is the central question.
You are not merely saying wicked kings are guilty before God. I agree with that.
You are saying lesser domestic officers may prosecute, judge, and remove the king. That requires authority. Where is that authority given?
5. You have not answered the guilt/jurisdiction distinction.
Guilt exists when the act is committed. Court judgment establishes guilt for purposes of earthly punishment.
That is why a suspect is presumed innocent during trial. It does not mean he is actually innocent until the court declares him guilty. It means guilt must be proved before the proper authority before punishment may be imposed.
So there are three distinct questions:
Did he violate the law?
Has that guilt been established by the proper process?
Who has jurisdiction to punish him?
You keep moving from the first question to the third as though the answer automatically follows.
It does not.
If there is no earthly court above a criminal king, then he is still guilty before God and guilty under the law, but no lesser domestic court has jurisdiction to punish or remove him for that crime.
That may bother you, but it is not a contradiction. It is the difference between guilt and jurisdiction.
6. You have not answered the selection/removal distinction.
The procedure that identifies or seats a king does not automatically retain authority to remove him.
Selection authority is not removal authority.
Recognition is not jurisdiction.
Installation is not ongoing superiority.
If officers administer succession, that does not make them superior to the throne afterward.
7. You have not answered the “law does not enforce itself” problem.
Saying “the law removes him” does not answer anything.
Law does not act. Men act.
Men accuse.
Men investigate.
Men judge.
Men enforce.
Men remove.
So the real question is always: which men?
And once those men have authority to remove the king, they are above him in the decisive case.
8. You have not answered the “king’s own actions trigger the process” problem.
You say the king’s own actions would trigger the legal process.
No. Men would.
The king’s action does not interpret itself, accuse itself, investigate itself, prosecute itself, judge itself, or enforce judgment against itself.
Men decide whether the action qualifies. Men decide whether charges should be brought. Men decide whether the evidence is sufficient. Men decide whether the process has been satisfied. Men decide whether the king is guilty. Men decide whether he is removed.
So again, the issue is not paper procedure. The issue is which men have final jurisdiction.
9. You have not answered the worst-case/best-case comparison problem.
You keep testing Bob’s system by its worst possible king, then testing your system by ideal righteous removers.
That is not an honest comparison.
If Bob’s system has to account for a wicked king, your system has to account for wicked removers.
If the king might abuse his office, so might the judges.
If the king might endanger the nation, so might the men empowered to remove him.
Saying it would take several conspirators does not answer this. It only changes the form of the danger from one wicked ruler to a coalition of wicked removers.
10. You have not answered the “no one gains political power” problem.
You say your process would be structured so that no one involved has any way of gaining political power.
But the power to prosecute, judge, and remove the king is political power.
Even if the removers do not personally become king afterward, they still have decisive authority over who may continue to occupy the throne. That is enormous civil power.
A man does not have to wear the crown in order to rule the crown.
11. You have not answered the civil-disobedience point without turning it into civil war.
My position is not that subjects have legal authority to remove the king through open rebellion.
My position is that wicked commands do not bind.
A tyrant king can command his subordinates to start killing people, but he cannot compel them to obey. Officers, soldiers, judges, recorders, and subjects must obey God rather than man. They must refuse criminal commands, refuse cooperation with wickedness, and refuse to treat evil as lawful simply because the king commanded it.
If they refuse, then the king’s wickedness is checked by non-cooperation.
If they obey, then the nation has a deeper problem than one rogue king. It has a morally corrupt people, corrupt officers, corrupt soldiers, and corrupt judges willing to carry out wickedness.
And that problem will not be solved by merely removing the king.
If the people beneath the king are corrupt enough to obey monstrous commands, they are also corrupt enough to corrupt, capture, or weaponize your removal process.
So again, the problem is sinful men with power, not merely one sinful man with a crown.
Refusal is not the same thing as a standing domestic removal process.
Non-cooperation is not the same thing as civil war.
12. You have not shown that your system preserves Bob’s structure.
Your cyan analogy conceded the structural point.
If your removal mechanism cannot be described without placing some men over the king, then placing some men over the king is inherent to the mechanism.
That may be possible as a different structure. It may be possible as a divided constitutional government. It may be possible as a monarchy with a superior domestic removal authority over the king.
But it is not a system where final earthly civil authority terminates in the king.
So the unresolved issue is not whether a removal process can be written on paper. Of course it can.
The unresolved issue is whether such a process preserves the structure Bob proposed, whether Scripture authorizes it, and whether it actually solves the problem of sinful men in power rather than merely relocating that problem to the men who remove the king.
Those are the defeaters and the questions still unanswered.
The age of the discussion does not mean that the defeaters have been answered.
If the specific objections I summarized above have been answered, then please refresh my memory, or point to where they were answered. Otherwise, I’ll refer you back to the summary rather than repeat all of it here.
“Of course, he would” is not an argument. It is your worst-case scenario stated as inevitable.
A king can command murder. He could even commit murder personally. But he cannot personally murder the whole nation by himself. He needs officers, soldiers, judges, and subjects willing to obey wicked commands.
If they refuse, his wickedness is checked by non-cooperation.
If they obey, then the nation has a deeper problem than one rogue king, and that problem will not be solved by merely removing him.
See point 11 in the summary post.
That is a false dilemma.
See point 11.
Civil war follows only if enough men either obey wicked commands or resort to violence.
And again, if the nation is already that corrupt, your removal process does not solve the problem. The same corrupt men can corrupt, capture, or weaponize it.
This is answered by points 3 and 9.
Saying corruption would require several conspirators does not solve the problem. It only changes the failure mode from one wicked ruler to a coalition of wicked removers.
Conspiracies among powerful men are not historically rare.
This is answered by points 7, 8, and 10.
His actions would not trigger the process apart from men deciding that they do.
And the power to prosecute, judge, and remove the king is political power. Even if the removers do not become king afterward, they still have decisive authority over whether the king may remain king.
A man does not have to wear the crown in order to rule the crown.
Your proposal may avoid creating a parliament or bureaucracy, but it still creates a superior domestic removal authority over the king. That is the structural point.
If those men can prosecute, judge, and remove the king, then final earthly authority terminates in them, not in the king.
Something to help illustrate my point:
I'll take these one by one. You'll immediate begin to recognize the fact that all of this has been said before in one way or another, if not in several ways. I wrote this in more than one sitting over the last few days and when I read it through I became aware of how repetitive even this post is. Your points 7, 8 and 10 are all basically just slightly altered iterations of the same point, for example.
The point I'm making is quite different.
The issue is not whether the king is legally subject to the law. The issue is whether there is any lawful mechanism by which the law can actually be enforced against him if he refuses to submit to it. In Israel, there was. God Himself stood above every earthly office and actively enforced His law. He rejected Saul, sent prophets to confront kings, raised up foreign nations in judgment, and, when necessary, removed kings according to His own authority. A modern Gentile nation has no such constitutional guarantee. We do not have prophets who can infallibly declare, "Thus says the Lord," nor do we have a covenant promising direct divine intervention in the affairs of the state.
That changes the institutional question.
My argument is not that "under the law" means "removable by a lower domestic office." My argument is that, in the absence of God's direct governmental oversight, some lawful mechanism must exist to enforce the law against a king who refuses to obey it. Otherwise, the law may declare him guilty, but it has no means of imposing its judgment. So the real question isn't whether the king is theoretically under the law. but rather...
If a king commits a capital crime, refuses to abdicate, ignores the courts, and commands the military to keep him in power, what lawful domestic mechanism remains to enforce the law against him?
If the answer is "none," then the problem isn't that the king is legally above the law. The problem is that he is institutionally immune from its enforcement. If you don't like the term "above the law" then call it "chocolate donuts" or whatever other name you think will be semantically satisfying.
You're treating the authority to remove an officeholder for violating the law as though it were identical to possessing the office itself. Those are two different kinds of authority.
A judge has the authority to sentence a convicted murderer. That does not make the judge the executive branch.
A legislature may impeach an executive. That does not make the legislature the executive.
Likewise, giving a court the narrowly defined authority to remove a king after he has been convicted under the law does not make the court the nation's supreme ruler.
Authority in every legal system is divided by jurisdiction. It is not arranged as a single, uninterrupted chain in which every exercise of authority makes one office superior in every respect to another.
The king would still possess the final earthly authority to govern. The court would not be able to direct policy, command the military, enact laws, administer the kingdom, or substitute its own judgment for his. Its authority would exist only within one narrowly defined jurisdiction: determining whether the king has forfeited his office by violating the law.
So I reject the premise that "the power to remove" and "final governing authority" are the same thing.
The real question is not, "Who has the last earthly word about everything?" No human office does. The proper question is, "Who has the lawful authority to decide each category of question?"
The king has the final earthly authority to govern. The courts have the final earthly authority to determine guilt under the law.
If the law specifies that conviction for certain crimes results in forfeiture of the throne, then the court is not ruling instead of the king. It is simply exercising the jurisdiction assigned to it by the constitution.
That no more transfers supreme civil authority to the judiciary than a governor firing the police chief for misconduct make the governor the chief of police in our current system.
Your objection applies equally to your own system...
What happens when the king becomes corrupt?
What happens when he controls the military?
What happens when he refuses to obey the law?
Every system eventually reaches a point where no higher domestic authority exists. So "Who removes the removers?" is simply another form of "Who guards the guardians?" It is a question every system must answer, including yours.
The difference is that my proposal distributes the risk instead of concentrating it. More importantly, I reject the premise that the removal authority thereby becomes the nation's supreme ruler.
A court authorized to determine whether a king has forfeited his office does not thereby acquire the authority to govern the kingdom. It cannot make laws, command the military, administer the executive, or rule in the king's place. It exercises one narrowly defined jurisdiction assigned to it by the constitution.
Having the final word on one legal question is not the same thing as possessing final authority over every governmental function. Every constitutional system divides authority by jurisdiction. The judiciary already has the final word on some questions without thereby becoming the executive.
So my proposal does not relocate sovereignty from the king to the judges. It simply provides a lawful means of enforcing the law against the king in the rare circumstance that he refuses to submit to it.
The real difference between our proposals is this:
Your system accepts the risk of an unremovable rogue king. Mine accepts the risk of a corrupt removal process. Neither risk can be eliminated.
The question is which risk is less likely, less dangerous, and more consistent with preserving the rule of law.
That system cannot simply be copied because God's direct covenantal oversight through prophets, one of its central features, is absent.
So the question is not whether I can produce a verse saying, "Judges may remove the king." The question is whether my proposal faithfully applies the principles Scripture does reveal.
Scripture teaches that the king is under God's law.
Scripture teaches that rulers are accountable for violating that law.
Scripture teaches that justice must not show partiality.
Scripture teaches that guilt must carry consequences.
The constitutional question then is how those principles are implemented in a modern Gentile nation that does not have prophets or guaranteed divine intervention. You are proposing one answer. I am proposing another.
So unless you can show that Scripture forbids a constitutional mechanism for removing a king who has been lawfully convicted of a capital crime, the issue is no longer one of biblical authorization but of constitutional prudence.
In other words, we're no longer asking, "What did Israel do?" We're asking, "What constitutional structure most faithfully preserves the biblical principles of justice, accountability, and the rule of law under modern circumstances?"
Where we disagree is not over that distinction. We disagree over what the constitution should provide.
My argument has never been:
"Because the king is guilty, therefore the judges have jurisdiction."
My argument is:
"The constitution grants the judges jurisdiction to hear this narrow class of cases."
Jurisdiction does not arise from guilt. It arises from lawful authority.
When you say, "If there is no earthly court above a criminal king...," you've simply assumed the very point under debate. That is your proposed constitutional arrangement, not an established biblical principle.
I also think your argument assumes something that Scripture never actually says: that all judicial authority flows downward from the king.
Certainly the king exercises judicial authority, but where does Scripture teach that every judge derives his authority from the king?
Israel had judges long before it had kings. The Mosaic Law required judges throughout the land. Priests exercised judicial authority in certain cases as well. None of that authority originated with a king. It originated with God through His Law.
Even after Israel had kings, the king did not become the source of the Law or the source of judicial authority. Deuteronomy 17 explicitly places the king under the Law right alongside everyone else. The king was required to submit to the Law, not the other way around, which is why I reject the premise that judges can never possess jurisdiction over a king. Their authority need not derive from the king at all. It may derive from the very same source that establishes the king's office in the first place. That source being God and His Law.
With modifications I'm proposing, that source would be the constitution itself, which creates the office of king, defines its powers, and specifies the conditions under which the office may be forfeited.
So the real question is not whether guilt automatically creates jurisdiction. I agree that it does not. The real question is whether Scripture forbids a constitution from granting judges this narrow jurisdiction over the office of king. If it does, then show me where. If it does not, then the debate is no longer about guilt versus jurisdiction. It is about which constitutional arrangement best preserves the biblical principles of justice, accountability, and the rule of law.
I have never argued otherwise.
My argument is not that the authority to seat a king somehow implies the authority to remove him. My argument is that a constitution may explicitly grant both authorities if doing so best preserves the rule of law. The question is not what follows automatically. The question is what authority the constitution itself establishes. The same constitution that creates the office of king may also define the conditions under which that office is forfeited and designate the body responsible for determining whether those conditions have been met. That authority does not arise by implication from seating the king. It arises because the constitution expressly grants it.
So I don't think this objection advances the discussion. It simply rejects an argument I haven't made and or begs the question by presuming the validity of that which you are arguing.
The real issue remains unchanged: Does Scripture forbid a constitution from granting judges this narrowly defined jurisdiction over the office of king?
If not, then we're back to the constitutional question we've been debating all along: which arrangement best preserves the biblical principles of justice, accountability, and the rule of law?
So the question has never been whether men enforce the law. The question has always been which men the constitution authorizes to do so.
That is precisely the constitutional question we've been debating.
When you ask, "Which men?" my answer is straightforward: the men whom the constitution vests with that narrowly defined jurisdiction.
I don't see how that creates a contradiction.
What I do reject is your conclusion that those men therefore become "above the king." That only follows if you assume that exercising authority over one constitutional question makes an office superior in every respect to every other office. I don't think Scripture teaches that, and I don't think constitutional government works that way. A court may have final authority to determine guilt under the law without thereby acquiring the authority to govern the nation. The king may retain final authority to govern the nation without possessing immunity from every judicial proceeding. Those are different jurisdictions.
So I agree that men enforce the law. I agree that the law does not act by itself. Where we disagree is over which men should possess that authority and whether Scripture forbids a constitution from assigning that jurisdiction to a court in the limited circumstance of a king accused of specified crimes. I still have not seen a biblical argument demonstrating that such a constitutional arrangement is prohibited. Instead, your argument continues to assume that any authority exercised over the king necessarily makes the judges his superiors. That is the premise under dispute, not the conclusion that has been established.
I'll take the oportunity here to point some else out about how you've been arguing your position...
You keep using phrases like "above the king," "superior to the throne," and "final earthly authority." Those are conclusions, not premises. Almost every one of your objections ultimately depends on the same underlying assertion. That assertion being that authority is necessarily hierarchical rather than jurisdictional. That is the premise that I reject. Authority is generally hierarchical but that's not the same thing as it being necessarily so.
I've never argued that the king's actions literally trigger the legal process without human involvement. Every legal system requires men to investigate, prosecute, judge, and enforce the law.
The question has never been whether men exercise judgment. The question is whether Scripture forbids a constitution from assigning that narrowly defined jurisdiction to a court in the case of a criminal king.
You've simply restated your conclusion that any men who exercise such jurisdiction must therefore become the nation's supreme earthly authority. I don't believe that follows, and I don't think you've demonstrated that it does.
The comparison I've been making is not between your system at its worst and mine at its best. It's between the worst-case scenarios of both systems. Your system risks a rogue king who cannot be lawfully removed. Mine risks a corrupt removal process.
Neither system eliminates the possibility of corruption. The question is which constitutional design makes tyranny less likely and less catastrophic.
My conclusion has simply been that concentrating unchecked power in one individual presents the greater risk than requiring a conspiracy among multiple independent actors operating under defined legal procedures.
You may disagree with that judgment, but it is a comparative judgment about risk, not a comparison between your worst case and my ideal case.
The authority to determine whether someone has forfeited an office is not the same thing as the authority to exercise that office.
A court that removes a king does not thereby acquire the authority to govern, make policy, command the military, or occupy the throne. It exercises one narrowly defined constitutional function and nothing more. So I don't dispute that the removal authority possesses an important constitutional power. I dispute your conclusion that this makes it the nation's governing authority or that it "rules the crown." A constitutional limitation on an office is not the same thing as possession of that office.
Where we part company is over whether individual refusal is an adequate constitutional safeguard against a criminal king. Civil disobedience answers the moral question, "Must I obey this wicked command?" It does not answer the constitutional question, "What is the lawful status of a king who has already committed capital crimes and refuses to relinquish the throne?" If the military, judges, and civil officers all refuse to obey him, then either he remains the lawful king despite being unable to govern, or someone eventually removes him by force. Civil disobedience may stop particular acts of evil, but it does not resolve the legal status of the throne itself.
That is the gap my proposal is intended to address. I agree that no constitution can save a nation whose people are thoroughly corrupt. If judges, soldiers, and citizens are all wicked, every form of government will eventually fail. My proposal has never been that a removal process cures national depravity. It is simply an attempt to provide a lawful means of addressing the rare circumstance of a king who has forfeited his office through specified crimes, rather than leaving the nation with only passive resistance or extralegal force as the remaining options.
For that reason, I don't see civil disobedience and a lawful removal process as competing ideas. They address different questions. Civil disobedience governs the duty of individual subjects before God. A removal process governs the lawful continuity of civil government once a king has demonstrated himself unfit to remain in office.
I have never claimed that my proposal leaves Bob's constitutional structure unchanged. It doesn't. I am proposing a modification because I believe modern Gentile nations lack something that ancient Israel possessed: God's direct governmental oversight through prophets and covenantal intervention.
So I readily concede that my proposal is structurally different from Bob's.
The question is whether that difference is justified.
You continue to assert that any constitutional mechanism for removing a king necessarily places those administering that process "over" the king in a way that destroys the monarchy. I have consistently rejected that premise. I do not believe that exercising a narrowly defined judicial jurisdiction over one constitutional question makes an office the nation's governing authority. Throughout this discussion, we've simply reached different conclusions on that point.
As for Scripture, I have never claimed that it expressly authorizes judges to remove a king. My argument has been that Scripture does not present us with a modern Gentile constitutional monarchy at all. It presents Israel, where God Himself functioned as the ultimate earthly check on the king through prophets and direct intervention. The question, therefore, is not whether Israel had a human removal mechanism. It didn't. The question is whether Scripture forbids a modern constitution from providing one where God's covenantal oversight is absent. I still have not seen that prohibition established.
Finally, I have never argued that my proposal eliminates the problem of sinful men. No constitutional design can accomplish that. Indeed, the existence of sinful men is the premise upon which the law itself rests. The question then is which design better restrains the abuse of power in a fallen world. Your proposal accepts the risk of an unremovable rogue king. Mine accepts the risk of a corrupt removal process. Both risks are real. Our disagreement is over which poses the greater danger and which better preserves the biblical principles of justice, accountability, and the rule of law.
You keep making this semantic point. My argument is not about semantics. I agree that being "under the law" does not, by itself, logically require that a lower domestic office have the authority to remove the king. Scripture itself demonstrates that. Saul remained king for years after violating God's law, and David rightly refused to seize the throne.
The point I'm making is quite different.
The issue is not whether the king is legally subject to the law. The issue is whether there is any lawful mechanism by which the law can actually be enforced against him if he refuses to submit to it. In Israel, there was. God Himself stood above every earthly office and actively enforced His law. He rejected Saul, sent prophets to confront kings, raised up foreign nations in judgment, and, when necessary, removed kings according to His own authority. A modern Gentile nation has no such constitutional guarantee. We do not have prophets who can infallibly declare, "Thus says the Lord," nor do we have a covenant promising direct divine intervention in the affairs of the state.
That changes the institutional question.
My argument is not that "under the law" means "removable by a lower domestic office." My argument is that, in the absence of God's direct governmental oversight, some lawful mechanism must exist to enforce the law against a king who refuses to obey it. Otherwise, the law may declare him guilty, but it has no means of imposing its judgment. So the real question isn't whether the king is theoretically under the law. but rather...
If a king commits a capital crime, refuses to abdicate, ignores the courts, and commands the military to keep him in power, what lawful domestic mechanism remains to enforce the law against him?
If the answer is "none," then the problem isn't that the king is legally above the law. The problem is that he is institutionally immune from its enforcement. If you don't like the term "above the law" then call it "chocolate donuts" or whatever other name you think will be semantically satisfying.
As I've stated before, this argument simply does not follow...
You're treating the authority to remove an officeholder for violating the law as though it were identical to possessing the office itself. Those are two different kinds of authority.
A judge has the authority to sentence a convicted murderer. That does not make the judge the executive branch.
A legislature may impeach an executive. That does not make the legislature the executive.
Likewise, giving a court the narrowly defined authority to remove a king after he has been convicted under the law does not make the court the nation's supreme ruler.
Authority in every legal system is divided by jurisdiction. It is not arranged as a single, uninterrupted chain in which every exercise of authority makes one office superior in every respect to another.
The king would still possess the final earthly authority to govern. The court would not be able to direct policy, command the military, enact laws, administer the kingdom, or substitute its own judgment for his. Its authority would exist only within one narrowly defined jurisdiction: determining whether the king has forfeited his office by violating the law.
So I reject the premise that "the power to remove" and "final governing authority" are the same thing.
The real question is not, "Who has the last earthly word about everything?" No human office does. The proper question is, "Who has the lawful authority to decide each category of question?"
The king has the final earthly authority to govern. The courts have the final earthly authority to determine guilt under the law.
If the law specifies that conviction for certain crimes results in forfeiture of the throne, then the court is not ruling instead of the king. It is simply exercising the jurisdiction assigned to it by the constitution.
That no more transfers supreme civil authority to the judiciary than a governor firing the police chief for misconduct make the governor the chief of police in our current system.
I don't disagree that my system can be corrupted. Judges can become corrupt. Prosecutors can become corrupt. Entire courts can become corrupt. No human constitutional system can eliminate that possibility. The question has never been whether corruption is possible. The question is which constitutional design better limits its likelihood and consequences.
Your objection applies equally to your own system...
What happens when the king becomes corrupt?
What happens when he controls the military?
What happens when he refuses to obey the law?
Every system eventually reaches a point where no higher domestic authority exists. So "Who removes the removers?" is simply another form of "Who guards the guardians?" It is a question every system must answer, including yours.
The difference is that my proposal distributes the risk instead of concentrating it. More importantly, I reject the premise that the removal authority thereby becomes the nation's supreme ruler.
A court authorized to determine whether a king has forfeited his office does not thereby acquire the authority to govern the kingdom. It cannot make laws, command the military, administer the executive, or rule in the king's place. It exercises one narrowly defined jurisdiction assigned to it by the constitution.
Having the final word on one legal question is not the same thing as possessing final authority over every governmental function. Every constitutional system divides authority by jurisdiction. The judiciary already has the final word on some questions without thereby becoming the executive.
So my proposal does not relocate sovereignty from the king to the judges. It simply provides a lawful means of enforcing the law against the king in the rare circumstance that he refuses to submit to it.
The real difference between our proposals is this:
Your system accepts the risk of an unremovable rogue king. Mine accepts the risk of a corrupt removal process. Neither risk can be eliminated.
The question is which risk is less likely, less dangerous, and more consistent with preserving the rule of law.
This is an argument from silence and it comes with the normal trouble such arguments imply. I don't claim that Scripture explicitly authorizes lesser domestic officers to remove a king. It doesn't. Neither, however, does it explicitly prohibit such a constitutional arrangement. The reason is because Scripture never presents us with a modern Gentile constitutional monarchy. It presents Israel, a covenant nation governed under God's direct authority, with prophets who could speak infallibly for Him and with God Himself actively intervening in the affairs of the kingdom.
That system cannot simply be copied because God's direct covenantal oversight through prophets, one of its central features, is absent.
So the question is not whether I can produce a verse saying, "Judges may remove the king." The question is whether my proposal faithfully applies the principles Scripture does reveal.
Scripture teaches that the king is under God's law.
Scripture teaches that rulers are accountable for violating that law.
Scripture teaches that justice must not show partiality.
Scripture teaches that guilt must carry consequences.
The constitutional question then is how those principles are implemented in a modern Gentile nation that does not have prophets or guaranteed divine intervention. You are proposing one answer. I am proposing another.
So unless you can show that Scripture forbids a constitutional mechanism for removing a king who has been lawfully convicted of a capital crime, the issue is no longer one of biblical authorization but of constitutional prudence.
In other words, we're no longer asking, "What did Israel do?" We're asking, "What constitutional structure most faithfully preserves the biblical principles of justice, accountability, and the rule of law under modern circumstances?"
I agree with most of what you've written, as was said in response to your first point, guilt and jurisdiction are distinct concepts. A person can certainly be guilty even if a particular court lacks jurisdiction over him.
Where we disagree is not over that distinction. We disagree over what the constitution should provide.
My argument has never been:
"Because the king is guilty, therefore the judges have jurisdiction."
My argument is:
"The constitution grants the judges jurisdiction to hear this narrow class of cases."
Jurisdiction does not arise from guilt. It arises from lawful authority.
When you say, "If there is no earthly court above a criminal king...," you've simply assumed the very point under debate. That is your proposed constitutional arrangement, not an established biblical principle.
I also think your argument assumes something that Scripture never actually says: that all judicial authority flows downward from the king.
Certainly the king exercises judicial authority, but where does Scripture teach that every judge derives his authority from the king?
Israel had judges long before it had kings. The Mosaic Law required judges throughout the land. Priests exercised judicial authority in certain cases as well. None of that authority originated with a king. It originated with God through His Law.
Even after Israel had kings, the king did not become the source of the Law or the source of judicial authority. Deuteronomy 17 explicitly places the king under the Law right alongside everyone else. The king was required to submit to the Law, not the other way around, which is why I reject the premise that judges can never possess jurisdiction over a king. Their authority need not derive from the king at all. It may derive from the very same source that establishes the king's office in the first place. That source being God and His Law.
With modifications I'm proposing, that source would be the constitution itself, which creates the office of king, defines its powers, and specifies the conditions under which the office may be forfeited.
So the real question is not whether guilt automatically creates jurisdiction. I agree that it does not. The real question is whether Scripture forbids a constitution from granting judges this narrow jurisdiction over the office of king. If it does, then show me where. If it does not, then the debate is no longer about guilt versus jurisdiction. It is about which constitutional arrangement best preserves the biblical principles of justice, accountability, and the rule of law.
I agree with the distinctions you're making. Selection authority is not automatically removal authority, recognition is not automatically jurisdiction and installing someone into office does not, by itself, create ongoing supervisory authority.
I have never argued otherwise.
My argument is not that the authority to seat a king somehow implies the authority to remove him. My argument is that a constitution may explicitly grant both authorities if doing so best preserves the rule of law. The question is not what follows automatically. The question is what authority the constitution itself establishes. The same constitution that creates the office of king may also define the conditions under which that office is forfeited and designate the body responsible for determining whether those conditions have been met. That authority does not arise by implication from seating the king. It arises because the constitution expressly grants it.
So I don't think this objection advances the discussion. It simply rejects an argument I haven't made and or begs the question by presuming the validity of that which you are arguing.
The real issue remains unchanged: Does Scripture forbid a constitution from granting judges this narrowly defined jurisdiction over the office of king?
If not, then we're back to the constitutional question we've been debating all along: which arrangement best preserves the biblical principles of justice, accountability, and the rule of law?
I agree that the law does not enforce itself. I've never argued otherwise. Every legal system requires men to investigate, prosecute, judge, and enforce the law. That is true in every nation and under every form of government.
So the question has never been whether men enforce the law. The question has always been which men the constitution authorizes to do so.
That is precisely the constitutional question we've been debating.
When you ask, "Which men?" my answer is straightforward: the men whom the constitution vests with that narrowly defined jurisdiction.
I don't see how that creates a contradiction.
What I do reject is your conclusion that those men therefore become "above the king." That only follows if you assume that exercising authority over one constitutional question makes an office superior in every respect to every other office. I don't think Scripture teaches that, and I don't think constitutional government works that way. A court may have final authority to determine guilt under the law without thereby acquiring the authority to govern the nation. The king may retain final authority to govern the nation without possessing immunity from every judicial proceeding. Those are different jurisdictions.
So I agree that men enforce the law. I agree that the law does not act by itself. Where we disagree is over which men should possess that authority and whether Scripture forbids a constitution from assigning that jurisdiction to a court in the limited circumstance of a king accused of specified crimes. I still have not seen a biblical argument demonstrating that such a constitutional arrangement is prohibited. Instead, your argument continues to assume that any authority exercised over the king necessarily makes the judges his superiors. That is the premise under dispute, not the conclusion that has been established.
I'll take the oportunity here to point some else out about how you've been arguing your position...
You keep using phrases like "above the king," "superior to the throne," and "final earthly authority." Those are conclusions, not premises. Almost every one of your objections ultimately depends on the same underlying assertion. That assertion being that authority is necessarily hierarchical rather than jurisdictional. That is the premise that I reject. Authority is generally hierarchical but that's not the same thing as it being necessarily so.
I don't think this is a new objection. It's simply a restatement of your previous point.
I've never argued that the king's actions literally trigger the legal process without human involvement. Every legal system requires men to investigate, prosecute, judge, and enforce the law.
The question has never been whether men exercise judgment. The question is whether Scripture forbids a constitution from assigning that narrowly defined jurisdiction to a court in the case of a criminal king.
You've simply restated your conclusion that any men who exercise such jurisdiction must therefore become the nation's supreme earthly authority. I don't believe that follows, and I don't think you've demonstrated that it does.
I have never assumed ideal or incorruptible judges. I've repeatedly acknowledged that the removal process itself can become corrupt.
The comparison I've been making is not between your system at its worst and mine at its best. It's between the worst-case scenarios of both systems. Your system risks a rogue king who cannot be lawfully removed. Mine risks a corrupt removal process.
Neither system eliminates the possibility of corruption. The question is which constitutional design makes tyranny less likely and less catastrophic.
My conclusion has simply been that concentrating unchecked power in one individual presents the greater risk than requiring a conspiracy among multiple independent actors operating under defined legal procedures.
You may disagree with that judgment, but it is a comparative judgment about risk, not a comparison between your worst case and my ideal case.
I agree that the authority to remove a king is a significant constitutional power. I've never suggested otherwise. Where we disagree is over what that power means.
The authority to determine whether someone has forfeited an office is not the same thing as the authority to exercise that office.
A court that removes a king does not thereby acquire the authority to govern, make policy, command the military, or occupy the throne. It exercises one narrowly defined constitutional function and nothing more. So I don't dispute that the removal authority possesses an important constitutional power. I dispute your conclusion that this makes it the nation's governing authority or that it "rules the crown." A constitutional limitation on an office is not the same thing as possession of that office.
I agree with much of what you've written. No king has the authority to command sin. Wicked commands do not bind the conscience, and every person has a duty to obey God rather than men. If a king orders murder, idolatry, or any other evil, his subjects are obligated to refuse. On that point, I don't think we disagree.
Where we part company is over whether individual refusal is an adequate constitutional safeguard against a criminal king. Civil disobedience answers the moral question, "Must I obey this wicked command?" It does not answer the constitutional question, "What is the lawful status of a king who has already committed capital crimes and refuses to relinquish the throne?" If the military, judges, and civil officers all refuse to obey him, then either he remains the lawful king despite being unable to govern, or someone eventually removes him by force. Civil disobedience may stop particular acts of evil, but it does not resolve the legal status of the throne itself.
That is the gap my proposal is intended to address. I agree that no constitution can save a nation whose people are thoroughly corrupt. If judges, soldiers, and citizens are all wicked, every form of government will eventually fail. My proposal has never been that a removal process cures national depravity. It is simply an attempt to provide a lawful means of addressing the rare circumstance of a king who has forfeited his office through specified crimes, rather than leaving the nation with only passive resistance or extralegal force as the remaining options.
For that reason, I don't see civil disobedience and a lawful removal process as competing ideas. They address different questions. Civil disobedience governs the duty of individual subjects before God. A removal process governs the lawful continuity of civil government once a king has demonstrated himself unfit to remain in office.
I think we've finally reached the real point of disagreement.
I have never claimed that my proposal leaves Bob's constitutional structure unchanged. It doesn't. I am proposing a modification because I believe modern Gentile nations lack something that ancient Israel possessed: God's direct governmental oversight through prophets and covenantal intervention.
So I readily concede that my proposal is structurally different from Bob's.
The question is whether that difference is justified.
You continue to assert that any constitutional mechanism for removing a king necessarily places those administering that process "over" the king in a way that destroys the monarchy. I have consistently rejected that premise. I do not believe that exercising a narrowly defined judicial jurisdiction over one constitutional question makes an office the nation's governing authority. Throughout this discussion, we've simply reached different conclusions on that point.
As for Scripture, I have never claimed that it expressly authorizes judges to remove a king. My argument has been that Scripture does not present us with a modern Gentile constitutional monarchy at all. It presents Israel, where God Himself functioned as the ultimate earthly check on the king through prophets and direct intervention. The question, therefore, is not whether Israel had a human removal mechanism. It didn't. The question is whether Scripture forbids a modern constitution from providing one where God's covenantal oversight is absent. I still have not seen that prohibition established.
Finally, I have never argued that my proposal eliminates the problem of sinful men. No constitutional design can accomplish that. Indeed, the existence of sinful men is the premise upon which the law itself rests. The question then is which design better restrains the abuse of power in a fallen world. Your proposal accepts the risk of an unremovable rogue king. Mine accepts the risk of a corrupt removal process. Both risks are real. Our disagreement is over which poses the greater danger and which better preserves the biblical principles of justice, accountability, and the rule of law.
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Thank you for taking the time to respond.
I tried to reduce my response as much as possible, but it still ended up long.
But in my defense, in the words of Treebeard: "You must understand, young hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish, and Ents never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say."
That concession matters.
If being under law does not itself require removal by a lower domestic office, then the remaining argument is prudential: you believe some domestic enforcement mechanism ought to exist.
But that mechanism still has to be operated by men.
Every earthly system eventually reaches someone against whom the law cannot be enforced by a higher domestic authority. Bob’s system places that final earthly civil authority openly on the throne, before God and everyone. Your system relocates it into a court, council, process, or coalition of removers.
That does not make Bob’s king righteous, safe, or free to sin. It makes final earthly responsibility visible instead of hiding final authority behind procedure.
Agreed. Israel was unique.
We do not have Israel’s covenantal administration, Israel’s prophets, or Israel’s constitutional guarantee of direct divine intervention in the affairs of the state.
But the absence of prophets does not authorize us to create an earthly office to replace that divine function.
God’s authority over Israel’s kings does not transfer to domestic judges merely because modern Gentile nations lack prophets.
Why?
A king wicked enough to ignore God’s law, ignore the constitution, commit capital crimes, and use force to remain in power will not be restrained merely because the constitution also contains a removal procedure.
He may denounce the process as treasonous and attempt to destroy those enforcing it.
A removal mechanism has force only to the extent men still honor the law behind the mechanism.
Law cannot solve the problem of a wicked heart.
On that, Scripture is explicitly clear.
Then yes, in that specific respect, he is institutionally immune from domestic enforcement.
But not absolutely immune.
He is not immune from God, judgment, public rebuke, loss of cooperation, officers refusing wicked commands, subjects refusing wicked commands, or standing before God on Judgment Day.
He may escape earthly consequences for a season.
He will not escape them forever.
Avoiding that domestic enforcement gap does not justify creating a superior domestic authority over the king. Your remedy recreates the same problem one level up.
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Removal authority is not possession of the office.
It is authority over the officeholder.
That distinction matters.
Correct.
But it does give the legislature power over the executive in that matter.
An official who knows another body can remove him governs under the shadow of that body. That may restrain him. It may also pressure, intimidate, or manipulate him.
Either way, removal power creates leverage.
It gives the court decisive authority over the throne.
A court need not govern ordinary policy in order to possess power over the king at the decisive point.
Jurisdiction can be divided.
But divided jurisdiction does not eliminate hierarchy when jurisdictions collide.
Either the court can remove the king, or it cannot.
If it can, the court is above the king in that matter.
If it cannot, the king remains king regardless of the court’s judgment.
There is no middle position where the court both has and does not have authority to unmake the throne.
“Narrowly defined jurisdiction” describes the scope of the power. It does not change the nature of the power.
The court’s authority over forfeiture gives it leverage over the man who rules. That leverage can restrain a wicked king, yes. It can also intimidate, pressure, threaten, or remove a righteous king if evil men control the process.
Law can define crimes, procedures, and penalties. It cannot guarantee that wicked men will not define good as evil, manufacture charges, ignore actual wickedness when it benefits them, or weaponize the process against a king who stands in their way.
They are not identical.
Removal power is not ordinary governing power.
It is power over the one who governs.
A man does not have to personally govern in order to control the one who does.
Every civil system terminates final earthly authority somewhere.
In Bob’s system, final earthly civil authority terminates in the king.
In your system, the men who can remove the king have the last earthly word over whether the king remains king.
If a higher authority can remove them, the same question applies to that higher authority. If no higher authority can remove them, final earthly authority terminates there.
So where does the chain terminate?
And if the courts’ determination of guilt carries authority to remove the king, then the courts have authority over the king in that category.
That creates the structural problem.
A governor firing a police chief does not make the governor the police chief.
It places the police chief under the governor in that respect.
Likewise, a court removing the king does not make the court king. It places the king under the court in that respect.
Calling that “jurisdiction assigned by the constitution” does not answer the objection. Bob’s king also has jurisdiction assigned by the constitution.
When that constitutionally assigned authority goes rogue, your answer is to place another domestic authority over it.
But if the removers go rogue, who removes them?
If the answer eventually becomes “no one,” your system has not eliminated final unremovable earthly authority. It has only relocated it.
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Then the king is corrupt.
At least initially, the corruption is localized in one visible office. He may try to corrupt those beneath him, or they may resist him. His commands may be refused. His wickedness may be rebuked. His officers may deny him cooperation. His subjects may refuse to treat evil as lawful merely because he commanded it.
A wicked king cannot rule wickedly unless men beneath him help him do it.
And if enough men beneath him are willing to help him do evil, the nation has a deeper problem than one wicked king. Those same kinds of men can also corrupt, capture, or weaponize a removal process.
He already does.
Whether the military obeys wicked commands is another matter.
The king can command soldiers to fire on civilians, but he cannot make that command righteous, and he cannot force every subordinate to obey. They are morally responsible before God.
Then your procedure does not solve the problem either.
A king wicked enough to ignore God’s law, ignore the constitution, commit capital crimes, and use force to remain in power may simply denounce the removal process as treasonous and attempt to destroy those enforcing it.
A removal process has force only to the extent men still honor the law behind the process.
Against a truly lawless king with enough cooperation to remain in power, the procedure is words on paper. Against a righteous king opposed by wicked legal actors, it can become a weapon.
Again, law cannot solve the problem of a wicked heart.
Correct. Every earthly system terminates somewhere.
Bob’s system answers openly: final earthly civil authority terminates in the king, and above him is God.
Your system terminates in the men who can remove the king, unless some higher domestic authority can remove them. And if that higher authority exists, the same question applies again.
Distributed risk is still risk.
It may distribute power, but it also distributes responsibility, multiplies actors, adds complexity, and gives the process legal cover.
So this is not one sinful king versus a righteous mechanism. It is one sinful king versus multiple sinful men operating a mechanism with authority over the throne.
A wicked king is visible. His authority is personal, public, and mortal. Everyone knows where responsibility terminates.
A wicked removal process can hide behind procedure. It can say, “the law has spoken,” when in reality sinful men have accused, interpreted, judged, and enforced.
That does not seem safer to me.
Answered above.
Removal power is not ordinary governing power. It is power over the one who governs.
That is enough to create the structural problem.
It relocates final authority in that decisive case.
If the judges can prosecute, judge, and remove the king, then the king is under them with respect to whether he remains king.
Call it narrow jurisdiction if you like. It is still authority over the throne.
Then my answer is this:
One sinful man in a visible position of responsibility is better than multiple sinful men operating behind procedure with lawful power over the throne.
Your system does not eliminate tyranny. It gives tyranny another path.
And because that path is procedural, institutional, and clothed in legality, it may be harder to identify and harder to resist.
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Agreed that Scripture does not present a modern Gentile constitutional monarchy in the exact form we are discussing.
Agreed also that Israel was unique. Israel had prophets, covenantal administration, and direct divine intervention in ways modern Gentile nations do not.
But that cuts against your proposal too.
If God’s direct oversight of Israel’s kings was unique, then we do not get to replace that divine function with a man-made, man-run removal process and treat it as the modern equivalent.
God’s authority over Israel’s kings does not transfer to domestic judges because modern nations lack prophets.
Scripture shows kings under God’s law. It shows wicked kings guilty before God. It shows God judging kings. It shows foreign nations used as instruments of judgment. It shows men acting against kings under direct divine authority.
It does not show righteous subordinate domestic officers prosecuting, judging, and removing the king as an ordinary legal remedy.
That is a biblical pattern, not silence.
Yes, kings are accountable. Yes, justice must not show partiality. Yes, guilt carries consequences.
But not every consequence is administered by a domestic earthly court in this life.
An explicit prohibition is not the only biblical test.
Scripture’s pattern of authority does not support giving lesser domestic officers jurisdiction to unmake the chief civil ruler.
Pointing out that we lack Israel’s prophets does not establish that judges may now occupy that role.
Right. And my answer is still monarchy.
Not because Israel can be copied woodenly, but because monarchy best preserves visible personal accountability, clear final earthly responsibility, lawful hierarchy, stable succession, and authority flowing downward under God rather than upward from a domestic removal class.
God did not treat kingship itself as inherently tyrannical. He gave Israel laws for kings, established David’s throne, and promised the Messiah as King.
So yes, even under modern circumstances, I think a constitutional monarchy under God’s law, without a standing domestic removal mechanism over the king, better preserves biblical justice, accountability, and rule of law than a system that places domestic removal authority above him.
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Fair enough.
Then your argument rests on the constitution expressly creating that jurisdiction.
A constitution can write that power onto paper. But once it gives judges authority to prosecute, judge, and remove the king, it has created a domestic authority over the king in that matter.
Calling the jurisdiction “narrow” describes its scope. It does not change its relation to the throne.
A narrow authority over the throne is still authority over the throne.
My argument does not require every judge’s authority to derive from the king.
Ultimately, all lawful authority derives from God. But a common source of authority does not make every office equal in jurisdiction.
Judges and kings may both derive authority from God without judges possessing jurisdiction to remove the king.
Agreed.
The king is not the source of God’s law. The king is under God’s law. Judges had authority before Israel had kings.
But none of that establishes judicial jurisdiction to remove the king.
Deuteronomy 17 places the king under the law. It does not place him under a domestic court with authority to depose him.
That is the missing step.
Then your position depends on the constitution creating an authority Scripture does not give to subordinate domestic judges.
That may be your preferred constitutional design, but it changes the structure. It creates a monarchy with judicial authority over forfeiture of the throne.
I do not think that arrangement fits the biblical pattern of kingship and authority.
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Good. Then we agree that selection authority, recognition, and installation do not imply removal authority.
So your case rests on a separate constitutional grant of removal authority.
Right. The constitution can expressly grant that power.
But the structure created by those words is a domestic authority over whether the king remains king.
That is the consequence you have to defend.
It advances the discussion by clarifying where your argument rests.
You are adding removal authority by constitutional design.
An explicit prohibition is not the only biblical test.
Scripture’s pattern of authority does not support giving lesser domestic judges jurisdiction to unmake the chief civil ruler.
My answer remains: constitutional monarchy under God’s law, without a standing domestic removal mechanism over the king.
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That answer has the same form as the answer you reject in Bob’s system.
Bob’s constitution vests one man with the office of king and gives him authority to rule within the bounds of God’s law and the constitution.
Your amendment vests other men with authority to prosecute, judge, and remove the king within the bounds of the constitution.
So “the constitution gives them that jurisdiction” does not solve the rogue-authority problem. It only identifies where that authority now sits.
If the king goes rogue, you place a superior domestic authority over him.
If the removers go rogue, who is superior over them?
They do not need to be superior in every respect.
Removal jurisdiction is authority over the king in that respect.
And that respect is decisive.
A king who knows a domestic court can remove him rules under the shadow of that court. The threat of removal can influence the throne even if formal charges are never brought.
You may consider that a good check. But it is still leverage over the king.
Jurisdiction describes the scope of authority.
Hierarchy describes the relationship between authorities when one can bind, restrain, punish, overturn, or remove the other.
If the court’s judgment can remove the king, then the court has authority over the king in that jurisdiction.
It does not have to govern day to day in order to possess decisive power over the man who does.
Answered above.
Scripture’s pattern does not present righteous subordinate domestic officers prosecuting, judging, and removing the king as an ordinary legal remedy.
You said “authority exercised over the king.”
That phrase already contains the hierarchy.
If judges exercise authority over the king, then in that matter they are over him.
Authority is hierarchical wherever one office can act upon another.
Separate jurisdictions may exist side by side without hierarchy. But once one jurisdiction can remove the holder of another office, hierarchy exists at that point of contact.
Either the judges can remove the king, or they cannot.
If they can, they are above him in that matter.
If they cannot, he remains king regardless of their judgment.
There is no middle ground where judges both have and do not have authority to unmake the throne.
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Correct, it is the same structural objection.
The king’s actions do not interpret themselves. Men interpret them. Men investigate, prosecute, judge, and enforce.
If those men have authority to decide whether the king’s actions amount to forfeiture of the throne, then they have authority over the throne in that matter.
Removal power is authority over the office itself.
That is the demonstration.
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Fair enough.
I reject the phrase “unchecked power,” though.
The king is not unchecked merely because no lower domestic office may remove him. He is checked by God’s law, the constitution, public accountability, loss of cooperation, officers refusing wicked commands, subjects refusing wicked commands, loss of legitimacy, death, and judgment before God.
He lacks a superior domestic removal authority. That is not the same thing as being unchecked.
And “multiple independent actors operating under defined legal procedures” only sounds safer if those actors remain independent, righteous, and faithful to the law. Once they are corrupt, the procedure becomes their instrument.
Factions, false witnesses, corrupt courts, political prosecutions, and legal pretexts are not remote theoretical dangers. They are common features of fallen human government.
A wicked king is visible, personal, public, and mortal. Responsibility terminates in him.
A wicked removal process can hide behind procedure. It can say, “the law has spoken,” when sinful men have accused, interpreted, judged, and enforced.
So yes, this is a comparative risk judgment.
My judgment is that one visible, mortal king under God’s law is less dangerous than a permanent legal mechanism by which multiple sinful men may control or remove the king under color of law.
Your system does not eliminate unchecked final earthly authority. It relocates it to the men who have the final word over whether the king remains king.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
That concession matters.
A significant constitutional power to remove the king is authority over the king in that respect.
Agreed.
Removal power is not ordinary governing power.
It is power over the one who governs.
A man does not have to sit on the throne to control the throne. If he can decide whether the king remains king, he has power over the throne.
And the purpose of a system is what it does.
A process designed to remove kings can be used by good men against a wicked king, and by wicked men against a righteous king. No constitutional wording can guarantee that only good men will use it.
A king who knows that a domestic court can remove him rules under the shadow of that court. You may call that a safeguard. I call it a superior domestic authority over the throne.
A court does not need to make policy, command the military, or occupy the throne in order to possess decisive leverage over the throne.
The power to remove the king is enough to influence him, pressure him, threaten him, or unmake him.
“Narrow jurisdiction” describes the scope of the power. It does not change the nature of the power.
A narrow power over the throne is still power over the throne.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Good.
His lawful status is that he is a wicked king.
But he is still the king.
A king does not vacate the throne merely by sinning. His wickedness may destroy trust, undermine legitimacy, and give officers and subjects reason to refuse his wicked commands, but it does not automatically unmake the office.
You are assuming forfeiture. I am denying it.
A criminal king is guilty before God. His guilt may have serious practical consequences in the kingdom. But guilt alone does not create jurisdiction in lesser domestic officers to remove him.
Neither alternative proves that a standing domestic removal mechanism is authorized or wise.
The legal status of the throne remains unchanged unless some lawful authority changes it.
And my position is that no lesser domestic office has that authority over the king.
What you call a gap is the consequence of final earthly civil authority terminating in the king.
Every system terminates somewhere. Yours terminates in the men who can remove the king.
"Forfeited his office" is doing the work here.
You have proposed a constitutional mechanism that would declare forfeiture. You have not established that the king actually forfeits the office by committing those crimes.
That is your preferred constitutional design, not a biblical premise.
They become competing structures when the removal process places a domestic authority over the king.
Civil disobedience leaves final earthly civil authority where the constitution placed it while refusing wicked commands.
Your removal process gives lesser domestic officers authority to judge the king unfit and unmake the throne.
Those are very different structures.
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Good. Then we agree that your proposal is structurally different from Bob’s.
That difference is not justified.
“Narrowly defined judicial jurisdiction” still gives the court authority over whether the king remains king. That is power over the throne.
Agreed that Israel was unique.
But God’s unique covenantal oversight of Israel’s kings does not transfer to domestic judges because modern nations lack prophets.
The absence of prophets does not authorize a man-made office to occupy God’s role over the king.
An explicit prohibition is not the only biblical test.
Scripture’s pattern of kingship and authority does not support giving lesser domestic officers authority to unmake the chief civil ruler.
Scripture does not present righteous subordinate domestic officers prosecuting, judging, and removing the king as an ordinary legal remedy.
Right. Both risks are real.
My judgment is that one visible, mortal king under God’s law is preferable to a standing domestic process by which multiple sinful men may remove the king under color of law.
A wicked king is visible. Responsibility terminates in him. His commands still require cooperation. His wickedness can be refused, rebuked, exposed, and denied assistance.
A corrupt removal process is institutional. It can hide behind procedure, claim “the law has spoken,” and give wicked men legal cover to control the crown without wearing it.
That is tyranny by another route.
Please read all of what follows before responding to any of it...
Okay, so first I want to say that I appreciate the effort you put into your response, but you're writing at the level of individual rebuttals rather than underlying arguments. I get it. I used to do this all the time. I've since learned that it is more effective to focus on core premises rather than responding to individual points as they come along. I always read an entire post before starting a response to it.
After reading your entire post, I found that nearly everything you said reduces to six core premises, with the first two alone being repeated dozens of times in slightly different forms. Once you've established a premise, you don't need to restate it after every sentence or two of mine. It's enough to say, 'This is another instance of Premise #1,' and then move on to whatever is genuinely new. Even that would be rather redundant but that alone would make your responses much shorter, easier to follow, and would help keep the discussion focused on the actual points of disagreement rather than revisiting the same conclusions over and over. When every sentence in my post becomes another opportunity to restate the same underlying premise, it obscures the fact that the debate is really about a handful of foundational disagreements rather than dozens of separate ones.
Just to let you see how big of a deal this is, I had ChatGPT break down your post into it's basic premises and to list approximately the number of times that you repeated it throughout your response...
| 1 | Any authority to remove the king necessarily places the removers above the king in that respect. "Removal is authority over the throne." "Narrow jurisdiction doesn't change the relationship." "Leverage is hierarchy." | ≈25-30 times |
| 2 | Every governmental system must terminate in one final earthly authority. Bob's terminates in the king; yours terminates in the removers. You haven't solved the problem—you've relocated it. | ≈15-20 times |
| 3 | The absence of prophets does not authorize replacing God's role with domestic judges. Israel was unique, but uniqueness doesn't justify creating a human substitute. | ≈8-10 times |
| 4 | Scripture's pattern is sufficient even without an explicit prohibition. He argues that the biblical pattern weighs against subordinate officers removing kings, so he doesn't need a verse saying, "Thou shalt not." | ≈8-10 times |
| 5 | A corrupt removal process is at least as dangerous as a rogue king—and probably more dangerous. Institutional tyranny hidden behind legal procedure is worse than one visible tyrant. | ≈12-15 times |
| 6 | Civil disobedience, refusal to cooperate, and moral accountability are the proper checks on a wicked king—not a domestic removal process. | ≈5-7 times |
Your entire 700 plus lines of writing could have been cooked down to the following single paragraph...
"Your proposal changes Bob's structure by giving judges authority over the king. Any authority to remove the king necessarily places those judges above him in that matter, making them the true final earthly authority. Scripture consistently portrays kings as accountable directly to God rather than to subordinate domestic officers, and the absence of prophets does not authorize replacing God's unique role with a human removal mechanism. A corrupt legal process is at least as dangerous as a rogue king and may be worse because it hides tyranny behind lawful procedure. Therefore Bob's monarchy better preserves biblical hierarchy, visible accountability, and final earthly authority."
Now, I'm not suggesting that it SHOULD HAVE been cooked down that far. The point here is just to show you what I am seeing when you post one of your responses and hopefully to communicate where I'm getting this accusation of endless repetitiveness from and why responding to your posts has become nearly impossible for me to do both in terms of time spent and in terms of my own mental health!
I'm off work today and so have some time. I'll work up a response to what you've said next.
So, I think I've identified the real point of disagreement. Or, at least I think I've figured out the most fundamental premise that lies under our disagreement.
You argue that my proposal is an unauthorized modification of the biblical model because Scripture never authorizes replacing God's role in Israel's monarchy. I agree that we cannot recreate God's covenantal oversight through prophets and direct intervention, but what I reject is the assumption that removing God's role somehow leaves the remainder of Israel's governmental structure intact.
God's active oversight was not incidental to Israel's monarchy. It was one of the defining features of the system. He confronted kings through prophets, pronounced judgment upon them, rejected kings, removed kings, and directed the succession of the throne according to His own authority. Removing an essential structural component necessarily changes the original design. Removing the keel does not preserve the design of a sailboat, it breaks it to the point that it can no longer function as intended.
Notice also that neither of us is actually proposing the governmental system that existed in Israel. Israel's monarchy included God's active covenantal oversight. Neither of us can reproduce that because God has not entered into a covenant with a modern Gentile nation as He did with Israel. Consequently, both of us necessarily depart from the biblical model.
You adapt the model by omitting an essential structural component. I adapt it by attempting to address the structural deficiency created by its absence.
We can certainly debate whether my proposed solution is wise. That is a legitimate constitutional question, but what I don't think you can do is treat your proposal as though it preserves the biblical model intact, while mine catastrophically alters it. Both proposals alter it. The disagreement is not whether the model must be adapted, but how it should be adapted.
So before we debate whether judges may remove a king, I think we first need to answer a more fundamental question:
Was God's active oversight an essential structural feature of Israel's monarchy, or merely an incidental historical feature?
If it was merely incidental, why does Scripture repeatedly emphasize God's direct intervention in the rise, fall, judgment, and removal of kings?
If it was essential, then why does simply living without that essential feature preserve the biblical model, while attempting to address the resulting structural deficiency constitutes an unauthorized alteration?
Until that question is answered, I don't think it's accurate to characterize my proposal as a departure from the biblical model while yours is presented as its faithful reproduction of it.
In short, if we are not authorized to depart in any substantive way from Israel's governmental structure, then we are not authorized to establish the government we're discussing at all, because a defining feature of Israel's monarchy (i.e. God's active covenantal oversight) cannot be reproduced. Once that feature is absent, the question is no longer whether the system has been altered. It has. The question is how that unavoidable alteration should be addressed.
Guess I didn't condense it enough, then.
Your paragraph is an accurate summary of my position, with one clarification: I am not saying kings cannot be rebuked, resisted, or held morally accountable by men. I am saying Scripture does not present subordinate domestic officers as having ordinary legal jurisdiction to prosecute, depose, or remove the king.
For reference, my core premises are:
- Being under law does not automatically mean being removable by a lower domestic office.
- Guilt and jurisdiction are distinct.
- If an office can prosecute, judge, and remove the king, then it is above the king in that matter. Dividing jurisdiction does not eliminate hierarchy where those jurisdictions collide.
- Every civil system terminates final earthly authority somewhere. Your proposal relocates it from the king to the removers.
- Law does not enforce itself. Sinful men accuse, interpret, prosecute, judge, and enforce. Distributing that power does not eliminate its danger.
- Israel's prophetic and covenantal administration was unique to Israel. Its absence does not authorize judges to assume God's role over the throne.
You're still framing this incorrectly.
Bob's proposal is not an attempt to copy Israel's monarchy while omitting the prophets. Scripture reveals broader principles of government that predate Israel. God then applied those principles to Israel in a unique covenantal form suited to Israel's unique purpose.
Israel had prophets, priests, temple worship, tribal inheritance, the Davidic covenant, and direct covenantal administration because Israel was God's spokesnation and the nation through which the Messiah would come.
Israel was therefore a unique application of the principles, not the generic model from which every Gentile government must begin.
Agreed. God's active covenantal administration was essential to Israel as Israel.
But that proves God's authority over Israel's kings. It does not establish ordinary judicial authority over kings.
The absence of prophets does not create a vacancy for judges to fill.
That assumes Israel's covenantal monarchy is the base model we are both modifying.
It is not.
Gentile nations are not incomplete versions of Israel, and the absence of Israel's prophetic machinery is not a structural defect in Gentile government.
Your proposal does not merely accept that Gentile nations are not Israel. It creates a new domestic authority empowered to prosecute, judge, and remove the king.
That brings us back to Premises 3 through 6 above.
It was essential to Israel's monarchy as Israel's monarchy.
It was not essential to monarchy as such.
Because there is no resulting structural deficiency.
Israel's special covenantal administration served Israel's special covenantal purpose. Modern Gentile nations do not possess it because they are not Israel.
Creating judges with authority over the throne does not reproduce that administration. It creates a different structure in which domestic officers possess authority to unmake the king.
That authority still has to be justified.
Calling it an adaptation does not justify it.
You are still just making semantic based arguments, JR.
I don't care if it was Israel or Zimbabwe. There wasn't any thing special about the nation of Israel in particular aside from the fact that it was descended from Abraham and Issac and Jacob. Had, for whatever reason, God chosen to build a kingdom out of a different nation, the result would have been similar. Isn't it then perfectly obvious that when I speak of Israel's kingdom, I'm just making reference to the biblical model of a legally just kingdom? Why do we have to waste time dealing with such meaningless minutia?
The rest of what you've said here isn't an argument either. Statements like "Gentile nations are not incomplete versions of Israel, and the absence of Israel's prophetic machinery is not a structural defect in Gentile government." and "there is no resulting structural deficiency" amount to you simply declaring that my argument is invalid. You don't get to simply state that you're right and I'm wrong and think that you've answered a valid argument.
The simple facts are undeniable and irrefutable. The biblical model for the government we are discussing had God's own action and oversight as a major integral feature and Bob's proposal does nothing to replace that feature whatsoever, choosing instead to live without it. If a man went into the boat building business and chose to build boats without keels, would you expect him to be successful? I wouldn't! Indeed, I'd buy naked puts against such a company. It's guaranteed to fail. Likewise, intentionally installing a king who can get away with ignoring the law is a recipe for disaster and just as guaranteed to fail. The whole point of this is to build a JUST government. Saddling a nation with a potentially rogue (i.e. unjust) king that they have no way of removing is self-evidently foolish because it directly contradicts the entire point of building such a system in the first place.
You say that God's role cannot be replaced. To which I say - If so, then no just system can be created. You respond that we aren't building a perfect system, just a best system. I respond - "Best? By what standard?" Why is an intentionally incomplete system better than one that at least attempts to be more complete?
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This is long, but only because most of it is me attempting to advance my position instead of rehashing what we've already covered.
Calling an argument “semantic” is no rebuttal when the dispute concerns the meanings of the relevant terms and whether you are using them equivocally.
Meaning is the foundation of communication and argument. You cannot collapse “Israel’s particular covenantal monarchy” into “the universal biblical model of civil government,” build your argument upon that identification, and then dismiss the distinction between them as meaningless semantics.
That “aside from” swallows the entire issue, Clete.
Israel’s descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was precisely the historical basis of its unique covenantal relationship with God.
God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when He delivered Israel from Egypt. Exodus 2:24-25.
He called Israel His special treasure, a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. Exodus 19:5-6.
He chose Israel as a special people because of the oath He had sworn to their fathers. Deuteronomy 7:6-8.
That strengthens my point. God’s special covenantal relationship with Israel was an addition to the general biblical principles of civil government rather than an original component inherent in every legitimate nation.
No, because they are not inherently the same thing.
That has been my point this entire time.
Because there is a difference between Israel’s particular covenantal kingdom and the general principles of just government taught by the Bible.
You do not get to collapse that distinction merely because you consider it minutiae.
You are treating features that belonged to Israel because of its unique covenantal identity and purpose as though they were necessary components of every just monarchy.
I am denying that premise.
We both think the other person is wrong.
I am identifying a distinction your argument ignores.
If Israel’s prophetic administration existed because of Israel’s unique covenantal identity and mission, then its absence from Gentile nations does not amount to the removal of a universally required governmental component.
You are still begging the question that “the biblical model” and “Israel’s monarchy” are one and the same.
I am arguing that they are not.
[I will state the argument formally in the following post.]
God’s direct action and oversight were certainly integral to Israel’s covenantal administration. That fact does not establish such oversight as an ordinary structural component of every just monarchy.
As I argued in post #493 and summarized again in post #496, the absence of Israel’s prophets does not transfer God’s jurisdiction over the king to ordinary domestic judges.
You cannot manufacture a prophet, a direct command from God, or divine jurisdiction over the king by writing a removal committee into a constitution.
Such a committee would create a standing human jurisdiction over the crown. That jurisdiction still requires justification.
Your analogy assigns God’s special covenantal oversight the role of the keel, which assumes the point under dispute.
Suppose God designed the general blueprint for a seaworthy vessel. He then constructed a particular boat from that blueprint and added a mission-specific modification through which He could exercise direct control over it for His own purposes.
Bob is constructing another vessel from the same general blueprint. His boat lacks that special modification, yet it remains a complete boat because the modification was supplementary to the underlying design.
The original modification depended upon God’s direct involvement. Any attempt to reproduce it through an ordinary human institution would produce something fundamentally different. It would be like trying to put sails on an aircraft carrier. The sails would contribute little propulsion and would obstruct the deck from which aircraft must take off and land.
Likewise, placing a standing human authority above the king would divide final earthly authority and subject the crown to another domestic institution. That arrangement would interfere with the unity and accountability the proposed monarchy was designed to provide.
Bob has retained the keel and the underlying blueprint. Israel’s direct prophetic supervision was an extraordinary and nontransferable addition suited to Israel’s particular covenantal purpose.
Or, to express the same distinction in biblical imagery, God took a lump of clay and fashioned a vessel for a particular purpose. He added a large handle because He intended to take hold of that vessel and use it in a particular manner.
Bob is taking another lump of clay from the same source and fashioning a sound vessel for a different purpose. His vessel has no handle because it was not designed to be taken up and directed in the same way.
The handle did not make Israel’s vessel a vessel. It was a special addition suited to God’s particular use of it.
Both vessels may hold water while serving different purposes. The second remains complete even though it lacks the feature added to the first for God’s direct use.
As you acknowledged in post #492, both arrangements carry risks that can produce injustice. Bob’s arrangement may leave a wicked king in office. Yours may empower corrupt men to accuse, control, or remove a lawful king under color of law.
Scripture requires us to take both possible outcomes seriously:
He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just,Both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.
www.biblegateway.com
Ezekiel 13:19 likewise condemns both “keeping people alive who should not live” and “killing people who should not die.”
Justice therefore requires a full comparison of both arrangements. Fairness does not require treating their dangers as equal.
A constitutional monarchy without a removal mechanism
Its principal danger is clear. A wicked king may remain in office and continue abusing his authority. His subjects may have no ordinary domestic process capable of ending his reign. Relief may have to come through his death, succession, resistance to particular unlawful commands, civil disobedience, or extraordinary events beyond the normal operation of government.
The consequences could be severe. A sufficiently wicked king could persecute the innocent, neglect justice, corrupt subordinate offices, waste the nation’s resources, or lead the kingdom into war and disorder.
That danger remains concentrated in one visible and mortal ruler. Responsibility for the condition of the kingdom rests plainly upon him.
The same concentration of authority produces substantial benefits under a righteous king. He may govern decisively, resist entrenched factions, enforce the law without fearing removal by political enemies, pursue long-term policies, and accept clear personal responsibility for the results of his rule.
The absence of a removal process also denies subordinate officials a lawful means of controlling the crown. Judges cannot govern the king through threats of removal. Political factions cannot capture the throne merely by capturing the institutions authorized to prosecute him. Final earthly authority remains visible rather than concealed behind courts, committees, or procedures.
This arrangement concentrates both the danger and the potential benefit of royal authority in one identifiable person.
A constitutional monarchy with a removal mechanism
Its principal benefit is also clear. A king who commits sufficiently serious crimes or abuses may be removed through an established process rather than remaining in office until death or provoking revolution. The existence of that process may deter misconduct and provide a peaceful remedy in an extreme case.
If the process is administered by righteous, impartial, and courageous men, it may protect the nation from prolonged abuse by a rogue king.
The mechanism adds another body of sinful men to the exercise of final political power. The king remains capable of abusing his office, while the men authorized to accuse, judge, and remove him acquire the ability to control the crown.
I have already addressed the immediate dangers of that authority in points 3, 9, and 10 of post #489, and again in posts #493 and #496. A removal authority can manufacture charges, use the threat of removal as political leverage, and control the crown without occupying it.
There is also a broader institutional danger. A king is one visible man whose reign ends. A removal institution may survive successive kings, develop its own precedents and interests, influence succession, and gradually expand the conduct treated as grounds for removal.
The king may formally remain the ruler while practical supremacy belongs to those who determine whether he may continue ruling. Responsibility becomes less visible, and the power above the throne gains an institutional permanence unavailable to any individual king.
Our present legal system illustrates the danger of emphasizing one side of justice so heavily that the other is neglected. It often emphasizes protecting the accused to such a degree that guilty men remain free to victimize additional innocent people. That does not eliminate injustice. It merely determines which innocent people will bear its cost. As Bob has often put it, “It’s no longer a justice system; now it’s just a system.”
The same principle applies here. Guarding against a rogue king deserves serious weight. So do the danger of removing a lawful king, the consequences of placing another authority above the crown, and the benefits made possible by preserving undivided royal authority.
A single wicked king can cause tremendous harm. Several sinful men who possess lawful control over the throne can direct the king, remove him, influence his successor, conceal their responsibility behind procedure, and preserve their power beyond the life of any particular ruler.
That is the decisive structural difference.
A monarchy without removal places final earthly authority in one visible and mortal man. A monarchy with removal leaves the king capable of sin while placing him beneath another group of sinful men.
The second arrangement compounds the problem of corrupt authority. It adds rulers over the ruler, diffuses responsibility, and gives their power an institutional permanence that an individual king does not possess.
Our disagreement concerns the weight of these considerations. You regard an unremovable rogue king as the controlling danger. I regard a standing institution capable of controlling successive kings as the greater danger, particularly because it sacrifices the clarity, unity, accountability, and resistance to factional capture that Bob’s structure is designed to secure.
By the whole biblical standard.
The ability to remove a wicked king is one consideration within that standard. It cannot bear the entire weight of the definition of justice.
Describing Bob’s proposal as “intentionally incomplete” assumes the disputed premise. A Gentile government remains complete without Israel’s unique covenantal administration.
The best attainable human system will incorporate the principles God has given for ordinary civil government. It should establish known law, punish evil, protect the innocent, define jurisdiction, concentrate responsibility, provide practical resistance to unlawful commands, and make the ruler personally accountable for the actions of his government.
The final-authority question remains as set out in post #489 and reaffirmed in posts #493 and #496. Giving ordinary officials authority to remove the king places the throne under their jurisdiction in the decisive case.
That arrangement would also sacrifice several positive results made possible by Bob’s structure: unified authority, visible responsibility, resistance to factional control, continuity across time, and the freedom of a righteous king to govern without appeasing officials who can end his reign.
Returning to the analogy, your argument treats the designer’s unique presence and intervention aboard Israel’s vessel as a structural component of every boat. From there, it assigns a committee of sailors the designer’s place.
Calling an argument “semantic” is no rebuttal when the dispute concerns the meanings of the relevant terms and whether you are using them equivocally.
Meaning is the foundation of communication and argument. You cannot collapse “Israel’s particular covenantal monarchy” into “the universal biblical model of civil government,” build your argument upon that identification, and then dismiss the distinction between them as meaningless semantics.
That “aside from” swallows the entire issue, Clete.
Israel’s descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was precisely the historical basis of its unique covenantal relationship with God.
God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when He delivered Israel from Egypt. Exodus 2:24-25.
He called Israel His special treasure, a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. Exodus 19:5-6.
He chose Israel as a special people because of the oath He had sworn to their fathers. Deuteronomy 7:6-8.
That strengthens my point. God’s special covenantal relationship with Israel was an addition to the general biblical principles of civil government rather than an original component inherent in every legitimate nation.
No, because they are not inherently the same thing.
That has been my point this entire time.
Because there is a difference between Israel’s particular covenantal kingdom and the general principles of just government taught by the Bible.
You do not get to collapse that distinction merely because you consider it minutiae.
You are treating features that belonged to Israel because of its unique covenantal identity and purpose as though they were necessary components of every just monarchy.
I am denying that premise.
We both think the other person is wrong.
I am identifying a distinction your argument ignores.
If Israel’s prophetic administration existed because of Israel’s unique covenantal identity and mission, then its absence from Gentile nations does not amount to the removal of a universally required governmental component.
You are still begging the question that “the biblical model” and “Israel’s monarchy” are one and the same.
I am arguing that they are not.
[I will state the argument formally in the following post.]
God’s direct action and oversight were certainly integral to Israel’s covenantal administration. That fact does not establish such oversight as an ordinary structural component of every just monarchy.
As I argued in post #493 and summarized again in post #496, the absence of Israel’s prophets does not transfer God’s jurisdiction over the king to ordinary domestic judges.
You cannot manufacture a prophet, a direct command from God, or divine jurisdiction over the king by writing a removal committee into a constitution.
Such a committee would create a standing human jurisdiction over the crown. That jurisdiction still requires justification.
Your analogy assigns God’s special covenantal oversight the role of the keel, which assumes the point under dispute.
Suppose God designed the general blueprint for a seaworthy vessel. He then constructed a particular boat from that blueprint and added a mission-specific modification through which He could exercise direct control over it for His own purposes.
Bob is constructing another vessel from the same general blueprint. His boat lacks that special modification, yet it remains a complete boat because the modification was supplementary to the underlying design.
The original modification depended upon God’s direct involvement. Any attempt to reproduce it through an ordinary human institution would produce something fundamentally different. It would be like trying to put sails on an aircraft carrier. The sails would contribute little propulsion and would obstruct the deck from which aircraft must take off and land.
Likewise, placing a standing human authority above the king would divide final earthly authority and subject the crown to another domestic institution. That arrangement would interfere with the unity and accountability the proposed monarchy was designed to provide.
Bob has retained the keel and the underlying blueprint. Israel’s direct prophetic supervision was an extraordinary and nontransferable addition suited to Israel’s particular covenantal purpose.
Or, to express the same distinction in biblical imagery, God took a lump of clay and fashioned a vessel for a particular purpose. He added a large handle because He intended to take hold of that vessel and use it in a particular manner.
Bob is taking another lump of clay from the same source and fashioning a sound vessel for a different purpose. His vessel has no handle because it was not designed to be taken up and directed in the same way.
The handle did not make Israel’s vessel a vessel. It was a special addition suited to God’s particular use of it.
Both vessels may hold water while serving different purposes. The second remains complete even though it lacks the feature added to the first for God’s direct use.
As you acknowledged in post #492, both arrangements carry risks that can produce injustice. Bob’s arrangement may leave a wicked king in office. Yours may empower corrupt men to accuse, control, or remove a lawful king under color of law.
Scripture requires us to take both possible outcomes seriously:
He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just,Both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.
Bible Gateway passage: Proverbs 17:15 - New King James Version
He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, Both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.
Ezekiel 13:19 likewise condemns both “keeping people alive who should not live” and “killing people who should not die.”
Justice therefore requires a full comparison of both arrangements. Fairness does not require treating their dangers as equal.
A constitutional monarchy without a removal mechanism
Its principal danger is clear. A wicked king may remain in office and continue abusing his authority. His subjects may have no ordinary domestic process capable of ending his reign. Relief may have to come through his death, succession, resistance to particular unlawful commands, civil disobedience, or extraordinary events beyond the normal operation of government.
The consequences could be severe. A sufficiently wicked king could persecute the innocent, neglect justice, corrupt subordinate offices, waste the nation’s resources, or lead the kingdom into war and disorder.
That danger remains concentrated in one visible and mortal ruler. Responsibility for the condition of the kingdom rests plainly upon him.
The same concentration of authority produces substantial benefits under a righteous king. He may govern decisively, resist entrenched factions, enforce the law without fearing removal by political enemies, pursue long-term policies, and accept clear personal responsibility for the results of his rule.
The absence of a removal process also denies subordinate officials a lawful means of controlling the crown. Judges cannot govern the king through threats of removal. Political factions cannot capture the throne merely by capturing the institutions authorized to prosecute him. Final earthly authority remains visible rather than concealed behind courts, committees, or procedures.
This arrangement concentrates both the danger and the potential benefit of royal authority in one identifiable person.
A constitutional monarchy with a removal mechanism
Its principal benefit is also clear. A king who commits sufficiently serious crimes or abuses may be removed through an established process rather than remaining in office until death or provoking revolution. The existence of that process may deter misconduct and provide a peaceful remedy in an extreme case.
If the process is administered by righteous, impartial, and courageous men, it may protect the nation from prolonged abuse by a rogue king.
The mechanism adds another body of sinful men to the exercise of final political power. The king remains capable of abusing his office, while the men authorized to accuse, judge, and remove him acquire the ability to control the crown.
I have already addressed the immediate dangers of that authority in points 3, 9, and 10 of post #489, and again in posts #493 and #496. A removal authority can manufacture charges, use the threat of removal as political leverage, and control the crown without occupying it.
There is also a broader institutional danger. A king is one visible man whose reign ends. A removal institution may survive successive kings, develop its own precedents and interests, influence succession, and gradually expand the conduct treated as grounds for removal.
The king may formally remain the ruler while practical supremacy belongs to those who determine whether he may continue ruling. Responsibility becomes less visible, and the power above the throne gains an institutional permanence unavailable to any individual king.
Our present legal system illustrates the danger of emphasizing one side of justice so heavily that the other is neglected. It often emphasizes protecting the accused to such a degree that guilty men remain free to victimize additional innocent people. That does not eliminate injustice. It merely determines which innocent people will bear its cost. As Bob has often put it, “It’s no longer a justice system; now it’s just a system.”
The same principle applies here. Guarding against a rogue king deserves serious weight. So do the danger of removing a lawful king, the consequences of placing another authority above the crown, and the benefits made possible by preserving undivided royal authority.
A single wicked king can cause tremendous harm. Several sinful men who possess lawful control over the throne can direct the king, remove him, influence his successor, conceal their responsibility behind procedure, and preserve their power beyond the life of any particular ruler.
That is the decisive structural difference.
A monarchy without removal places final earthly authority in one visible and mortal man. A monarchy with removal leaves the king capable of sin while placing him beneath another group of sinful men.
The second arrangement compounds the problem of corrupt authority. It adds rulers over the ruler, diffuses responsibility, and gives their power an institutional permanence that an individual king does not possess.
Our disagreement concerns the weight of these considerations. You regard an unremovable rogue king as the controlling danger. I regard a standing institution capable of controlling successive kings as the greater danger, particularly because it sacrifices the clarity, unity, accountability, and resistance to factional capture that Bob’s structure is designed to secure.
By the whole biblical standard.
The ability to remove a wicked king is one consideration within that standard. It cannot bear the entire weight of the definition of justice.
Describing Bob’s proposal as “intentionally incomplete” assumes the disputed premise. A Gentile government remains complete without Israel’s unique covenantal administration.
The best attainable human system will incorporate the principles God has given for ordinary civil government. It should establish known law, punish evil, protect the innocent, define jurisdiction, concentrate responsibility, provide practical resistance to unlawful commands, and make the ruler personally accountable for the actions of his government.
The final-authority question remains as set out in post #489 and reaffirmed in posts #493 and #496. Giving ordinary officials authority to remove the king places the throne under their jurisdiction in the decisive case.
That arrangement would also sacrifice several positive results made possible by Bob’s structure: unified authority, visible responsibility, resistance to factional control, continuity across time, and the freedom of a righteous king to govern without appeasing officials who can end his reign.
Returning to the analogy, your argument treats the designer’s unique presence and intervention aboard Israel’s vessel as a structural component of every boat. From there, it assigns a committee of sailors the designer’s place.
This will also be very long, but only because it's a proper formal argument:
The first questions to ask are whether the conclusions follow from the premises, whether the premises are true, and whether the evidence given supports them.
Spoiler
The first questions to ask are whether the conclusions follow from the premises, whether the premises are true, and whether the evidence given supports them.
I'm a little at a loss for words here. You spent all that time and effort arguing against a position that I do not hold and that I have not argued. I cannot understand how it is possible for you to have missed the point so completely! You've taken what amounts to a colloquial reference to Israel, which I employed because they are the one's in the bible who had a kingdom similar to the one we are here discussing, and taken that and exploded it into something that I don't even think you have any cause to suspect that I was arguing.
You seem to be under the impressing that I am claiming that every feature of Israel's kingdom is universally binding. That isn't at all what I am arguing. Such an argument would require that I advocate for far more alterations to Bob's proposal than just a royal removal system. Not only that, but such a claim would be false on its face and entirely indefensible. You, however, posit that as my central thesis and then spend I don't know how many hundreds of words explaining how Israel had unique covenantal features that Gentile nations need not reproduce. All of which may be true, but none of which addresses the argument I actually made.
My argument consists basically of the following five points...
Your position also appears to be that no constitutional system can be designed in which the highest civil authority is constitutionally accountable to the law. If that is so, then your system is just as defeated as mine. If we're both counting by zeros then what's the point? If it can't be done then it can't be done. Assuming this position is true, then one system is simply different than the other and it becomes a matter of personal preference, not reason and justice and you've lost the basis for saying my proposal is wrong. At most you've explained why you prefer yours.
You seem to be under the impressing that I am claiming that every feature of Israel's kingdom is universally binding. That isn't at all what I am arguing. Such an argument would require that I advocate for far more alterations to Bob's proposal than just a royal removal system. Not only that, but such a claim would be false on its face and entirely indefensible. You, however, posit that as my central thesis and then spend I don't know how many hundreds of words explaining how Israel had unique covenantal features that Gentile nations need not reproduce. All of which may be true, but none of which addresses the argument I actually made.
My argument consists basically of the following five points...
- God's active oversight performed an essential function in Israel government. (not in dispute)
- Removing that function necessarily changes the governmental structure. (true by definition)
- Because God's oversight cannot be reproduced, every modern proposal must decide what to do about the resulting structural gap.
- Ignoring that gap is itself one possible adaptation; attempting to address it is another.
- Therefore, the real debate is not whether adaptation is necessary, but which adaptation is preferable.
Your position also appears to be that no constitutional system can be designed in which the highest civil authority is constitutionally accountable to the law. If that is so, then your system is just as defeated as mine. If we're both counting by zeros then what's the point? If it can't be done then it can't be done. Assuming this position is true, then one system is simply different than the other and it becomes a matter of personal preference, not reason and justice and you've lost the basis for saying my proposal is wrong. At most you've explained why you prefer yours.