Constitutional Monarchy

[JudgeRightly]

Which I have been responding to directly all along. That's the whole discussion. If there is no authority to enforce the law when the king breaks it then the king is above the law - by definition.

No, not by definition.

You are conflating two different ideas because they may produce a similar practical outcome.

“No lower domestic authority has jurisdiction to punish or remove the king” is not the same thing as “the king is legally permitted to ignore the law.”

A king who cannot be removed by a lower domestic court may, in practice, get away with violating the law for a time. But that does not mean he is legally permitted to violate the law. It means no lesser domestic authority has jurisdiction to try and depose him.

You are treating “not punishable by a lower domestic office” as synonymous with “lawful.” That is the equivocation.

And it's worse now than you think. The fact is that I have been defending a constitutional monarchy. It is you who have not been.

No, you are redefining constitutional monarchy around your preferred enforcement mechanism.

A constitutional monarchy is not defined by whether some domestic body can remove the king. It is defined by whether the king’s office is constituted and limited by a known legal order.

In Bob’s proposal, the king’s office, duties, jurisdiction, succession, taxation, criminal code, judicial structure, military authority, and limits are all constitutionally defined. That is objectively a constitutional monarchy.

What it lacks is the particular feature you want: a superior domestic authority with removal jurisdiction over the king. But that is precisely the disputed point. You cannot define constitutional monarchy as “a monarchy with my preferred removal mechanism” and then declare Bob’s proposal non-constitutional for lacking it.

A constitution is a legal document that the king, in your system, is legally permitted to ignore with only political consequences to worry about, this side of judgment day. That isn't a constitutional monarchy, that's just a monarchy like most any other except the legal system is set up differently.

Again, no. Lack of a superior domestic court does not mean “legally permitted.” It means there is no higher domestic civil office with jurisdiction to remove him.

Those are not the same thing, even if they may produce a similar practical outcome in some cases.

A command can be unlawful even if there is no earthly tribunal competent to punish the man who gives it. A king can violate his office, sin against God, break the constitution, forfeit any claim to obedience for wicked commands, invite rebuke, resistance, non-cooperation, and divine judgment without thereby creating jurisdiction in lesser offices to depose him.

You keep turning “no lower office may remove him” into “he is legally allowed to do whatever he wants.” That does not follow.

I really am beginning to believe that a monarchy isn't even necessary at all. It still seems the most efficient form of government and I agree that there is no need for a legislature but I am now fully persuaded that the system as proposed by Bob could never be made to work as intended. It's just a straight up monarch placed on the throne with nothing but political pressure and his own conscience to prevent him from being a totally unjust tyrannical nightmare.

The fact that there are current monarchies that function does not equate to there are current monarchies where the king is not a tyrant. They are tyrant. The fact that they happen to be benevolent to one degree or another is beside the point.

This is a major shift in your argument.

You began by arguing that Bob’s proposed system would produce tyranny because the king could not be removed by a domestic authority. But now you are saying that existing monarchs are tyrants even when their nations function peacefully, even when the monarch is benevolent, and even when the monarchy has not produced the nightmare scenario you keep warning about.

If “tyrant” simply means “monarch,” then of course every monarchy is tyrannical, but only because you have defined the conclusion into the word. If tyranny means wicked, oppressive, unjust rule, then no, a functioning monarchy with a non-oppressive king is not tyranny merely because the king is not removable by your preferred domestic mechanism.

Nor is Bob’s proposal “just a straight up monarch placed on the throne with nothing but political pressure and his own conscience.” That ignores one of the most important parts of the whole argument: the shared moral framework of the nation. Without that, neither your system nor mine will work long term. A righteous procedure cannot save an unrighteous people.

If the shared moral framework says the king is under God’s law but no domestic office has jurisdiction over him, then people will act accordingly. Officers will refuse wicked commands. Judges will stay within their jurisdiction. Treasurers will refuse unlawful disbursements. Subjects will resist, rebuke, expose, and obey God rather than man.

But if the shared moral framework says there is a lawful mechanism to remove the king, then ambitious men will act accordingly too. They will organize around that mechanism, capture it if they can, and weaponize it under color of law. That is why the moral framework matters at least as much as the paper procedure.

And if all kings are tyrants simply because they are kings, then was David a tyrant? Will Christ be a tyrant when He reigns as King?

Scripture does not treat kingship itself as inherently tyrannical. God established David’s throne. He promised the Messiah through David’s royal line. And the final righteous government of Christ is not presented as a committee, legislature, republic, or rotating tribunal. It is a Kingdom.

No, that does not mean Israel’s covenant arrangement is the standard for every nation in every detail. Israel’s monarchy was a unique covenant administration, but it was built on and around a higher standard of human government that preceded Israel. Bob’s constitution is attempting to draw from that higher standard, not make a wooden attempt to recreate Israel in every respect.

But structure still matters, otherwise we would not be having this discussion. And in a theonomic nation, the form of government that most closely resembles the everlasting Kingdom is a kingdom.

So if your argument has become “all kings are tyrants,” then your objection is no longer merely to Bob’s lack of a removal mechanism. Your objection now seems to be against monarchy itself. That is a much broader claim than the one you started with.

Ideas have consequences, Clete. Rejecting monarchy itself has broader implications than just "I prefer it this way or that way."

This entire exercise is to form a government where justice is the cornerstone of the whole system. A system that is close to the ideal system as can be produced by human beings.

Agreed. But if justice is the cornerstone, then “ideal” cannot mean merely “the procedure that seems most useful to us.” It must also mean a system that respects the authority structure God has authorized.

If men establish a king as the chief civil ruler, placing him above themselves in the civil order, then those same men cannot justly reserve to themselves standing authority to remove him whenever their process says so. That makes them the higher authority in the decisive case. It means they have not really placed him above themselves at all.

When God removes a king, that is just, because God has authority over the king. If God sends a prophet, commissions a man, or uses a foreign nation as an instrument of judgment, God has acted. But when lesser domestic officers claim standing authority to remove the chief civil ruler on their own, they are not merely “checking tyranny.” They are assuming an authority that has not been given to them.

And beyond that, you keep comparing my worst-case king to your idealized removal process. That is not a fair comparison. The proper comparison is worst case to worst case.

In my worst case, a wicked king rules wickedly. That is bad. I have never denied that. But he is still one visible, mortal, personally responsible man who may repent, be resisted, be rebuked, or die.

In your worst case, a corrupt removal structure sits above the throne perpetually, makes and unmakes kings, and turns the king into a puppet. That is not a safeguard against tyranny. It is an official path for tyrants to dominate the throne permanently under color of procedure.

So yes, a wicked king is dangerous. I have never denied that. But a corrupt removal structure is dangerous too, and it is unjust in principle if the men beneath the king claim authority to unmake the office above them. An ideal system must take both dangers seriously, not pretend that one sinful man is dangerous while multiple sinful men with final authority over him are safe. And if justice is the cornerstone, then the first question is not merely, “What procedure might restrain a bad king?” It is, “Who has the authority to do what?”

If your content with creating a tyrannical system then why bother worrying about all the legal details? If the legal details that apply to everyone but the king are the point then why bother with worrying about it being a monarchy in the first place?

That is a loaded question. I am not content with creating a tyrannical system. I deny that monarchy is inherently tyrannical merely because final earthly civil authority terminates in the king. I deny that legal details do not apply to the king.

Legal details matter because law defines the king’s office, limits, duties, and jurisdiction. They matter because lesser officers must know what they may obey and what they must refuse. They matter because subjects must know what justice requires. They matter because the king himself is accountable to God for ruling according to that law.

The fact that no lower domestic office may remove him does not make those legal details meaningless.

Let me ask you a practical question....

Let's say the highest judge in the country, shy of the king himself, commits a crime. How is he to be prosecuted? What would that process look like?

I know where you're trying to go with this.

The phrase “shy of the king himself” answers the question.

If he is the highest judge beneath the king, then he still has a superior earthly authority: the king. Charges would be brought upward to the king, or to whatever judge the king lawfully assigns to hear the matter. If guilty, he is punished according to the criminal code and removed from office if the law requires it.

That example does not refute my argument. It illustrates it. Lesser authorities can be judged by higher authorities. The question is what happens when you reach the highest earthly civil authority.

Now apply your own example to your system.

Let’s say the men who have authority to remove the king become corrupt. How are they prosecuted? What would that process look like?

Your answer is to move the problem up a level. Instead of asking, “What happens when the highest judge beneath the king commits a crime?” we now ask, “What happens when the men above the king commit the crime?” If they are the authority that decides whether the king remains king, then they are the higher authority in the decisive case.

So who judges them?

If another body judges them, then that body is higher still. If “the law” judges them, then which men apply that law? The same problem repeats until final earthly authority terminates somewhere.

That is my point. Your system does not solve the problem you are trying to solve with an evil king. It simply moves the problem to multiple sinful men above the king. How is that better?

It’s not. It creates an infinite regress: who checks the men who check the king, and who checks the men who check them? Ad infinitum. The regress only stops when you admit that final earthly authority must terminate somewhere.

Bob’s system cuts off that regress by pinning final earthly civil authority at the king, even while fully acknowledging that the king may become wicked. That is not ignorance of the danger of a wicked king. It is recognition that putting other sinful men above him does not remove tyranny from the system. It only relocates it to men who are less visible, less personally accountable, and able to act under color of procedure.

The danger is not only that one king may become a tyrant. The danger is also that other men will become tyrants if given the machinery to dominate the throne. Bob’s system does not pretend evil men disappear. It refuses to multiply final earthly rulers in the name of restraining one.

So now that I've answered your practical question, answer my unanswered ones.

If the domestic authority enforcing the law against the king is above the king, who checks that authority when it becomes corrupt?

If your answer is “the law,” which men have final jurisdiction to interpret, apply, and enforce that law against them?

Where does Scripture authorize lesser domestic officers to hold removal jurisdiction over the chief civil ruler?

Why are you comparing my worst-case king to your idealized removal process instead of comparing worst case to worst case?

If the removal structure is captured by corrupt men, why would that not create a standing power above the throne capable of making the king a puppet?

Calling these questions “regurgitation” does not answer them. They are being repeated because they remain unanswered.

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

I really am beginning to believe that a monarchy isn't even necessary at all. It still seems the most efficient form of government and I agree that there is no need for a legislature but I am now fully persuaded that the system as proposed by Bob could never be made to work as intended. It's just a straight up monarch placed on the throne with nothing but political pressure and his own conscience to prevent him from being a totally unjust tyrannical nightmare.

I don't think the intent was to ensure a king could not be a tyrant. I think the intent was to replace our current tyrannical institution with, at worst, a tyrannical person. Who would then die and perhaps be replaced by a God fearing heir (a 50/50 chance?), rather than grow increasingly corrupt and wicked for 250 years like the US has.

Another intent I believe was to unburden us from the inherent unnatural trappings of democracy and politics in general. How many families have broken up internally because of them? I know a grandma and a grandson who haven't talked to each other since the last election. What a waste..

 

[JudgeRightly]

Legal details matter because law defines the king’s office, limits, duties, and jurisdiction. They matter because lesser officers must know what they may obey and what they must refuse. They matter because subjects must know what justice requires. They matter because the king himself is accountable to God for ruling according to that law.

A follow-up thought on why the legal details matter.

When God gave Israel the law, He did not merely give them vague moral sentiments or private impressions. He gave them commandments written on tablets of stone. And the context matters. Israel stood at Sinai, saw the thunderings, lightning, smoke, and heard the voice of God, and they were terrified. They asked that Moses speak to them instead, lest they die. Exodus 20:18-19; Deuteronomy 5:23-27.

So the written law functioned as a mediated public expression of God’s authority. It did not replace God. It did not make God absent. It did not remove His jurisdiction. It gave the people an objective standard by which they could live under God’s authority without requiring a direct, terrifying encounter with God every time a question of obedience arose.

That is why legal details matter.

The law defines duties. It defines boundaries. It tells rulers what they may command and what they may not command. It tells officers what they may obey and what they must refuse. It tells subjects what justice requires. It gives the whole nation a shared public standard by which everyone can know what obedience to God looks like in civil life.

There is also a fitting biblical image in the phrase “breaking the law.”

When Moses came down from the mountain and saw Israel already in idolatry, he threw down the tablets and broke them. Exodus 32:19; Deuteronomy 9:17. The written tablets were broken in response to Israel’s covenant treachery.

But strictly speaking, the law as God’s righteous standard is not “broken” in the sense that it becomes damaged, invalid, or powerless. Men do not shatter God’s standard by violating it. They shatter themselves against it.

That is why Paul says the law does not produce righteousness. It exposes sin. It brings knowledge of sin. It condemns. It shows the sinner guilty before God. The commandment is holy, just, and good, but sinful man cannot keep it perfectly, and so the law becomes his accuser.

And accuse it does.

That includes a wicked king.

So when I say the king is under God’s law, I am not appealing to some vague private feeling in the king’s conscience. I am appealing to an objective standard. The king’s office, limits, duties, and jurisdiction are defined. Lesser officers are not left guessing. Subjects are not left guessing. The king himself is not left guessing.

The fact that God does not personally descend in visible judgment every time a ruler sins does not mean God has no jurisdiction, and it does not mean the written law is meaningless. The law is the mediated public standard by which men are to govern under God.

That is also why “no lower domestic office may remove the king” does not mean “the king is not under law.” If a king violates God’s law, the law is not meaningless merely because no lower domestic office may remove him. The law still defines his guilt. It still condemns his sin. It still strips his wicked commands of moral authority. It still tells officers and subjects what they must refuse. It still leaves him accountable before God.

The question is not whether the law condemns him. It does. The question is whether that condemnation creates removal authority in lesser domestic officers. And that is the point you keep assuming rather than proving.

 

[JudgeRightly]

Which I have been responding to directly all along. That's the whole discussion. If there is no authority to enforce the law when the king breaks it then the king is above the law - by definition.

And it's worse now than you think. The fact is that I have been defending a constitutional monarchy. It is you who have not been. A constitution is a legal document that the king, in your system, is legally permitted to ignore with only political consequences to worry about, this side of judgment day. That isn't a constitutional monarchy, that's just a monarchy like most any other except the legal system is set up differently.

I really am beginning to believe that a monarchy isn't even necessary at all. It still seems the most efficient form of government and I agree that there is no need for a legislature but I am now fully persuaded that the system as proposed by Bob could never be made to work as intended. It's just a straight up monarch placed on the throne with nothing but political pressure and his own conscience to prevent him from being a totally unjust tyrannical nightmare.

The fact that there are current monarchies that function does not equate to there are current monarchies where the king is not a tyrant. They are tyrant. The fact that they happen to be benevolent to one degree or another is beside the point. This entire exercise is to form a government where justice is the cornerstone of the whole system. A system that is close to the ideal system as can be produced by human beings. If your content with creating a tyrannical system then why bother worrying about all the legal details? If the legal details that apply to everyone but the king are the point then why bother with worrying about it being a monarchy in the first place?



Let me ask you a practical question....

Let's say the highest judge in the country, shy of the king himself, commits a crime. How is he to be prosecuted? What would that process look like?

I don't think the intent was to ensure a king could not be a tyrant. I think the intent was to replace our current tyrannical institution with, at worst, a tyrannical person. Who would then die and perhaps be replaced by a God fearing heir (a 50/50 chance?), rather than grow increasingly corrupt and wicked for 250 years like the US has.

Another intent I believe was to unburden us from the inherent unnatural trappings of democracy and politics in general. How many families have broken up internally because of them? I know a grandma and a grandson who haven't talked to each other since the last election. What a waste..

Vlad’s point is basically right. The claim is not that Bob’s system makes tyranny impossible. It is that, at worst, tyranny is concentrated in one visible, mortal, personally responsible man rather than diffused through a permanent institution that can grow more corrupt across generations while hiding behind procedure.

A wicked king may rule wickedly, but he can repent, be resisted, be rebuked, or die. A captured system can outlive every individual actor inside it and continue ruling under color of law. That is a real distinction, and it is one your argument keeps ignoring.

 

[Clete]

I don't think the intent was to ensure a king could not be a tyrant. I think the intent was to replace our current tyrannical institution with, at worst, a tyrannical person. Who would then die and perhaps be replaced by a God fearing heir (a 50/50 chance?), rather than grow increasingly corrupt and wicked for 250 years like the US has.

Another intent I believe was to unburden us from the inherent unnatural trappings of democracy and politics in general. How many families have broken up internally because of them? I know a grandma and a grandson who haven't talked to each other since the last election. What a waste..

Perhaps, but I see no necessity to settle for one tyrant over many. How about a system that doesn't tolerate tyrants to begin with; a system where the king is seated with the understanding that his authority does not extend beyond the letter of the law and that if he flagrantly defies that law, the same procedure that placed him on the throne can be used to remove him from it.

 

[Clete]

Vlad’s point is basically right. The claim is not that Bob’s system makes tyranny impossible. It is that, at worst, tyranny is concentrated in one visible, mortal, personally responsible man rather than diffused through a permanent institution that can grow more corrupt across generations while hiding behind procedure.

A wicked king may rule wickedly, but he can repent, be resisted, be rebuked, or die. A captured system can outlive every individual actor inside it and continue ruling under color of law. That is a real distinction, and it is one your argument keeps ignoring.

Your arguments that aren't semantic in nature all boil down to choosing which worst case scenario you prefer, to which my response remains the same. Pointing out a different worst case scenario does not prove your system is better. It simply proves it to be different.

When human nature and the weight of the entirety of human history, and simple common sense is taken into account, I see nothing, in all the thousands of words you've written on this subject, that even pretends to suggest that a system which has no legal means of removing a rogue king is anything other than a recipe for disaster. A disaster which you concede will eventually happen, which, by itself refutes all your semantics about the king not being above the law. I really am sort of flabbergasted that I can't make you see such contradictions.

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

Perhaps, but I see no necessity to settle for one tyrant over many.

How about a system that doesn't tolerate tyrants to begin with; a system where the king is seated with the understanding that his authority does not extend beyond the letter of the law and that if he flagrantly defies that law, the same procedure that placed him on the throne can be used to remove him from it.

Sure, how about we let the people elect 500 Congressmen and another 500 House representatives and give them the power to impeach the king when he breaks the law.

 

[Idolater]

Your arguments that aren't semantic in nature all boil down to choosing which worst case scenario you prefer, to which my response remains the same. Pointing out a different worst case scenario does not prove your system is better. It simply proves it to be different.

When human nature and the weight of the entirety of human history, and simple common sense is taken into account, I see nothing, in all the thousands of words you've written on this subject, that even pretends to suggest that a system which has no legal means of removing a rogue king is anything other than a recipe for disaster. A disaster which you concede will eventually happen, which, by itself refutes all your semantics about the king not being above the law. I really am sort of flabbergasted that I can't make you see such contradictions.

Under Enyart's proposal¹ the freedom of conscience is defended. Your hypothetical tyrant isn't an impossibility, but his potency is. No one would have to obey an immoral order, ever. So he could scream and holler at anybody to obey his criminal decrees, but nobody has to listen to him when he's issuing immoral (and in Enyart's system immoral = illegal and criminal) demands. The only time he would be heeded, is when he's not trying to compel criminality.


¹ As I understand it, according to what JR's been saying about it.

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

When human nature and the weight of the entirety of human history, and simple common sense is taken into account, I see nothing, in all the thousands of words you've written on this subject, that even pretends to suggest that a system which has no legal means of removing a rogue king is anything other than a recipe for disaster. A disaster which you concede will eventually happen, which, by itself refutes all your semantics about the king not being above the law. I really am sort of flabbergasted that I can't make you see such contradictions.

One thing you may not have considered is, even an evil person has to make a value-judgement or risk assessment as to just how much he evil he might be able to get way with as king.

Because if he thinks "Hey I can do whatever I want, so I'm going to rape 100 women a day and murder their husbands", he might reckon that his kingdom (or his life!) might fall apart or not last long if he does that, so he will restrain himself from commiting that evil. Because he likes being the king of a kingdom!

An evil king, might decide, "Well, instead of being a rapist tyrant. I'm just going to not do anything except get drunk all day and live a lavish lifestyle." And that would be bad, but it wouldn't be as bad. It would be worse for us if there was a committee who could use his drunkenness as blackmail, in trying to get him to help them do whatever evil they wanted to do! That would be the real danger!

Because now this evil is hidden. It has a layer of protection. Because now you have 2 separate parties, the king and the committee who have an incentive to keep the evil, secret. And I think JudgeRightly is right about this.

 

[JudgeRightly]

Perhaps, but I see no necessity to settle for one tyrant over many. How about a system that doesn't tolerate tyrants to begin with; a system where the king is seated with the understanding that his authority does not extend beyond the letter of the law and that if he flagrantly defies that law, the same procedure that placed him on the throne can be used to remove him from it.

Your system may solve it for an evil king, but not for the people who may remove him, nor does it guarantee that a king will always be good.

That's the entire point!

All you've done is moved the problem up a level at best! At worst you've created an entire legal process that has to be followed to the letter by countless sinful men, all to remove one sinful man who has no power unless men follow him in his wickedness, as @Idolater was pointing out.

And if there's one thing the Bible teaches, it's that multiplying laws and legal processes DOES NOTHING for the righteousness of men, except to make it easier to break the law!

And that also goes completely against your claim that Bob's system is just "a straight up monarch placed on the throne with nothing but political pressure and his own conscience to prevent him from being a totally unjust tyrannical nightmare." The king is under God’s law, under a public legal standard, surrounded by lesser officers who have duties of their own, and ruling over subjects who are not obligated to obey wicked commands.

A wicked king can command evil, but not make evil righteous by commanding it. He cannot make unlawful orders lawful merely by speaking them. His wickedness only becomes effective if other men cooperate with it.

So again, your system does not remove sinful men from the equation. It adds more sinful men, gives them a formal process to control the throne, and then wrongly assumes they will use that process righteously.

The purpose of a system is what it does. Whatever your removal mechanism is intended to do, what it actually does is create a superior domestic authority over the king, operated by sinful men, with official power to make and unmake kings. That is not the elimination of tyranny. It is another route by which tyranny can be institutionalized.

Your arguments that aren't semantic in nature all boil down to choosing which worst case scenario you prefer, to which my response remains the same. Pointing out a different worst case scenario does not prove your system is better. It simply proves it to be different.

Except it does just that!

It's better in every way!

Your process is designed to remove a sinful man from the equation. But doing so requires the very thing you are trying to remove, a sinful man! And not just one, but MULTIPLE! More sinful men adding to the equation does not help your case!

That is objectively worse than my position, which does not create a complex removal process requiring more sinful men just to remove one, and does not add extra legal procedures above the king. The king is still accountable, but accountability does not mean “punishable by an earthly court.” It means answerable to a standard and to the proper authority. The king is held accountable to God, to the law as the standard defining his office, and before the nation whose officers and subjects may refuse his wicked commands.

Yes, he may become a tyrant, or he may repent. But at the very least he has the opportunity to do so before he ultimately dies. If he doesn't repent, so be it, he will stand before God and be held to account for the wicked things he did while on Earth, especially in violation of the very law he was installed under (cf. James 2:10), and the people beneath him down to the lowest subject, would not "have to obey an immoral order, ever. So he could scream and holler at anybody to obey his criminal decrees, but nobody has to listen to him when he's issuing immoral (and in Enyart's system immoral = illegal and criminal) demands. The only time he would be heeded, is when he's not trying to compel criminality." (As Idolater put it.)

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If the king’s wickedness requires a chain of command to carry out atrocities, then that chain can break anywhere beneath him when a man refuses to obey. The king may be a tyrant in his will, but his tyranny cannot be carried out effectively unless other men cooperate with it. And if they do cooperate with criminal commands, then they are criminals too. What process, if any, would you have to remove them, too?

Yes, the worst cases are different. That's the point. Your worst case creates a standing process by which multiple sinful men can dominate the throne under color of law. Mine has no such additional machinery. It leaves one visible, mortal king accountable before God and everyone, while everyone beneath him remains bound to obey God rather than wicked human commands.

Again, the purpose of a system is what it does. Your system may be intended to prevent tyranny, but what it actually does is create a formal mechanism by which sinful men above the king can control, remove, or replace him under color of law.

When human nature and the weight of the entirety of human history, and simple common sense is taken into account,

Human nature, history, and common sense show the opposite of what you are claiming.

They show that no one has designed, and no one can design, “a system that doesn't tolerate tyrants to begin with,” if by that you mean a system that eliminates the possibility of tyrants arising from it. Sinful men can corrupt any office, any court, any process, any legal standard, and any enforcement mechanism they are given, because "a little leaven leavens the whole lump."

And common sense cuts both ways. It is not common sense to think you can eliminate the danger of human sinfulness through legalistic procedure, especially when that procedure is itself administered by sinful men. If righteousness cannot be produced by law in the individual man, it certainly cannot be produced by multiplying legal mechanisms in civil government.

That does not make law useless. Law defines righteousness, exposes sin, condemns evil, and tells men what justice requires. But law does not regenerate men. It does not make wicked men righteous. And it does not become self-enforcing merely because enough procedures are written on paper.

Human nature and history matter, and are exactly why I do not trust a removal process operated by multiple sinful men above the king to solve the danger posed by one sinful man on the throne.

I see nothing, in all the thousands of words you've written on this subject, that even pretends to suggest that a system which has no legal means of removing a rogue king is anything other than a recipe for disaster. A disaster which you concede will eventually happen, which, by itself refutes all your semantics about the king not being above the law. I really am sort of flabbergasted that I can't make you see such contradictions.

There is no contradiction.

If a rogue king is a “recipe for disaster,” then so is a rogue removal authority. The difference is that your disaster comes with legal machinery, procedural cover, multiple actors, diffused responsibility, and the power to make and unmake kings under color of law.

A wicked king eventually arising does not mean the king is “above the law.” It means a sinful man may violate the law he is under. Those are not the same thing.

A man can be guilty under the law even if no earthly officer has jurisdiction to punish him. The law still defines his guilt. It still condemns his wickedness. It still strips his immoral commands of lawful authority. It still tells officers and subjects what they must refuse. What it does not do is magically create removal authority in lesser domestic officers.

So no, my concession that a wicked king may eventually arise does not refute my argument. It proves the point I have been making: no earthly structure can prevent sinful men from becoming wicked. Your system does not eliminate that problem. It adds a removal process operated by more sinful men and then assumes they will use it righteously.

That is why this is not “semantics.” It is the difference between guilt and jurisdiction. The king may be guilty under the law without a lower domestic office having authority to remove him.

But if your standard is correct, then the same problem applies to the men who remove him. If they unjustly remove a king, and no higher domestic authority can remove them, then by your own definition they are “above the law” too.

So how does your system account for that circumstance? Who removes the removers?

 

[Clete]

Sure, how about we let the people elect 500 Congressmen and another 500 House representatives and give them the power to impeach the king when he breaks the law.

It would hardly be any worse - in principle. That is, there is no need for a legislature but there is a need to see to it that the king is, in fact and in reality and in this life required to obey the governing document that grants him his authority. Otherwise, you do not have the rule of law.

 

[Clete]

One thing you may not have considered is, even an evil person has to make a value-judgement or risk assessment as to just how much he evil he might be able to get way with as king.

Because if he thinks "Hey I can do whatever I want, so I'm going to rape 100 women a day and murder their husbands", he might reckon that his kingdom (or his life!) might fall apart or not last long if he does that, so he will restrain himself from commiting that evil. Because he likes being the king of a kingdom!

An evil king, might decide, "Well, instead of being a rapist tyrant. I'm just going to not do anything except get drunk all day and live a lavish lifestyle." And that would be bad, but it wouldn't be as bad. It would be worse for us if there was a committee who could use his drunkenness as blackmail, in trying to get him to help them do whatever evil they wanted to do! That would be the real danger!

Because now this evil is hidden. It has a layer of protection. Because now you have 2 separate parties, the king and the committee who have an incentive to keep the evil, secret. And I think JudgeRightly is right about this.

I am referring only to matters of law and criminal justice, not the kings character per se and there would be no committee that sits around waiting for the king to commit a crime. I am not talking about forming some sort of parliament but merely granting injured parties the right to bring suit against anyone who commits a crime, including the king as well as the right of a sitting judge within the jurisdiction in which the crime was committed to prosecute the criminal. It would work, in principle, exactly the same as nearly any other case, except that there would need to be a rigorous process in place to prevent frivolous cases being brought against the sitting head of state. The details gets complex, which is why I've avoided discussing them before its even conceded that such a system can exist even in principle.

 

[Clete]

Your system may solve it for an evil king, but not for the people who may remove him, nor does it guarantee that a king will always be good.

That's the entire point!

All you've done is moved the problem up a level at best! At worst you've created an entire legal process that has to be followed to the letter by countless sinful men, all to remove one sinful man who has no power unless men follow him in his wickedness, as @Idolater was pointing out.

And if there's one thing the Bible teaches, it's that multiplying laws and legal processes DOES NOTHING for the righteousness of men, except to make it easier to break the law!

And that also goes completely against your claim that Bob's system is just "a straight up monarch placed on the throne with nothing but political pressure and his own conscience to prevent him from being a totally unjust tyrannical nightmare." The king is under God’s law, under a public legal standard, surrounded by lesser officers who have duties of their own, and ruling over subjects who are not obligated to obey wicked commands.

A wicked king can command evil, but not make evil righteous by commanding it. He cannot make unlawful orders lawful merely by speaking them. His wickedness only becomes effective if other men cooperate with it.

So again, your system does not remove sinful men from the equation. It adds more sinful men, gives them a formal process to control the throne, and then wrongly assumes they will use that process righteously.

The purpose of a system is what it does. Whatever your removal mechanism is intended to do, what it actually does is create a superior domestic authority over the king, operated by sinful men, with official power to make and unmake kings. That is not the elimination of tyranny. It is another route by which tyranny can be institutionalized.



Except it does just that!

It's better in every way!

Your process is designed to remove a sinful man from the equation. But doing so requires the very thing you are trying to remove, a sinful man! And not just one, but MULTIPLE! More sinful men adding to the equation does not help your case!

That is objectively worse than my position, which does not create a complex removal process requiring more sinful men just to remove one, and does not add extra legal procedures above the king. The king is still accountable, but accountability does not mean “punishable by an earthly court.” It means answerable to a standard and to the proper authority. The king is held accountable to God, to the law as the standard defining his office, and before the nation whose officers and subjects may refuse his wicked commands.

Yes, he may become a tyrant, or he may repent. But at the very least he has the opportunity to do so before he ultimately dies. If he doesn't repent, so be it, he will stand before God and be held to account for the wicked things he did while on Earth, especially in violation of the very law he was installed under (cf. James 2:10), and the people beneath him down to the lowest subject, would not "have to obey an immoral order, ever. So he could scream and holler at anybody to obey his criminal decrees, but nobody has to listen to him when he's issuing immoral (and in Enyart's system immoral = illegal and criminal) demands. The only time he would be heeded, is when he's not trying to compel criminality." (As Idolater put it.)

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If the king’s wickedness requires a chain of command to carry out atrocities, then that chain can break anywhere beneath him when a man refuses to obey. The king may be a tyrant in his will, but his tyranny cannot be carried out effectively unless other men cooperate with it. And if they do cooperate with criminal commands, then they are criminals too. What process, if any, would you have to remove them, too?

Yes, the worst cases are different. That's the point. Your worst case creates a standing process by which multiple sinful men can dominate the throne under color of law. Mine has no such additional machinery. It leaves one visible, mortal king accountable before God and everyone, while everyone beneath him remains bound to obey God rather than wicked human commands.

Again, the purpose of a system is what it does. Your system may be intended to prevent tyranny, but what it actually does is create a formal mechanism by which sinful men above the king can control, remove, or replace him under color of law.



Human nature, history, and common sense show the opposite of what you are claiming.

They show that no one has designed, and no one can design, “a system that doesn't tolerate tyrants to begin with,” if by that you mean a system that eliminates the possibility of tyrants arising from it. Sinful men can corrupt any office, any court, any process, any legal standard, and any enforcement mechanism they are given, because "a little leaven leavens the whole lump."

And common sense cuts both ways. It is not common sense to think you can eliminate the danger of human sinfulness through legalistic procedure, especially when that procedure is itself administered by sinful men. If righteousness cannot be produced by law in the individual man, it certainly cannot be produced by multiplying legal mechanisms in civil government.

That does not make law useless. Law defines righteousness, exposes sin, condemns evil, and tells men what justice requires. But law does not regenerate men. It does not make wicked men righteous. And it does not become self-enforcing merely because enough procedures are written on paper.

Human nature and history matter, and are exactly why I do not trust a removal process operated by multiple sinful men above the king to solve the danger posed by one sinful man on the throne.



There is no contradiction.

If a rogue king is a “recipe for disaster,” then so is a rogue removal authority. The difference is that your disaster comes with legal machinery, procedural cover, multiple actors, diffused responsibility, and the power to make and unmake kings under color of law.

A wicked king eventually arising does not mean the king is “above the law.” It means a sinful man may violate the law he is under. Those are not the same thing.

A man can be guilty under the law even if no earthly officer has jurisdiction to punish him. The law still defines his guilt. It still condemns his wickedness. It still strips his immoral commands of lawful authority. It still tells officers and subjects what they must refuse. What it does not do is magically create removal authority in lesser domestic officers.

So no, my concession that a wicked king may eventually arise does not refute my argument. It proves the point I have been making: no earthly structure can prevent sinful men from becoming wicked. Your system does not eliminate that problem. It adds a removal process operated by more sinful men and then assumes they will use it righteously.

That is why this is not “semantics.” It is the difference between guilt and jurisdiction. The king may be guilty under the law without a lower domestic office having authority to remove him.

But if your standard is correct, then the same problem applies to the men who remove him. If they unjustly remove a king, and no higher domestic authority can remove them, then by your own definition they are “above the law” too.

So how does your system account for that circumstance? Who removes the removers?

It's the same arguments!

I've answered these issue many times before. There is no such thing as a perfect system. "Who removes the removers?" defeats EVERY form of government anyone could ever conceive of, including the one you are here defending. The only difference is the answer one gives and whether that answer is consistent with the principle of the rule of law.

Your answer is, "There are no removers! If the king desires to be a tyrant, let him. There's nothing, as a matter of law, to do be done about it." My answer is, "The same law that seated him, should remove him if he undermines the very constitution that seated him as king in the first place."

In short, I am advocating for an actual constitutional government with the rule of law while you are advocating for a de facto absolute monarchy where the constitution isn't worth the paper its written on when it comes to a criminal king.

 

[Idolater]

It's the same arguments!

I've answered these issue many times before. There is no such thing as a perfect system. "Who removes the removers?" defeats EVERY form of government anyone could ever conceive of, including the one you are here defending. The only difference is the answer one gives and whether that answer is consistent with the principle of the rule of law.

Your answer is, "There are no removers! If the king desires to be a tyrant, let him. There's nothing, as a matter of law, to do be done about it." My answer is, "The same law that seated him, should remove him if he undermines the very constitution that seated him as king in the first place."

In short, I am advocating for an actual constitutional government with the rule of law while you are advocating for a de facto absolute monarchy where the constitution isn't worth the paper its written on when it comes to a criminal king.

It's one thing to have me on ignore, and quite another to prove that you didn't even read JR's post; because it's clear that Enyart's proposal includes not only a written constitution but a condition under which the constitution functions; namely, that the polity asserts their freedom of conscience. Every citizen or subject of this polity defends and exercises their freedom of conscience, which always supersedes any errant command the monarch might give. Therefore the catastrophic, Lenin-, Stalin-, Hitler- or Mao-style terrors would not happen under Enyart's proposal, since every individual would be free to ignore any criminal decree the monarch might issue. A diabolic tyrannical monarch couldn't even get off the ground let alone plunge his realm into totalitarian injustice. He would just be ignored.

 

[JudgeRightly]

It's the same arguments!

I've answered these issue many times before.

No, you haven't. Otherwise I wouldn't be repeating them.

Clete, all you've been doing is repeating your position over and over again, exactly like you demand others not do (and rightly so).

This is me telling you, STOP REPEATING YOUR POSITION as though it advances the conversation. It doesn't.

There is no such thing as a perfect system.

No one said there was.

But there is a BEST system.

And it isn't yours, for the reasons I outlined in my previous post. It may not be mine, but it's the best that I know of, and so until you can show me, not by repeating your position endlessly as though it does anything to defeat my stated defeaters, that my system is not the best, I will continue to advocate for it, in spite of its flaws, BECAUSE it is better than any other system.

"Who removes the removers?" defeats EVERY form of government anyone could ever conceive of, including the one you are here defending.

Yes, that's the point I was making. There is no such thing as an infinite regress when it comes to government. It's a myth.

Final authority terminates somewhere.

If it's not terminating in the king, it's terminating somewhere else. You don't get away from that just because you want a removal system for an evil king.

The only difference is the answer one gives and whether that answer is consistent with the principle of the rule of law.

Sinful men enforce the rule of law.

So long as they do it according to the law (who determines that? And what happens when it's determined that they are not?) the system will work as intended, it will remove a king. The problem is that not every king SHOULD be removed, and your system cannot, repeat, CANNOT guarantee that only kings that "deserve to be removed" (your condition, not mine) will be.

Your answer is, "There are no removers!

Correct. My system does not have the extra baggage your system needs in order to EVEN POTENTIALLY function correctly.

It will function as expected. In other words, everything is accounted for. There will be evil kings. There will be good kings. There will be kings who do bad things and kings that do good things. There will be tyrants and there will be righteous rulers. Their decisions will shape the direction of the country, for better or for worse.

But through it all, people will go on about their lives, either generally going along with that direction, or ignoring him, and maintaining the status quo.

It's predictable.

Yours is not, because there's no telling what may set off a judicial removal process, if anything at all other than the whim of some entity that finds the current king displeasing.

It's inherently unstable.

If the king desires to be a tyrant, let him.

That's how wills work, Clete.

He can want to be a tyrant all he wants. What matters practically is if the people beneath him go along with his tyranny or if they resist him.

There's nothing, as a matter of law, to do be done about it."

And that's the point. Because that's reality. You cannot do anything about it as a matter of law because doing so requires placing sinful men above the king in some way.

Not everything has to be legislated away.

Legalistic proceduralism is NOT the best way to go about forming a government, Clete.

You keep yelling, "PRACTICAL OUTCOME, PRACTICAL OUTCOME!" and the practical outcome is exactly as Idolater has been saying, and I don't often agree with him.

You can read his words for yourself. I'm not going to repeat them.

You may not read them anyways if I do.

My answer is, "The same law that seated him, should remove him if he undermines the very constitution that seated him as king in the first place."

And your answer has consequences which you keep ignoring.

I've been pointing them out, but you've been ignoring them.

In short, I am advocating for an actual constitutional government with the rule of law

What you are advocating for is for final earthly authority to terminate above the king in a group of nameless faceless judges who hold no accountability themselves, who disappear back into the woodwork when the removal process is completed. According to you, they cannot be held accountable for removing a king, so long as the process was followed perfectly.

Am I wrong?

The purpose of a system is what it does.

Your system brings together a group of men above the king to remove him.

My system does not allow men to legally remove a king.

Your system practically places men in a position of final authority over the king that can be abused under color of law.

My system practically has the king as the position of final earthly authority.

Your system permits men to conspire against the king under guise of law.

My system says such men are criminals.

Your system nullifies the entire purpose of the selection by lottery.

My system acknowledges reality and says that sometimes you get a bad roll, and when that happens, men must resist and disobey evil commands and rather obey God.

The purpose of a system is what it does.

while you are advocating for a de facto absolute monarchy where the constitution isn't worth the paper its written on when it comes to a criminal king.

No, I am not.

You don't get to just ignore the fact that the constitution still exists for everyone besides the king.

An absolute monarch is not merely a monarch who lacks a superior domestic removal court. An absolute monarch is one whose will is law, whose commands are not limited by a higher standard, and whose authority is not constitutionally defined.

That is not what I am defending.

The constitution still defines the king's office. It still defines his duties. It still defines what he can and cannot do legally. It still defines his jurisdiction. It still defines his taxation authority, military authority, judicial authority, succession, and the criminal code.

None of these are affected by a king desiring to be tyrannical. And neither do his tyrannical desires exist in a vacuum. The constitution still tells officers what they may enforce and what they must refuse. It still tells subjects what they may obey and what they have a responsibility to reject. It still condemns the king's wickedness. It still leaves him guilty before God and before the nation.

What it does not do is create a superior domestic authority above the king with power to remove him. That is the distinction you keep collapsing.

You are treating “no lower earthly office may depose him” as though it means “his will is legally absolute.” It does not. It means final earthly civil authority terminates in the king, under the law, and under God's law, rather than in the men who can remove the king.

 

[VladtheDestroyer]

I am referring only to matters of law and criminal justice, not the kings character per se and there would be no committee that sits around waiting for the king to commit a crime. I am not talking about forming some sort of parliament but merely granting injured parties the right to bring suit against anyone who commits a crime, including the king as well as the right of a sitting judge within the jurisdiction in which the crime was committed to prosecute the criminal. It would work, in principle, exactly the same as nearly any other case, except that there would need to be a rigorous process in place to prevent frivolous cases being brought against the sitting head of state. The details gets complex, which is why I've avoided discussing them before its even conceded that such a system can exist even in principle.

Hmm....well I just thought I would throw my 2 cents in. It's interesting.