Covenantal Theonomy
Covenantal Theonomy:
A Response to T. David Gordon and Klinean Covenantalism
175pp.; softcover
“Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.” (Romans 3:31)
In 1977 Greg L. Bahnsen released a work designed to shed light on a distinctly biblical view of ethics: Theonomy in Christian Ethics. He argued for the continuing validity of God’s law in the New Covenant era and the modern world. Unfortunately, his brilliant light of biblical understanding produced a scorching heat of ecclesiastical debate.
One of his earliest criticisms was written by Reformed Old Testament scholar Dr. Meredith G. Kline writing in the 1978 Westminster Theological Journal. Though Bahnsen responded to Kline, followers of Kline’s “Intrusion Ethics” have continued to criticize Theonomy from within Theonomy’s own biblical frame of reference: covenant theology.
In the present work, Dr. Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., responds to more recent criticism by Klinean scholar Dr. T. David Gordon. Covenantal Theonomy ably handles Gordon’s philosophical, exegetical, and theological objections, showing not only that theonomic ethics is within the mainstream of Reformed, Confessional theology, but is firmly rooted in the covenantal Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
Table of Contents
1. The Theonomic Debate
2. The Argument from Necessity
3. The Argument from Matthew 5
4. The Argument from Covenant Theology (Part 1)
5. The Argument from Covenant Theology (Part 2)
Conclusion
App. 1: The Law of Christ and God’s Law
App. 2: Apostasy Legislation
Reader’s comments:
Dr. Gentry, I’m currently reading through your ‘Covenant Theonomy: A response to T. David Gordon and Klinean Covenantalism.’ I just started the section on Gordon’s attack against Bahnsen’s take on Covenant theology. So far it has been excellent in that it helped me to flesh out where folks such as my Pastor and folks… at the White Horse Inn… are coming from. I was having a hard time pinning down what it was that people were objecting to in regards to Theonomy and this Klinean approach has revealed a lot for me. Thanks for your great work and God bless.
BLM (Charlotte, MI): I read Covenantal Theonomy with extraordinary profit. Just as I’ve read most of what he’s written with that kind of profit.
Victorious Hope Publishing 