The last phrase in the passage that we’ve been calling the Noachian Covenant is, "These three were the sons of Noah; and from these the whole earth was populated." (Genesis 9:19). According to Genesis 10, Noach’s three sons and their wives turned into a multitude of nations. — The most obvious thing that’s implied by this transition from one nation to many nations is that all the human obligations of the global covenant apply as much to the many as they do to the one. In our examination of these three Biblical Covenants that contribute to the formation of this global covenant, we discovered, reasoning from Scripture, a number of principles that also apply as much to the many as to the one. For the sake of exploring the implications of this transition from one to many, we’ll posit many of these principles as maxims, showing how these maxims apply to the many. These maxims are not human laws. They are rather guidelines to help us to understand how to apply such laws. They are inductions, or conclusions, that derive from the chronological exegesis.
[1] All of the human obligations of the global covenant apply equally to every individual and every nation.
As proven in the hermeneutical prologue, the terms of this global covenant apply to every human being in the law-enforcement epoch. This being the case, all human beings are obligated, under the global covenant,
Out of all these terms that apply globally to every human being, only one entails a penalty to be executed by humans against other humans: the obligation to avoid perpetration of bloodshed. The obligation to execute justice against a human perpetrator of bloodshed, and the obligation to execute justice against an animal perpetrator of bloodshed, are not accompanied by penalties. This means that if people refuse to execute justice against a perpetrator of bloodshed, there may be a penalty from God against those who refuse, but there is none that God expressly mandates that humans execute against the refusenik. Because of this, reason demands that there is no default penalty that humans should execute against people who refuse to support the pursuit of justice against bloodshed. To use extra-contractual force to make refuseniks support that pursuit is not a biblically reliable option. Regardless of whether the people who refuse to support the pursuit of justice are individuals or societies, people who adhere to the global covenant are obligated to refrain from using force against such people as a way to coerce them to cooperate with the pursuit of justice. All human beings are obligated to execute justice against perpetrators of bloodshed, but no human being has a natural right to force others to execute justice.
[2] God’s courts administer justice in all three fields of perception, but the administration of justice in human societies inevitably revolves around physical evidence.
As a result of the fall, human perception is flawed. All human perception is flawed to some degree. Humanity may have all three fields (Spiritual, psychic, and physical) in common in their pre-fall nature, but the physical field is the only field that is common to the awareness of all sane, adult humans, in humanity’s fallen condition. God doesn’t have these perceptual flaws, so His courts render justice with inerrancy, based upon evidence from all possible sources. But because our perception is so fallible, our courts are compelled to rely only upon evidence that is reliable, which always derives from the physical senses.
A delict is always a physical act, which is always accompanied by physical evidence. 2 So it’s obvious that any adjudication of a delict will revolve around physical evidence. But in a narrowly-defined ecclesiastical compact, because the obligations are contractual, the evidence can be as arbitrary and subjective as the parties make the contract. But because contracts are usually serious, the parties usually agree implicitly to keep the evidence physical. So in both contracts and delicts, the damage is always physical, even though discovering the mental state of the perpetrator is often crucial to the acquisition of justice.
[3] There are two and only two morally reliable kinds of human law: human law that derives from a jural compact (where the law arises out of the Genesis 9:6 bloodshed mandate, being ex delicto), and human law that derives from a human contract, the violation of which may result in Genesis 9:6 bloodshed, and the adjudication of which may occur in a narrowly-defined ecclesiastical compact (such laws thereby arising out of the Genesis 9:6 bloodshed ex contractu).
Positive law / human law is merely law imposed by people upon other people. There are two kinds of human law: the kind that is enforced by a jural compact and the kind that is enforced by a narrowly-defined ecclesiastical compact. — Before the deluge, jural societies did not exist because the global proscription of bloodshed had not been instituted. So all human laws that existed before the deluge derived from contracts, 3 and were therefore adjudicated by ecclesiastical compacts, if they were adjudicated at all. After the deluge, there is a global proscription of bloodshed, and therefore proscription of bloodshed arising both ex delicto and ex contractu. There are therefore human laws that derive from jural compacts, and human laws that derive from contracts and are enforced by ecclesiastical compacts.
A jural society is a society dedicated to executing justice against any delict. A narrowly-defined ecclesiastical society is a society dedicated to executing justice against any contract violation, where such violation results in death, damage, or injury to the aggrieved party. The term, ecclesiastical society, is used in both a narrow sense and a broad sense. An ecclesiastical compact, in the broad sense, is the complex system of agreements that bind a society together, and an ecclesiastical society, in the broad sense, is the society of parties to such compact. Even though the jural society and the narrowly-defined ecclesiastical society coexist under the same social compact, they are by definition mutually exclusive. This is because their jurisdictions are different. Their in personam, subject matter, and geographical jurisdictions are all different. The complexity of this difference is compounded by the fact that the term, ecclesiastical society, can be defined both broadly and strictly. Either way, ecclesiastical compact in both the broad and the narrow senses, is based on the consent of the parties. But in the broad sense, an ecclesiastical society exists to consensually gratify the myriad needs and desires of the parties, and in the strict sense, an ecclesiastical society exists exclusively to execute justice against bloodshed that arises contractually. In both broad and narrow instances, the ecclesiastical society is based on consent. In contrast, a jural compact is not focused primarily on consent, but is based instead upon the willingness and ability of people to enforce jural human law and execute its penalties. 4
Even traditional Anglo-American jurisprudence made a clear distinction between actions ex delicto (typically actions at law) and actions ex contractu (typically suits in equity). It was understood that these two fields of law have different personal and subject matter jurisdictions, and therefore maintaining and comprehending their distinctions was crucial to the administration of justice. Most people groups have very little cognizance of these distinctions. God has providentially blessed Americans with this knowledge. We are obligated to live by it. — Because enforcement against a delict implements as positive law the global mandate against bloodshed, such positive laws generally take priority over positive laws that derive from contracts. This is because covenant-keeping people are obligated to keep contracts subservient and obedient to the global covenant. This is because this global covenant is God-ordained, while contracts are merely human-ordained.
[4] The impetus behind all jural human law is the fact that all people are created in the image of God, and are therefore equal in rights, and equal before the law.
Positive law / human law that violates the spirit or letter of the global mandate against bloodshed is inherently illegitimate. Because bloodshed can exist in two and only two forms, bloodshed out of delicts and bloodshed out of contracts, delicts are inherently illegitimate. The core characteristic of all positive law that’s consistent with this global mandate is that it observes that all people are created in the image of God, and are therefore equal in rights before such positive law. Positive law that derives from contracts is geared to protect conventional privileges and disabilities that derive from such contracts. Even so, because jural positive law takes priority over ecclesiastical positive law, contractual positive law must avoid violating the fact that all people are created in the image of God, and are therefore equal in rights. 5
[5] The impetus behind all ecclesiastical human law is consent of the parties.
God created human beings as social creatures. Each of us therefore joins societies for myriad reasons: for the sake of refining one’s relationship with God; for the sake of having other people cover one’s perceptual frailties; for the sake of helping one-another procure life’s other necessities; for the sake of loving one-another, communicating with one another, and comforting one-another; for the sake of sexual intercourse; for the sake of child-rearing; for the sake of helping one-another procure food; and for many other reasons. These myriad human desires, needs, pursuits (agreements, gifts, contracts) are the root impetus behind the formation of broadly-defined ecclesiastical societies and broadly-defined ecclesiastical compacts. These myriad human social pursuits have nothing to do with delicts of any kind, and do not inherently involve damage and bloodshed that arises out of contracts. The underlying impetus for all these pursuits is common to every society. They are built by God into the human constitution. Even so, the manner in which these legitimate, organic desires are pursued can vary wildly, based upon a huge variety of views of reality. Since broadly-defined ecclesiastical compacts are by definition aggregations of agreements and contracts, and since such agreements and contracts by definition require consent of the parties, the broadly-defined ecclesiastical society itself requires the consent of the parties. While these basic human drives are impetus for their fulfillment, consent is the impetus for their fulfillment through a broadly-defined ecclesiastical society. — A narrowly-defined ecclesiastical society is aimed strictly and narrowly at adjudication of contract violations, meaning the execution of justice and equity against bloodshed ex contractu. Such a narrowly-defined ecclesiastical society can also only exist by way of the consent of the parties to the narrowly-defined ecclesiastical compact.
[6] Regarding in personam jurisdiction:
This is true without regard to which social compact a suspect may be party. 6 It’s important to bear in mind that the in personam jurisdiction of a jural compact is distinct from being party to a jural compact. In personam jurisdiction really doesn’t exist until subject matter jurisdiction exists, and subject matter jurisdiction exists only when the suspect perpetrates the delict.
This is by definition of ecclesiastical compact. If ecclesiastical compact is being strictly defined, then the compact only has in personam jurisdiction over people party to contracts being actively adjudicated. If ecclesiastical compact is being broadly defined, then the compact has in personam jurisdiction that’s equivalent to the in personam jurisdiction of the overarching social compact. Since broadly-defined ecclesiastical compacts are aggregations of agreements and contracts, and since both agreements and contracts require, by definition, consent of the parties, a broadly-defined ecclesiastical compact, which is nothing more than an umbrella contract, also requires consent for its existence. Every contract only has in personam jurisdiction over its parties, including such broadly-defined ecclesiastical compacts. — Since narrowly-defined ecclesiastical compacts aim merely at the adjudication of bloodshed ex contractu, such narrowly-defined ecclesiastical compact acquires in personam jurisdiction whenever a party to the given contract submits the suit to the ecclesiastical court, thereby making both the plaintiff and the defendant consensual parties over whom the narrowly-defined ecclesiastical compact has in personam jurisdiction.
[7] Regarding subject matter jurisdiction:
Since jural compacts arise, by definition, out of the Genesis 9:6 mandate, and since that mandate pertains to bloodshed, and since we have discerned that bloodshed can only arise contractually and delictually, and since delicts and contracts inherently give rise to different in personam jurisdictions, jural compacts have subject matter jurisdiction exclusively over delicts. Since the penalty for a gross delict is justifiably retribution, and since retribution is the penalty specified in Genesis 9:6, we are certain that the jural compact has subject matter jurisdiction over gross delicts. But since the penalty for a subtle delict is justifiably restitution or injunction, rather than retribution, we cannot claim with the same degree of certainty that jural compacts must have subject matter jurisdiction over subtle delicts. But we are certain that the Genesis 9:6 mandate is metaphorical, and that it therefore points to a more abstract, complex, and precise set of concepts than mere shed blood, and retribution against such shed blood. Circumstances demand the inclusion of the subtle delict as a form of bloodshed, because exclusion of it violates the impetus behind the mandate.
Every contract, in order to be enforceable, must specify, either explicitly or implicitly, how the terms of the contract are to be enforced. In the united States, it’s generally assumed – and therefore implicit – that judicial branch courts that have subject matter jurisdiction over suits in equity, and geographical jurisdiction over a given contract, will have such subject matter jurisdiction over that contract. So the subject matter of the given contract defines the subject matter of the given ecclesiastical court, and of the given narrowly-defined ecclesiastical compact, during the process of adjudication. — In a primitive society, whether a given contract falls within the scope and purview of a given narrowly-defined ecclesiastical compact depends on the nature of that contract. Generally, people who want to have their contract disputes resolved will submit their dispute to a third party who is usually a leader or elder in the society where the contract originated. So even in a primitive society, where the distinction between narrowly-defined ecclesiastical compacts and broadly-defined ecclesiastical compacts is not recognized, this maxim still holds.
[8] Regarding geographical jurisdiction:
Because the impetus of the jural compact extends to every human being, it extends to every human being regardless of where such human being may be located. It extends to wherever the jural society is willing and able to enforce its authority. Of course, the existence of other jural societies is necessarily a prominent consideration in how far the jural society will extend its geographical jurisdiction.
Because an ecclesiastical society, in the strict and narrow sense, only adjudicates contracts out of which Genesis 9:6 damages have arisen, the geographical jurisdiction of the narrowly-defined ecclesiastical compact can only encompass whatever territory is implicitly or explicitly included within such a contract. Because an ecclesiastical compact, in the broad sense, is by definition an umbrella contract or agreement that aggregates contracts and agreements in a society, the territorial jurisdiction of the compact is limited by whether it subtends a religious social compact or a secular social compact. If the broadly-defined ecclesiastical compact subtends a secular social compact, then it really has no geographical jurisdiction other than that specified by the secular social compact. If it subtends a religious social compact, then its geographical jurisdiction is whatever physical territory is specified in the religious social compact.
[9] Regarding reason for existence:
This is by definition. The definition comes from a reasoned view of the first eleven chapters of Genesis.
The broad sense includes every human being’s innate need to be in covenant with God and other people, as well as every other need, desire, demand, etc., that can be gratified, supported, or encouraged by other people. The narrow sense pertains only to actions ex contractu. Both are by the definition of ecclesiastical society.
[10] The broadly-defined ecclesiastical society has no innate commitment to observing that all people are made in the image of God, and have unalienable rights:
Even though ecclesiastical human law must avoid violating people’s rights – in order to be Biblically legitimate – such avoidance is not inherently built into every broadly-defined ecclesiastical society. Broadly-defined ecclesiastical societies derive their power and existence from the consent of their parties. If the parties do not consent to avoiding violation of rights, either explicitly or implicitly, then the ecclesiastical society continues to exist until an act of God, and/or of a jural society, forces observance of such rights, or forces the broadly defined ecclesiastical society’s extinction. On the other hand, a strictly-defined ecclesiastical society is by definition obligated to observe natural rights, similar to the way a jural society is obligated by definition to observe natural rights. The difference between the jural society and the strictly-defined ecclesiastical society is merely that the damage against which the ecclesiastical society enforces arises out of the violation of a human contract, whereas the damage against which the jural society enforces does not involve any human contracts, but only the global covenant.
[11] The broadly-defined ecclesiastical society’s "consent of the governed" can easily decay into fiat rule by tyrants:
In a broadly-defined ecclesiastical society whose positive law is not observant of the fact that all people are created in the image of God and therefore have unalienable Rights, the ecclesiastical society easily devolves into a "dictatorship of the proletariat", 7 a glorified form of mob rule, an oppressive majority, an oppressive minority, or fiat rule by tyrants. This is because wherever the image of God is not respected, consent is likewise not respected. 8
[12] A human law that cannot be enforced is not a real positive law.
Since human law is law imposed by humans upon humans, and since the mandate against damaging other people through delicts and contract violations is the global covenant’s only global obligation that has a penalty to be executed by humans; this obligation to avoid perpetration of such damage is the only obligation that comes close to being human law. This is because, for any obligation to be real human law, such human law must be enforceable. There are two obvious prerequisites to any obligation being humanly enforceable: (1)There must be a penalty to be executed by humans. (2)There must be someone willing and able to enforce it.
Not one of these eight obligations of the global covenant meets both of these two prerequisites. Seven have neither human penalties nor obvious enforcers. The mandate against perpetration of damage ex delicto or ex contractu has the penalty, but no obvious enforcers. Therefore, none of them has the jurisprudential status of positive law; although each has the potential for it. Each may be real eternal law, natural law, or divine law, 9 but if they don’t enforce societal norms, then they are not human law. So out of these eight human obligations in the global covenant, only the avoidance of the perpetration of damage ex delicto or ex contractu is even remotely like real human law. All terms of the global Covenants are globally applicable, but all are not globally enforceable as human law.
To see how penalties are essential prerequisites to the existence of real human law, consider this scenario involving a driver and a traffic cop: Police are law enforcement officers, meaning that they put laws into effect. But what would happen if police tried to enforce laws that had no penalties? For example, if the speed limit was thirty miles-per-hour, but you chose to drive fifty through that speed zone, a policeman might try to pull you over to give you a ticket. If there were no penalty for exceeding the speed limit, then you could wad up his citation and throw it in the trash with impunity. If there were no penalty for refusing to heed a traffic cop’s instructions, then when he tried to pull you over, you could thumb your nose at him as you kept on speeding, all with impunity. A law without a penalty is a law that cannot be effectively enforced. A law that cannot be enforced is in fact no law at all.
To see how this fact pertains to jural positive law, consider the following scenario: Mr. X murders Fred. Mr. X is not a party to our social compact. Even so, our jural society will pursue Mr. X to execute retribution against him. This is because the bloodshed mandate, like all the terms of the global Covenants, applies to all people; but unlike the global covenant’s other human obligations, the mandate to avoid perpetration of a gross delict has a penalty, namely, retribution against the perpetrator. So if Mr. X is within reach of our jural society, it will execute retribution against him. But if the global covenant did not provide this global penalty, then there would be no global grounds for creating a jural compact, and no real distinction between a jural compact and the broadly-defined ecclesiastical compact. Mr. X would be as free as Kayin to repeat his offense, unless the broadly-defined ecclesiastical society arbitrarily decided to stop him. Without a penalty, a jural positive law cannot exist.
To see how the fact that lack of penalty entails lack of enforceability entails lack of real human law, to see how this fact applies to ecclesiastical human law, consider the following scenario: Mr. X drinks animal blood. Mr. X is party to our social compact. Our broadly-defined ecclesiastical compact forbids the drinking of animal blood. But no penalty is specified. Since no penalty is specified, we have no leverage with which to compel Mr. X to abide by our standards. So we either give up our standards, or put a penalty in place. But since a broadly-defined ecclesiastical society operates by consent, if Mr. X refuses to consent to the adoption of a penalty, the ecclesiastical society still has no leverage with which to compel compliance. Unless a mechanism like majority rule is a prerequisite to participation in the broadly-defined ecclesiastical society, from the beginning, no mechanism exists by which to compel Mr. X into compliance, unless we resort to perpetrating a delict against him, or use free-market mechanisms like boycotts. 10
Even if a law has a penalty, if there’s no one willing and able to enforce it and execute the penalty, it has no real existence. Consider this scenario: If you like to speed through a 30 m.p.h. speed zone at 50, and you know there’s a penalty for speeding, but the policeman assigned to patrol this speed zone is a one-legged, blind midget with a skateboard, then the enforcement officer doesn’t have the capacity to enforce. As long as there’s no one there to enforce the speed limit, who also is willing and able to enforce it, you won’t get a ticket. — So if there’s no one willing and able to enforce an obligation, practically, the obligation doesn’t exist as positive law, regardless of whether the obligation is jural or ecclesiastical.
Mr. X drinks blood. Mr. X is not a member of our broadly defined ecclesiastical society. Since his drinking blood does not result in a dead, damaged, or injured party, his blood drinking is outside the jurisdiction of our jural society. Since he is not a member of our broadly-defined ecclesiastical society, he is not subject to its standards (unless he does these things in a geographical location governed by the ecclesiastical society, in which case we can expel him). The broadly-defined ecclesiastical terms of the global covenant 11 may apply to all people. But they are not enforceable against all people, because no positive law penalty is specified in Scripture for it. There is therefore no one with both calling and ability to enforce it against people who do not consent to abide by it.
Because the mandate against damaging other people ex delicto or ex contractu is accompanied by a penalty, it may appear that the many jural compacts inherently mandated to exist in each new nation created by the disintegration of the Babel project, would have teeth, compared to the obligations that incur no penalty. 12 But this is not necessarily true. The jural obligations could be as toothless and un-enforceable as all the other obligations of the global covenant. This is because the existence of a penalty is not enough to make a law enforceable. There is one other essential ingredient. In order for a law to be enforceable, there must also be people who are willing and able to enforce it. — Likewise, if there’s no one willing and able to enforce the mandate against damage ex delicto or ex contractu, it won’t be enforced.
Mr. X murders Fred. Mr. X is not a member of our broadly-defined ecclesiastical society. Even so, our jural society will pursue Mr. X to execute retribution against him. This is because the bloodshed mandate, like all the terms of the global Covenants, applies to all people. 13 So if Mr. X is within reach of our jural society, it will execute retribution against him.
If a society decides collectively, by the consent of all having capacity, to abide by the global covenant’s jural obligations, then the enforcement against perpetrators of a delict is not so problematical. For most intents and purposes, both the penalty requirement and the people-willing-and-able requirement are met. But if all do not consent, no one is delivered from the obligation. All are still obligated to abide by the jural obligations.
According to the bloodshed mandate, all people are obligated to execute retribution against perpetrators of a gross delict. But what if people refuse to do that, and refuse to help in the execution of justice against delicts in any way? — According to the global covenant, there is no penalty against people who exercise such a refusal. Refusal to recognize the obligation to execute justice against delicts is essentially an insistence on returning to the anarchy era. Such an insistence is hostile to God’s clear intentions in implementing the bloodshed mandate. It’s therefore certain that God will punish such a refusenik in His due time. But it's also obvious from the Bible's lack of a specified penalty that this is a point of division between biblically prescribed human law and punishment that God reserves to Himself. The Bible doesn't licence human-law punishment of such refuseniks, based strictly on their refusal. This is obviously a major distinction between globally prescribed human law and traditional Anglo-American jurisprudence, and between globally prescribed human law and ordinary human law in general. A penalty for such a refusenik may seem to be rationally required, but it isn’t. The fact that taxation is generally obligatory in human societies is proof that such societies are not aligned with the biblical prescription of human law.
These points mark the difference between instantiated law and un-instantiated law. If it’s not enforced, then it’s not instantiated.
[13] There are limits to lawful taking for the enforcement of human laws.
Although all people are morally obligated to enforce against damage that arises ex delicto or ex contractu, there is no biblically prescribed penalty, to be executed by human against human, for those who refuse to do so. So it is ultimately voluntary, contrary to the long-established practices of nation states. Even so, because it is a universal moral obligation, there should be formalized mechanisms through which jural societies and strictly defined ecclesiastical societies collect the funds they need for their respective operations.
When people voluntarily become contractual participants under the jurisdiction of a lawful jural society, it’s reasonable that they would simultaneously volunteer to support the jural society financially. If a lawful jural taking is understood to be voluntary in this manner, then it is indeed lawful.
All people may not be qualified to enforce human laws, but all people are morally obligated by the bloodshed mandate to enforce jural human laws. Some societies might contractually devise a mechanism via which parties not qualified or capable could contribute by giving things of value to people who are qualified and capable. Since the bloodshed mandate is morally obligatory for all people, it stands to reason that all parties to a social compact would be required by such social compact to contribute valuables to the jural society for the enforcement of jural human laws. But it’s necessary to insist here that participation in any social compact is necessarily voluntary and consensual, and that’s precisely why allowance for denizenship is imperative. It might be reasonable that the social compact would contain penalties against parties who refused to contribute. We call such voluntary contributions to the jural society, jural takings. Jural takings include jural taxation and giving testimony as a witness to a delict (which must be voluntary, but can be forced via subpoena on parties who have given prior consent).
Like participation in a jural society, participation in a strictly-defined ecclesiastical society is completely voluntary. The strictly-defined ecclesiastical society exists to offer remediation when harm arises out of the violation of a contract. It does this by using standardized interpretational policies for the interpretation of contracts. It is reasonable that a party to a given social compact might volunteer to help fund such an enterprise. Also, it makes sense that all parties to all contracts would devise their own private enforcement mechanism, including courts paid for by litigants. Such ecclesiastical takings are thereby nothing more than fees paid by litigants for court costs. By confining ecclesiastical takings to those who use ecclesiastical courts, the society avoids violation of the consensual nature of the strictly-defined ecclesiastical compact. As mentioned, funding might also arise out of voluntary donations.
Taking (especially taxation) is historically the point at which nation states have most commonly abused their populations. They’ve done this by overlooking the fact that participation in a social compact is necessarily voluntary. It’s necessarily voluntary because whenever it’s not voluntary, the people running the social compact are inherently forcing people, and thereby violating the Genesis 9:6 mandate. When this abuse of power exists, people need to recall the vigilante impetus behind the bloodshed mandate.
[14] When a law, a covenant, or a contract has the prerequisites of positive law, the law is instantiated.
Laws and covenants enforced by God are directly instantiated the instant He puts them into effect. They are instantiated as eternal law, and perhaps also natural law and/or divine law. But human law demands human enforcers, by definition. When the prerequisites for positive law exist, i.e., when the prerequisites for enforcement exist, i.e., when there is a penalty, and when there are people willing and able to enforce, such positive law is instantiated.
When the Babel society was split into many nations, wherever any of the human obligations of the global covenant were implemented as positive law, there were local instantiations of a global mandate.
[15] A social compact is an integration of jural compact and ecclesiastical compact into a single nation, tribe, or ethnic group, thereby instantiating some kind of government.
God’s termination of the Babel project was accompanied by the creation of a multitude of societies and nations. Clearly many of these societies had no writing. We conclude that the definition of any given social compact does not necessarily require writing. We can even conclude that they don’t necessarily even require articulation, since the components of the social compact can be passed as unarticulated customs from one generation to the next.
Prior to the law-enforcement epoch, during the anarchy era, the societies that existed (like the city of Enoch, Genesis 4:17) lacked jural compacts because jural societies were essentially banned during the anarchy era. So such societies consisted of the broadly-defined ecclesiastical compact and perhaps a narrowly-defined ecclesiastical compact, and nothing else. So no social compact could have developed until after the Noachian Covenant, because jural societies were banned prior to that time. But even after the Noachian Covenant’s mandate to prosecute damage regardless of whether it arises ex contractu or ex delicto, most social compacts reflect little or no distinction between the compact’s jural and ecclesiastical functions. This doesn’t mean that the distinction doesn’t exist. It means that there is confusion in the social compact’s creation, maintenance, and implementation. Since a social compact necessarily gives rise to some kind of government, it becomes clear that most governments inadequately distinguish jural and ecclesiastical functions. In fact, the twentieth century will probably go down in history as the century in which the spirit of megalomania took over governments in general. One government after another was assigned the task of gratifying all the myriad needs and desires of their respective populations, without any regard for the consent that is crucial to the narrowly-defined ecclesiastical compact, and without any regard for avoiding governmental perpetration of bloodshed. Throughout most of the law-enforcement epoch, societies have existed in a vast constellation of various mixtures of jural and ecclesiastical functions – that is, with confusion about their purpose and functions. But the Genesis 9:6 mandate demands clarity about the distinction between the jural compact and the strictly-defined ecclesiastical compact.
The inability to properly distinguish jural and ecclesiastical functions is merely a manifestation of the flawed perception that the human race inherited from the fall. But this is no excuse. It’s merely a recognition of the human predicament. Regardless, a single question should be asked incessantly about every government / social compact: Does the social compact enforce the Genesis 9:6 mandate without becoming a violator of it?
It’s certainly not reasonable to expect any social compact to be perfect, any more than it’s reasonable to expect any individual human being to be perfect. But if we don’t aim at a high standard, we’ll never reach one.
[16] A society’s government is a reflection of the collective integrity of that society.
The way an individual functions within his or her self is a microcosm of the way a society functions. 14 Each part of the person fulfills its assigned function when the person is in good health. Likewise, each member of a society fulfills his or her contractual, compactual, and covenantal obligations when the society is functioning with integrity. When the society as a whole is operating with integrity, the government will do likewise. When it’s not operating with integrity, the government will reflect that lack of integrity.
[17] Humanity is divided by families, languages, lands, and nations.
About each of Noach’s three sons, Genesis 10 says that their descendants were divided by families, languages, lands, and nations (Genesis 10:5, 20, 31). These four modes of division appear in the human obligations of the global covenant like this:
[18] Every nation has a unique set of abilities and disabilities, i.e., gifts, callings, biases.
When God gave different nations different languages, He simultaneously gave them different biases. He placed these societies in various parts of the earth, and in different environments, where each environment placed its own unique demands on the nation newly living in that land. These biases that derived from both linguistic differences and environmental pressures caused a unique knowledge base to develop within each nation, tribe, society, and ethnic group. Each of these knowledge bases had its own unique explanation for, comprehension of, and expression of, the social compact, and the jural and ecclesiastical functions therein.
God’s creation of many languages, nations, and families, distributed into many lands, was an imposition of social disintegration. He caused this one nation, language, and family – all located in a single geographical location (the "plain in the land of Shinar", Genesis 11:2) – to disintegrate into many nations, languages, and families, all dispersed into many lands. In effect, He said, "OK, folks! I’ve already given each of you, as individuals, your own unique set of biases, that is, your own unique set of disabilities. Now I’m going to cause the nations and families that you live in to have their own unique set of biases and disabilities. Furthermore, I’m going to make it difficult for each nation to communicate with the others. I’m creating these communication barriers because I want each nation to develop its own unique approach to life, in isolation from the other nations. I’m doing this because I don’t want future attempts at social integration to be as sloppy as this Tower of Babel routine has been. Count on it. All future attempts at social reintegration will encounter major obstacles, because I’m going to put those obstacles there. I am creating, and will continue to create, major obstacles to social integration – to the integration of all of your nations into a single nation – because when you become a single nation again, you must have Me, not some silly bunch of idols, at the core of your purposes.". So God created many unique knowledge bases and social compacts, and in effect, set forces in motion to ensure that the creation of a single knowledge base, and a single social compact, would be forced to acknowledge Him as God.
In keeping with God’s demand that all individual knowledge bases, all national and societal knowledge bases, and every social compact, be sanctified, that is, delivered from idolatry, He in effect demands that our definition of what’s true conform to the all-encompassing, inescapable fact of our perceptual disintegration. 15 In other words, in the Garden of Eden, we perceived all three fields of perception – Spiritual, psychic, and physical – as a single field of perception, seamlessly integrating these three fields. After the fall, our perception is inherently fragmented. Therefore, in our present condition, we are able to discover physical facts, even psychic truths, but if we fail to put such truths under the overarching umbrella of the Spirit, then such facts and truths are soaked in idolatry. It’s easy for a person or a society to be proud of what it knows, to glory in its personal, national, or cultural distinctives. Such distinctives are the essential manifestation of biases. The other side of the bias coin is disabilities. Biases cover disabilities with pride. But if such biases and disabilities are submitted to God, and the knowledge appended thereto is assimilated into a Godly system of knowledge, then these biases and disabilities become God’s gifts and callings to that person or society. 16
[19] God intends for humanity’s comprehension of His laws, the terms of His global covenant, to go through a process of progressive revelation.
We can think of revelation from God as knowledge about how to submit physical facts and psychic truths to the Spirit, so that such facts and truths are assimilated into a Godly system of knowledge. Given humanity’s perceptual and social disintegration, 17 and the impediments that God has placed on perceptual and social integration, it should surprise no one that humanity’s comprehension of the social compact, the jural compact, and the ecclesiastical compact, would undergo a gradual and progressive transformation. In other words, our understanding of these compacts has undergone – and will continue to be impacted by – what we’ll call progressive revelation. This progression started with God effectually ordaining anarchy (Genesis 4:3-15 – especially verse 15 – and Genesis 4:23-24). Then God apparently scratched the anarchy plan, and replaced it with an apparent mandate to practice vigilantism (Genesis 9:6). — So the basics of the progressive revelation that pertains to these compacts is recorded in Scripture, and are accessible to us through divine law. But many of the details are not. Our understanding of His laws in general, and of the global covenant, especially, undergo progressive revelation.
[20] Ecclesiastical societies, in the broad sense, are created in extravagant variety, while jural societies and narrowly-defined ecclesiastical societies have singularity of purpose.
Because of the inherent nature and definition of the broadly-defined ecclesiastical compact, the creation by God of many nations resulted in broadly-defined ecclesiastical societies that exist in extravagant variety. Even so, because of the inherent nature and definition of the jural compact, jural societies world wide are mandated to have the same singularity of purpose. Likewise, because of the inherent nature and definition of the narrowly-defined ecclesiastical compact, narrowly-defined ecclesiastical societies world wide are mandated to have the same singularity of purpose.
[21] The human obligations of the global covenant form two classes upon which all nations are obligated to base themselves.
Using the jargon of the object-oriented computer programming paradigm, the human obligations of the global covenant inherently form two classes upon which every nation is obligated to base itself. The mandate to avoid damaging other people ex delicto or ex contractu implicitly mandates the formation of jural societies and strictly-defined ecclesiastical societies. The mandate to legal actions ex delicto forms a base class upon which God requires every jural society to base itself. This derivative class, which is equivalent to the jural compact, is instantiated as soon as the obligation becomes enforceable. 18 The strictly-defined ecclesiastical compact follows a similar pattern. Likewise, the five human obligations in the global covenant that do not relate immediately to damage ex delicto or ex contractu form a base class upon which God requires every broadly-defined ecclesiastical society to base itself. This derivative class, which is equivalent to the broadly-defined ecclesiastical compact, is instantiated as soon as these five obligations become enforceable.
[22] Jural compacts need due process mechanisms in order to avoid deterioration into perpetration of delicts.
The mandate to execute justice in Genesis 9:6 obviously specifies no particular method by which we should execute justice. If there are no systems set up, that is, if there are no judges, no police, no due process, etc., then the means by which we execute justice against anyone who perpetrates a delict is totally open to our investigation and ingenuity. The most obvious result of such a lack of definition of means, is a default into vigilantism. So if we are lacking in any other means by which to carry out the bloodshed mandate, then we all default into being vigilantes. A vigilante is someone who works in concert with other like-minded people to maintain order in an imperfectly organized community.
Anyone familiar with American history knows the dangers of vigilance committees. Without systems by which all sides of an issue can be aired, and through which impartial judgment can be rendered, with regard to an infraction against a community’s mores, innocent people often suffer retribution for crimes they did not commit. This was sometimes the case in the American West before "law and order" was established. It was also sometimes the case in the South after the Civil War. Vigilantism easily degrades into revenge, or worse, rather than the execution of justice. So the bloodshed mandate tells us to do something, execute justice, but it doesn’t tell us about all the ramifications involved in attempting to do so.
When people unite for the sake of forming a jural society, they may be stepping beyond the expedient nature of vigilantism into an organized approach to obeying the bloodshed mandate. Their formation of a jural society may be ad hoc, like the formation of a posse commitatus. Or it may entail the formation of a more permanent institution. Regardless of whether the jural society is ad hoc or institutional, the criterion for judging whether a jural society is operating within sound guidelines or not is whether it executes the bloodshed mandate without becoming a violator of it. In many respects, the mega-state’s institutionalized perpetration of delicts is much more pernicious than a vigilance committee’s. Even so, vigilantism is so error-prone, and disputes and trespasses are so common in human society, that some kind of more formal compact is essential to the reliable administration of justice. It’s reasonable and probable, based on the Scriptural evidence, that within a few generations after the deluge, vigilantism started to develop into a more organized approach to administering justice, and organizing society, at least in some of these new nations.
When any government, i.e., any social compact, is formed, it has an inherent propensity to set its highest priority to be the survival of the state. It thereby becomes a servant of itself, rather than a servant of the people. Under such circumstances, the first thing that people do when they get in power is to attempt to perpetuate their power. This perpetuation of power becomes their priority. In a truly judicious government, the first priority remains the service of the people. In order to enforce the bloodshed mandate without becoming a violator thereof, the enforcer must necessarily assume the posture of a servant, that is, someone who is performing a service. In contrast to this spirit of service, warlords are the kinds of kings that Yeshua was talking about when He said "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them" (Luke 22:25). In other words, the "kings of the Gentiles" institutionalize governmental perpetration of delicts for their own self-aggrandizement.
[23] The obligations that pertain to violations ex delicto and ex contractu mark the difference between anarchy and order.
This mandate to execute justice against bloodshed is what officially marks the end of the anarchy era and the beginning of the law-enforcement epoch. This is the defining attribute of the entire law-enforcement epoch, which lasts, according to biblical evidence, from the promulgation of the Noachian Covenant until the final judgment.
[24] God prefers people to conform to eternal law through conscience, rather than through fear of human retribution.
God prefers people to conform to eternal law via conformity to personal conscience, rather than through fear of human retribution. That’s because doing it through conscience implicitly entails that they are conforming in their mind and soul (in the psychic field of perception and action), but if they conform through fear of retribution by other humans, chances are good that they are not conforming in their mind and soul, and are therefore not really conforming to eternal law. The fact that this is true indicates that force and coercion should be minimized. Force should exist sufficiently enough to fulfill enforcement obligations. Beyond that, it should not exist.
[25] The purposes of a jural society can be expressed succinctly as the protection of property rights through deterrence.
[26] Every person’s status is determined by disabilities.
The legal definition of status is essentially "one’s legal relationship to the rest of society". The theological definition of status that we use in the hermeneutical prologue is "one’s legal relationship with God and His covenant and people". Regardless of whether we’re talking about status or status, one’s legal relationship is most easily ascertainable by looking at one’s disabilities, rather than at one’s abilities. This is because of the nature of human existence.
In the hermeneutical prologue, we determined that rights derive from the fact that every human being is created in the image of God. Such rights are unalienable, except for people guilty of bloodshed – in which case even rights are disabled, commensurate with the bloodshed. Such rights are intimately related to one’s status. In the hermeneutical prologue, we also determined that people are not God, and people therefore do not have all the abilities that God has. Relative to God, people are disabled. Some disabilities are natural, and they cannot be overcome. For example, all people are disabled from being omniscient and omnipotent. It’s not reasonable for anyone to expect to ever receive these abilities, because only God has them. Some disabilities are conventional. They might be overcome by changing conventions. They might not. — The reason it’s easier to determine a person’s status or status through disabilities than through abilities is because it’s easier to see someone’s disabilities relative to a perfect standard, i.e., in comparison with Meshiach, than it is to account for all of a person’s abilities. There’s no way we can know all of a person’s abilities. We cannot even know all the abilities of a grain of sand. We don’t know everything that goes on within a grain of sand to make a grain of sand behave the way it does. We can talk about crystals, molecules, atoms, and sub-atomic particles. But we’ll never know everything about these things. But we know with substantial certainty that grains of sand are disabled from laying eggs, flying, and speaking English. It’s easier for us to know a grain of sand by what it cannot do, than by what it can do. The same is true for human beings.
[27] Other than the Edenic Covenant, the Biblical Covenants which prove to be blood Covenants are controls for all other Biblical passages in the historical narrative.
It’s imperative to recognize that of these three global Covenants (Edenic, Adamic, and Noachian), two are blood Covenants. This fact – combined with later Scriptural evidence that emphasizes the importance of blood 19 – leads us to conclude that in the chronological approach to Scripture, distinguishing blood Covenants from other Covenants and contracts is essential. So we not only distinguish Covenants from contracts, but we also have a distinction of b’rit / diatheke / Covenant into blood Covenant and non-blood Covenant. Having this knowledge helps to distinguish passages that are controls for the rest of Scripture from passages that do not have the same controlling legal authority. If we do a sneak preview of the rest of Scripture, we see that there are only three more blood Covenants in the Bible; even though the word b’rit appears over 280 times in the Tanakh. Because the passages that describe these blood Covenants are so absolutely central to everything that happens in Scripture, we conclude that these blood Covenants have a controlling status over all other passages in the historical narrative. With the exception of the Edenic Covenant, diatheke / b’rit / Covenant passages that are not blood Covenant passages have a subordinate controlling status, i.e., a status with less legal authority than blood Covenant passages, but more legal authority than non-Covenant passages. The Edenic Covenant is the sole exception to this rule because the Edenic Covenant has the legal status of a constitution, while these blood Covenants have the legal status of sets of amendments to the constitution.
[29] These are the hermeneutical prologue’s final definitions of "covenant". 20
[30] In accordance with a reasoned view of Genesis 9:6, there are two fundamental kinds of bloodshed, bloodshed ex delicto and bloodshed ex contractu, where ex delicto can be either gross or subtle.
The clear and obvious punishment for shed blood referenced in Genesis 9:6 is retribution. Because the obvious bloodshed and the obvious penalty for obvious bloodshed are so obvious, we call bloodshed that demands retribution (or something close to it) a gross delict. We call all other forms of ex-delicto bloodshed subtle delicts. Punishment for subtle delicts includes restitution and injunction. Punishment of ex contractu bloodshed is stipulated either implicitly or explicitly by the terms of the contract.
[31] Even though involuntary servitude became common after the disintegration of the Babel society, it has never been lawful except as punishment for bloodshed, ever since the instigation of the Noachian Covenant.
Even though it may not be clearly and obviously stated in Scripture, after the disintegration of humanity into a multiplicity of nations, there were at least two rationales for enslaving people.
A period of involuntary servitude is a lawful punishment for people genuinely guilty of bloodshed. — Regarding foreigners, the hermeneutical prologue takes a nuanced approach. Generally, it’s ridiculous to believe, without concrete evidence, that all (or any) foreigners are a priori guilty of bloodshed. On the other hand, when a social compact is diligently following the natural rights polity, and a question arises about whether to allow a foreigner from a country that does not follow the natural rights polity into the social compact’s geographical jurisdiction, then it’s obviously foolish to do so, unless there is a party to the social compact who is committed to supervising the foreigner while he/she is within the social compact’s territory. Unsupervised entry of such a foreigner from such an inimical origin would inherently constitute a threat, and therefore a kind of subtle delict, to the social compact in general. A foreigner from a country that also follows the natural rights polity would not be a threat, and the prospect of his/her entry would not be bloodshed. — Regarding humans being animals, it’s foolishness to believe that human beings are animals. Regardless of how much a given culture may practice animism, and insist on acting like animals, it’s not morally reliable to pretend that such people do not have the imago Dei. — It’s taken the human race from the disintegration of the Babel society until recent centuries to start seriously debunking these two assumptions. According to the global covenant, only penalization of bloodshed justifies imposition of involuntary servitude. To this day, the issue that defines the limitations of secular government is this: To what extent is government lawful in its taxes, takings, incarcerations, capital punishments, forced labor, involuntary servitude – in short, in violating property rights of ordinary people. The answer to this question eluded the Genesis 11-12 generations. As long as out-of-control mega-government is the norm, the answer is elusive to us in the 21st century.
Footnotes
1 These maxims appear in bold-italic. They usually are not hyperlinks. — See typographical conventions.
2 By definition bloodshed always involves a physical act that results in physical damage to the victim. The bloodshed can arise either out of a contract (being ex contractu) or not out of a contract (being ex delicto). Either way, there is always some mental element, some element of the psychic field of perception and action, involved in the perpetration. An important part of the pursuit of justice in human courts is the establishment of a plausible linkage between the perpetrator’s mental state and the perpetrator’s physical act that resulted in damage to the victim. All physical acts leave physical evidence, even if it’s difficult for investigators to find it.
3 Or were totally fiat rules which were generally bloodshed perpetrated by tyrants.
4 As such, it doesn’t require consent from the suspect; although consent no doubt helps. It requires commitment and ability from those committed to executing retribution against bloodshed. And if such people agree and consent to work together to accomplish the execution, that certainly helps.
5 Just because people are equal in rights, it doesn’t follow that all people have the same ultimate destination, or the same privileges and disabilities.
6 This fact derives from the fact that Genesis 9:6 says, "Whoever sheds man’s blood".
7 This expression was concocted by Karl Marx.
8 This is both by common sense, and by monumental historical evidence.
9 With the fall’s disintegration of human perception into three seemingly disconnected fields, human perception of God’s law also became fragmented. Divine law, in written form, probably did not exist until the Mosaic Covenant. Since humans, after the breaking of the Edenic Covenant, were largely estranged from perception of the Spiritual field of perception – evidenced by their being duly kicked out of the garden (Genesis 3:24) – they were largely estranged from first-hand perception of the eternal law. Therefore, the only types of law available to human perception – with the exception the perceptual faculties of a few people, i.e., the elect – after the fall of man were natural law, divine law, and human law. Natural law was limited to these two things: (i)the Moral Law written on the heart of every human as a result of being created in the image of God, the perception and understanding of which, and the ability to live by which, were severely damaged by the fall; and (ii)whatever aspects of the "laws of nature" that humans could understand through their psychic and physical senses. The divine law was limited to whatever oral (and perhaps written) statements of the Covenant(s) that may have existed. Until the Noachian Covenant, human law did not exist at all except whatever human law may have been produced through contracts and by broadly-defined ecclesiastical societies. Since human law was largely arbitrary before the Noachian Covenant, between the promulgation of the Adamic Covenant and the promulgation of the Noachian Covenant, only divine law (in oral form), natural law, and rudimentary human law in the form of rudimentary contracts were accessible to the average human. During this period between the promulgation of these two Covenants, divine law existed, at most, as the law given by God in the Edenic and Adamic Covenants, probably expressed orally. So given the meagerness of divine law and the arbitrariness of human law, the Adamic Covenant operated almost entirely by way of natural law – from the human’s perspective at any rate.
10 Another possible mechanism might be to refuse to buy from him or sell to him, and refuse to make any new contracts or agreements with him. Such an embargo against Mr. X might be sufficient to make him either comply or resign participation in the broadly-defined ecclesiastical society. This kind of embargo doesn’t entail perpetration of any kind of delict against Mr. X.
11 Meaning the terms that do not by definition involve bloodshed ex delicto or ex contractu.
12 No penalty by humans, that is.
13 See the in personam jurisdiction of the jural compact.
14 In 1Corinthians 12:12, Rav Sha’ul makes an analogy between the aggregate believers in Yeshua HaMeshiach and Yeshua’s physical body. By doing this, he is saying that Yeshua’s physical body is a microcosm of the way His aggregate followers function. We’re making a similar analogy about societies in general.
15 Regarding perceptual disintegration, check out this link: the fall.
16 It’s important to recognize in passing that this transition from biases to gifts and callings cannot be initiated by the human will, but is initiated by a sovereign act of God, which changes the human will (without severing the human from moral accountability).
17 Regarding perceptual disintegration, check out this link: the fall.
18 Regarding the manner in which the two human obligations that are penalties against bloodshed interface with jural compacts and strictly-defined ecclesiastical compacts: Like the other five obligations that do not regard bloodshed, these two obligations regarding bloodshed require that the society consent to execute the penalties. But if the society refuses or fails in such consent, that doesn’t mean that the jural society or the narrowly-defined ecclesiastical society is relieved of their duties to enforce against bloodshed. Rather, it means that these societies are mandated to enforce against the bloodshed even if doing so entails recourse to vigilantism. This is because the mandates to avoid bloodshed and to execute justice against it fall on us as individuals, first, and as societies, second.
19 Reading Genesis 12-50, along with the last four books of the Torah (Pentateuch), as well as the four gospels, supplies ample proof that the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Messianic Covenants are blood Covenants.
20 Some Biblical Covenants are blood Covenants. Some are not. Example: The Davidic Covenant is not a blood Covenant.