A Reply To Kinsella's "Thoughts On RLP Episode 24"

Kerry Baldwin and I thank Stephan Kinsella for considering and interacting with what we say in Reformed Libertarians Podcast episode 24, "Why Non-Christian Libertarians Should (And How They Can) Become Christians." We're glad he recognizes that we're on the same page about what libertarianism is. His work has brought tremendous clarity to foundational issues, from which we've learned a great deal. And we highly recommend his writings on libertarianism (for example, see here). 

Stephan has asked several important and relevant questions regarding our argument for religious non-neutrality, and the following is a start at answering those questions. We have argued at least three things his questions concern. First, in episode 24, we presented an argument that something must be self-existent. Second, not elaborated in episode 24, but in episode 19, we argued, among other things, that theories and concepts by necessity ultimately presuppose something as self-existent. And third, also in episode 19, we argued that taking something as self-existent is a religious belief. What we say in episode 19 goes some way in answering some of Stephan's questions. But here we will try to answer his specific questions directly.

These are the questions we answer:

1. What do these arguments (seek to) explain?
2. What do the terms ‘self-exist’ and ‘depend,’ as we use them, mean?
3. Why is belief in something as self-existent the right definition of religious belief? Isn't religious belief, rather, about belief apart from reason and evidence?
4. If everyone is religious, even if without knowing it, why not say everyone is a Christian, even if without knowing it?

It's important to clarify that none of our arguments mentioned above are intended as arguments for the existence of any god, let alone the Christian God, or for the truth of Christianity. The Thomistic (5 ways) arguments, the moral argument, and the ontological argument, are arguments for God's existence. However, the 11-lecture series on Philosophy Of Religion (linked in the shownotes of episode 24), at a semi-popular level, elaborates on why we don’t take such arguments to be good arguments, and in fact why the project of seeking to “prove” God's existence is fundamentally misconceived. 

It's also important to clarify that we recognize libertarianism can be held upon various differing grounds. We also recognize that affirming what libertarianism is, is enough to be libertarian regardless of one's grounds. To put it in other terms, we agree that libertarianism, as such, is “thin.” What we deny is that anyone holds to it “thinly,” that is without, at least implicit, grounds.

If one were to say, “look, I don't know why, but self-ownership, property right, and the non-aggression principle just seem right to me,” then we don't dispute that one is holding to libertarianism. However, further questions can be asked. Despite not being aware why it seems right to you, it could be asked what “seems right to you” means. Maybe it means it seems to fit with, or at least to not obviously conflict with, other things about the world that also simply seem right to you. And there you have grounds (if implicit) for your libertarianism in however “the world” seems to you to be. It's not that one must justify one's libertarianism in order to believe it. Rather, if one did seek to justify it, then such a justification would be grounded in some view or other of how things more broadly seem to you to be.

We can see this at work in the way some people, after initially claiming to believe it, have talked themselves out of libertarianism exactly by asking themselves such further questions. After identifying something about “how things more broadly” seem to them to be that conflicts with libertarianism, they abandon their belief in libertarianism. After further reflection, their grounds for affirming libertarianism appeared weak, and rather than changing their view of the world, they changed their minds about libertarianism. I don't suppose Stephan necessarily disagrees that this is how our minds and beliefs tend to operate. But I offer the explanation to clarify that we are not trying to argue that one must pronounce on this or that view of the basic nature of reality in general, or on what one takes to be self-existent, in order to affirm libertarianism. And yet, we do argue that such grounds are necessarily implied by anyone's affirmation of it. 

1. With that distinction clarified, we're in a better position to see the answer to the first (as I number it above) question. What do these arguments seek to explain? What are we trying to explain by arguing that a.) something must be self-existent, b.) theories and concepts ultimately presuppose something as self-existent, and c.) taking something as self-existent is a religious belief?

The answer is this: we're seeking to explain the (perhaps surprisingly) religious character of the ultimate grounds inevitably implied by one's belief in libertarianism. One may respond by saying, first, this seems counter-intuitive to me, and second, no one need pronounce on what grounds, nor needs to justify, one's libertarianism to believe it.  Our reply to this is yes, if you don't consider yourself or any of your beliefs to be at all religious, you will likely find this surprising or counter-intuitive, and yes, we agree that no one need pronounce on (or even be conscious of) grounds for, and no one need justify, one's libertarianism to believe it.

2. In episode 24, we argued this way that something must be self-existent:

“ Self-existence means being in a way that doesn't depend on anything else. Anything that exists either depends on something else for its existence, or it doesn't (in which case it is self-existent). Considering all that exists, either some part of it exists in ultimate dependence upon some other part that is self-existent, or no part depends on any other part, in which case the whole, necessarily, would be self-existent since there's nothing else for it to depend on. So, either some part of all that exists is self-existent, or the whole is self-existent. Any view of reality necessarily entails one option or the other. If anything exists, then something has to be self-existent. ”

In order to understand what is being argued here, the sense of ‘depend’ has to be understood. The general sense of ‘depend’ here is “require as an ultimate (pre)condition” for something's existence. So, ‘y’ depends on ‘x’ in this sense where ‘x’ is a necessary, ultimate condition for ‘y’ to exist. While a more particular sense of ‘depend’ can be relative to a more particular view of the two kinds of things in relation, this is the general, meaningful sense of ‘depend’ that obtains in every case. 

This may still seem too abstract to grasp a firm idea of it. And further, there is at least one type of view of what exists that tends to obscure this meaning of ‘depend,’ given that in such a view actual dependency is excluded, since only one thing exists. The following examples and further descriptions may clarify.

Suppose you held to a particular sort of physicalism or materialism. You believe that all that exists is purely and exclusively matter-energy. To exist is to be material; to be material is to exist. There isn't anything non-material that can exist. In this view, matter-energy is not a “part” of all that exists. Rather, matter-energy simply is all that exists (although matter-energy may be variously configured). In such a case, nothing other than matter-energy is taken to be a necessary ultimate condition, because there simply is nothing else. Matter-energy is unconditionally non-dependent, which is to say self-existent. It exists in a way that doesn't depend on anything else for its existence. So, to exist and to self-exist are identical. This view excludes anything actually depending on anything for its existence, since only material exists.

Such a view may be understood in terms of one or another sort of so-called strong reductionism. One sort of strong reductionism might be called “meaning replacement.” The nature of reality is exclusively that of ‘x’ (in this case, material) so all things have only properties of ‘x’ and are governed only by laws of ‘x.’ All terms supposed to have non-x meaning can be replaced by x-terms without loss of meaning, while not all x-terms can be replaced by terms supposed to have non-x meaning. Another sort of strong reductionism might be called “factual identity.” While, here too, the nature of reality is exclusively that of ‘x’ so all things have only properties of ‘x’ and are governed only by laws of ‘x,’ in this case, although the meaning of all non-x terms cannot be reduced to that of x-terms, their reference is, nevertheless, to exclusively x-things.

Now suppose you held to a different sort of physicalism or materialism. You believe that ultimately all that exists, and so the nature of reality, is most basically matter-energy. Some things that are not purely and exclusively material exist, but whatever non-material properties there are (or whatever non-material laws might govern them), it is only something's materiality that makes possible any other kinds of properties (or laws).

Such a view may be understood in terms of one or another sort of so-called weak reductionism. One sort of weak reductionism might be called “epiphenomenalism.” Non-x (in this case, non-material) properties exist, but all things are governed only by laws of ‘x.’ All genuine explanations must be given exclusively in x-terms. Another sort of weak reductionism might be called “causal dependency.” Here, there are non-x properties and non-x laws, however there is a one-way causality. Whatever non-x properties and laws exist could not exist without ‘x,’ while ‘x’ can exist without anything non-x. In either view, ‘x’ is unconditionally non-dependent, which is to say it is self-existent, because it exists in a way that doesn't depend on anything else for its existence. 

Unlike the cases of strong reductionism, with weak reductionism there are some things with non-x properties (or also laws) that exist and depend on ‘x’ for existence. And even though with strong reductionism, there is only what is self-existent, and nothing else to depend on it, the general sense of ‘depend’ as “require as an ultimate condition” for existence is still meaningful (if only instantiated negatively, in terms of non-dependence). So, the particular examples and further descriptions given should also help clarify what it means to self-exist, namely to be unconditionally non-dependent, or to exist in a way that doesn't depend on anything else for its existence. To “not depend” means to not require (anything) as an ultimate condition. So to be self-existent is to exist in a way that doesn't require anything else as an ultimate condition for its existence.

3.  But, why is belief in something as self-existent the right definition of religious belief? Isn't religious belief, rather, about belief apart from reason and evidence? The primary reason that belief in something as self-existent is the right definition of religious belief is that it is the only feature or element that all (what are commonly called) “religions” have in common. A view of faith as belief apart from reason and evidence is not a common feature of all religions; Reformed Christianity being one example of a religion with a different view of faith (namely, a view of faith as not apart from reason and evidence).

In episode 19 we addressed the possible objection that in order for belief in something as self-existent to be a properly religious belief, it must involve worship or ethics. But, that simply doesn't hold up under examination of various religions, as we explained. Still another possible objection is that granting belief in something as self-existent is the only feature all religions have in common, it doesn't necessarily follow that belief in something as self-existent is always a religious belief, because (even if unconsciously) taking something as self-existent is also (at least implicitly) implied by any and every theory or concept. 

Our concisely stated answer to that objection is this: as an equivalent and competing belief in something as self-existent to the belief in, for example, the Christian God, no belief in something as self-existent ceases to be an equally religious belief simply because it occurs in the context of a theory or concept. Whatever anyone takes to be self-existent (although what that may be can vary widely) plays the same role as grounds for the system or complex of one's beliefs as it does in religions, and is held on the same basis, namely, self-evidence.

In any case, it's certainly understandable why, for example, physicalists or materialists would prefer not to use the term “religious” in application to their own beliefs about the unconditionally non-dependent (self-existent) status of matter-energy. Since they associate (tho without warrant) all religious belief with irrationality, or as being apart from reason and evidence, then avoiding the term “religious” for their belief in something as self-existent is an attempt to make their beliefs look uniquely rational.

4. If everyone is religious, even if without knowing it, why not say everyone is a Christian, even if without knowing it? The answer is this: everyone who holds to any theory or concept (for example, the political philosophy of libertarianism) meets the criterion of having a religious belief, viz, that the given theory or concept, at least implicitly, implies some grounds in a view of the nature of reality and of something as self-existent. However, not everyone meets the criterion of being a Christian, viz, trusting in the person and work of Christ alone on their behalf for full and free salvation from the just penalty they deserve of God's everlasting condemnation as guilty sinners. 

In these replies, we hope we have offered clear and persuasive (if only initial) answers to Stephan Kinsella's questions. Of course, more questions can be asked. (Or perhaps we unintentionally missed a question). It may be, however, that further clarification requires consulting the more elaborate argument presented in Roy Clouser's The Myth Of Religious Neutrality. Nevertheless, our replies here might be helpful in elaborating what we say in episode 24.  Thanks, again, to Stephan, for all his work on libertarianism, and for graciously taking the time to interact on these issues.

 

 

How I Became A Reformed-Christian Libertarian-Anarchist

 some autobiography in which I recount
several factors in the development of my political views

Text originally published here: https://libertarianchristians.com/2025/02/19/a-reformed-path-to-libertarian-anarchism/

https://youtube.com/watch?v=yMh52HKHt5o

[ I'm an independent researcher and writer in philosophy, and co-host of the Reformed Libertarians Podcast. My primary interest is in developing and promoting the Neo-Calvinist philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd, the Reformed covenant theology of Meredith Kline, and a Reformed Christian perspective on libertarian-anarchism. ]

Unlike religion, politics was not a consciously prominent feature of my childhood. Nevertheless, without much reflection, I absorbed the political attitudes and opinions of my parents. In the home of my youth, from my birth in the early 70s through the 80s, it was largely treated as a given that the less government interference in society, particularly in the economy, the better. 

A central idea was that the United States Federal Government had gone fundamentally astray during FDR’s administration (1933-1945) with its economic interventionism. Constitutionally conservative political reform was necessary to restore the Republic, and to defeat domestic commies and all their pinko enablers. All this was obvious (so it seemed at the time), and so I didn’t think about it much.

However, in high school, I took up the anti-abortion cause, handing out pro-life pregnancy center info and evangelizing outside murder clinics, and so on. In my own minority religious community, and in the broader Christian community, abortion was considered (not wrongly, if myopically) the great societal evil of our day. Whatever the immorality of economic interventionism, legally permitting the mass slaughter of babies was a greater crisis, comparable to the enormity of Southern slavery, but worse. This was my political awakening. And, in a striking way, it brought personal and societal morality, politics, religion, and science, all together in a heady and revolutionary mixture. Abortion, or the anti-abortion cause, became a force that dragged me deep into my own religion and its civilizationally-significant philosophical meaning.

The minority religious community in which I was raised (largely in Baltimore, Maryland) was the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, within the camp of “traditional” confessionally-Reformed churches in the U.S. and Canada. The Reformed religion was once held by a majority of Americans, from colonial times until the early 1800s. However, today, there are only about half a million of us. That’s less than fifteen-hundredths of one percent of the U.S. population. There are about as many Amish and Old Order Mennonites in the U.S. as there are confessionally-Reformed Christians. 

Despite our vanishingly-small numbers, we possess a rich and fruitful devotional and intellectual religious heritage. And it was this religious heritage that I came to embrace, consciously and fervently, in my teen years, and that deeply shaped my philosophical and political development. (For those interested in an introduction to this form of Christianity, see “Recommended Reading” at the end of this essay.)

During high school, I read a number of Reformed theological classics, and books by more recent Reformed thinkers. Among the more recent, I read several books by Francis Schaeffer, who significantly helped build the pro-life movement among conservative Protestants. I was particularly inspired by his book The God Who Is There and by A Christian Manifesto. In Manifesto, one of the things that stood out to me was the confessionally-Reformed teaching on Romans 13:1-7. The view of that passage (and others like it, such as 1 Peter 2:13-17) held by the majority of Reformers, was that God only prescriptively ordains civil governance to use “the sword” or coercion against wrongdoing. 

When those who claim civil power create and enforce laws that do otherwise than punish actual wrongdoing, then they are unjust and tyrannical, and no one is required to submit to unjust or tyrannical power. Schaeffer particularly highlighted the book Lex, Rex by Samuel Rutherford who said, for example, “[While civil rulers act] against God’s law, and all good laws of men, they do not the things that appertain to their charge and the execution of their office; therefore, by our Confession, to resist them in tyrannical acts is not to resist the ordinance of God.”

The year after high school, I took a gap year teaching English in Japan. Besides exposing me to a substantially unfamiliar culture and social context, strange beliefs, values, institutions, and customs, and so broadening my sense of human experience, it gave me an opportunity to reflect on the meaning and significance of religious belief for history. That year one book that shaped my reflections was The Two Empires in Japan by John M. L. Young. This book helpfully recounts the history of conflict between a largely compromised Christianity with the predominant Shinto-Fascist Nationalism in Japan.

My first year in college (at a Reformed, Liberal Arts school in Georgia), when I was old enough to vote, I met and conversed with a visiting speaker on campus, Howard Phillips. He convinced me of the crucial importance of the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the political philosophy of strictly limited government (classical liberalism) that served as its foundation. I became a member of the political party, of which he was a key founder, which came to be known as the Constitution Party. I wasn’t really politically active. However, believing that the U.S. government (not to mention most, if not all, local and particular state governments), as a matter of established policy, persistently violated the supposed “rule of law,” and so was in practice, if not in principle, illegitimate, provided plenty of opportunity to share my increasingly anti-government views. 

In the years following, I began to realize that the U.S. government had not only started to go wrong with FDR, but progressively violated its own Constitution and the principles of liberty from the beginning (e.g. The Whiskey Rebellion of 1791-1794), and that the Constitution itself was an unlawful power-grab, against which the anti-federalists had warned.

In college I also read, and was strongly influenced by, the writings of Neo-Calvinist theologians Abraham Kuyper, particularly his famous Lectures On Calvinism as a worldview, and Meredith G. Kline, particularly his book Kingdom Prologue. I also discovered the writings of Neo-Calvinist (or “Reformational”) philosophers Herman Dooyeweerd, for example, his book Roots Of Western Culture among others, and Roy Clouser, and his book The Myth Of Religious Neutrality that superbly explains key elements of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. These and other writings that articulated a Reformed worldview, a view of redemptive-historical Reformed covenant theology in Scripture, and a Reformed philosophical view of the basic nature of reality, continue to represent the biblical and theoretical perspectives from which I view life, religion, culture, society, and politics.

My fourth year of college, I took only one semester, and another single semester in a fifth year. Then I dropped out of school in 1997, not having finished my Bachelor’s, feeling frustrated and disillusioned with, among many other things, the college’s inability to provide deeper instruction in Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. After five difficult years of working numerous odd jobs and personal struggle (with a two year sojourn in southern California, where I also audited some evening courses at a Reformed seminary), I was able to enroll for a final year at a different Reformed, Liberal Arts college (in Ontario, Canada) that had a much stronger emphasis in Dooyeweerd’s philosophy, and finished my BA. 

The infamous 9/11 attacks had occurred only a few years before. And the U.S. government’s tyrannical response in the so-called Patriot Act and unjust invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, served to thoroughly undermine what remained of any naive “benefit-of-the-doubt” assumptions I had concerning the state’s supposed interest in protecting and promoting liberty and justice in domestic or foreign affairs.

Around 2003, I also became aware of Ron Paul, a medical doctor, who at the time was a U.S. representative for the 14th congressional district in Texas (that covered a coastal area southeast of Houston). Mostly through a friend who worked in his D.C. office, I became familiar with Paul’s long-time, solitary effort in the Federal Congress, standing for actual constitutional limits on government and for the political and economic liberty envisioned by many of the U.S. Founders.

Two years later, I enrolled at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam in a philosophy Master’s program. In the year and a-half I studied there, I focused on the philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd (who had been a professor at that university from 1926-1965). I especially focused on his so-called transcendental critique of theoretical thought, political and societal philosophy, and theory of what is called societal “sphere sovereignty.” Better understanding Dooyeweerd’s view of sphere sovereignty (a theory of the normative natures of, and relations between, distinct kinds of societal communities) significantly contributed to my eventual conversion to full-fledged libertarian-anarchism. However, during that same period, I also began an independent study in economics.

Through my acquaintance with the efforts of Ron Paul, I became aware of the Mises Institute, a research and educational non-profit dedicated to promoting (among other things) understanding of the Austrian school of economics. I found a large quantity of academic sources from the Mises Institute for my independent study. I became persuaded of an Austrian view of praxeology (the study of necessary pre-conditions for human action), its premise of “methodological individualism,” the importance of these for a proper understanding of economics, and of a thorough-going free market view. The central idea of methodological individualism is that only individuals intentionally or purposefully act. And this fact is not at odds or in tension with ideas important to sphere sovereignty, such as the reality of communities that cannot be reduced to inter-individual relations, and a non-individualistic conception of society. 

Worth mentioning here is that my study in economics and praxeology also led to discovery of ideas that significantly helped me understand other areas of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. Often enough, discoveries in one field of study or even within a given school of thought can illuminate problems or ideas in another. This is a fact I believe many Christian libertarians have discovered in recognizing the mutually supporting beliefs of their religion and political and economic views.

My study of economics led me to the writings of Murray Rothbard, an Austrian economist and historian who also wrote on political theory. Two works crucial to my conversion to libertarian-anarchism were Rothbard’s books For A New Liberty and The Ethics of Liberty (text here; audio here). Alongside those and many of Rothbard’s other writings, I was also influenced significantly by articles and lectures by Roderick Long, who is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University. In particular, I was helped by “Rothbard’s ‘Left And Right’: 40 Years Later” (text here; video here), “Libertarian Anarchism: Responses To Ten Objections” (text here; audio here), and his ten-lecture series “Foundations Of Libertarian Ethics” (audio here; video here). 

I remember very distinctly, one day in October 2008, while listening to the final lecture of the Foundations series, “An Anarchist Legal Order,” the proverbial light turned on in my mind. It took a few months, as I remember, to get used to the idea that I was now a convinced anarchist. At first, I didn’t dare admit it to anyone. The very notion seemed almost too shocking, even while I was fully persuaded of it. However, being able to see how the total rejection of aggression (or the initiation of coercion, and threat of it) against another’s person or property, and therefore, a total rejection of the monopoly state as an inherently unjust and illegitimate distortion of God-ordained civil governance, was not only entirely compatible with, but in fact, supported by my religious and philosophical convictions, reassured me that (however shocking), it was right to hold to libertarian-anarchism.

A few years after becoming a libertarian-anarchist, I moved outside the U.S. and taught English until mid-2018. During those years, I had begun sketching-out how to articulate the Reformed religious perspective on libertarian anarchism. In 2019, my friend Kerry Baldwin and I had begun brainstorming about creating a podcast devoted to explaining and promoting our shared views. By the end of 2020, we had written The Reformed Libertarianism Statement (and Principles), and in late 2022 we began recording episodes of the Reformed Libertarians Podcast as part of the Christians for Liberty Network. If you want to find out more about the Reformed Faith, the Reformed view of libertarian-anarchism, and why we believe them, you may find the podcast helpful.

Politics (including the politics of libertarian-anarchists) is by no means the solution to all of life’s problems. And on this side of Christ’s return in glory to judge the living and the dead, and to establish the new heavens and earth, even salvation doesn’t solve all our personal and societal woes. Nevertheless, as those who trust in Christ alone for our salvation, growing in our knowledge of Him, we can also grow in our understanding of what the Christian Faith means for our whole lives, including politics, in service to Him. The Lord does not promise that “it gets better” in this life, and that is not our ultimate hope. But it is our great privilege and joy, insofar as we may, to work for a politics that is more in keeping with the ordinances He has revealed.

Recommended Readings for an introduction to confessionally Reformed Christianity

• Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, by Michael Horton
• The Study Guide to The Westminster Shorter Catechism, by G. I. Williamson
• The Study Guide to The Heidelberg Catechism, by G. I. Williamson
• With Reverence And Awe, by Darryl Hart and John Muether