Fair enough. Given this clarification, I overstated your position when I formulated premise I(2) as the claim that every integral feature of Israel’s governmental order is universally necessary.
However, I inferred that position from your repeated identification of Israel’s kingdom with “the biblical model,” together with your claim that Bob had omitted a major integral feature of that model. Your clarification narrows the argument considerably, so I withdraw that formulation of your premise.
As I now understand it, your argument is that God’s oversight performed an essential function in Israel, modern governments lack that function, and its absence leaves a structural gap that every modern proposal must address.
That narrower argument still contains the central disputed inference.
I agree with your first two points.
God’s active oversight performed an essential function within Israel’s governmental order. Removing that function necessarily produces a governmental structure different from Israel’s complete historical structure.
Your third point sneaks in an additional, unestablished premise. A difference between two structures establishes a structural gap only when the absent feature is necessary to the proper operation of both structures.
That remains to be shown.
God’s direct oversight may have been essential to Israel’s particular covenantal government while remaining unnecessary to legitimate Gentile government. Sections II and III of my formal argument addressed precisely that distinction.
Calling the absence a “gap” or “vacancy” assumes that Bob’s structure contains a position formerly occupied by God’s direct oversight and that some modern institution must now fill it.
You therefore need to demonstrate:
(1) What exact function of God’s oversight created the alleged vacancy?
(2) Why is that function necessary to just monarchy generally rather than to Israel’s particular covenantal administration?
(3) How does a standing human tribunal empowered to remove the king perform that function?
God’s oversight of Israel included selecting and rejecting kings, delivering direct revelation, enforcing His covenant, judging royal houses, directing national events, and preserving the Davidic and messianic line.
Your tribunal performs a much narrower function. It gives ordinary men jurisdiction to prosecute, judge, and remove the king.
The impossibility of reproducing God’s oversight does not establish that a human removal tribunal supplies an equivalent function. Describing your proposal as filling a vacancy first requires proof that the vacancy exists and that the institution fits it.
That depends upon what you mean by “constitutionally accountable to the law.”
Bob’s constitution binds the king to known law, assigns him defined duties, makes his actions publicly recordable, obligates subordinates to refuse unlawful commands, and leaves responsibility for the condition of the kingdom visibly upon him.
You appear to be using “constitutionally accountable” more narrowly to mean subject to prosecution and removal by another domestic authority.
Under that definition, the highest civil authority cannot remain the highest civil authority. Some higher institution must possess authority to judge and remove him.
The reasoning proceeds recursively:
- The king is designated as the final earthly authority.
- Under your definition of constitutional accountability, an authority possessing final and enforceable jurisdiction over another civil authority must itself be subject to an enforceable domestic check.
- Therefore, an institution must be established with authority to judge and remove the king.
[1, 2] - An institution possessing the final power to determine whether the king remains king exercises final earthly authority in that decisive jurisdiction.
- Therefore, the removal institution must itself be subject to another enforceable domestic check.
[2, 4] - The checking institution then occupies the same position described in premise (4), causing the reasoning to repeat.
The sequence either continues indefinitely or terminates in an authority that no higher domestic institution can judge or remove.
The first outcome produces an infinite regress. The second concedes that final earthly authority must terminate somewhere. Once that is conceded, the added hierarchy is redundant with respect to the stated purpose of placing every final authority under an enforceable domestic check, since Bob’s proposal already terminates final earthly authority openly in the king.
Allowing the chain to return to the king creates a circular structure that can deadlock. A removal body may seek to remove the king, a higher body may check that body, and the king may possess authority over the higher body and disable it to prevent the original proceeding from reaching him. Each institution can obstruct the others, leaving no clear point of final decision.
This is the “who watches the watchers?” problem addressed in points 2, 3, and 12 of post #489.
The available choices for your system therefore remain:
- The removal institution possesses final authority over whether the king remains king, without any higher domestic institution capable of enforcing accountability against it;
- some still higher institution possesses authority over the removers, which repeats the problem; or
- the chain of authority eventually returns to the king, creating a circular structure and preventing the removal process from functioning as an independent check.
You are welcome to provide another alternative, but those appear to be the only possibilities within your system. Bob’s proposal terminates final earthly authority openly in one visible and mortal king. Your proposal terminates it in whichever men ultimately control the removal process.
The conclusion that this difference amounts only to personal preference does not follow. As argued in points 3, 9, and 10 of post #489, and again in posts #493 and #496, the structures can be compared according to jurisdiction, accountability, susceptibility to capture, institutional permanence, and their consequences under righteous and wicked officeholders.
Your proposal retains the danger of a sinful king while adding a permanent institution capable of controlling him and successive kings. It therefore compounds the problem of sinful authority, sacrifices several benefits of concentrated royal authority, and adds substantial constitutional machinery to address an exceptional case.
Governmental structure should be no more complex than its legitimate functions require. Every additional office, procedure, and layer of review consumes resources, divides responsibility, and creates another potential point of institutional capture.
The proposed benefit is narrow and depends upon righteous administration of the process, while the added structure creates problems of jurisdiction, divided authority, institutional capture, and procedural overhead.
