Appendix B: Glossary of Key Terms

This glossary provides concise definitions of technical terms used throughout this book. Each entry includes a cross-reference to the chapter where the term is most fully explained or employed.

1689 Federalism

The covenant theology articulated by seventeenth-century Particular Baptists, especially Nehemiah Coxe, which understands the old and new covenants as distinct covenants rather than different administrations of a single covenant of grace. This position maintains that the Mosaic covenant has expired as a covenant while its moral substance (reflecting God’s eternal character) continues to instruct. The 1689 London Baptist Confession reflects this covenantal understanding.

See: Introduction; Chapter 13 (Conclusion), “The Covenant Context: Why This Matters for Baptists”

Antithesis

The fundamental division between two spiritual orientations: submission to God’s law as Kingdom citizens, or rebellion against God in autonomy. Scripture knows no neutral ground between these postures. The antithesis runs through every domain of human existence, including civil law and public life. Augustine developed this theme through his contrast of the “City of God” and the “City of Man.”

See: Chapter 8, “The Myth of Neutrality”; Appendix A, Affirmation F

Case Law

The specific judicial statutes in the Mosaic legislation that apply the moral principles of the Ten Commandments to concrete situations. Case laws function as “worked examples” showing how the Decalogue governs social life in matters of property, labor, family, injury, testimony, and public order. While their form is bound to ancient Israel, their function often contains general equity applicable to any just society.

See: Chapter 4, “General Equity as Exposition”; Chapter 5, “The Philonomic Method”

Christonomocracy

A proposed term for a form of civil government in which human magistrates rule under the authority of Christ the King, applying His revealed moral law (general equity) to civil order, without claiming the supernatural mechanisms (Urim and Thummim, prophetic revelation, theophanic guidance) that characterized Israel’s theocracy. The term combines Christos (Christ), nomos (law), and kratos (rule): “rule under Christ’s law” or “rule under the law as in the hands of Christ.” Christonomocracy is distinguished from theocracy in that Christ rules mediately through magistrates applying His written Word, rather than immediately through ongoing supernatural revelation. It is distinguished from secularism in that magistrates acknowledge Christ’s authority over all civil affairs and seek to govern according to His moral law. The term emphasizes Christ’s unique possession of all three offices (Prophet, Priest, King) while affirming that earthly magistrates participate only in His kingly rule without usurping His prophetic or priestly functions.

See: Chapter 11, “A New Term: Christonomocracy”

Civil Righteousness

The concept distinguishing external conformity to just laws (which civil government can require) from personal righteousness before God (which only the Spirit can produce). Civil righteousness is the proper aim of civil law; it does not require regeneration but does require honest dealing, truthful testimony, and respect for others’ rights. A society composed entirely of unregenerate persons could still exhibit civil righteousness if its members conformed outwardly to just standards, though such conformity would have no saving merit. This distinction is essential to philonomy’s claim that the Mosaic law was designed for an unregenerate society: the law aimed at civil righteousness, not at producing the regenerate hearts that only the gospel can create.

See: Chapter 1, “Justice for the Unregenerate”

Curse of Knowledge

A cognitive bias in which those deeply familiar with a subject find it difficult to remember what it was like not to know it. In philonomic interpretation, the curse of knowledge manifests when interpreters steeped in Scripture assume that metaphorical or typological readings are obvious, skipping the hard work of demonstrating why the literal form cannot transfer and how the underlying function can be discerned. The discipline of wooden literalism serves as a remedy, forcing the interpreter to slow down, prove what he might otherwise assume, and show his work, making explicit the steps that expertise might otherwise compress into unexamined intuition.

See: Chapter 3, “A Methodological Note: The Discipline of Wooden Literalism”

Decalogue

The Ten Commandments (from Greek deka logoi, “ten words”), given by God to Moses at Sinai and recorded in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. The Decalogue functions as the constitutional core of Mosaic legislation, summarizing the moral law written on the human heart. The surrounding case laws operate as its exposition, showing what obedience and violation look like in lived circumstances.

See: Chapter 4, “General Equity as Exposition”; Chapter 10, “The Role of the First Table”

First Table / Second Table

A traditional division of the Ten Commandments into two “tables” based on their primary orientation. The First Table (Commandments 1-4) concerns duties toward God: exclusive worship, prohibition of idolatry, reverence for God’s name, and Sabbath observance. The Second Table (Commandments 5-10) concerns duties toward neighbor: honoring authority, prohibiting murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and coveting. This division is not explicitly stated in Scripture but has been historically useful for understanding the law’s dual orientation toward God and neighbor.

See: Chapter 10, “The Role of the First Table”

Form vs. Function

A methodological distinction central to the philonomic hermeneutic. Form refers to those elements of a law that are historically, geographically, or technologically bounded: elements belonging to ancient Israel’s particular circumstances that cannot be directly transferred to other contexts (e.g., oxen treading grain, flat-roofed houses, specific livestock values). Function refers to the moral reasoning that the form was designed to implement: the principle of justice that the command embodies. The form may expire; the function often contains general equity. In the seven-step philonomic method (Chapter 5), this distinction is made in Step 3, after wooden literalism (Step 1) has identified what cannot transfer and exhaustive presuppositional analysis (Step 2) has surfaced all the text’s assumptions. The function emerges from the presuppositional analysis; it is discovered, not imposed. Owen’s scholastic vocabulary maps directly onto this distinction: his materia (subject-matter) corresponds to what we call form, and his ratio formalis (formal reason) corresponds to what we call function.

For laws where the form/function boundary is ambiguous, Owen’s formal-reason test (Step 4b) provides additional discriminating power by tracking the underlying rationale diachronically across redemptive-historical epochs.

See: Chapter 4, “General Equity as Exposition”; Chapter 6, “Deuteronomy 25:4 as the Litmus Test”; Chapter 5, “The Philonomic Method”

Formal Reason (Ratio Formalis)

The underlying rationale for a command – the why behind it, as distinguished from the what (the subject-matter or materia). John Owen introduced this distinction in his exposition of Hebrews 7:4, arguing that mere continuity of practice across redemptive-historical epochs does not prove moral permanence; the formal reason must also be constant. “But where not only the subject-matter, but the formal reason of the command is the same, there it is of natural equity, and unalterable.” If the subject-matter persists but the formal reason varies across epochs, the specific form is not “of natural equity, and unalterable,” though the moral substance may persist. The formal-reason test is incorporated into the philonomic method as Step 4b. In this book’s vocabulary, Owen’s ratio formalis corresponds to what we call the function of a law – the moral reasoning the form was designed to implement. See also: Form vs. Function; Subject-Matter.

See: Chapter 5, “Step 4b: Owen’s Formal-Reason Test”; Chapter 4

General Equity

Those moral and judicial principles embedded in Israel’s law that transcend its ceremonial and national particulars. The term appears in the Westminster Confession, the Savoy Declaration, and the 1689 London Baptist Confession, all of which affirm that the judicial laws of Israel “expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require” (1689 LBCF 19.4). General equity is not a principle extracted away from the case laws but a principle revealed through them: the moral reasoning that the specific form was designed to implement.

See: Introduction; Chapter 4, “General Equity as Exposition”; Chapter 5

Mosaic Economy

The comprehensive social, religious, and civil order established by God through Moses for the nation of Israel. This includes the moral law (summarized in the Decalogue), the ceremonial law (governing worship, sacrifice, and priesthood), and the judicial or civil law (governing social relations, property, crime, and public order). Philonomy affirms that the Mosaic economy constituted a just society from which wisdom may be drawn for any culture.

See: Introduction, “The Foundational Premise”

Moral-Positive Law

A category introduced by John Owen (Vol. 2, Exercitation III) for laws that have their “foundation in and respect unto somewhat that is moral” but “stand in need of the superaddition of a positive command for their due observation.” Such laws have a moral core (function) that is given concrete institutional expression (form). The moral foundation persists; the positive determination may expire. The form/function distinction in the philonomic method maps directly onto Owen’s moral-positive category.

See: Chapter 4; Chapter 5

Modus

A Latin term meaning “manner,” “method,” or “mode”: the means by which a goal is achieved. In the philonomic framework, modus refers to the particulars of implementation that lie beyond the magistrate’s competence to determine or enforce. The distinction between telos (end) and modus (means) is especially important regarding the Second Commandment’s constitutional expression: while a covenant constitution may establish pure, regulative-principled worship of the Triune God as its aspiration (telos), the determination of what such worship actually requires in practice (which elements are commanded, which forbidden, which indifferent) belongs exclusively to the churches (modus). The magistrate neither prescribes Presbyterian liturgy over Baptist simplicity nor adjudicates disputes about the regulative principle. This distinction allows a Christian commonwealth to articulate sacred aspiration without collapsing church and state or empowering civil coercion in matters of worship.

See: Chapter 10, “The Role of the First Table”; Conclusion

Philonomy

Literally, “love of the law” (from Greek philos, love, and nomos, law). A hermeneutical framework for identifying and applying the general equity of Mosaic law. If a general-equity theonomist says “that’s just a hermeneutic for general-equity theonomy,” we count that a success. The name evokes Psalm 119:97: “Oh how I love your law!” Philonomy emphasizes that the Christian loves God’s law and desires obedience in every sphere of life while recognizing that the form of Mosaic legislation has expired even as its function often endures. Philonomy articulates the common ground where uppercase-T Theonomists and those skeptical of Theonomy can stand together against antinomianism.

See: Introduction, “The Philonomic Syllogism”; Conclusion, “Common Ground”

Presuppositionalism

An approach to Christian apologetics and epistemology associated with Cornelius Van Til and John Frame, which holds that all reasoning proceeds from foundational presuppositions. There is no neutral ground from which to evaluate competing worldviews; every attempt to reason from “neutral premises” smuggles in assumptions that are worldview-dependent. This insight is central to Chapter 4’s argument that legal and political neutrality is a myth.

See: Chapter 8, “The Myth of Neutrality”

Triperspectivalism

A methodological framework developed by John Frame which holds that all of reality can be viewed from three interdependent perspectives: Normative (what God’s Word commands or reveals about standards), Situational (the facts and circumstances to which the standard applies), and Existential (how persons experience and respond to the situation). These three perspectives are not three different truths but three ways of viewing the same truth; each perspective implies and includes the others. In the philonomic method, triperspectivalism serves as an aid for exhaustive presuppositional analysis (Step 2), ensuring the interpreter considers what a text assumes about God’s moral order (Normative), the circumstances being addressed (Situational), and the experienced reality of those involved (Existential). Case laws are by nature heavily Situational, since they work out what the Normative standard (the Decalogue) looks like in concrete circumstances. The Existential dimension reminds us that these situations involve real creatures who experience justice and injustice, not merely abstract principles being applied.

See: Chapter 5, “Triperspectival Aid for Thoroughness”

Qal Wahomer

A Hebrew term (literally “light and heavy”) for a rabbinic pattern of reasoning from lesser to greater cases. If a principle applies in a lesser case, it applies with even greater force in a weightier case. Paul employs this reasoning in 1 Corinthians 9:9-10 when he argues from Deuteronomy 25:4: if God cared enough about justice to legislate for oxen (the lesser case), how much more must this principle apply to human laborers (the greater case)? This hermeneutical pattern demonstrates how the apostles themselves read the Mosaic case laws as morally instructive.

See: Chapter 6, “Deuteronomy 25:4 as the Litmus Test”

Seed Laws

Regulations in the Mosaic legislation specifically designed to preserve the genealogical line until the promised Seed (Christ) arrived. These include laws governing land inheritance within tribes, levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5-10), tribal boundaries, and the preservation of Israel as a distinct covenant people set apart from surrounding nations. The purpose of these laws was typological and prophetic: they ensured that the line through which Messiah would come remained identifiable and intact. With Christ’s advent (“Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ” [Galatians 3:16]), these laws have fulfilled their purpose and no longer bind. The Seed has come; the genealogical preservation is complete.

See: Chapter 3, “Seed Laws: Preserving the Genealogical Line”

Seed / Offspring (Zera)

The Hebrew word zera is rendered in English translations as both “seed” and “offspring”; these are not two different concepts but translation choices for the same Hebrew term. “Seed” preserves the agricultural metaphor; “offspring” renders the meaning more idiomatically for modern readers. This linguistic fact is theologically significant: Paul’s argument in Galatians 3:16 about “offspring” (singular) versus “offsprings” (plural) is an argument about the Hebrew word zera and its singular form pointing to Christ as the promised Seed. The agricultural metaphor is rich: one seed can produce many plants, and the one Seed (Christ) contains all the offspring (the church) in Himself. The laws against sowing mixed seeds (Leviticus 19:19; Deuteronomy 22:9) may also connect to this theme, serving as agricultural parables reinforcing the principle of keeping the messianic line pure until the Seed comes.

See: Chapter 3, “Seed Laws: Preserving the Genealogical Line”

Subject-Matter (Materia)

Owen’s scholastic term for what a command is about–the concrete action, situation, or practice it addresses. In the philonomic vocabulary developed in this book, Owen’s materia corresponds to what we call form: the historically situated elements of a law that belong to a particular time and place. Owen distinguished materia from ratio formalis (formal reason); the philonomic method distinguishes form from function. The terms differ; the conceptual distinction is the same. See also: Form vs. Function; Formal Reason.

See: Chapter 4; Chapter 5, “Step 4b”

Synchronic / Diachronic

Two complementary hermeneutical orientations. Synchronic analysis examines a law as given at a single point in redemptive history, surfacing its presuppositions, separating form from function, and mapping it to the Decalogue. This is what the philonomic method’s Steps 1-7 do. Diachronic analysis tracks a practice through time, comparing its rationale across redemptive-historical epochs (pre-Mosaic, Mosaic, post-Mosaic). This is what Owen’s formal-reason test (Step 4b) does. The synchronic method has universal scope (it applies to any Mosaic law); the diachronic test has limited scope but higher resolution where it applies.

See: Chapter 5, “Step 4b”; Chapter 4

Theocracy

A form of civil government in which God Himself is the immediate, formal ruler of the state, exercising direct legal authority through special revelation, prophetic mediation, or divinely appointed offices. Ancient Israel uniquely qualifies as a theocracy because God explicitly claimed kingship over the nation and issued civil law directly through Moses and the prophets. Philonomy explicitly rejects theocracy for post-apostolic nations while still affirming the continuing relevance of general equity and the civil significance of God’s moral law.

See: Chapter 11, “Kings Are Not Priests”

Telos

A Greek term meaning “end,” “goal,” or “purpose”: the ultimate aim toward which something is directed. In the philonomic framework, telos refers to the aspiration that a covenant constitution may articulate without presuming to enforce its particulars. This distinction is central to the Second Commandment’s constitutional expression: a Christian commonwealth’s foundational covenant may declare that its religious telos is pure, regulative-principled worship of the Triune God, while acknowledging that the churches (not the state) possess both the calling and the spiritual discernment to determine the modus (manner) of such worship. The constitution establishes the telos; the churches determine the modus. This creates an elegant structure that honors both civil and ecclesiastical authority: the magistrate affirms the aspiration and leaves its implementation where it belongs.

See: Chapter 10, “The Role of the First Table”; Conclusion

Theonomy

Literally, “God’s law” (from Greek theos, God, and nomos, law). In its broadest sense, every Bible-believing Christian should be theonomic, affirming that God’s law is authoritative. In its more specific, uppercase-T sense, Theonomy refers to the modern movement (associated with R.J. Rushdoony and Greg Bahnsen) advocating for the continuing validity of Mosaic judicial law, often accompanied by postmillennial eschatology and strong covenantal continuity. Philonomy distinguishes itself as lowercase-t theonomic (affirming God’s law) without necessarily adopting all the distinctive positions of uppercase-T Theonomy.

See: Appendix A, “Introduction and Purpose”; Conclusion, “Common Ground”

Threefold Division of the Law

The traditional Reformed categorization of Mosaic law into moral, ceremonial, and judicial (or civil) components. The moral law (summarized in the Decalogue) reflects God’s eternal character and is binding for all times and places. The ceremonial law governed Israel’s worship and pointed typologically to Christ; it has been fulfilled and abrogated. The judicial law governed Israel’s civil and social life; it has expired as binding statute, but its general equity remains instructive. This division, while not explicitly stated in Scripture, has been affirmed by Reformed confessions as a useful tool for understanding the law’s continuing relevance.

See: Chapter 4, “General Equity as Exposition”; Chapter 7, note on John Owen

Typology

The study of how persons, events, and institutions in the Old Testament foreshadow and point forward to greater realities fulfilled in Christ and the new covenant. Many elements of the Mosaic economy were typological: the priesthood pointed to Christ’s perfect mediation, the sacrifices to His atoning death, the land to heavenly rest. Typological elements, once fulfilled, do not continue in their original form. However, the moral reasoning embedded even in typological institutions may still instruct, since shadows teach us about the substance.

See: Introduction; Chapter 7, “The Threefold Office and 1689 Federalism”

Wooden Literalism

The discipline of taking a Mosaic law with complete, even absurd, literalness as the first step in interpretation, before reasoning about what transfers. The interpreter lists every element that makes the law impossible to implement today: geographic specificity, institutional dependencies, agricultural context, economic structures, and covenant-specific elements. This forces the interpreter to establish what cannot transfer before asking what does transfer. The term is somewhat ironic: philonomy does not ultimately advocate wooden literalism, but uses it as a methodological discipline to slow down interpretation and prevent premature metaphorization. Wooden literalism is Step 1 of the seven-step philonomic method.

See: Chapter 3, “A Methodological Note: The Discipline of Wooden Literalism”; Chapter 5, “The Philonomic Method”

Presuppositional Analysis (in the Philonomic Method)

Step 2 of the seven-step philonomic method, in which the interpreter surfaces exhaustively everything the text assumes but does not state. This includes assumptions about existence and ontology, authority and obligation, relationships and hierarchy, the work or activity described, needs and nature of parties involved, the prohibited or commanded action, moral logic and reasoning, value and worth, what the law reveals about the Lawgiver, and the existential/experiential dimension (how parties experience the situation). This step must be thorough and is performed before the form/function distinction (Step 3). The goal is to discover what the text takes for granted about justice, authority, and human nature. The function will emerge from this analysis rather than being imposed upon it.

To ensure thoroughness, the method employs a triperspectival aid (see Triperspectivalism): the interpreter considers each element from Normative, Situational, and Existential perspectives. This approach is adapted from Knud Lambrecht’s work on pragmatic presupposition in linguistic theory (Information Structure and Sentence Form, 1994), which asks what propositions a speaker assumes the hearer already knows or takes for granted. Applied to biblical law, this surfaces what God assumes His people understand about reality, morality, and human nature when He issues a command.¹

Presuppositional analysis in this sense is related to, but distinct from, Van Tilian presuppositionalism in apologetics — though both share the conviction that every utterance rests on a foundation of unstated assumptions that must be made explicit before it can be properly understood.

See: Chapter 5, “The Philonomic Method”; Chapter 6, “Deuteronomy 25:4 as the Litmus Test”

Commandment Domain

The sphere or category of moral concern addressed by each of the Ten Commandments. In the seven-step philonomic method, Step 5 identifies which commandment domain a case law addresses before mapping it to a specific commandment (Step 6). The ten domains are: (1st) Ultimate Authority; (2nd) Worship Form; (3rd) Sacred Speech; (4th) Appointed Times/Places; (5th) Human Authority; (6th) Life and Person; (7th) Marriage and Sexuality; (8th) Property Rights; (9th) Trial and Due Process; (10th) Heart and Contentment. This broader categorization helps locate a case law’s moral concern before identifying the specific commandment it expounds.

See: Chapter 5, “The Philonomic Method”

Presupposition Library

A cumulative collection of assumptions that interpreters surface as they work through case laws using the philonomic method. Because presuppositions recur across texts (e.g., “God has authority to command,” “property rights are real,” “the powerful must not exploit the powerless”), maintaining a running list allows interpreters to recognize patterns and build theological depth over time. This is a practical tool, not a formal term of art.

See: Chapter 5, “Building a Presupposition Library”

A Note on Usage

These definitions aim to clarify how terms are employed within this book. Other authors may use some terms differently. The reader is encouraged to evaluate any theological term by its definition and biblical warrant rather than by associations it may carry from other contexts. The philonomic project invites careful attention to what Scripture actually teaches about law, justice, and society, not what various camps have claimed Scripture teaches.

Where disagreement exists about these definitions, the appropriate response is to return to the text of Scripture and reason together under its authority. “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD” (Isaiah 1:18).

A forthcoming companion volume, Presuppositional Hermeneutics: A Cognitive-Linguistic Framework for Biblical Interpretation, develops this presuppositional analysis into a full cognitive-linguistic method. The two works are designed to be complementary: this book supplies the theological framework (Steps 1, 3-7); that book supplies the linguistic depth for Step 2. ↩