# Rushdoony on Profanity



## RamistThomist (Nov 27, 2007)

To analyze now a few basic facts with respect to swearing, it must be noted, first, that forbidden swearing is essentially and necessarily linked to religion. It is profanity, outside God and against God. It represents, where the name of God is involved, an illicit and hostile use of God's name, or a dishonest use thereof. Much of the primitive and modern swearing cited by Montagu is obscenity rather than profanity. Primitive swearing as well as modern invokes sexual and excremental words and subjects.10 This is a significant fact. In order to appreciate its signifi¬cance, let us review a few of the central facts. Godly oath-taking is a solemn and important religious act. Man aligns himself under God and in conformity to His righteousness to abide by his word even as God abides by His word. Godly swearing is a form of vow-taking. But ungodly swearing is a deliberate profanation of the purpose of the oath or vow; it is light use of it, a contemptuous use of it, to express contempt for God. But ungodly swearing cannot remain merely negative or hos¬tile: it denies God as the ultimate, but it must posit another ultimate in God's place. Godly oaths seek their confirmation and strength from above; ungodly swearing looks below for its power. Its concept of the "be¬low" is Manichaean to the core: it is material. Hence, ungodly swearing finds its power, its "below," in sex and in excrement. The association is significant. Even while protesting the "Puritanism" of Biblical mo¬rality, the ungodly reveal that to them sex and excrement are linked to¬gether as powers of the "underworld" of the unconscious, the primitive, and the vital.

This means, therefore, that, third, profanity is a barometer. It is indicative of revolution in process. It is an index to social deterioration and degeneration. The psychological significance of profanity is not lost on a revolutionary age; profanity is championed with evangelical fervor. It should surprise no one that a dictionary of slang and pro¬fanity was widely promoted as an invaluable reference work for high school libraries in the early 1960s.12 True education involves, for a profane world, an integration downward into the void, to use Cornelius Van Til's apt phrase. Knowledge of God is barred from the schools, but knowledge of profanity is encouraged. Revolution is invited and encouraged in a society which seeks an integration downward, and profanity is an index, a barometer, of this revolutionary integration downward.

_Institutes of Biblical Law_, 108-110


----------



## BlackCalvinist (Nov 28, 2007)

Pretty nice. Can't say I disagree with him one bit.


----------

