The Bible is a most valuable book . . . being without error and all.
It is not, however, an exhaustive text on every single thing a human must know or even should know. It does contain all you need to know for salvation, but will, perhaps, let you down if you attempt to use it to answer the question: “How should a man relate to a modern republic?”
There are in it certain general principles that are true . . . but it would be difficult for it to deal with modern republics, since they did not exist at the time the last book in it was written.
Still fundamental truths about men are important because . . . they are fundamental truths about men. While the Bible will not help with the details of relating to modern governments, it will give us some parameters to start our own thought.
We can turn to Christians of all ages, such as our brother in Christ John Locke, to gain some insights into what the Bible does say about God and government.
What do I glean from this reading?
First, government has a role to play. It is instituted by God.
Second, government’s role is limited. Only God should receive our absolute allegiance.
Third, God has instituted other structures (family, church) that have their own areas of power and authority.
Fourth, in the final analysis, we are God’s children and so can serve no other master as the greatest authority. When God and government conflict, government must go to the Devil it is serving.
Fifth, God designed men for liberty. He placed a perfect man in a garden and let him choose . . . even badly. He is raising us from slaves to sons and so liberty is a good, though not (obviously) the only good.
There is an initial list of things the Bible has taught me . . . what would others add?
March 9th, 2010 | 11:43 am | #1
You cannot substantiate #5 from Scripture. Sorry. Especially if #1 is true.
I look forward to you attempting it.
Regarding #2 and #3, true enough — but that’s like saying the role of employment is limited. It’s an actual thing in the world discrete from other things and is therefore limited.
The problem, JMR, is that you continue to flee from the -biblical- fact that the primary role of government is to administer justice. That definition of Government is the Bible’s definition of Government — and all the limits are thereby circumscribed.
I ask you to go back to the previous thread on this subject and address my comments already made to you regarding the question of liberty as derivative of justice.
March 9th, 2010 | 11:46 am | #2
FWIW, I also think you have pretty broadly missed the copious advice the Bible gives us regarding the way pilgrims in this world should also be good citizens. Your compatriot Hugh Hewitt has the same problem.
It’s a shame that this is how you view the Bible. Maybe after I finish my series on atheist existential problems, I’ll help you with a series on Biblical citizenship.
March 9th, 2010 | 12:01 pm | #3
The Bible is not a political text book. Agreed. I also agree with you, John Mark, that most of the points you list above are in accordance with biblical revelation. However, Frank Turk is correct:
This is where Locke, who may or may not have been an orthodox Christian (see below), has his limitations. Government is definitely not established by a social contract amongst individuals fleeing the state of nature; it is ordained by God to do justice. If we conceive government as the product of contract, the logical implication is that the parties to the contract can change its terms if they so please. This was not lost on the later liberals, who decided they wanted a more expansive state that would provide an array of services to the public.
This stands in tension, of course, with the earlier liberal emphasis on the limited state which undertakes only to protect life, liberty and property. Yet by conceiving civil government as a contract, the door was left open to this later development.
I would go so far as to argue that Locke’s political thought is transparently derivative. He employs the overarching Hobbesian narrative, including most of the latter’s fundamental categories, but cannot quite bring himself to accept all of its radical implications. This is where he leans to some degree on an older tradition mediated by Richard Hooker. Yet Locke laid the foundations for liberalism and what it has become today. The logic of the Hobbesian worldview eventually overcame Hooker’s appreciation for a higher law.
As for Locke’s religious convictions, here is something from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
March 9th, 2010 | 12:43 pm | #4
As to Locke’s Christianity, I will leave off with what he wrote and assume he meant it. Any thing else is (fairly) useless to me.
March 9th, 2010 | 12:44 pm | #5
Frank:
Did God Adam the choice to disobey?
John Mark
March 9th, 2010 | 12:46 pm | #6
Jesus said:
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
March 9th, 2010 | 12:47 pm | #7
I agree that a primary role of the government is to administer justice.
March 9th, 2010 | 12:55 pm | #8
I should say that I find the argument that Locke was not orthodox very unpersuasive. Against the claims of the philosopher himself we have:
1. Locke “got” Newton to write something heretical. Well, I have encouraged students and friends to work out their views in print as well. Some of those views are heretical. Will that mean that I will be associated with those ideas over against my stated disagreement with them?
2. Locke may/did not believe in a state church.
Am I missing some other piece of evidence?
Bottom Line: If someone says they are Christian, defends Christianity in print, writes on the Bible all the time, chats in such a manner with his bishop, I think it safest to say he was (some kind) of Christian.
I can see why many moderns would like to believe Locke was not what he said he was, but why should we doubt it?
As to Locke’s work inevitably leading to Hobbes, why think this? Just the difference in his state of nature seems adequate to sustain a real difference.
If there is one thing we can be sure motivated Locke, it was the right to replace bad government.
Still, this is your area so I will defer to your expertise.
March 9th, 2010 | 12:59 pm | #9
JMR with h/t to Frank Turk: “I agree that a primary role of the government is to administer justice.”
Prima facie, and with biblical warrant, this is a fine statement.
*BUT* the Linguistic Perverter can do awful things with the word “justice.”
Does anyone else’s spidey sense start tingling when they hear the phrase “social justice”?
Ironically, the mantra of “social justice” can be used to bludgeon and bully folks into suffering an injustice.
The term “justice” to a LibProt or a Secular Liberal means something very different to a conservative.
That’s all I’m saying.
March 9th, 2010 | 1:30 pm | #10
John Mark Reynolds:
The fact that both Hobbes and Locke used the very concept of state of nature is significant. Yes, Locke believed that the rules of right were strong enough to assert themselves in this state, which was different from Hobbes’ bellum omnium contra omnes. Nevertheless, both believed in some fashion in a pre-social, or at least pre-political, state in which human beings live in a state of perfect liberty, with all of its disadvantages. This is a very different account of humanity from what we find in the biblical tradition.
Furthermore, the very conception of government as the product of a voluntary contract lay at the beginning of the larger liberal enterprise to recast virtually every human community, e.g., marriage, as a voluntary association. Here’s Locke’s Second Treatise:
Commendably, Locke proceeds in the subsequent sections to extol “the wisdom of the great Creator, who, having given to man an ability to lay up for the future as well as supply the present necessity, hath made it necessary that society of man and wife should be more lasting than of male and female amongst other creatures.” Yet this does nothing to alter the fact of Locke’s having reduced the marital union to a “voluntary compact.” The result is a somewhat less than robust defence of the uniqueness of the institution of marriage.
Locke may or may not have been an orthodox Christian. I make no effort to assess something that only God himself can know for certain. Yet if we assume for the sake of argument that he was, that in itself cannot necessarily commend his political theory as congruent with a biblically Christian view of man.
I am not saying the Locke was bad or that he was not right about many things. His argument against Filmer’s divine-right defence of monarchy was fundamentally correct. Yet one needs to exercise caution in touting him as a distinctively Christian thinker.
March 9th, 2010 | 1:33 pm | #11
I prefer to think of social justice in the way the bible teaches it…over and over and over.
March 9th, 2010 | 2:13 pm | #12
To clarify David . . .
You say:
Nevertheless, both believed in some fashion in a pre-social, or at least pre-political, state in which human beings live in a state of perfect liberty, with all of its disadvantages. This is a very different account of humanity from what we find in the biblical tradition.
I say:
Surely we need not think Locke believed the state of nature (SON) a literal history, but a statement about man qua man.
After all he says:
“To those that say, there were never any men in the state of nature, I will not only oppose the authority of the judicious Hooker, Eccl. Pol. lib. i. sect. 10, where he says, The laws which have been hitherto mentioned, i.e. the laws of nature, do bind men absolutely, even as they are men, although they have never any settled fellowship, never any solemn agreement amongst themselves what to do, or not to do: but forasmuch as we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with competent store of things, needful for such a life as our nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity of man; therefore to supply those defects and imperfections which are in us, as living single and solely by ourselves, we are naturally induced to seek communion and fellowship with others: this was the cause of men’s uniting themselves at first in politic societies. But I moreover affirm, that all men are naturally in that state, and remain so, till by their own consents they make themselves members of some politic society; and I doubt not in the sequel of this discourse, to make it very clear.”
The SON
He also says of it:
Sec. 6. But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence . . .
There is a higher divine law that limits (theoretic) man in the SON. This seems a large protection against Hobbes or the Leviathan state.
As to Locke’s religion:
I see no reason not to call a man a Christian thinker who:
1. lived in a Christian society
2. called himself a Christian
3. went to pains to argue with his Bishop he was Christian
4. wrote works defending the Faith.
5. took pains to argue his views were compatible with Scripture
He might be inconsistent or wrong about his integration of the Faith and his philosophy, but if he was not a “Christian thinker,” then I don’t know what that term means in normal use.
March 9th, 2010 | 3:16 pm | #13
“It is not, however, an exhaustive text on every single thing a human must know or even should know.”
Then why the heck are you a young earth creationist?
March 9th, 2010 | 3:36 pm | #14
I love trick questions.
Before or after the Fall, Dr. JMR?
March 9th, 2010 | 3:59 pm | #15
I’ll attempt to jump into that trick question… but really getting back to the original point.
Did God design men for liberty? I hope so but I’m honestly not certain how I would build a Biblical case for it. Still have a lot to learn…
But I wouldn’t use the “liberty” that God gave Adam as the argument for it. The reason why is that the liberty God gave Adam in the garden isn’t liberty as we would call it in human government. In human government if you get punished for doing something then we wouldn’t say you have the liberty to do it. Real liberty is the ability to do something without punishment from authority.
My home of Virginia gives me “Adam’s Liberty” to go to a gun shop, purchase a gun, and kill someone. And Virginia will try and punish me.
March 9th, 2010 | 5:04 pm | #16
Rich:
It’s funny that Adam got punished for what he did before the Fall, isn’t it?
March 9th, 2010 | 5:09 pm | #17
Frank, I don’t get it. Inside joke?
March 9th, 2010 | 5:43 pm | #18
1) Obey our rulers.
There is no exception for bad rulers or rulers whose policies we don’t agree with. There are no exceptions unless a ruler commands us to do something God forbids or forbids us to do something God commands. When that happens, Daniel provides the example of how we are to disobey: with quiet humility and respect.
2) Pay our taxes.
3) To behave in a humble and Christlike manner, even (especially?) when we disagree with our leaders.
(We lose Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Moore, and Keith Olberman on that last one).
March 9th, 2010 | 6:09 pm | #19
[...] the Evangel Blog at First Things, John Mark Reynolds discusses what he’s learned from the Bible about Civil government. He asked readers to share what they’ve learned. Here’s my [...]
March 9th, 2010 | 6:47 pm | #20
Locke again:
And now John Mark:
This may be true, but if this is a statement about man qua man, that’s scarcely more reassuring, as it is not an accurate description of political life anywhere. We do not voluntarily make ourselves members of the body politic. We are born to citizenship and thereby incur all the rights and responsibilities thereof. In fact, the most significant institutions in any society are not voluntary at all. I did not choose the family into which I was born. Yet the Decalogue tells us we are to honour our parents who gave birth to us and whom we did not freely choose.
Similarly there is no hint in Romans 13 that the governing authorities owe their legitimacy to popular consent. Such consent is, of course, important to their ability to govern; but it is not foundational to it.
So even if one were to argue that Locke was speaking of proximate as opposed to ultimate source of authority, his social contractarian approach to the state is still wanting on a basic level.
March 10th, 2010 | 2:35 am | #21
Kenneth, that is a very well-conceived explanation for a biblical response to pagan (i.e. non-theocratic) government constructs. I love it, especially what you say about how Daniel is the example for Civil Disobedience.
In the beginning, there was no government. Governments started with the line of Cain and this is associated with idolatry and warfare in Genesis 4. From the beginning, it’s given a decidedly negative cast.
And yet, God is sovereign. He will not leave something outside His control, so He regulates governments in ways we cannot know. He moves countries around like pieces on a chessboard.
Since He is a God of order, it is wrong to forcefully resist the ruling authorities, because order is preferable to chaos. Chaos is God’s enemy.
The sad part is, most people don’t take Romans 13 to its logical conclusion. They stop at saying “we’ve got to obey the American government if there’s a draft,” but conveniently forget that warfare is always against a government — a “ruling authority.” Christians in America may not bear arms against *any* government, per Romans 13. I don’t get why people miss that.
March 10th, 2010 | 11:48 am | #22
JMR: “I agree that a primary role of the government is to administer justice.”
How about the concept of “social justice” informing a Christian University’s Department of Education’s conceptual framework for producing teachers?
See this link:
http://www.baylyblog.com/2010/03/tim-last-week-wheaton-colleges-teacher-education-program-conceptual-framework-was-big-news-a-radio-commentator-named-sand.html#more
Excerpts:
“mission to prepare teachers as agents of change in the schools: (1) teaching for social justice, (2) making informed decisions, and (3) acting responsibly. These three central themes are the unit’s primary purposes and their supporting research forms the philosophical basis for (our) conceptual framework.”
Teaching for social justice is addressed in all of the unit’s classes to ensure that the candidates both understand and are able to demonstrate a respect for all [emphasis in original] individuals regardless of any particular characteristics, belief systems, or disabling conditions.
The issue of teaching for social justice has generated significant discussion in recent Teacher Education Advisory Committee meetings [TEAC is Wheaton's Ed. Dept.'s advisory committee] as the partners discussed changes in their schools. Based on these discussions, the unit has delineated three broad goals related to social justice. These broad goals are further interpreted in highly specified outcomes incorporated into each class/experience; and measurements in the form of key assessments related to standards promulgated by …national specialty organizations (that) ensure that all of the candidates are learning to teach for social justice…“
March 10th, 2010 | 12:03 pm | #23
I have never been sure what the phrase “social justice” means.
I am for justice.
March 15th, 2010 | 7:30 am | #24
[...] John Mark Reynolds [...]
March 15th, 2010 | 9:01 pm | #25
When “social justice” is used in public policy discussions, it generally appears (to me) to be used as an argument that the wealth and other benefits held within society are not evenly distributed, and that social justice would consist of redistributing the wealth of society so each person receives an eqaul share of it. That is certainly the driving goal behind the current Democratic Party Health Care “Reform” bill.
President Obama told meetings of rabbis and Christian ministers that Americans (collectively) have so much wealth (even in these difficult economic times, apparently) that it is immoral and unChristian for them to not share that wealth liberally with others who do not have it. However, whatever the teaching of Jesus Christ about the duty to love our neighbors and care for the poor, Jesus did not advocate that the government should confiscate the wealth of all men, and then assume the power to distribute it according to its own pleasure. Even Jesus, whom Christians believe to be God, did not presume to command all people uniformly on how to redistribute wealth.
As far as I can see, one man’s “social justice” is a personal injustice to all the individuals whose assets are appropriated under threat of punitive fines and even imprisonment. It is not an injustice, per se, when one man has fewer assets than another. The most significant factor in making the difference is time. Most young adults have had no time to accumulate savings or to earn a significant income. They are still acquiring the skills and experience needed to merit a large paycheck, and investments are based on saving one’s income plus taking time to invest and allow capital to grow. Persons who are moderate in their personal habits can care for themselves and their families and grow in both income and accumulated assets over time. Young adults have not yet made the sacrifices needed to acquire what they can earn over a lifetime. It is not at all clear that forcibly taking assets from those who have earned them over decades of work and self-sacrifice, and giving them to persons who have not yet made the same personal investment, is in any way just.
Those who claim that people with assets are being “selfish” about their earnings are trying to distract us from the fact that the redistributors want to take money they themselves never earned and give it to other people who never earned it. It is not selfish to keep what one has earned–your own house, car, clothing, furniture, savings. In America, everyone who has any assets at all has already paid a substantial part of their earnings to the government. What they have saved is a residue, a remainder. Any government leader who thinks he can spend your assets more wisely than you can, while being profoundly ignorant of who you are and what you need and how you would distribute your funds, is an arrogant elitist. All the talk of the sacrosanct principle of “choice” is tossed out the window when it comes to one’s own money. You can have sex any way you want, according to Progressives, but heaven forbid you should try to control your own money. It seems clear that the focus on uninhibited sexual activities is premised on the fact that sex is the one remaining entertainment available once your money has been taken from you.
March 15th, 2010 | 11:31 pm | #26
What Raymond Takashi Swenson just said.
Very good comment. Very good.
March 16th, 2010 | 7:03 am | #27
If Jesus says we will be judged one day on how we treated the poor and needy
and
If we live in a civil society that is dependent upon each member voting and participating in the decision making process
Then – why should we not attempt to influence that society based upon how Jesus tells us to live?
Then, the biblical test of any society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. We should encourage, vote for, public policy decisions in terms of how they affect the poor
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