Lux Lucet

So far in this series on Christian philosophy, we have looked at three of the four major philosophic disciplines. First was epistemology, the theory of knowledge. It answers the question, How do you know? Second came metaphysics, the theory of reality. For those who have not previously studied philosophy, these terms may seem a bit strange or intimidating. Ethics, the theory of conduct, was third. Ethics is a more familiar term for us. It answers the question, What ought we to do ?

This post will address the disciple on politics. Politics is the theory of government. As you may suppose, there are many different views on government. Men differ on the origin of government – is it a natural institution?; does it arise from the consent of the governed? – the proper scope of government – should government be minimal or involve itself in every area of one’s life? – and what form of government – democracy, republic, or monarchy – is ideal.

The Origin of Government

In his book A Christian View of Men and Things, Gordon Clark raised the question, “How does a government get, not the power, but the right to coerce its people?” This may seem like a strange question to many people. For the most part, folks accept the existence of government in much the same way they accept the fact that the sun rises in the east, or the grass is green, or the sky is blue. But this is an important question. For if government cannot be justified in any form, there is no use in discussing its proper scope or form.

Historically, there have been several answers to Clark’s question. Aristotle, for example, believed that government was a natural institution. In one of his lectures on philosophy, John Robbins described Aristotle’s view thus, “People grow into states the way that acorns grow into oak trees.” Another view is the social compact theory: governments derive their coercive authority form the consent of the governed. Still another view is that government is power. This was the view of historian Oswald Spengler, who held that, “Great statesmen like Caesar or Napoleon act immediately on the basis of a flair for facts. Their action is not sicklied o’er by the pale cast of thought. If indeed ther ar any general principles of politics, they never enter the heads of great men” (Clark, A Christian View of Men and Things, 95). These views of government, diverse as they are, all have one important element in common: God, the God of the Bible, does not matter in any of them.

Christian political theory rejects all these answers to the origin of government. The Bible teaches us, in the words of Gordon Clark, that, “The existence of the state is a partial punishment and cure for sin” (A Christian View of Men and Things, 100). Government bears the power of the sword, the power of coercion, in response to man’s sin. Proof of this can be seen in Genesis 3:24, which reads, “So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”
Civil government was not a natural institution, it was not part of the original created order, it came about after the fall of Adam. Writing in Romans 13 about the civil magistrate, Paul makes this same point where he tells us, “[H]e does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.”

The Scope of Government

What is the proper role of government? What is its purpose? Depending on whom you ask, you

Aristotle. Detail from The School of Athens by Raphael.

will get a very different answer. Take Aristotle, for example. He believed that the state should be involved in every aspect of society. There was no private space in an Aristotelian state. According to Clark,

He [Aristotle] prescribes that the citizen should be molded to suit the form of government under which he lives. By a system of public education the government is to impress its own type on each of the citizens. Parents are not to be permitted to educate their children. Private schools would be made illegal, and everybody would be indoctrinated by the State Board of Education. The reason is that no citizen belongs to himself; all citizens belong to the state; and the care of each one is inseparable from the care of the whole (A Christian View of Men and Things, 80).

This view of the government is known today as fascism. Benito Mussolini gave a succinct summary of the fascist view of the proper scope of government in the following words, “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

On the other extreme from Aristotelian fascism is anarchism, which asserts that civil government, the state, has no legitimate place. That government, even in the most minimal form, is an intrusion on what is a man’s rightful liberty. Historically, anarchists tend to also be socialists of some sort or other. But in the second half of the 20th century, a new form of anarchism was developed by Murray Rothbard. Rothbard altogether rejected the notion of the state, believing, contrary to the Scriptures, that society could run itself without a government. Oddly enough for one committed to anarchism, Rothbard held a favorable view of the totalitarian Roman Catholic Church-State.

The Christian theory of politics is not totalitarian like Aristotle’s, neither is it the anarchism of Murray Rothbard. The Biblical view of the role of government is that it is both legitimate and limited. Government exists primarily to punish evildoers. John Robbins states it this way,

Government has a legitimate role in society: the punishment of evildoers, as Paul put it in Romans 13. That is the only function of government that Paul mentions. Education, welfare, housing, parks, roads, retirement income, health care, or any of the other programs in which government is involved today are illegitimate. The fact that government is involved in all these activities is a primary reason why government is not doing its own job well: The crime rate is rising, and the criminal justice system is a growing threat to a free people. The innocent are punished and the guilty remain unpunished (What is Christian Philosophy?).

Many people, including many Evangelicals who describe themselves as politically conservative, would have a hard time swallowing the notion that the government is not to be involved in education, housing, parks, roads and retirement income. So much as talk about doing away with the Social Security Administration and you’ll quickly find out just how many conservatives, despite their rhetoric about the virtues of personal liberty, really do love big government.

The United States Constitution was drafted by a people with a Biblical view of the role of government. The functions of the federal government were limited and were clearly spelled out. But Americans today do not hold to the Christian beliefs of the nation’s founders, and the result is that they do not share the founds belief in limited government either.

The Form of Government

As it does regarding the role and scope of government, the Bible also answers the question, What is the proper form of government? In short, the answer is this: a constitutional republic. 19th century Presbyterian minister E.C. Wines wrote a book titled The Hebrew Republic in which he made the argument that, contrary to what many people in his time and ours believe, the constitutional republican form of government in the US does not trace its roots in ancient Greece and Rome. Rather, it has its origins in the Bible, in the government God gave to Israel in the law of Moses. John Robbins explains,

God established a model government in ancient Israel, and it is the only government for which he gave explicit rules. While many of those rules applied solely to ancient Israel – cities of refuge, for example – others apply to all governments. The judicial laws of Israel expired with that nation, but it is possible to discern general principles in the Old Testament laws that may be applied to modern governments.

As for the form of government, God established a republic in Israel. The nation was divided into twelve tribes, much as the United States is divided into fifty states. Each tribe had its own territory and border, each had its own local government; and the nation as a whole had a national government. There was no king; there was no powerful central government. The government consisted mostly of judges; there was no legislature to create new laws each year, only judges to settle disputes in accord with the laws that God had already given (The Sine Qua Non of Enduring Freedom).

But Republican government, despite its Biblical sanction, seems to have fallen out of fashion, even among those who argue for personal liberty. If given the choice, the anarcho-capitalists at LewRockwell.com would rather live under a monarchy than in a republic. The following is fairly typical of what you’ll find on Rockwell’s site,

Hans Hermann Hoppe has been widely recognized for stating the advantages of a traditional monarchy over that of what is essentially mob rule [the author later clarifies what he means by “mob rule” as including republican governments]…While it is true that monarchies fil to provide the libertarian panacea many naturally crave it is also an intellectual mistake to envision a republican or democratic form of government as the ideal for liberty (Ryan Bassett, The Biblical Nature of Hoppean Monarchism).

All governments are bad, in the eyes of LewRockwell.com, but some are worse than others. And republics, in the estimation of the acolytes of Rothbard and Rockwell, are among the very worst of the lot. It is fascinating to this author how even those who claim to stand for personal liberty and private property can be so blind to the Biblical sanction and historical vindication of republican government. They have, as it were, a veil over their hearts.

Conclusion

As with all areas of thought, a Christians views on politics must be taken from the pages of Scripture. Christians are not to be totalitarians. Big government is not only bad government, it is also sinful government. Christians are not to be anarchists. The Biblical view of man as fallen and depraved requires civil government as a restraint on man’s natural bent toward sin. The proper form of government is not a matter of guesswork. The only government explicitly sanctioned in the Bible was a republic. And since Christian epistemology, the theory of knowledge, states that all knowledge is found in the express statements and logical implications of Scripture, it is proper to conclude from the Scriptural evidence that constitutional republics alone are considered properly constituted governments in the eyes of God.