Sobran’s: The Real News of the Month, March 2002 — In recent weeks I’ve been debating
with people I usually agree with: conservative Christians. Many of them feel
I’ve gone too far in the direction of philosophical anarchism, in defiance of
both Scripture and Catholic teaching.
One
reader, a self-identified Catholic socialist, went so far as to call my views
“heresy.” He cited particularly the encyclicals of Leo XIII and Pius XI. His
e-mail message was so intelligent, provocative, and yet charitable that I
answered him at some length, and we have had a long, friendly exchange ever
since. We’re still arguing, and neither of us is backing down.
I’ve
also been in touch with an old Protestant friend, now a minister, whom I
haven’t seen since high school. He too thinks Christian doctrine requires
submission to government, and he argues his case with a power and
sophistication I find especially impressive, considering the level of our old
Scripture-banging arguments in our school days.
The key text for Christians is chapter 13 of St. Paul’s Epistle to the
Romans, which begins: “You must all obey the governing authorities. Since all
government comes from God, the civil authorities were appointed by God, and so
anyone who resists authority is rebelling against God’s decision, and such an act
is bound to be punished. Good behavior is not afraid of magistrates; only
criminals have anything to fear…. The state is there to serve God for your
benefit.” This is from the Jerusalem Bible; the more familiar King James
Version says that “the powers that be are ordained of God.”
Many
Christians quote this passage to support the view that we owe allegiance and
obedience to the government. But this interpretation, though obvious at first
sight, soon raises difficulties for Christians. After all, the Christian
martyrs — including Paul himself — lived under pagan tyrants and chose to die
rather than submit to worship the emperor. Paul is thought to have died during
Nero’s persecution.
Later
Christian political thought was extremely varied and complex. But St. Augustine
took a dark view of earthly government, which, with slavery and war, he deemed
a consequence of original sin. St. Thomas Aquinas held that even unfallen man
would need government (as even good drivers need traffic laws), but he agreed
with Augustine that a positive law that clashed with divine or natural law was
unjust and void — a principle that might invalidate most statutes on the books.
Over
two millennia, pagan states were replaced by Christian states, which gave way
to secularist states. During all this time Christians have been forced to
grapple with many questions: What is a state? How do we recognize its
authority? What are its limits? Can we distinguish between legitimate and
illegitimate states? Is rebellion ever justified? Must the state defer to the
Church? Must the Church obey the state? All these difficult questions have been
further complicated by the experience of barbarian conquests, feudalism,
monarchism, religious divisions, dynastic quarrels, republican
constitutionalism, capitalism, nationalism, industrialism, mass democracy,
dictatorship, Marxism, totalitarianism, the welfare state, and of course war,
particularly total war.
Today
almost nobody holds the position of Romans 13 in its full rigor, if that means
a duty of unqualified submission to whatever regime happens to exist. Nearly
all Christians distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate regimes; if
rebellion is always a sin, how can we have a duty to obey the successful rebel
when he assumes power? Must we obey the tsar one day, and the Lenin who topples
him the next? Does Paul mean to say: “Thou shalt obey anyone who holds coercive
power over thee”?
Or consider the United States. Here,
“We the People” are in theory the sovereign authority, and our ruling officers
are mere servants. The powers “delegated” to those servants are defined and
limited by the Constitution. Must we obey them, even when they usurp powers
never entrusted to them? When they claim such powers, it would seem that “they”
are in rebellion against “us”, and we have no duty to obey. “Masters, obey your
servants”?
When there are so many kinds of states,
some of them mutually incompatible, the only defining trait they share is the
claim of a legal monopoly of coercion. Paul doesn’t assert that brute power
constitutes a right to command and compel. He must mean something else. But
what?
He says the civil authorities serve
God, and Christians can obey the law and be good citizens by simply keeping the
Commandments. Were these words meant to ward off suspicions that Christians
were subversive and to encourage them to respect human law, at least insofar as
it conformed to God’s law?
If so, Paul’s words may carry an ironic
meaning that would escape the Roman authorities. By positing a just government
— very unlike the rule of Nero — he may have been subtly implying that
Christians are “not” morally bound to cooperate with tyranny.
If that’s what he meant, maybe I’m not
such a heretic after all!
###
This article was published
originally in the March 2002 edition of Sobran’s: The Real News of the
Month.
Joe
Sobran was a brilliant writer. See bio and archives of some of his columns.
Copyright @ Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation
