Around Memorial Day (on May 30th, to be exact) I
updated my Facebook status: “In a broken world the State wields a sword to stop
injustice, anticipating the day when righteousness covers God’s good earth.”
People began leaving comments, proving two things. First, I never know what comment
will prompt a discussion. I never imagined this one would generate any interest
at all, but it did. The second thing it proved—because two commentators
requested it—was that I should visit the topic here, inviting discussion. So,
here we are.
Two friends left comments on Facebook that identify a good
place to begin our discussion. Ethan Calvert: “in a broken world, the State
exists.” And Scott Hoaby repeated something attributed to Martin Luther: “that
if people do right then government is not necessary.”
I respectfully disagree. To be as clear as possible I will
define the question we are discussing as I understand it and provide three
reasons for my position. Then I will look forward to your comments.
The issue explained. As I understand it the question we are
discussing involves the source of the state or of government in the affairs of
human life. One possible answer is that it arose at the Fall, when sin
distorted God’s world and the need for authority wielding the “sword”
(mentioned in Romans 13) became necessary to punish evildoers, to maintain
order, and achieve justice. A second possible answer is that government was a
potential inherent in Creation, like so much that developed as history unfolded
(such as the arts and sciences), to allow finite creatures to flourish in an
orderly community, and the need for it to wield the sword is simply a sad—and
thankfully temporary—legacy of the Fall.
The first possible answer—that government arose because of
the Fall and will be unnecessary when righteousness is fully restored—tends to
be popular among Christians. An implication of this view is that because
government is a temporary measure, necessitated only because injustice and evil
exists, its existence and scope is very limited. Any role the government
assumes that is outside its mandate to restrain evil is assumed to be
illegitimate and dangerous. When Christ returns, righteousness will fill the
earth, government will no longer be needed and so will pass away. This
perspective has much to commend it. In a fallen world government needs to be
carefully limited, and the history of oppression and violence perpetuated by
State power sadly continues to this day. Governments in a fallen world tend to
breed bureaucracies, bureaucracies breed inefficiency, and inefficiency breeds
waste and corruption.
Still, I would propose that the second possibility—that
government was a potential (like art and science) inherent in Creation rather
than a temporary result of the Fall—is a more satisfying understanding. I will
mention three reasons.
#1. Being finite is a limit too. As creatures of God made in
his image, we live with two great limits—we are both fallen and finite. We are
fallen, meaning that our natures have been bent away from the Creator’s
original purpose for us so that we constantly seek autonomy from God, the
source of life and light and goodness, embracing as a consequence death and
darkness and brokenness. In a fallen world, government is required to restrain
evildoers, using force as needed (the sword) to provide a measure of justice.
But we are also finite, meaning that even if not fallen we could not know all
there is to know. If righteous and finite, we will still see only as much as our
finite minds and imaginations can take in at any moment, which will never be
fully complete (or infinite). A world of finite righteous creatures will still
need and yearn for a proper and loving ordering in their existence so that opportunities
are not inadvertently misappropriated and so that every finite creature is
given their proper due at the proper time and place. Though I want to be
careful about pushing the text too far, even among the angels there seems to be
those who are described in terms of leadership or government, broadly defined
(Joshua 5:14; Daniel 10:13). The first possibility (government arising from the
fall) provides only for fallenness, while the second possibility (government
arising from creation) provides for both limitations, being fallen and finite.
We are fallen for time, finite for eternity.
#2. The biblical hope. My second reason for commending this
perspective comes from the vision we are given for the future in the Scriptures.
The description of the new heaven and new earth is not described in terms of
the righteous anarchy of a garden but the orderly government of a kingdom. The
concept of kingdom, unfolded throughout the biblical revelation implies not a
lack of government but leadership fully redeemed and righteous, one that does
not need to wield a sword against evildoers, but that brings compassionate
order to the multitudinous population of finite creatures seeking to serve and
love God, world without end. We are given only hints of the future kingdom, but
those hints include images of servant leadership, for example, elders on
thrones around the throne of God (Revelation 4:4).
#3. A Reformed philosophy. My third reason for commending the
idea that government is rooted in creation not the fall comes from the work of
a Dutch philosopher whose work has influenced my thinking. Herman Dooyeweerd
(1894-1977) was a legal scholar who taught at the Free University of Amsterdam.
I discovered Dooyeweerd in the Sixties, finding his Roots of Western Culture
and In
the Twilight of Western Thought
compelling as I struggled to make sense of
Christian faith in the modern world. Like Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), he was
deeply committed to the Lordship of Christ over all of life, culture and
reality, a theme that defines his entire body of work. Dooyeweerd’s contribution
came in a lifetime of careful scholarship developing what came to be known as The Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea
(which was published in four volumes). Later, as I read the books of Hans
Rookmaaker (1922-1977), Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984), and Calvin Seerveld
(1930-), for example, I recognized their dependence on the philosophical ideas
of Herman Dooyeweerd.
and In
the Twilight of Western Thought compelling as I struggled to make sense of
Christian faith in the modern world. Like Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), he was
deeply committed to the Lordship of Christ over all of life, culture and
reality, a theme that defines his entire body of work. Dooyeweerd’s contribution
came in a lifetime of careful scholarship developing what came to be known as The Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea
(which was published in four volumes). Later, as I read the books of Hans
Rookmaaker (1922-1977), Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984), and Calvin Seerveld
(1930-), for example, I recognized their dependence on the philosophical ideas
of Herman Dooyeweerd.
Essential to Dooyeweerd’s understanding is an insight he
referred to as the basic “aspects” that make up created reality, or “modes” of
being that fit together into a coherent whole. In other words, all of reality
can be described in terms of these modes or aspects, each of which is
irreducible (not divisible into something else) and essential (necessary for
reality to be as God made it). When we live in reality in accordance with the
laws of these modes of reality, we experience shalom, a flourishing of life as
God intended. When human beings try to rebel against these aspects of reality,
the result is destructive. Dooyeweerd named 15 aspects or modes, which together
he argued named the richly layered meaning of God’s creation as we experience
it. Included in this list is the “juridical” mode, defined as giving what is
due, both responsibilities and rights. (For a helpful table of Dooyeweerd’s
aspects and their meaning click here.) In any case, I find Dooyeweerd’s
philosophy to be evocative, practical, and in its roots and assumptions, deeply
biblical. It is certainly not the final word, but it is a helpful one, and his
thinking causes me to think that government might be finally rooted in creation
not the fall.
Let the discussion continue…
Source: The Dooyeweerd Pages online (http://www.dooy.salford.ac.uk/).
Painting is “Christ in a Depressed Suburb” by Georges Rouault (1914).
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