Jefferson and St. Paul

Let me belatedly chime in on the discussion in response to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's comment last week.

During consideration of the Ten Commandments case, Scalia said that their public display is "a symbol of the fact that government comes -- derives its authority from God."

Several folks have pointed out that this seems to conflict with the fact that, in America, government comes -- derives its authority from the people. As Brad Delong put it:

Scalia's views on this are profoundly -- there is no other word for it -- UnAmerican. Here in the United States, we are all children of Thomas Jefferson. God does not give us rulers. Instead, God gives us rights: to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We then institute governments to secure these rights, and they derive their just powers from our consent, not from God's decree. Moreover, it is not the YHWH of Revealed Religion but instead "Nature's God" and Nature itself that are the source of these rights.

It is not necessary to believe that the "Nature's God" of the Declaration of Independence is the same as the God of revealed religion. But neither is it necessary to pretend, as Brad does here, that they are wholly irreconcilable.

Brad provides an astute summary of precisely what it is that most Christians believe -- and have believed since Jefferson's time: " God gives us rights ... We then institute governments to secure these rights, and they derive their just powers from our consent."

But then I'm afraid he trips over semantics. Specifically, he trips over the word "sovereignty," and thus ends up arguing a kind of syllogism: In a democracy, the people are sovereign. Christians (as well as Jews and Muslims) believe that God is sovereign. Therefore Christianity is incompatible with democracy.

That might hold true if theologians and democrats were using the word sovereign to mean precisely the same thing, but that is clearly not the case. One might as well argue that the children of Thomas Jefferson must reject the rule of law because we believe only in the rule of the people.

It's possible to view these two "rules" as a conflict, as a stark either/or, but to do so you have to work pretty hard at it. And I'm afraid Brad works pretty hard at it:

Where does Scalia's anti-Jeffersonian belief that God gives us not rights but rulers come from? It comes from Paul ...

Brad then cites this passage from chapter 13 of Paul's Epistle to the Romans:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is not authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God's servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience.

Romans 13 is one of the classic biblical texts on the nature and role of the state. It is far from the only such text. It also follows, as you might suspect, Romans 12,* and verses 1-5, cited above, are followed in turn by verses 6-14.

The monarchs and state churches who crafted the medieval synthesis tended to read and interpet Romans 13:1-5 divorced from this larger context because doing so made it easier for them to find support there for their belief in the divine right of kings -- the idea that "God gives us not rights but rulers." I'm not inclined, however, to give them the final word on the subject. I prefer to side with the centuries of political and theological argument that says these medieval thinkers got this wrong.

It is, unfortunately, possible to find Christians who still adhere to the medieval perspective Brad describes. And it is quite possible -- and very worrisome -- that Justice Scalia may be among them. Indeed, Brad finds further evidence that this is the case:

In his speech "God's Justice and Ours," Scalia says that God hates not just crime and open revolt but peaceful campaigns of civil disobedience which are, in Scalia's view, based on the false assumption that "what the individual citizen considers an unjust law ... need not be obeyed."

Thus from Scalia's point of view for blacks to sit at an all-white lunch counter when the law decrees they shall not--that is not just a crime but a sin. And the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday -- a celebration of his civil disobedience campaigns -- is blasphemous: hateful to God, because it teaches people that there are circumstances in which they should disobey those whom God has commanded them to obey.

Scalia's argument flows naturally from the medieval interpretation of Romans 13. This interpretation see sees the state as not merely "God's servant" -- accountable to God, but as God's surrogate -- accountable to no one.

Among the many theologians who rejected this notion was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. King forcefully argued, in word and in deed, that the point of Romans 13 is that the state is not God, but God's servant.* The state is therefore accountable to God and to the people, who bear the image of God, and who are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."

Therefore when the democratic will of the people was in conflict with the God-given rights of black Americans, King rejected the legitimacy of those laws, regardless of whether they reflected the will of the majority.

King's civil disobedience did not contradict Paul's teaching of respect for the authority of the state. King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail was, after all, written from a Birmingham jail. In it he wrote:

One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all." ...

In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

In that passage King demonstrates what it means to be both a child of Thomas Jefferson and a child of St. Paul. The two are not incompatible.

If, as may be the case, Scalia finds them incompatible and opts for his interpretation of St. Paul over Jefferson and the Constitution, then I agree with Brad that Scalia doesn't have "any business being a Justice of the Supreme Court of a free country." Brad is right to argue that such a view would make Scalia a very bad justice. But he should also note that this view would also make Scalia a very bad theologian.

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* King always viewed Romans 13 in the context of the passage that prefaces it, a passage that was central to his work and teaching:

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Comments

[Darryl Pearce]

Comforting words... even to a secular, free-thinking skeptic like me.

--Ventura County, CA

[Sandals]

The deuce is meant by that heap-burning-coals bit?

[animus]

The deuce is meant by that heap-burning-coals bit?

Paul is quoting Proverbs, which takes a less than pure-hearted approach: be generous to your enemies, it says, because this will really annoy them.

[Fade]

be generous to your enemies, it says, because this will really annoy them.

And boy does it. I remember as a child learning that there was no better way to drive my little sister absolutely wild with rage after we had an argument if I pretended we hadn't been fighting, and acted as sweetly and considerately to her as possible.

...granted, it's a bit passive-aggressive, but it's awfully satisfying, they can't really go complain to Mom that you're being too nice to them, and once in a while, it works out to actually smooth over the arguments. Not sure that's quite what Paul had in mind, though.

[grannyinsanity]

". In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

The story they tell around here is about the custom of poor men going around selling hot coals to start peoples fires, thus if you bless them with a way to earn their daily bread they will have the means to bless others.

Fred probably knows a lot more about this than I do, but that is what they say in my neck of the woods.

[Adam]

Just as a technical point - the divine right of kings wasn't really a mediaeval idea in the sense usually ascribed; it was more of a renaissance concept. Many of the mediaeval theologians (e.g. Aquinas) specifically discussed the way that power is constituted by the assent of the people, either the "group mind" or a significant and representative proportion of the people, and they also discussed the circumstances under which a king or prince could be deposed, which in context means killed (since there was no way of "voting him out"). I think Nicholas of Autrecourt said that a king ought not to be poisoned, but that was about it.

[it_is_finished]

We are not all children of Thomas Jefferson, whom was just a fallible man. If one takes the view that one is a child of a fallible man who is not one's father (and we all know that Jefferson was part and parcel of a horrific system of slavery), it is a short trip from there to believing that Napoleon or such is one's father, as is done in countries where religious liberty is forbidden. We are not all children of Martin Luther King Jr., who had four of his own children. We are children of God.

So what is authority? First of all, 13:1 says "Everyone must submit to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established." And if God did not establish an authority, it is not authority but rather tyranny. God himself is the final arbiter and authority. Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. Christianity also holds that God established His church, an authority when in the hands of those just and merciful. Christianity is not unAmerican. With atheism fighting theocracy, I'm more concerned about whether America is unChristian. Scalia may be scouring the Bible for his rulings, but if he thinks God made him judge he is lost. One Terri Schiavo cannot be traded for one Maher Arar on Judgment Day.

[drieux just drieux]

p0: the 'heaping coals' notion comes from the much simpler approach, if one's enemy is in need of fire - then one should heap coals on the potshard that would be used to carry the fire back. For those who have read their national geographics I am sure they have seen the pictures of women carrying things on their head in so called '3rd world countries'. So it is one of those 'why not just take it as it is' - more of the same old do the right thing because it is RIGHT - not based upon who has asked for help.

IT IS NOT about doing a 'passive aggressive' thing.

p1: The problem with the NeoEvangelicals is that they are, as slacktivist notes in the next blog entry on 'he-said, she-said' journalism, facing the big crisis of faith about where they really want to make their stands. What do they really believe in, and how do they want to live out their 'so called faith'.

p2: This whole 'resistence to tyranny' idea that "it_is_finished" puts forward is such stiring martial rhetoric - but he might want to do a bit of homework about the church in the soviet empire prior to the fall of the Soviet Union. Were the christian churches there interested in the currently popular Roman 13 Argument??? HUM??? Were they trying to make grand 'martial rhetoric' about opposing tyranny??? And how does one oppose 'tyranny here' in America? Support the various "Pro Life" terrorist cells that have been engaged in armed resistence for over 30 decades now?

p3: there is a very popular meme making its round on the internet that the US supreme court already ruled that this is a 'christian nation' - which makes some of the NeoEvangelicals all warm and fuzzy.... baring the legal bits. So the fact that we do have the Supreme Court worrying about the problem of 'ceremonial deism' is fun and perchance the more dangerous threat to not only the 'atheistic' but more so to the actual 'true believers' who will not sell their souls merely to be politically popular.

p4: Folks will want to look at Wycliffe to look for some of the origins of the 'divine right of kings' - since at the center of that argument is whether or not the bishop of rome should be a temporal head of a 'government' or were their "states' rights" that offered a King certain levels of control in their own domain. At which point folks will want to do their work on John Hus and the Husserites who were pre-lutheran reformists who had been influenced by Wycliffe.

it is so good to see that some folks are willing to do their own homework.

[Agitprop]

Government derives its authority from God. -- Scalia

Does anyone else want to puke hearing a Supreme Court Justice spew this intellectual treason? God gave humans free will which means humans have the ability to rule themselves. Thus sovereignty, or self-rule, comes from God. Humans then enter the social contract and give up some of their individual sovereignty to a sovereign authority, i.e. government. The free will of the people is invested in this sovereign authority, not the will of God.

Scalia would be better suited to rule as a bishop in the Dark Ages when Church & State were the same thing. His medieval political views and his court opinions are slowly turning the United States into a theocracy. Jefferson is rolling in his grave right now.

[it_is_finished]

I did not intend martial rhetoric. Resistance need not be violent. God and Mars (Ares, the pagan god of war) have nothing in common. M.L. King certainly was able to oppose tyranny nonviolently despite a government which, once he came North and his demands challenged power relations beyond de jure segregation, did everything it could to paint his pacifist movement as one full of terrorist cells, to the point that it eventually provoked such splintering once the shepherd of the movement had been martyred by gunfire. Resistance to tyranny can include evading the draft, which was involuntary servitude, and the "backdoor draft", which is so. It can include giving a hunted refugee sanctuary. It can include feeding a person without shelter in an area where such people are excluded by law. It can include using the courts to save the life of an innocent person, as the fine students of Northwestern University Law School did in multiples several years ago. Much apology for the martial sound of my tone. War is monstrous and God is our shelter in times of trouble, even if we must hide in a cave from our enemy, as David did.

[Jeremy Osner]

Does Paul make any distinction between valid governments -- ones which have legitimately assumed the authority granted by God -- and despots or usurpers who are exerting an authority which God has not granted?

[Brad DeLong]

King viewed Romans 13 in context. Scalia does not. A lot of very scary sermons have been preached by people preaching on Romans 13 not-in-context...

I suppose I should backtrack, and say that Scalia's doctrines come "from Paul" understood as a short text ripped from context, and not "from Paul" understood as the teaching of the Apostle to the Gentiles...

[John McDonagh]

Actually, since Paul never met the human Jesus (you are basing your life on a man who only "met" Jesus in a hallucination on a road?) his ravings have no historical authority.

Martin Luther King, Jr. felt free to throw out the original sin, so he obviously did not care for Paul.

[Scott]

Does Paul make any distinction between valid governments -- ones which have legitimately assumed the authority granted by God -- and despots or usurpers who are exerting an authority which God has not granted?

Paul wrote this while being 'ruled' by an unelected Emperor who was persecuting Christians for not worshipping him as a god. The USA was formed in a rebellion against the much less despotic King George III, making the very existance of our "Christian Nation" a violation of a literal reading of Paul (or at least the literal reading conservatives favor when Republicans hold office).