Does the Christian tradition agree that property rights trump the rights of the poor?
In political debates I occasionally hear Christians who are influenced by libertarian political philosophy make an argument that runs something like this:
My money is my own property that I earned. The government did not give it to me. Therefore, the government has no right to confiscate my property in order to give it to someone else, except for purposes of protection, national defense, or associated government functions. For the government to confiscate my property for purposes of poor relief is not legitimate taxation. It is theft.
To be sure, I have never heard a political theologian or theological ethicist make this argument. But I have witnessed thoughtful and well-read Christians give expression to it, and I have even heard it propounded from various pulpits. And amid the recent rise of the Tea Party, the growing influence of libertarianism within the Republican Party, and the debates over Obamacare and the federal debt, it appears as if this general sort of argument is gaining currency.
The point I want to make here is that this argument is profoundly out of step with the Christian political theological tradition, running from Ambrose and Augustine through the medieval canon lawyers and Thomas Aquinas and all the way to the great reformer John Calvin.
What is wrong with it is not that it supports capitalism and the free market, or that it suggests that the American government provides too much support for the poor. There are good reasons why Christians can oppose socialism and the welfare state while remaining solidly in step with the Christian political theological tradition. I am not defending Obamacare, Medicare, Social Security, or any other particular political policy.
But I do take issue with arguments that suggest people have absolute property rights that the government cannot infringe upon, not even for the sake of justice for the poor.
The problem with these arguments is that they presuppose a notion of property that makes it absolute, without qualification by the needs of others or of civil law. It assumes the argument of John Locke that human beings possess property before they enter into any significant social or legal connections, and that therefore no social or legal body has the right to take that property from them. It assumes that even if a person fails to use his or her property in service to the needy, no one, not even the government, has the right to force that person to use his or her property justly.
In contrast, the early church fathers Ambrose and Augustine believed that property was the result of the fall and would not have existed in a perfect world. They argued that human law created the institution of property in order to maintain peace between sinful and competing human beings.
Later in feudal society holdings of land were considered to be inextricably connected with social relationships and with the obligations and responsibilities associated with those relationships. Neither lord nor serf enjoyed the absolute right to do whatever he wanted with his possessions; rather, those possessions were to be used in fulfillment of concrete social obligations.
As feudalism evolved and the roots of a market economy began to develop, canon lawyers struggled to reconcile the arguments of the church fathers with developing understandings of property. Janet Coleman writes in the Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought concerning the greatest of these jurists, Gratian:
Gratian notes that the human race is ruled by two norms, natural law and custom. The first is that which is contained in the Old Testament and the Gospels … This natural law is common go all nations, held everywhere instinctually rather than by positive legal enactment, and it sanctions the coming together of men and women, procreation, the common possession of all things, the liberty of all, the acquisition of whatever may be taken by air, land or sea, the restitution of goods or money loaned, the use of force to repel force. It is by natural law that all things are common to all men. But the laws of custom and legal enactment enable men to say ‘this is mine’. [Gratian cited] Augustine, who argued that private property was a creation of imperial law and was not a characteristic of natural man before the Fall. (617)
However, Gratian left the tension between natural law and human law unresolved, and many other canon lawyers and theologians were forced to work it out. Two decretists, Huguccio and Johannes Teutonicus, provided perhaps the most influential solution:
Natural law, equated with rational judgment, tells us that all things are common, to be shared in times of necessity with those in need. Natural reason teaches us that we should retain for ourselves only necessities and therefore distribute what is left to neighbors in need…. Johannes Teutonicus avoided the implication that communal ownership was a norm, and explained Ambrose’s text by saying that private property is not denied; rather what is denied is the right of anyone to appropriate to himself more than suffices for his own needs. Thus, in times of necessity any surplus wealth is to be regarded as common property to be shared by all those in need. (618-619)
To be sure, the canonists “never developed arguments concerning private property with egalitarian implications. And they took into account that superfluity of wealth was to be measured according to what was considered decent and fitting to one’s status in society” (619). Nevertheless, they were clear that the rights of the poor trumped the rights of possession.
The greatest medieval debates over property, of course, pertained to the church’s vast material wealth. Many canonists agreed that the church merely holds stewardship over its wealth and that that wealth ultimately belongs to God, or even to the poor.
The poor and needy were to be supported from the goods of the Church for they had a right to this support from the common property of the Church. On this view the use of church property on behalf of the poor was not charity but an established legal use of public property whose purpose was the maintenance of the common welfare and especially the sustenance of the needy poor. (620)
Of course, the reason why the canonists viewed the church this way was because they believed that as an institution it was to express God’s purposes for human beings according to natural law. The standards for the church, in essence, were the standards to which all human beings were to seek to attain.
Tomorrow I’ll take a look at Thomas Aquinas’s account of property and I’ll also make some comments on John Calvin’s view, both of which are in direct continuity with the views described above. But it should already be evident even from this brief post that Christian political theology has always denied the existence of absolute property rights, and indeed, has questioned whether property rights are grounded in natural law at all. The tradition is marked by a virtually unanimous consensus that individuals and social organizations are to use their excess possessions subject to the primary claim of the needy as a matter of justice.
Posted on September 17, 2012, in Libertarianism, Property, Rights, Welfare State and tagged Ambrose, Augustine, canon law, feudalism, Gratian, property rights, rights of the poor. Bookmark the permalink. 54 Comments.
One point of clarification: are you equating the commonality of property with the right of the state?
I understand that the state is meant to serve the common good, but just because there is a public responsibility with property does not necessarily mean that the property therefore belongs to the government. For instance, when farmers were called not to plow to the edges of their fields so that the poor might take the gleanings, there was not an implication there that this was leaving the king his cut.
It does make sense that the courts might be used to protect against misuse of common property, and even that there might be regulation against what would otherwise be repeated abuse; however, this does not mean that this responsibility to common welfare, although monitored by the government, suddenly ceases to be essentially a private/civilian concern.
Otherwise, it seems like your response, while rightly pointing out that personal property did not really exist before the fall, fails to address the second assumption that the government (another post-fall institution) has the first right to everything by natural right.
Hopefully that makes some sense.
You’re addressing this as a responsibility of the civil authority, but if the moral law demands that excess wealth be distributed to the poor, doesn’t the church also have the responsibility to address Christians who are clearly holding on to excess wealth?
Donald, excellent point. I am not equating commonality of property with the ownership of the state (then I would be a socialist, or communist). I believe, as I think you are defending here, that civil society ought to be providing for the needy, and that the state is not ordinarily best suited to do this.
However, I do believe government is the institution of last resort, i.e., that it should be making sure the care are in fact cared for.
Why? Once you have granted that property rights are not absolute and that all people are obligated to share their possessions with those who are in need, as a matter of justice, then you have to acknowledge that if the poor are not receiving justice, then the government has to intervene to ensure that they do.
I’ll work this out a bit more in the second part, but hopefully that helps you to see why I think the libertarian argument is wrong.
Matt, I am anything but a libertarian. I believe libertarianism is simply an older form of liberalism. Conservative principles of economics without conservative principles of religion create economic Darwinism, and economic Darwinism is just as damaging to society as theistic evolution is to theology. In fact, secular conservatism, because it is not tempered by Christian mercy and compassion, leads to horrific abuses that give rise to socialist schemes of wealth redistribution.
That point can be made particularly clearly by your comment: “Once you have granted that property rights are not absolute and that all people are obligated to share their possessions with those who are in need, as a matter of justice, then you have to acknowledge that if the poor are not receiving justice, then the government has to intervene to ensure that they do.”
I would need to qualify your principle somewhat — the Scriptures also say that he who will not work, neither shall he eat — but let’s grant your main point for the moment.
However, even if we grant your point, just because the poor are not receiving justice does not necessarily mean the state is obligated to intervene to ensure that people share their possessions with those who are in need.
A greedy and covetous person who ignores people around him in significant financial distress is a proper subject of church discipline in the assemblies of the church. I am not at all convinced that he is a proper subject for the secular courts.
The spheres of the family, church, and state are separate and distinct. Just because God gives a command doesn’t necessarily mean that each sphere is equally obligated to enforce that command.
For example, as a licentiate in the United Reformed Churches, you are obligated (unlike your PCA brethren) to believe in close communion in which the elders decide who is and is not allowed to come to the Lord’s Table. You are obligated to believe in male headship in the home as well as the church,
Does that mean you want the local county commission coming into your church and assigning sheriff’s deputies to bar unbelievers from the Lord’s Table? Does that mean you want your local city council assigning police to make sure the male members of your church have their wives and children in proper submission to their authority as husbands and fathers? Of course not. Just because God gives a command doesn’t necessarily mean just any authority figure can enforce it — when God defines what is right and what is wrong, he also defines who has the authority to enforce his standard of right and wrong.
To cite other examples of abuse of sphere authority, do you believe a father can take the law into his own hands and execute a man who rapes his daughter, or do you believe (as some ostensibly Reformed churches do) that the elders should hand the communion elements to each father in the church and then have the father decide whether his children and wife are sufficiently mature to take communion? I already know the answer is “no.” The same, I’m sure, would be true if I asked whether you believe the courts of the church have the power to wage war or execute people.
There are some things on which the church cannot intrude into the spheres of the family or the state, and there are some things on which the state cannot intrude into the spheres of the family or the church, and there are some things on which the family cannot intrude into the spheres of the state or the church. Of course the church has the obligation to **TEACH** fathers and civil magistrates on Christian principles, but it doesn’t have the authority to **ENFORCE** those principles in the home or the state.
Failure to recognize the proper boundaries of the spheres leads to serious problems.
I am increasingly beginning to wonder if the root of this whole “Two Kingdoms” debate is based on several separate errors by “Two Kingdoms” advocates –
First, not realizing that the spheres are three, not two — namely, family, church, and state;
Second, not realizing that just because God gives a command doesn’t mean everybody has equal right to enforce that command; and
Third, not realizing the difference between saying, quite correctly, that the church can’t **ENFORCE** God’s law in the sphere of state, or on the other hand, saying quite incorrectly that the church cannot **TEACH** civil magistrates what God’s law requires so they can enforce it.
John, absolutely I would agree. But note in this article my point is fairly narrow. I am simply trying to show that people do not have absolute property rights such that the government (or the church) has no business interfering with them. I am not yet addressing what exactly the government or the church should positively do.
Matt, interesting article. Just a couple of points…
Libertarian political philosophy does not start from the basis of “My money is my own property that I earned” therefore the government can’t take it. Libertarian philosophy starts with the non-aggression principle which opposes the use of force and coercion (violence) by any entity, including individuals, churches, and civil government, unless violence is necessary for self-defense.
Murray Rothbard said “”No one may threaten or commit violence (‘aggress’) against another man’s person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory.”
My question is, if the historic Christian tradition has welcomed the use of violence by the state or church to enforce a moral law (fulfilling our obligation to the poor/needy), why should all moral laws not be enforced by the state and/or church through the means of force and/or coercion? What about divorce, homosexuality, etc.? Are these less important moral laws not to be enforce by the state?
Lewis, excellent point. Of course, ideas popularly expressed often take a life of their own. Libertarian political philosophy is certainly more sophisticated and careful than are many Americans. But the ideas I described in this post have tremendous currency in conservative circles today, however much they may stray from the best of libertarianism.
Your question is thoughtful, and it potentially connects libertarianism with the pacifist tradition of Anabaptism. However, the mainstream Christian tradition has always defended the use of force by civil magistrates for the purpose of defending justice. Of course, many Christian theologians over the years would have argued that civil government is to enforce the whole moral law, and they would answer your question accordingly (and some Christians still hold this view today).
I would argue that the task of the state is to enforce a more basic level of justice, one largely restricted to matters of justice between human beings rather than matters of piety and worship before God (and I would do so because I believe civil government is inherently secular, in the sense that it’s task is limited to preserving life and order in this age). I would also emphasize the reality that because the state operates with the sword and cannot change human beings (only the gospel does that), the state must necessarily limit itself to a minimal degree of justice. Rather than make sure people only exercise their sexuality in a pure way, or that all marriages are a perfect picture of the love between Christ and the church, or that every individual uses his property with perfect justice toward those in need, the state limits itself to prohibiting the most egregious violations of justice: illegitimate divorce, the legitimation of homosexuality, and the failure to meet the most basic needs of the poor.
Of course, I’d have to defend all of this, but that’s the general nature of my answer to your question. What I appreciate is that you rightly recognize that defending the poor is just as much a moral issue as are matters of sexuality and marriage.
This is definitely something that has been missing from the conversation, especially in modern Two Kingdoms discussions. Modern anthropology and political thought has been so dehistoricized that it does not even realize how it is reading such things into the discussion. Thank you for posting this.
I think this will go a long way to enhance the discussion that some views are more or less biblically ethical and how a true understanding of the Two Kingdoms speaks to such things without overstepping its bounds.
Matt, If my understanding is correct, Anabaptist pacifism does not provide for any use of violence, even for self-defense, where as the libertarian non-aggression principle does. Hence libertarian philosophy affirms the second amendment.
And I do agree that Christian tradition has always defended the use of force by civil magistrates for the purpose of defending justice. The limited government libertarian position holds to the idea that the state promotes justice by limiting itself to protecting the general public from force, coercion, and violence of others. This includes providing policing, court systems for resolving contractual disputes, and providing for national self-defense.
Your position on the other hand “the state limits itself to prohibiting the most egregious violations of justice: illegitimate divorce, the legitimization of homosexuality, and the failure to meet the most basic needs of the poor.” The devil is in the details and the problem seems to arise when we define “egregious”. My more progressive liberal friends define egregious as any wealth disparity. And my more socially conservative friends find any homosexual act to be egregious and believe any allowed act of homosexuality is legitimization. Both would like the government to enforce (through the threat of violence) these norms. Trying to define justice by degrees of egregiousness, while still allowing for a free society, seems to quickly devolve into the subjective opinions of those involved. I guess my question is, why is your definition of egregious violations of justice correct and others are wrong?
We agree that “the state must necessarily limit itself to a minimal degree of justice” (which is a thoroughly libertarian idea.) Where we disagree is how to define the minimal degree. I believe the libertarian position of defining the minimal degree by limiting governments from using violence, force, coercion, against nonaggressors is the correct position. I believe it provides a coherent philosophy for the role of government that allows people of different religions, morals, and beliefs to live peacefully with one another (while still disagreeing personally). It also provides the most protection for the poor by limiting the power of the government which is always ruled or highly influenced by the rich and powerful (our current government is case and point.)
Lewis,
I wonder if your definition of “aggression” might also be susceptible to a similar blurring that you apply to “egregious.”
I’m assuming for the moment that you are not opposed to a taxation and regulation scheme which manages access to common resources (rather than limiting government just to police, military, and courts). That is, the government has a responsibility to counteract some of the tragedy of the commons effect that would lead to wasteful use of many resources. Similarly, I’m assuming you are fine with things like municipal councils making zoning and usage regulations for local land.
If these are permissible, then there are many ways which society can non-aggressively disadvantage the poor. That is, there could be zoning regulations favoring single family residences which price the poor out of neighborhoods. Rental leases and contracts of sale could also be structured in a way which assert the landlord/seller’s rights as strongly as possible, often exceeding what courts would enforce, but serving as a passive disincentive to litigation. Finally, while there might be an inherent right to protection by the government in the form of policing,the legitimate question could be asked whether all should be given an equal right to medical care, regardless of ability to pay. Essentially, a non-aggressing society could very easily take money from the poor when they have it, but leave them starving, shivering, or dying in the gutter when the poor ask something of society but lack the ability to pay for it.
I know I’m framing it in provocative terms, but that seems like “violence” to me all the sudden. If things like section 8 housing, or even permitting access to water or healthcare on a means-sensitive basis results in redistribution of wealth (which is necessarily coercive), it seems to me like “minimal degree of justice” starts to look more and more like “no justice” when it comes to the disadvantaged.
Donald,
I’m not quite sure of your point. You provide examples of how government regulations can hurt the poor (i.e. zoning) which agrees with a libertarian philosophy.
As far as medical care, if I have a right to medical care, then someone else has to provide that medical care. Suddenly my “right” has become someone elses burden. It requires either forcing medical professionals to work for free (slavery) or taking money through force or coercion from someone else to pay for my medical care. Both options seem rather bad to me. Even in countries with government provided healthcare, access is still limited for a variety of ailments.
I do not see how someone can claim they have a right when it involves taking something from some one else. Also, why not a right to food and water? Why not a right to a cell phone to communicate or internet access? Why not a right to transportation? These are all very important things as well. I think it reveals the true human condition when we think we have a “right” to what others own or produce.
Lewis, right you are on the Anabaptists.
I agree that there is no obvious, precise, revealed standard for what a government should do in any particular set of circumstances (there is only the general standard of natural law and then human wisdom). I also agree that to a certain extent human beings have to work this out, and they will not always agree. But I do not think that limiting justice to preventing aggression and the violation of contracts has any basis in Christianity or in history.
What do you do if the aggression was two hundred years ago? What if it was fifty years ago? What do you do for those who have been disadvantaged ever since and have not recovered? There has never been an age of perfect justice, and so everyone’s holdings are tarnished by past aggression and violence. We have to deal with that.
The old Aristotelian definition of justice is to give each person his or her due. If people are created in the image of God, surely part of what is due them is what is the basis for life and sustenance (not to mention inclusion in the community). If government is appointed by God to defend justice by protecting and promoting the good and punishing the bad, how could it not be part of government’s responsibility to ensure that this takes place by requiring those who have excess possessions share with those who do not have enough?
I think the assumption behind your argument is that still the idea that property rights are absolute. Yet I see no basis in either Scripture or in history for making this claim. There would not even be property rights if it were not for divine law or if there was no civil government, so surely either God or civil government has the right to require people to use their property in a manner consistent with the purpose of property.
Lewis, per your last comment, I should add that I think it absolutely makes sense for someone to have a right that requires someone else to satisfy that right. All rights make demands on others, and all property comes with obligations. To be sure, if resources are so limited that satisfying my right would impoverish my neighbor, then my right cannot be satisfied. But if my neighbor has excess resources, then he is obligated to satisfy my right, at least before God. This was the main emphasis, I think, of the Christian political theological tradition.
Matt:
Thanks for this. I think that foregrounding the non-absolute character of private property is so needed in the recovery of certain sensibilities that have been effaced by some libertarian rhetoric. As I’ve commented here before with respect to the Westminster Larger Catechism and the 8th Commandment, this commandment relativizes our holdings and highlights the nature of our stewardship. I look forward to the next installment.
Matt,
A cursory reading of history would reveal many problems with not respecting “absolute” property rights. (I am confused by how you use the term “absolute” in regards to property rights.) A modern day example is Zimbabwe. The “aggression.. two hundred years ago” of European colonialism was thought to be remedied by disregarding property rights of the current farm owners and returning farms to their “rightful owners”. The country is a mess and poverty is rampant. Yet Zimbabwe’s actions seems to be what you are arguing for. Property rights were ignored in the name of some kind of “justice” for the poor and disenfranchised, yet, both poor and rich are much worse off. Mr. Robert Mugabee, who represented the civil government felt he had, as you say above: “the right to require people to use their property in a manner consistent with the purpose of property.” This is the danger when property rights are not considered “absolute” and are subjected to the whims of what government leaders considers “justice”.
The statement that “if my neighbor has excess resources, then he is obligated to satisfy my right, at least before God” seems rather dubious in response to the examples I provided above in regards to the government enforcing “rights.” The idea that my neighbor has to use his excess resources (savings) to satisfy my “right” to food, water, cell phone, internet, etc. seems out of place in a fallen, sinful world. Even the bible prescribes a kingdom ethic of “anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” Implying a person has a “right” to something implies the person has an automatic claim to it regardless of his or her behavior, ethics, or relationship to the owner. The idea that the wants and needs of others supersedes the ownership of another eliminates the basis for all property rights. This seems more like an Anabaptist pipe dream than a way to run a civilized society.
I am still struggling to see how radical ethics prescribed for the kingdom of God should be toned down (i.e. egregious) and used for the basis of civil law for a non-Christian state. Holding a two-kingdoms theology and then using the bible and Christian political theological tradition (do theologians have special insight into government policy?) to dismiss a political philosophy seems rather inconsistent. It seems like you are cherry-picking libertarian political philosophy (separation of church and state) and combining it with parts of Christian political theological tradition’s use of God’s moral law as the basis for civil law. Broadly speaking, a political philosophy such as this is what most evangelicals subscribe to today. It’s a strange brew of quasi-limited government combined with toned-down biblical ethics, with the need for “strong Christian politicians” to get American back to being a “Christian nation.” What you describe seems to be more of a modern day American Christian political philosophy than any kind of consistent Christian political theological tradition.
Matthew,
We have had some interesting discussions in the past over 2k thought and libertarianism. I think you are raising some fantastic points here. I am registered Libertarian, and sympathize on many accounts with the party platform – however, I think that there is a major blind spot with respect to the power of the state to regulate and manage the economy. I don’t think that the issues you raise can be adequately dealt with in the current ongoing Keynesian vs. Austrian debate in economics. However, if we dig back to the economic structures in place when the OT was written, I think that there are some commonalities with what you are writing here.
Economist Michael Hudson has done some very interesting work on the economics of the Ancient Near East (here’s a link to some of his articles). The economics in the ANE are very analogous to the economic structures, such as Jubilee Laws, of the OT. What is very interesting is the duty that ANE rulers had to the promotion of the overall economic health of their realms. They set aside certain gleaning areas for the poor, had periodic debt jubilees, and structured their economies to mitigate the effects of poverty. This stemmed out of both ethical concerns and commercial ones – poverty after all was bad for business in the long run. The focus on these economies around a more holistic notion of the health of a functional system, where each class of society from farmers, to merchants, to tradesmen all were unencumbered by excessive financial burdens that could drag the whole system down. This is why there were periodic debt jubilees, bad debt needed to be cleared in order for the economy to be productive once again. However, with the rise of Western empires such as Greece, and then Rome, there began to be more of an imperial economic paradigm where wealth was extracted from the outlying territories to the benefit of imperial centers such as Rome, and the rest of the provinces were basically left to deal (usually quite poorly) with the problems of poverty. Hudson argues that modern Western economies still operate off of this imperial paradigm, and the cost is a healthy economic system that works to the benefit of all.
I found Hudson while I was reading James Barr’s work on the prevalence of Natural Theology within Scripture. What I found to be so interesting is that the OT’s ethical conceptions of economy are well supported by Natural Theology (as Barr would argue), and by Natural Law (as I see it). While there is a good deal of value in the Austrian insistence on a laissez faire economy, and even more value in their concepts on sound money and debt, and avoiding economic bubbles, I do think that Austrian/Libertarian economists have failed to grapple with the ethical aspects of economy, and how easily an unregulated economy can be co-opted by imperial influences where wealth is extracted from the poor to serve the interests of the elites.
Lewis, you seem to have shifted into ad hominem mode here, attributing to me things I have obviously argued against on this blog. Am I accurately representing the Christian tradition against the claims of post-Enlightenment libertarianism? I’ll allow the data I present here to speak for itself. You might not like the tradition, but you do have to come to grips with it and show why it was wrong. Note also that the two kingdoms tradition has always emphasized that natural law binds civil politics, as well as that Scripture has much to tell us about natural law.
Jed, great thoughts! I appreciate your pointing me to this work. Very interesting. I think you are right that the notion of a laissez-faire economy on which at least a certain form of libertarianism depends is a utopian myth, somewhat analogous to the myth that socialist type liberals propound about the value of a welfare state.
Darrell, it’s good to see you using some solid two kingdoms arguments against my appeal to the insight of the Christian tradition on the issue of property! As you point out, just because moral law requires something doesn’t mean the government has to enforce it.
I also wholeheartedly agree with you that it is the deserving poor we are concerned about here, not those who themselves act unjustly by refusing to work.
I do believe in this case, however, that the government does have the obligation to ensure that the (deserving) poor receive basic justice, if the ordinary processes of civil society fail to meet this obligation. For instance, if a society fails to care for its (deserving) poor, the government might tax those who are most wealthy to ensure that they are cared for.
Well… I pretty much expected that I would get “accused” of advocating “Two Kingdoms” principles in writing my comment, but it’s a fair question. I do believe much depends on definitions. “Two Kingdoms” theology is rapidly getting a **REALLY** bad reputation in conservative Reformed circles, and if things continue, those of us who advocate Christian political activism are probably going to have to drop the term entirely at some point. Words and phrases change their meanings over time (think of what has happened to the word “evangelical,” or to cite a much more extreme case, “gay”) and that will show the point.
If all someone means by “Two Kingdoms” theology is that God has given directives in His Word for how Christians are to act, but has assigned enforcement of some directives to the civil government and some directives to the church government, we have no disagreement. I don’t see why we need to use the “Two Kingdoms” phrase, however — that’s classic Kuyperian sphere sovereignty, and I think it is just as important to emphasize the sovereignty of the sphere of the family as it is to emphasize the spheres of the church and state. (In fact, it may be **MORE** important to emphasize the family since it is basic to the other two spheres.)
Likewise, if all someone means by “Two Kingdoms” theology is that the institutional church should avoid declaring anything about politics from the pulpit which is not crystal clear in the Word of God, we have no disagreement. The details and fine points of how to implement biblical principles are questions on which political leaders, not church leaders, are more likely to be competent to do a better job. (My standard example is that the Bible forbids abortion and anyone who supports getting an abortion or advocating legalized abortion should be excommunicated, but whether we should push for a human life amendment to the constitution, be satisfied for now with the Hyde Amendment barring federal funding for abortion and work for appointment of pro-life Supreme Court justices, or some other practical step is a question for politicians, not preachers.)
I think the core of the problem is that some who call themselves “Two Kingdoms” advocates are not willing to grant that God has established rules in His Word for how the civil government is to be governed.
I’m happy to discuss what the Bible actually says on this issue, and there’s room for disagreement on the specifics of the biblical mandate as well as how to implement that mandate.
However, to argue that Christians should say that civil law should be based on general revelation and we have no right as Christians to advocate for implementation of Scriptural principles in civil law is not a stance I can support.
Clarity, Darrell, not posturing, is going to bring unity to the church. You hold to a version of the two kingdoms doctrine; that is patently obvious, and you cannot make your arguments without appealing to it.
What we need is balance, not reaction. You are right, in some circles the two kingdoms doctrine is viewed as anathema. But you forget that in other circles people find it quite helpful. They find it helpful because they recognize that the social gospel and the politicization of the church is a genuine problem that needs addressing.
The fault is on both sides of course, but the division will only be overcome if we keep our heads about it all and continue to work towards a common position. Trying to write a certain position or formulation out of orthodoxy is not the way to go. Did you agree with what I wrote in Reformation 21 a few weeks ago? Is that an improvement on other formulations you have seen? If so, why not build on it, rather than continue to talk in negative terms about what is really, in the end, only a phrase. It’s the content that matters.
We concur, Matt, that clarity is crucial.
If someone wants to say that I hold some form of a Two Kingdoms doctrine, I don’t necessarily object. You’ve read enough of my views by now that if you believe I’m within the spectrum you define as “Two Kingdoms,” then I don’t necessarily have a problem with your use of the word.
Unfortunately, it’s somewhat like someone saying that I am an “evangelical.” It’s true, and in political contexts I regularly use that word. However, I probably would not use that word to describe myself when talking to other Reformed Christians because the word says different things to different people.
This whole “Two Kingdoms” theology is a difficult concept to define. That difficulty needs to be addressed and is being addressed. It may well result in people who share my general orientation toward a Christian view of politics viewing the “Two Kingdoms term as being unnecessary or unhelpful, or recoiling from the term entirely.
Personally, I’d rather define and defend Kuyperian concepts of three spheres, which I believe can be clearly grounded in Scripture, rather than try to focus on the relationships between only two of the three spheres by which God governs His people. The family is more basic than either the church or the state, and the qualifications for church leadership are explicitly based on proven prior ability in family leadership.
Darrell, that’s helpful as clarification, but I don’t see why we can’t affirm both the multiple spheres and the two kingdoms. Remember, they refer to different concepts. The two kingdoms doctrine is ultimately an eschatological concept, referring to the distinction between how Jesus advances the kingdom of the age to come (i.e., Eph 4) and how he rules over the authorities of this age (i.e., Eph 5-6, Rom 13). The sphere sovereignty idea deals with how different institutions interrelate in the present age. So whereas the two kingdoms doctrine is a theological and eschatological concept, the sphere sovereignty idea is a sociological concept. They are complementary and are both needed. Without the two kingdoms sphere sovereignty easily suggests that all the spheres are part of Jesus’ eternal kingdom and need to conform to its standards (or should be expected to conform to its standards if the kingdom is to advance). That is the danger we need to avoid. In short, the two kingdoms preserves us from an overrealized eschatology (that is exactly the role it played in Calvin – it helped him refute the Anabaptists, and that’s the same role it plays today).
Matt, I’m glad to see you “wholeheartedly agree with (me) that it is the deserving poor we are concerned about here, not those who themselves act unjustly by refusing to work.”
As you may recall, I served in an inner-city church for a number of years, and also in a rural poverty church, and I know firsthand what sort of damage government programs have done to poor families. The law of unintended consequences applies here. More could be said, but several decades ago America took a major step back from the European model when it included work requirements in welfare programs, and that likely prevented us from going over the cliff the way things have gone in Europe.
Where we may disagree is this comment: “I do believe in this case, however, that the government does have the obligation to ensure that the (deserving) poor receive basic justice, if the ordinary processes of civil society fail to meet this obligation. For instance, if a society fails to care for its (deserving) poor, the government might tax those who are most wealthy to ensure that they are cared for.”
If by “basic justice” you mean that a poor person can go to court and demand the same rights under the law that his rich boss or landlord or neighbor has, we agree. Nathan’s rebuke to David for his adultery with Bathsheba used the economic principle of stealing a lamb as a metaphor of adultery, but the rich man’s Eighth Commandment stealing of the poor man’s pet lamb is just as evil as King David’s Seventh Commandment adultery with his faithful soldier’s wife.
We move into very slippery ground, however, when we start talking about government-mandated income redistribution via the tax code.
If we’re discussing the late medieval city states at the dawn of the Reformation with beggars literally starving in the streets, I’d be less inclined to object to the argument, though I still believe voluntary charitable contributions is the proper process. Recognizing the existence of a problem doesn’t necessarily mean the civil government is best equipped to fix it, but sometimes the spheres get confused by well-intentioned people and a fair amount of that happened not only in the Middle Ages but also the Reformation period.
On the other hand, in our modern American context where “poor” people complain about lack of air conditioning and obesity is a major problem, that argument doesn’t hold much weight with me. Our modern poor have a better lifestyle and longer lifespan than the typical successful businessman in Calvin’s Geneva.
Poverty has a biblical definition — lack of food, clothing and shelter — and that applies to very few people living in America. The vast majority of those living under the American poverty line have a better lifestyle than the vast majority of those who would be considered “poor” even by the standards of modern Latin America or Africa, let alone biblical times.
Darrell, I think you are ignoring some of the biblical evidence on the biblical definition of poverty. As most scholars recognize, the poor are those who lack food, clothing, and shelter, but also those who lack necessary and available medical care (parable of the Good Samaritan), the oppressed and marginalized, and, most prominently, those abandoned by fathers and husbands. There are millions of Americans in these situations today. Even Calvin recognized that relieving the needs of the poor doesn’t simply amount to giving them the bare necessities required to stay alive. It involves restoring them to dignity and membership in a community. Of course, measures need to be taken so that this restorative justice is not taken advantage of. But the poor are most certainly there.
I’m not sure that I love the “deserving poor” caveat in a universal sense here. Yes, for something like welfare, there is a more than fair argument that substantial, continued aid should be provided to those who show themselves not to be abusing the system. Of course, someone with a permanent disability or who is very old may be unable to find something like work, so that should not be an absolute condition.
However, I think that providing the very basics when they are most needed, regardless of merit, is the more biblical approach. That is, if someone is on the verge of starving, we don’t ask “well, did you try to get a job?” before we’re willing to feed them. Even your “complaining about A/C” example, Darrell, would be legitimate in certain circumstances. In many serious heatwaves, there are plenty of elderly and poor who die due to exposure or overheating. If there is a homeless man baking in the sun, getting him basic help like water and a place to cool down should not be dependent on our judgments about whether he’s worthy of our aid or not.
I may be reading you uncharitably, and if so, I apologize, but the tone of your response seems to suggest that the “real” poor of Calvin’s Geneva were deserving of care, while the poor of today are not. In describing the poor of Geneva, I think you fairly describe situations that, when they are encountered today, should be addressed with care that does not look to merit.
Donald, you’re asking valid questions. For example, I live in the South and I am not unaware of the problems of heat waves. What may be misery for me may be a life-threatening situation for an older person shut up in an inner-city ghetto apartment with bars on the windows. People can and do die from heatstroke.
The bottom line is that according to Scripture, he who will not work, neither shall he eat. “Will not” is different from “cannot.”
More can be said, but finding out whether someone agrees or disagrees with that basic principle clarifies people’s positions on many other issues.
Someone who **CANNOT** work is deserving of help. Someone who **WILL NOT** work is not, and frankly, if they’re hungry or hot or whatever, it’s not my problem. It’s the consequences of their own life choices. Sometimes tough love means letting people suffer the consequences of their own choices to learn a hard lesson the hard way.
if I choose to do something to help them (such as trying to teach them job skills), it’s purely my choice and nobody can blame me for deciding whether or not to help.
Having lived in the inner city and worked with people who truly had no idea how to get a job or why they needed one, I know what I’m talking about. I’ve walked the walk, not just talked the talk, on trying to teach job skills and basic financial management. I’ve also seen how government programs taught precisely the **WRONG** lessons to the people I was trying to help.
In theory, maybe I would agree that government can help deal with systematic poverty. I live outside a major Army installation and I am well aware that much of what Army engineers and National Guard agribusiness teams are doing in Afghanistan is essentially that of an armed Peace Corps. Civilians simply cannot go into significant parts of that country without becoming targets for terrorism or kidnapping.
From experience in the American context, I see government doing far more harm than good in its efforts to address poverty.
Darrell,
My concern is that people are very willing to point the finger and judge someone as one who will not work, particularly if that means you can wash your hands of them and say its tough love to let them die in a gutter. That may sound like an inflammatory statement, but I have heard plenty of people around here in Northwest Iowa, where there is very little in the way of a homeless population, speak of the homeless as if they are all drunks or lazy welfare dependents. That is, they are very quickly rolled into the “will not” category.
Now, those same people are generally very loving individuals who go out of their way to care for their neighbors, but when they speak of the urban poor, particularly the homeless, they can’t even begin to talk about care without bringing up the example of these “willing poor.” It’s an attitude that makes people willing to write off the whole welfare or food stamp system over stories of abuse.
Similarly, I’m sensing in your comments a presumption that making a good economy and providing the ability to learn to work is the best thing we can do for the poor. Yet there are a significant number of the homeless who have substance abuse or mental health problems. The sad result of the reaction against the condition of institutions in the 70s was largely just to close them down, meaning that many of the homeless today (as many as 1/4 of them, by some figures put out by HUD) have serious mental conditions and no possibility of institutional care. Similarly, even though drug abuse is a voluntary condition at first, it often requires significant treatment to help fix, and addicts are hardly able to hold down a job. Since these people chose their situation, I’m guessing here that there would be no biblical mandate to help these people?
To push further, what about in times of natural disasters? It is a controversial, but indisputable fact that a large part of humanitarian crisis experienced in the wake of Hurricane Katrina was a result of the large number of people who ignored evacuation orders, even mandatory evacuation, or ignored governmental directives, creating ad hoc shelter points at places like the Convention Center, then sitting there and wondering why food hadn’t arrived (officials not even being aware there were people there). Putting aside those who could not make it out, there were a large number of “bitter enders” or people who just didn’t think things would be as bad as they were. Since these people’s choices led directly to the life-threatening crisis they were in, would it have been more loving to make them swim out of the city, so that they’d learn not to ignore an evacuation order in the future?
Basically, Darrell, I’m not saying that you have no point, nor am I suggesting that programs like welfare or medicaid are not without significant problems when it comes to abuse. The thing I’m hoping that you’re not arguing for here is that it would be better to have a system which fails to render aid to those who truly need it (your “deserving poor”) than one which, while caring for the deserving, also ends up providing aid to some of those who do not meet your definition. Particularly when it comes to basic (that is, life-saving) issues, I don’t particularly care if the guy sleeping in the doorway is a lazy alcoholic. If it’s below freezing outside, I think it is very Christian to still give him a coat or a cup of hot soup, and I’m happy that there are government-subsidized shelters he can stay out of the cold in, with government-subsidized van services around town in cities like DC that will drive that poor man to the shelter.
Lewis,
To reformulate what I was saying, and what I think Matt is getting at (correct me if I’m wrong, Matt), the government’s responsibility to do justice is not focused here on redistribution, that is, getting the wealthy to share a bit with everyone, but with meeting the basic needs of the poor in accord with their basic right to life.
This was what I was perhaps clumsily referring to with reference to things like zoning ordinances. Your examples before cited national defense, police, and courts as legitimate government operations which could be supported by tax money (I assume). I was probing a little further to make sure that things like zoning or regulating access to common resources were also legitimate functions. I guess the furthest would be asking whether taxing at a municipal level to build things like hospitals is also okay, although I’m guessing it would be.
My point with these examples is that the government is already necessarily involved with allocation of resources and rights among the populace. By providing municipal services, like power, water, education, or hospital care, assuming you judge those legitimate, the government is also, through tax revenue, providing some basic services to the community. So, with government allocating rights and services, if it applies the “non-aggression” principle, then the things it can’t do include providing low-cost housing, responding to a disaster or large emergency, unless it’s to people who can pay, or providing health services to the poor.
If you can’t raise money through taxes or compel (as a quid pro quo for funding) that emergency services are still given to those who can’t pay, then we are quite literally turning our backs on those who starve to death, freeze to death in the cold, or bleed to death outside a hospital that does a credit check before it treats a stab wound. That is, we have a government which is both actively involved and actively indifferent, and I find it hard to call that even minimal justice.
On the contrary, a principal which says the government has a responsibility to basic justice is not incoherent, although it is not such a bright line in all cases that there will not be disagreement. Is cell phone coverage a “right”? Will you die without it? If not, then no. Is emergency care when you’re dying of pneumonia? Yes. I don’t think it’s a wildly unintelligible or new-fangled principal to apply, we have a long legal history which can easily define basic necessities, partly born out of a need to remedy injuries or apportion property in divorces. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel to answer these questions, and I don’t think it’s an overly slippery slope.
We all benefit from a social order which, including government, is oriented toward doing justice.
Just a side point … we can’t assume everyone, even in the secular world, agrees with things like zoning. I live in a county where zoning was voted down by an overwhelming majority, the elected officials who advocated it were thrown out of office, and the director of the regional commerce and growth association had to get another job because of getting blamed for advocating zoning. Our county commission also repealed the county’s food inspection ordinance two weeks ago because of allegedly abusive food inspectors.
I am not necessarily in favor of either of those decisions, but it is clear they represent a large and probably overwhelming majority of the residents in my county. Our county is one of the few in this part of the rural Ozarks where trying to pass zoning or food inspection ordinances is even a possibility; officials in most of our adjoining counties wouldn’t think of trying to do something like that because they would never get re-elected.
This is not an aberration. Missouri was the last state whose state supreme court ruled zoning to be an unconstitutional seizure of private property before the United States Supreme Court ruled that zoning was not a “taking” as defined by the Constitution.
Outside the major cities, large parts of the United States are pretty unhappy with government regulation. There may not be much that can be done to stop federal regulators, but a great deal can be done to stop regulators on the city, county, and state level.
My point is that there’s a pretty strong secular movement against what is perceived as excessive government intrusion into private affairs, and that movement is growing entirely separately from what Christians believe on the issue.
People who support a more expansive role for government probably need to take a hard look at recent election results and recent federal deficit numbers. The tide is not going in their direction, either politically or economically.
Of course, zoning ordinances have not been without detractors. At the same time, they are not always just the sim city type of divisions of land so much as what can be built where. Where there is a high degree of community trust, or where individuals feel they have a say in what happens, things like zoning may not be needed. But when a company buys up land for a sewage treatment plant right next to a school, opinions will suddenly change. Similarly, people are extremely unhappy with governmental regulation of things like occupational safety or environmental standards, but when a manifestly unsafe mine collapses or sewage is dumped in a reservoir, the legal remedy of “here’s some money” is inadequate.
If you don’t like the example, then use government regulation. Things like water rights require adjudication and regulation between parties. That’s all that’s needed to carry my point: in a complex society, the government is necessarily involved in apportioning rights and providing services; therefore, it is not a purely passive system, and members of society benefit from the civil arrangement in many subtle ways such that they are not being passive if they choose to deny basic care to those in need.
I’m going to choose to make the assumption that your last paragraph is not suggesting that I’m an advocate of expansive government. The tide is rightly flowing toward more genuine fiscal responsibility in government and toward more light-touch regulation by the government; however, as Matt has been saying, we are better served by pursuing a wise, balanced solution to problems than assuming all regulation is bad regulation or making the equally silly assumption (which I am not suggesting you are) that the court system is either equipped or even the best way to handle the caseload that it avoids as a result of regulation.
Greetings again, Donald. I think you and I work in very different political environments.
Situations very much like those you cite have happened around here. Our county commission which repealed the food inspection ordinance a few weeks ago did so despite the fact that the presiding commissioner is a plumber who dealt with a national chain restaurant which was discovered to have raw sewage leaking underneath the food preparation tables, the western district commissioner is a graduate of a small school where rainwater was running through the roof and dropping on the food preparation stove and equipment, and the eastern district commissioner is a Realtor who had dealt with major problems caused by lack of enforcement of building codes. They knew exactly how bad the problems are and repealed the food inspection ordinance anyway.
We’ve also had a nightmare situation where, due to problems with land deeds dating back to the 1920s when records simply were not kept the way they are today, a single property owner was able to shut down the primary access road to an upper-middle-class housing subdivision with hundreds of homes. The county commission absolutely refused to condemn the property owner’s land or take any of several other steps to obtain the access necessary to run a road through the man’s property, and despite multiple lawsuits over nearly a decade, the court system affirmed that the county commission was fully within its rights to do so. The end result is that a steep and dangerous construction road which gets shut down by periodic floods and snowfalls is the only access to that development, and I go out several times per year to photograph nasty wrecks on that road. Sooner or later someone is going to get killed on that road.
Despite several lawsuits and angry protests by the subdivision residents (who include the garrison commander and the former hospital commander of the military installation which dominates our community, and many upper-income officers, senior NCOs, and GS civilians) it is crystal clear that the voters in our community will not tolerate land condemnation, zoning, or building codes. We’ll see with the upcoming election, but most observers are pretty sure the voters won’t tolerate health codes, either. Incidentally, the Democratic candidate for eastern district commissioner not only is an opponent of the food safety ordinance, he is a lawyer and was willing to sue the county commission if the food safety ordinance had stayed. He’s more right-wing on his views of private property than the Republican incumbent, probably because his family were farmers and ranchers before he went to law school. In that district, both candidates are totally opposed to the food safety ordinance, and in general, to government regulation of private property.
This isn’t just the rural parts of our county. In our county’s largest city, which generates over 70 percent of the county’s sales tax revenue and is run by people who know how to attract and retain developers and major businesses, the presence of a pre-existing pawn shop and a billboard, both of whose owners had long-term leases on their land, derailed a major commercial subdivision which was worth tens of millions of dollars and would have generated major sales tax revenue. The St. Louis-based developers wanted to get the city council to condemn the property. That may be normal in St. Louis, but our local city council hasn’t done any land condemnations in decades — a very old city council member was able to cite one land condemnation back in the 1960s, but nobody else remembered that one and there have been none since — and the developer was told that unless he could buy out the pawn shop owner and the bulletin board owner, his development was dead. End result is the pawn shop owner got a good deal, made a ton of money, and built a much nicer facility in a more prominent location on the main road just outside the front gate of Fort Leonard Wood, but the billboard owner wouldn’t budge, and the whole development died until a major local businessman bought the land and developed it on terms acceptable to the bulletin board owner.
My point here is that for significant numbers of Americans, property rights **ARE** viewed as absolute. I’m fully aware of the legal issues involved in land condemnation and in zoning; the precedents are clear and the courts will back up cities and counties that can muster the political will to do such things. However, there are many people who are willing to tolerate horrible actions by a property owner adjacent to their land rather than risk the government coming in and telling them what to do with their own property.
This kind of thinking may be foreign in New York and Chicago and Los Angeles (or for that matter, in Kansas City and St. Louis) but it is, as shown by vote totals, the dominant viewpoint in large parts of America outside the major cities.
We can say what we want about that, but voter sentiment around here is crystal clear, and the same could be said in a lot of the rest of rural America.
Darrell,
I concede that Northwest Iowa is clearly different from rural Missouri. I still suspect that the people in your county, which committed to a significant extent to a more radical view of small government than one would see in many places of the country, still might object to a man deciding he wanted to build his own nuclear power plant without building or safety regulations in everyone’s back yard. Is that example extreme enough for you to be on board?
While I trust that you are an expert on the political leanings of your specific county, I’m not sure the implication of your statement that a willingness to tolerate large-scale public harm in the name of no government regulation is in fact the “dominant viewpoint in large parts of America outside the major cities.” Even if it somehow is, enshrining that view in our legal system would require amending the constitution, as the concept of eminent domain is ingrained into the property law of this country. Landowners may think they hold their land subject to no restrictions, but an owner in fee simple is always subordinate to the government’s ability to intercede on the public’s behalf.
I also wonder, while you set yourself as contrary to the big city mindset, do you think it is inherently wrong? Do you think building codes, food inspection, and safety regulation is just the beginning of selling out to the liberal agenda in the big cities, or would it make some sense that New York, Chicago, or Kansas City enforce these types of regulations?
My point was that the government has long been involved in these sorts of controls over disposition of property, and they have, since the founding of the nation. Additionally, I made the point that increasingly complex, industrialized societies rely on these sorts of things out of necessity to protect the general welfare. You cited an example of a rural county in Missouri as a counterexample. Do you hold to that as a coherent alternative to be enacted even in large, urbanized municipalities?
I’ve got to be quick… I’m at the courthouse between doing an interview with the oldest living military policeman and dealing with horrific child sex crime cases.
I’m originally from Grand Rapids and have lived in New York City so I know urban life. My personal view is that people have a right in a free republic to vote for the kind of regulations they want, with the result that cities like New York have historically adopted fire codes and health codes, and that dates back literally centuries before the American constitution. It’s legally legitimate to do so. However, adopting those rules outside of a clear and present necessity results in an overregulation that drives people and businesses away from overregulated communities into places that don’t impose those regulations and don’t want them.
Actually, if somebody wanted to build another Calloway nuclear power plant here, our citizens would be jumping all over themselves with glee. Power plants generate massive tax revenue for the local communities. Efforts are underway to build another nuclear power plant in Missouri, which is problematic because of some state law changes put in place after the last one was built that make it very difficult if not impossible for the main power company to build another plant. It’s not the locals who don’t want nuclear power — they see green, and it’s the green of dollars signs, not glowing green radioactivity. It’s the envirowackos out of Missouri’s two large cities keeping rural residents from having what they want.
Change the scenario to CAFOs with massive manure pools and you have a better illustration.
The general consensus in rural Missouri is that regulating CAFOs is a bad idea. There are people who don’t like CAFOs and want regulation, but that’s an effort by small farming operations to hamstring large businesses and it generates a decidedly mixed response — some support more stringent regulations to harm their competitors, but others object to the idea of regulations in principle. It’s not primarily a not-in-my-backyard response, but rather an economic response.
The bottom line I regularly hear is this: Not everything in the countryside smells like freshly mowed hay. There are some pretty nasty attitudes toward city people who move to rural areas and then start trying to regulate the long-term residents.
I was actually referring to building a nuclear plant which had to follow no building or safety regulations. You obviously know your county better than I, but I’m suspecting that the community would not be comfortable with a totally unregulated reactor being built in the neighborhood. It’s just an example of a time where I thought even a largely anti-regulatory society would choose regulation. Regulation, when done properly and wisely, can prevent the very situations that cause people to end up in the universally acclaimed as legitimate court system, particularly when the resulting injury cannot be remedied with money. While we should be very careful and judicious with it, I don’t think people should react against its excesses by saying it would just be better to have none of it.
Matthew,
I think you are right that the notion of a laissez-faire economy on which at least a certain form of libertarianism depends is a utopian myth, somewhat analogous to the myth that socialist type liberals propound about the value of a welfare state.
Agreed, a lot of this has to do with the fact that both liberal (Keynesian) and libertarian (Austrian) economics are grounded in post-enlightenment thought that gave little thought to the natural order of things. Both are grounded in varying rationalist and subjectivist constructs. However, if we as 2k proponents are going to argue that NL needs to serve as the basis of the political economy, then we can’t simply buy into one particular economic school. I think there valuable elements in all of the mediating economic schools whether Chicago, Cambridge, Austria, and the others. However, I am not aware of any modern school of economics that has NL as a starting point.
This is why I think there is great value in looking back into the history of economics, into Medieval economic constructs, and those of Antiquity – they paint a fuller picture of what has worked and what hasn’t. What I find most attractive regarding the economics of the Ancient Near East and Scripture is that they are seeking a holistic functional system that conceived of ethical norms and what economic policy would help to produce a good society. These concepts can be incredibly instructive today, when the modern global economy is encumbered with unimaginable amounts of debt, and inequality is only becoming more pronounced, which should be an indicator that the status quo isn’t working so well. Maybe it’s time to go back to the drawing board – and I think that an economic model that is grounded in Natural Law, and comports with the order with which God created the world would be very beneficial indeed.
Matt—really uncanny how many of the same themes we’re finding ourselves passionate about exploring, and along what similar lines we’re exploring them. Have you read my series on private property here?: http://www.swordandploughshare.com/main-blog/tag/private-property-series (I made quite a number of other posts back in the day on the issue, touching on PP in the Fathers, Aquinas, and the Reformers, but that link takes you to my attempt to work through the question systematically, which, alas, I never finished.)
The question is asked, does private property exist in an absolute sense. I would say that if you start off with an assertion that all property ultimately belongs to God, then you can properly say that private property is taught in the Bible… as stewardship. Private property is assumed in the 10 Commandments. They imply that we, as God’s stewards, should do what God would do; to protect His property AS OUR OWN (which is absolutely)…. and to have mercy absolutely; not merely give unto your brother what he is owed, but to give him MORE than he is owed. Private property is the foundation of God’s justice… and mercy. If a Christian fails to grasp both at the same time, he is not grasping the Gospel.
The secondary question is what this means with respect to the Church or to the State and their roles in enforcing God’s justice. Let’s call it ‘natural justice’. In my view, it is exercised and enforced through the institutions that God has created; the family, the Church and the State… not equally but hierarchically through the NATURAL institution of the family, the SPECIAL institution of the Church, and the UNNATURAL institution of the State. The thing that bothers me about the ’2K’ doctrine is that some describe the Kingdoms of heaven and earth as fighting each other. Believe me, they are no more in conflict than are the members of the Trinity. God’s purpose is one and one only.
A man who steals from another is liable first to his family and its leaders. Justice should be carried out within that framework. From there it goes to the Church and its leaders and then to the State, which is ordained by God for this purpose only because of His accommodation of the Fall. There is no particular reason why the State should recognize its obligation to have mercy, but if the State should recognize it, then the Christian should not stand in its (God’s) way. The Christian should stand against God’s ministers only in respect to evil.
So what does the Christian say when State ministers are not taking from the rich to give to the poor, but rather taking from the rich to line their own pockets, to bribe their friends and to dispense drugs to the poor; the drug of welfare dependency for example. We ought to recognize evil and stand against it. We should start out by teaching the 10 Commandments and its affirmation of private property. Mercy cannot exist without property rights. Only after we have established the principle of ownership can we begin to talk about the principle of mercy.
Donald, I think the key issue is whether people believe that regulations and regulators exist to protect them or restrict them.
For large numbers of Americans, Reagan’s comment that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem” rings true. Lots of people no longer trust that the government exists to look after their best interests.
There are many reasons for that shift in public opinion, but I think the existence of the shift is beyond dispute.
Darrell, do you have anything other than anecdotal evidence to back up your claims. The poll numbers I see suggest that it is a small minority of the country represented by the views you describe. For the most part, Americans want the government programs we have; that’s why it’s so hard to get rid of them. The rise of the Tea Party suggests small government conservatism is growing, but the question is whether it can persuade a majority of Americans, rather than alienate them. In the meantime, it seems to me, the views you describe here are not representative of most Americans, even in rural areas, and even in the south.
Matt, that’s a fair question — the problem is that it may be impossible to create a scientifically valid study that would prove the point.
Poll data would not be enough, because most people don’t understand zoning ordinances, health ordinances, building codes, etc., well enough to give their opinion in the abstract, and only begin to have an opinion when confronted with either 1) adverse consequences of perceived overregulation, or 2) adverse consequences of government failure to protect people, either through failure to enforce regulations or refusal to adopt regulations.
Declining rural areas generally can’t afford to hire more officials even if they wanted to do so. Rural areas which have a stable population and tax base generally don’t see a need to change unless some horrible nightmare happens — i.e., a rural equivalent to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire with a number of people killed or seriously injured due to obviously unsafe building standards or work practices. Even there, however, look at the massive rural pushback (in which my own congresswoman and one of the two senators from Missouri were directly involved) against the Obama administration’s recent efforts to adopt workplace safety and age standards that would have made it very difficult for farms to continue to use what would, in any other industry, be considered illegal child labor with unsafe machinery.
Where things typically come to a head is not in declining or stable rural areas, but rather where a rural area is experiencing significant population growth with urban and suburban people moving into a rural area and demanding services they’re used to in cities which have never been provided in the areas to which they have moved.
The political fights in those areas can get really, really nasty. Often they’re framed in the context of farmers saying, “We were here before you moved here, how dare you tell us what to do with our own property?” If any reliable data exists, it would probably come from places such as farming and ranching organizations which have aggressively fought against rules which would make it difficult for farmers to continue to do the sorts of activities which are not a nuisance in rural America but can “stink up the neighborhood” if a residential subdivision moves next door to a pre-existing farm. However, I am very much aware that in states and counties where the farmers know the population base has shifted so radically that they can no longer exercise political control, farmers have been known to get zoning ordinances and other laws passed which protect agriculture.
I’d probably better make clear that the views I’m starting in this and previous posts are far from being my own evaluation of the situation. People who advocate rural planning and zoning have been frustrated for a long time that getting zoning ordinances passed in rural areas is hard and enforcing them is even harder. The same could be said for getting compliance with building codes and health/food safety regulations — for that category of regulations, it’s not that difficult to get laws passed, but it is extremely difficult to get sufficient funding to hire and train people to effectively enforce the codes.
It may be anecdotal, but when as a reporter I’ve heard pretty much the same complaints for more than a dozen years from people in five counties of one state, four counties of a second state, two counties of a third state, and seven counties of a fourth state, and when I have personally known and listened to the complaints of the head of the zoning enforcement officials association of one state and the head of the food inspectors association of another state, I think it’s clear this is not an isolated local issue.
It is, however, an indicator of a major divide between how urban America thinks and how rural America thinks — and not only urban/rural but also the northeast and midwest vis-a-vis the west (except California) and the south (except Florida). People in different parts of this country simply have a different idea of what common sense involves.
In a republic where people rule themselves, I don’t see that as being a bad thing.
One more point — even when a law is passed, that doesn’t mean it will be effectively enforced.
In Missouri, due to state government cutbacks, it is now all but impossible to enforce health and food safety ordinances on the state level because there are only four state inspectors left in the entire state. The same is true for liquor control laws. Enforcement is now pretty much up to local officials.
With the massive budget cuts that are almost certain to come on the federal level and have already happened in many state and local governments, I think it is obvious that we will be seeing much less regulation, not more regulation, for the foreseeable future. We simply cannot afford to pay the bills.
To say that Missouri has become the “Wild West” on food inspections and liquor control would not be accurate. What **IS** accurate is that unless the local officials want to pass local ordinances enforcing food safety rules, it’s not going to happen, and the lack of effective state liquor law enforcement has resulted in an explosion of things in our county that would **NEVER** have been tolerated when we still had a state liquor official inspecting local establishments.
Just to avoid any misunderstandings, I’m not necessarily saying this development is a good thing — it’s a reality, however, and with a Republican-dominated legislature it is not going to change. It is quite possible to gut a law by defunding its enforcement agencies without getting the blame that would happen if the law were actually repeated or formally amended.
I’m not an advocate of Prohibition (I am a Calvinist, after all) but I am not opposed to liquor regulations on constitutional grounds. I’m not so sure we can find good biblical grounds to regulate liquor establishments, but it’s been done long before the United States began and has clear precedents. Likewise, urban building codes have existed since the Middle Ages and probably **DO** have a Romans 13 justification for fire prevention; it’s a matter of politics, not of principle, whether building codes should be established in rural areas.
I have a lot more serious problems with zoning based on secular legal principles of private property rights, but again, that’s been settled law for three-quarters of a century and there is no way the US Supreme Court is going to overturn decisions made that zoning is constitutional which were made before all but the very oldest people now living were adults. Zoning is constitutional, but that doesn’t mean it is popular.
These things are complicated. Not all poor people are poor as a result of injustice. Not all wealthy people are wealthy because they have cheated others. There is also the fundamental notion of economics that people have unlimited wants while there are limited resources. There are certain people you could give to indefinitely and they would never be satisfied because they are fools. There are wealthy people who have more than they will ever need and are still not generous. Human sin makes easy answers to these problems impossible.In our country we have a lot of people who claim to care about poor people but what they really care about is enriching themselves and their political allies. This increases people’s skepticism about doing things for the alleged benefit of the poor or “the children”.
Thanks for the thought provoking series. You said “To be sure, I have never heard a political theologian or theological ethicist make this argument.”
I would encourage you to consider what John W. Robbins has to say on the subject. You can find his relevant writings in his volume “Freedom and Capitalism”. The e-book is only $5 http://www.trinitylectures.org/product_info.php?cPath=35&products_id=191&osCsid=165g2smfhhcjk2qliob3v0dl25
The most relevant chapters are:
-The Neo-Evangelical Assault on Capitalism
-The Reformed Assault on Capitalism
-The Roman Catholic Assault on Capitalism
although there are relevant portions throughout the volume.
In addition to Robbins, have you consulted E. Calvin Beisner?
A question I have: for you and those you have cited who believe private property is a human institution made necessary by the fall, how do you/they interpret the 8th commandment? If it is part of the image of God, part of the law written on the hearts of all men, how can we say the concept of private property was instituted after the fall?
Hi Brandon, thanks for your comment. Most theologians would interpret the Ten Commandments as a particular, contextualized expression of the natural law, an expression that presupposes (or is occasioned by) the fall, and applies natural law accordingly. In a perfect world there would be no need to steal, because as in Acts 4, everyone would always have what they needed, and no one would consider his possessions to be his own.
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