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Jefferson and St. Paul

Jefferson and St. Paul

Last updated on: March 21, 2005 at 1:01 pm by Fred Clark

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Jefferson and St. Paul 2005-03-21T13:01:47-05:00 Fred Clark

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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.

– – – – – – – – – – – –

* 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.

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