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Quote of the Day: When Can Christians Disobey the Government?
Awhile back I posted my own intro to “An unjust law is no law at all” from Aquinas and Augustine. In the relevant passage of the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas gives some guidelines on resisting unjust governmental decrees. There’s probably a lot more somewhere else in Aquinas, but do I look like I have that kind of time?
Fortunately, a blog called Protestant Post had the time to put together a solid analysis of the question “When Can Christians Disobey the Government?” The methodology of reasoning inductively from the Bible looks good to me, and I didn’t notice anything in the conclusions that seemed off. (Well, maybe one thing, but it seems relatively minor.)
Not that I have the time to be thorough–unless y’all make me in comments.
Here are some interesting passages from the Protestant Post post. Lemme know what you think of them!
Section 2: First Principles of Resistance:
. . .
2.8. Christians engaging in lawful disobedience must still sincerely seek the good of the magistrate they are opposing and the commonwealth of which they are members; God blesses this kind of lawful disobedience.
Section 3: Unjust Commands:
3. Christians can and must disobey the magistrate when required to do something sinful or prevented from fulfilling their positive duties towards God.
3.1. In refusing to comply with evil commands, Christians have a positive duty to aid their brethren in this resistance spiritually, physically, and financially.
3.2. If there is disagreement among Christians about what is or is not sinful – and thus when the magistrate may be disobeyed – the duty to aid the brethren is not abrogated.
3.3. If one believes another Christian’s disobedience was unwise, he is still obligated to help him; however, if the disobedience was of an obvious, blatant, and pagan-like nature, aid may be withheld until such time as he repents.
3.4. The manner of disobedience must be in a form proportionate to the sin being required (or the sin of omission which would be incurred if the Christian obeyed the magistrate).
. . .
Section 6: Preparing for Lawful Disobedience:
6. Christians are to understand the times in which they live and the culture they inhabit.
6.1. Since at many times throughout their history, God’s people have been persecuted and attacked, Christians, of all people, ought to be the most vigilant in anticipating tyranny and the corresponding possibility of resistance.
6.2. Thus, Christians have a duty to prepare for lawful disobedience. This includes several key responsibilities:
6.2.1. Ensuring congregants understand God’s law and have a strong grasp on Protestant Resistance Theory,
6.2.2. Ensuring congregants are spiritually prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice if – God forbid – things should come to that,
6.2.3. Ensuring churches have practical plans for the physical and financial effects of persecution and lawful disobedience,
6.2.4. And finally, ensuring that churches are mortifying and repenting of the sins for which they and their nation are being or will be judged.
Further Reading:
. . .
We must always remember that the most effective form of resistance is repentance and regeneration.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
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Stina, I was baptized as an infant into the Roman Catholic Church, but I don’t remember it; perhaps it had a future saving effect on me, but my faith doesn’t rely on believing so. As a young adult I believed that Jesus Christ died for my sins (the result of an argument rather than evangelization and reading a proffered Chick tract) and was introduced to a Conservative Baptist Church (split with the Southern Baptists over slavery) was asked what I believed and was baptized as a believer into the universal Church. Since then I’ve read in the Bible that believing in Him whom He has sent, is all that is required to be saved; and even more simply believing that Jesus is the Son of God Whom God raised from the dead; and more simply still, that even merely believing on His name confers salvation. I don’t think doctrinal sophistication or correctness, or dogmatic compliance with denominational teachings, has anything to do with salvation. Though, works act a evidence of salvation, either outwardly to society, or to the local church, or to God’s omniscient and wise eye.
I don’t get it. If the Baptist way is “nothing but believe,” how can the Sinner’s Prayer be a works-based ritual?
I think the way they teach the sinner’s prayer undermines the “nothing but believe.”
Q: What must you do to be saved?
A: Well, first I need to recognize that I’m a sinner in need of a savior and that Jesus died for. And if I ask for forgiveness and ask him into my heart, then I will be saved.
(this is a real world answer I was given after learning Ephesians 2:8-9)
Children aren’t born distrusting their parents. They have an innate trust even without knowing anything about them. As they grow, they learn more and more about what it means to love their parents and who their parents are.
Its kinda the same way with God. Just trust him. As your relationship with him grows and you mature, you learn what it means to love him and more about who He is. But the salvation came from the initial trust.
We seem to want to put tests up around that instead of just letting Jesus’s death on the cross do all the work for salvation. There’s nothing we can do to earn it or be deserving or worthy of it. We either trust or we don’t. But saying you must acknowledge this or believe that FIRST means that there are steps you must take in your own salvation.
To tell a child that they must be a certain age before they can be saved is another one of those hoops.
Ok. I expect that happens sometimes.
I dig.
You lost me there. Of course there are steps. Trust is a step, isn’t it?
One even an infant can accomplish… which is far less and yet far more than any adult can do.
Different idea of what Jesus meant by child-like faith?
Yes. This is one of the more interesting parts of the Bible when I think about it. Jesus had a very simple works regimen.
And as for works having a part in “believing on Him whom He has sent” being all that is required to be saved, Stina is right, we put to much works into it. God also says, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work among you will complete it by the day of Christ Jesus.”
For it is God who works in us both to want and to do.
Yes, but isn’t it a step?
If it is a step, it’s the only one that was ever asked of us. The rest is superfluous.
Ok, great. You’re just opposed to adding extra steps. Cool.
But doesn’t faith itself involve lots of steps for most of us? For kids to trust their parents there are many steps over time, aren’t there? No one is saying that the steps are what makes the parents love the kids, but the steps are part of trust.
For trusting, no. There are never added steps. It’s the James’ “faith without works is dead” vs salvation bit. But James’ admonition that if our faith were true, there’d be evidence of it is because trust animates obedience. The obedience doesn’t come before trust and it isn’t required for salvation. You do not need to do good works before you have been saved. You do good works because God already saved you. And that is the work of the Holy Spirit and our willingness to be used by him. It is the evidence that we do trust.
An infant that trusts is still growing. There aren’t many opportunities for obedience. But their joy and kindness become apparent as they grow.
I come from a place where I can very readily accept that babies and toddlers are perfectly capable of saving faith.
I think one of us isn’t understanding the other, but I don’t know which.
No one in here is talking about adding steps to trusting. But trusting itself takes some steps, doesn’t it?
Well, yes. But James is also saying that faith without any works (trust without any steps) isn’t real faith, isn’t he?
(Excluding, perhaps, the extremely rare deathbed conversion–if G-d would even allow a believer to die without time to take any steps.)
That’s fine.
Maybe not many. But there are plenty that kick in the first year.
Here’s a timeline in a person’s life:
<——salvation——->
The Sinner’s prayer puts all the steps on the left side of that timeline.
If James adds steps, they are all on the right side.
The only step that belongs on the left side is Trust (or faith as another word for it).
Ok, so the whole line is faith, right?
And it has steps all over, right?
Anyone who says the steps stop at the sinner’s prayer is confused or a heretic.
The whole line isn’t salvation. Salvation is a point in the line when you are saved.
So you think James adds steps AFTER faith that are NOT a part of faith?
And you think faith doesn’t have any steps?
I think cause and effect. Faith -> salvation -> works.
James is not saying works->faith->salvation, nor faith->works->salvation.
So . . . Yes?
Indeed. Of course he’s not.
Why do you concentrate on steps rather than works, or simple belief? Jesus clearly said, and I add for the sake of interpretation here the first part: [if you want to look at it as “works”, fine…] the work of God is to believe. He does away with “works” as a means of salvation. He sets any saving “works” as non-material, without physical activity, but rather a condition of the mind, of thinking.
Remember Abraham was saved when he simply believed God. There was certainly intellectual context, but there was nothing more than accepting that what God said was true. This doesn’t take steps. What the constitution of this saving faith was in Abraham’s view (if he thought about it at at all) is not said, nor is it relevant. And he was saved before he ever set took one step toward the promised land.
Wow. There’s an informal logical fallacy here someplace!
I was talking about “steps” because I was talking to Stina, who was talking about steps.
Jesus does away with doing good deeds as a means of earning G-d’s favor. But faith must be enacted. Belief is not merely in the head. Consider the example of Noah.
That is simple belief. Simple belief is a life-change. See Hebrews 11:1, consulting the Greek and the context.
Paul’s “law of Christ” in Galatians 6 is a description of faith, and it is a description of a faith-in-action: bearing one another’s burdens.
The Scripture says “The righteous shall live by faith.” He shall live by it.
Abraham was not justified by his works, but his works completed his faith. He was saved before he took one step because his belief was a belief that acts; had he believed in his head and then neglected to take those steps, he would be damned. Every step towards the Promised Land was a step of faith, without which his faith would have been less.
If you’re talking about me, please explain.
Yup. I agree with everything you say.
Ah ha! I’ve been reading up on logic, largely because of your and Mark’s on-going battle of wits and categorization! It does not matter if I am wrong or misuse this new intellectual technology. It is enough that I employ it.
In your statement you clearly employ a — ahem — false dilemma!
False dilemma – two alternatives are given as the only possible options when, in reality, there are more. Hah! Got you.
You mean someone who says the steps stop at the sinner’s prayer might be neither heretical nor confused? What else would they be? They certainly wouldn’t be right, according to you in # 55.
You can’t just let me take my victory and walk away? Hrumph.
Seriously, when Stina mentioned steps in #33, I thought she was speaking against their necessity in salvation. And you seem to have argued them as necessary. If I’ve got this wrong, then don’t read any further.
When I wrote in #51
I was giving short attention to the idea that nothing that happens in a man’s life happens without some kind of context. Even having come to know the same language as someone who is telling you the Gospel. He may have heard of Yahweh, perhaps his family worshipped Yahweh. Perhaps he actually did worship Him by sacrificing lambs and such. Who knows. But any version of this is all context for when Abraham heard God’s voice. It’s context, not works. And I doubt that knowing anything about God, perhaps other than his name, is even prerequisite for belief and salvation. Just as I quoted: He who began a good work among you will complete it. And as I referred to “For it is God which works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” And furthermore, “So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.” God assures the growth.
In contrast, if we had to believe something in particular to be saved, we’d have dozen catechisms and scores of denominations today, and thousands of interpretations of every Bible verse, and at the doctrinal judgment day only one person would be right and get every answer right in the great test of doctrinal purity in heaven. And that person would be the Questioner.
What victory?
Why not answer my question–what third option is there?
Of course steps are necessary: Faith is necessary, and faith involves steps, or acts of faith.
Of course works are not necessary for salvation in that salvation is by faith rather than works–meaning that works do not earn G-d’s favor.
Ok. Reading this, if somewhat quickly, it seems ok to me.
Thanks.