Since governments are ordained o f God, the question remains to what extent obedience to the government can and should be expected. On this issue, theologians and commentators have held dif fering views across church history. Augustine spoke of the state as “ a multitude of men bound together by someone who has con quered.” He felt that, if necessary, Christians should be willing to suffer material loss and obey the government. He also mentioned the responsibil ity of the magistrate who might find it necessary to correct with a certain “benevolent severity.” Thomas Aquinas raised the question whether human law binds a man in conscience. He suggested that laws framed by men are either just or unjust. If they are just they have the power o f binding in conscience because of the eternal law from which they are derived. Whether they are just is to be determined from the end they have in view. A just law is ordered to the common good. To be just, a law should not exceed the power of the lawgiver. As to unjust laws, they may be contrary to the human good, or go beyond the power committed to the lawgiver, or impose unequal burdens. Laws may also be unjust if they are opposed to the divine good. Such are the laws of tyrants, inducing to idolatry or to anything contrary to the divine law. Laws o f this kind must in no way be observed,
because we ought to obey God rather than man. Luther’s view has already been mentioned as it came into sharp focus in relation to the peasant rebellion. Luther’s position has exercised signifi cant influence on subsequent German theologians and commentators. John Calvin, commenting on Romans 13:4, re minds magistrates that they are not to rule in their own interest, but for the public good. They are not endowed with absolute power, but only with suffi cient power to achieve the well-being o f their sub jects. Godet, the famous French expositor, has the following observations on Romans 13, “ Should the Christian support the power of the State even in its unjust measures? No, there is nothing to show that the submission required by God includes active cooperation; it may even show itself in the form of passive resistance, and it does not at all exclude protestation in word and even resistance in deed, provided that to this latter be joined the calm ac ceptance of the punishment inflicted; compare the conduct o f the apostles and Peter’s answer, Acts 5 :29, 40-42. This submissive, but at the same time firm conduct, is also an homage to the inviolabil ity o f authority; and experience proves that in this way all tyrannies have been broken, and all true progress in the history o f humanity effected.”
MARCH, 1969
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