This post is part of a series walking through the third volume of Abraham Kuyper’s Common Grace
To say that God gives natural revelation to the whole world doesn’t tell us how. We assume that government gets wisdom from Scripture, sometimes to the point of ignoring nature. This leads to the (false) conclusion that only Christians should be government officials. This was the Roman Catholic position before the Reformation, and was often the position of the Reformers as well. Yet this was an inappropriate blending of political and religious positions, and eventually fell away. Government was not intended to work in such a way, and reality doesn’t match these expectations.
Yes, government should consider Scripture, but Scripture is not the basis of government. If Scripture were the basis of government, there could have been no legitimate pre-1st-century AD governments in the world. Even without Scripture, government still has “some form of light.” (79) But what is this light?
We see two truths here: 1) “governments care for the people” and 2) “maintenance of justice and righteousness” are primary functions of government. In terms of 1), this is clearly taught by nature–war, agriculture, commerce, etc are all outside of Scripture’s details. The Bible even tells us that these things are outside of Scripture (cf Isaiah 28:24-29)
In fact, government must account for nature’s teachings in these areas.
“…a government that… does not pay attention to the teachings of nature ends up moving the people backward instead of forward. This also demonstrates how Christian statesmen, who perhaps are perceptive in terms of principles and spiritual interests but who neglect studying the realm of nature, considering the natural realm to be beneath them, are in the end going against God’s command. They deliberately slam shut the book of nature and of experience and refuse to listen to the lessons, instructions, and teaching that God gives through nature and experience as they inform the task of governing. It is easy to float along on speculative theory, but this is a denial of divine providence.” (81)
Unlike animals and their instincts, we learn “gradually, through trial and error via the path of experience.” (81) Government that ignores this moves the wrong way, and Christians who do so may ultimately deny providence and cede politics to the unbelieving world.
In terms of 2)–the “maintenance of justice and righteousness”–it is a (but not the only) reason that government “is the servant of God.” (81) Where does this light come from? All have some light here, even if some are higher and others lower in terms of how much they understand: even the worst nations have some idea of justice. This sense of righteousness comes from two places: 1) our inner senses of justice and honesty; 2) our inborn deference to authority. We all have a sense of justice–even “gamblers and rogues.” (82) Likewise we’re all aware of the need for authority, even if we disagree about applications of that sense. This is born out of our inequality–if we were all equal, no government would be needed. Since the majority are weak, we turn to government the authoritative resolution of conflict. This grows and reinforces the place of that authority in our minds and in our lives.
These senses of justice and authority are “reinforced through tradition, history, and genius. (83) In each of these areas we see the path for government unfolding along its path by means of Providence in the natural world.
Dr. Coyle Neal is co-host of the City of Man Podcast an Amazon Associate (which is linked in this blog), and an Associate Professor of Political Science at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO
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