Thursday, November 8, 2007
Martin Luther
Luther assumes that Romans and Peter provide a justification for the belief that all temporal power is given by G-d and as such the Christian is obligated to obey those powers. Yet, it seems odd that Paul would be writing to the believers in Rome to tell them they must submit to the decrees of Nero. Do these verses that he uses really establish the legitimacy of the temporal powers that be?
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While I would disagree that the Bible and Luther do not say it is necessary to obey temporal powers and with the idea that there is a choice between obedience and facing the consequences, I would still say that Christians are not to obey all temporal authority. This is true for two reasons. First, as Luther explains, civil government has no power over the soul or belief and therefore one cannot submit and obey an authority that does not exist. Second, on a similar note, men only have to obey their authorities to the extent that they have authority over them. This was apparent in the SGA example. If our SGA representative tells a student to get a job, one may take it as advice but he is not bound by it. However, if one's parent tells him to get a job, he is bound to obey that command. This is because the SGA's authority does not include this command while the parent's authority does.
A standard argument used by the early Christian apologists was that Christianity made better citizens than did the pagan religion. Justin Martyr argued that Christians were more obdient to earthly rulers than were the "noble" Romans.
The martyrs obeyed Nero to the point of physical death, but most did not obey to the point of spiritual death. The Apostle Peter captured the ethos of the early Church: "We must obey God rather than man." When Satanic Roman emperors claimed to be God and demanded that the Christians sacrifice to the "genius" (ask Austin what that means) of Caesar, the early Christians flatly refused. But, they made a point to obey even the Beastly Nero in all respects which did not contravene the Law of God.
One important distinction is that Luther does not say that Christians are obligated to obey temporal powers in all things. He says Christians are to submit themselves to secular authority but that when the decrees of that authority extend to matters of belief and the soul, the Christian is free to disobey because the secular government does not have authority in these areas. However, the Christian, Luther says, must suffer the punishment willingly. The following quotes from On Secular Authority reflect this: "But if you command me to believe, or to surrender my books, I will not obey." ... and, "If he then takes away your goods and punishes you for your disobedience, then blessed are you, and you should thank God for counting you worthy to suffer for the sake of his Word." (pp. 29)
After rereading my comment, I have come to realize it may require some clarification and now that the comment my response was based on has been removed by the author, even more clarification is required.
The comment that I first disagreed with (before it was removed) stated, "Luther does not say that Christians are obligated to obey temporal powers." I would say that Scripture does dictate that man should obey temporal authority, but as I stated previously and wgm4 has re-enforced, only in matters which they have authority. This would not include the soul, belief, or commands which the authority does not have power to give (see SGA example.)
wgm4 and a traveler have already spoken on the main argument for Luther's use of the verses in his justificiation of the temporal powers, that it regards only the wordly kingdom and cannot encroach upon belief, so I may be taking it on a slight tangent.
When Luther writes on the separation of the authority of men and of heaven, he makes a mention of what will occur should the kingdom of men attempt to take authority over matters of the kingdom of God. Rather than stifiling faith as they may wish to, attempts by men to rule over belief only strengthens it further. Quoting from page 31, "And indeed neither faith nor heresy are ever stronger than when mere force, rather than the Word of God is used against them."
Why could it not be said that the decrees of Nero were, in fact, highly beneficial for the Christian church of the time? Paul instructed Christians to obey Nero in matters of state, but when it came to their beliefs, the more Nero pushed, the stronger they grew in resistence of faith (purifying gold, in a sense).
If we were being governed by someone who started pushing into the authority of heaven through legislature and the like, we would not start disobeying every law ever put into action by the ruler, only those in which his authority failed. Using a traveler's SGA example, if an SGA representative told us to get a job, we would not automatically start running about stealing lunches from every other classroom simply because we are not going to obey that one command. Despite their breach in authority at that one point, we still obey at the others, and they are perfectly legitimate.
I found this on a website and thought it was very interesting.
There was a study done by a Yale professor in the 1960's. Here are the findings.- -
Findings
Would you obey orders to hurt an innocent individual-even when the authority issuing them has no coercive means to enforce his commands? On the basis of one of the 20th century's most important pieces of research, chances are that you would. In the early 1960s, Yale social psychologist Stanley Milgram, PhD, conducted an experiment whose purpose was supposedly to study the effects of punishment on learning. The experimenter told the subject that his job was to teach a learner in an adjacent room to memorize a list of word-pairs, and every time the learner made an error, the teacher-subject was to punish the learner by giving him increasingly severe shocks by pressing levers on a shock machine. There were 30 levers whose shock values ranged from a low of 15 volts to the maximum of 450 volts. (In actuality, no electric shock was involved. The "learner" was an actor who only pretended receiving them, but the subject did not know this.) Despite the learner's increasingly pitiful screams and pleas to stop, a majority of subjects (over 60%) obeyed the experimenter's commands to continue and ended up giving the maximum "shock" of 450 volts.
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I agree with everyone that temporal powers do not have authority over the soul or any of our beliefs, and of course a Christian should not obey every command that is given by authority, especially if it conflicts our faith. The problem is that God told us to obey our authority, and if God is always involved in our world than he must have given us our authority for a reason. God has a plan and we should submit ourselves to our earthly authority until it goes against our heavenly authority (God) who is much more powerful and should be feared more than any authority on earth.
Knowing this would all of you actually stand up against earthly authority? Even if you think that God has placed them there for a reason or for the purpose that you would grow closer to God?
In the situation that the Yale professor created, I think that I would have refused, but if I was in the army and my authority told me to shot a person I really do not know what I would do...the Bible says not to murder. But in situations like what wgm4 said - On Secular Authority reflect this: "But if you command me to believe, or to surrender my books, I will not obey." - I would obey this command. If someone demanded that I give over my Bible I would. Even though my Bible is gone I still have my faith, my life, and the opportunity to share the gospel with those who need it.
While it does seem odd that God commanded the believers in Rome to submit to the decrees of Nero, God commands all mankind to obey authority. Acts 5:29 says, "Peter and the other apostles replied, "We must obey God rather than men!" We submit to temporal authority because God himself is the one who instituted them. The believers in Rome submitted to the temporal authority, Nero, because ultimately they were submitting to God. I think we should obey temporal powers until it directly violates God's laws. it is also good to remeber that the powers of this world would not have the power unless God gave it to them. Romans 13: 1-2, states, "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God." We are commanded to submit to God ordained authority and then we must support them.
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