posted
But that does not in any way change the black and white wording of Paul's statement, nor does it change that Augustine would never advocate that a subject of David or Saul choosing not to obey the commands that came from their authority because the subject thought that they were unjust.
For Augustine in the context of the "just law", it's not a matter of whether or not it's ultimately unjust, but who can make that determination. He reserves that for...wait for it...people in authority. His just law was a reconciliation between the City of Man and City of God authorities. Incidentally, this made it into the widespread divine right of kings thinking, where the Church excommunicating you meant that you no longer had the right to rule anything.
In terms of authority, Paul's statement admits no caveats. Nor for that matter does Augustine. Authority can only be acheived because God wants it and it is the subjects duty to submit to that authority.
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I agree that it is difficult to understand how that passage in Romans can allow us to actively dissent when we feel that a ruler is wrong. It does seem like it says that we must submit. Certainly, though, there are good examples of people clearly doing God's will by not submitting.
I, personally, reconcile this by my belief that Paul did not always get it right and that he was writing to a specific audience at a particular time. Not to mention a time when Roman authorities were likely to be reading his letters to the congregation in Rome.
I, personally, would be interested in other opinions.
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quote:In terms of authority, Paul's statement admits no caveats.
Only to people who don't admit that "authority" and "submission" are very complex words, or that Paul's statement exists within the context of an enormous set of teachings.
It's basic statutory construction that when something can be read not to contradict something else from the same or higher authority, then that is the more likely reading. The same principle can easily be applied here, with "Scripture and Tradition" being the relevant same and higher authorities.
Paul's statement read as narrowly as you read it leaves no room for the martyrs to have done what they did and still have it be called "good." To reconcile the very common Christian idea that the martyr's were acting morally and correctly in refusing to obey a particular order from the state authorities, you state they adopted a particular exception from Christ's words.
Very good. If you can do that in the face of the bald language of the statement (or, if you're not doing that, if Augustine could), then others can - and did - read other exceptions into that statement. As I said, it's common Christian theology. It's just not universal.
MLK, Jr. had a few things to say on the subject as well.
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quote:I, personally, reconcile this by my belief that Paul did not always get it right and that he was writing to a specific audience at a particular time. Not to mention a time when Roman authorities were likely to be reading his letters to the congregation in Rome.
I, personally, would be interested in other opinions.
My interpretation is that Paul undersood the reader to be able to supply context. Just as we might say, "Citizens must obey laws passed by Congress"* without adding "unless those laws are unconstitutional," so could Paul say that we must submit to authority without adding "unless such submission would be contrary to other teachings."
Any non-trivial moral decision requires weighing different moral principles that are in tension and sometimes are directly competing with each other. We don't have to explain all the possible tensions and balancing rules when stating an individual moral principle, and neither did Paul.
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I think we are on the same page. I don't thing that St. Augustine always got it right either. For example, while I am forever grateful for his writings on the Paschal Mystery, I think he messed us up big time in the sex department.
And I think that, generally, people in power are going to use whatever tools they have to consolidate their power. That Christianity has been used to this purpose so often, is one our great tragedies.
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An addition to my previous post: To give an example of the complexity of the language, mere passage by Congress isn't enough to make a law - it requires either presidential signature or super-passage. Yet we are comfortable saying "laws passed by Congress" to mean "laws passed by Congress and either signed by the President or repassed by 2/3 of each house and that haven't been repealed by similar action or declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court."
Paul was writing a letter and it is unreasonable to expect full specificity when the context clearly doesn't support it.
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Dag, I fail to see how you can change "there is no authority except that which God has established" and "The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted" in such a way that makes it so Hitler did not acheive his authority because God wanted him to.
Or, for that matter, in such a way that Germans who tried to overthrow Hitler would be doing the right thing.
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Now, you've claimed that you've already demonstrated the first part, and that me not seeing it is a case of me not listening, but I honestly haven't seen it, even on rereading.
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posted
So how do we, today, apply that passage to whether or not we respect the President of the Office of the President? Since we have to make up our own minds as to whether what the President wills is contrary to a higher authority, we end up following our own consciences anyway.
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Also, if the letter was meant to say "You should submit to authority, except when you think they're wrong." I don't understand what the purpose of that statement is.
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quote:I fail to see how you can change "there is no authority except that which God has established" and "The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted" in such a way that makes it so Hitler did not acheive his authority because God wanted him to.
Because authority is not the same thing as power, and because Hitler circumvented the authority which was in place to obtain his power.
quote:Now, you've claimed that you've already demonstrated the first part,
No, I demonstrated why a Christian German would not have to obey all of Hitler's commands.
quote:So how do we, today, apply that passage to whether or not we respect the President of the Office of the President? Since we have to make up our own minds as to whether what the President wills is contrary to a higher authority, we end up following our own consciences anyway.
I'm curious as to where this conflation of "respect" with "thinks is doing the right thing" comes from.
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quote:Also, if the letter was meant to say "You should submit to authority, except when you think they're wrong." I don't understand what the purpose of that statement is.
I don't know what the purpose of that statement would be if that were the interpretation. That's certainly not what I've said it means. I've said it means that one does not have to obey a law from such an authority that contradicts God's law, which leaves plenty of meaning and purpose in that statement.
For example, it means that the martyrs were correct to refuse to follow the order to worship the state gods but would not have been correct to use that as an excuse to disobey other certain Roman laws that the martyr might think wrong for other reasons. (BTW, you haven't addressed why the martyr exception which isn't present in Paul's language is OK but not the just law exception.)
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quote: I'm curious as to where this conflation of "respect" with "thinks is doing the right thing" comes from.
"Submit to" then? I was going back to the original question. The Romans passage suggests (problematically) submission, which I consider goes even further than "respect".
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Kate, our current authority allows a lot of dissent and specifically limits the President's authority. There's a lot of room to move against the President while still submitting to the authority of the government.
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quote:Because authority is not the same thing as power, and because Hitler circumvented the authority which was in place to obtain his power.
Hitler had indisputable secular authority recognized by his own people and, for that matter, the Catholic Church. For that matter, while his rise to power was not without irregularities, I'm not sure how you're saying it was completely illigitmate. What is your criteria for determining between power and authority?
And, what about all the other Hitler-like rulers who achieved their positions through the incident free operation of established succession?
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That makes sense. I guess I am still uncertain about why it made sense to post the passage in this discussion. I suppose that Farmgirl would be the right person to ask.
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quote:I'm not sure how you're saying it was completely illigitmate
That would be because I'm not saying it was "completely illegitimate."
You haven't addressed why the martyr exception which isn't present in Paul's language is OK but not the just law exception.
Either the rule has to be taken as it reads on its face or weighing it with other commands is allowed. If weighing it with other commands is allowed, what principle makes the other commands you've allowed OK and the ones I've allowed not OK?
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I wasn't aware I needed to establish why the martyrs thing was not an exception. Jesus took religion out of the scope of secular authority. There is no contradiction between what he said and what Paul said.
Now, not only is Augustine not Jesus, but, using the rather extreme intrepretation of his just law thing that he himself wouldn't agree with, you've introdced a direct conflict. You are saying "Paul didn't mean that. This is what he really meant, which was submit to authority except in these cases." Paul makes no exceptions in his black and white worded statement. Nor does any authority of Paul's stature or greater.
Paul (and Augustine) clearly establish the principle that all authority, no matter what, must necessarily come from God because he so desires it. The command is made to submit to this authority, and, as I've said, submission in the Bible is only used in a very strong, precise sense. Likewise, we're talking about Roman times. Jesus himself recognized the Caesers' legitimate authority, though Julius' rise to power was far more irregular and contrary to the laws of the land than Hitler's. I don't think your "That's not authority. That's just power." criticism is at all valid.
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quote:Originally posted by Artemisia Tridentata: Read again. I think you will find that at least some of us are arguing that it is The Office of the President that deserves the respect. That same arguement would have been made for Clinton, or even Nixon!
I understood that from the beginning Artemisia and my question still stands. For those of you who are currently arguing that one should respect the Office of the President, did you feel this way under Clinton? If you didn't, what resulted in your change of heart?
These are important questions. You are asking me to respect a Man who I believe is grossly immoral and dangerous simply because of the office he holds. So I'm asking, were you able to do the same thing when the office was held by someone you thought was immoral?
If you couldn't, clearly you've changed your mind. What has lead you to change your mind?
If the next President is someone you see as an immoral person, what will you do to respect that individual?
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quote: I guess I am still uncertain about why it made sense to post the passage in this discussion.
I posted it only in response to the direct question of why I chose to respect the office of the President of the United States, or those who have authority over me (from my boss on up). It was not an attempt to say anyone else had to agree with me -- I was simply saying that is (in part) my guidance (within context, as Dag says) - or IMHO.
quote:That would be because I'm not saying it was "completely illegitimate."
You made an implicit claim that Hitler had power but not authority. I took that to mean that Hitler's claim to authority was without legitimacy. Are you saying that he was a legitimate authority?
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quote:If the next President is someone you see as an immoral person, what will you do to respect that individual?
I considered President Clinton to be an immoral person, yet I still respected the fact that he was our elected and chosen President, and should be treated with respect. That does not mean I agreed with his morals.
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quote:I wasn't aware I needed to establish why the martyrs thing was not an exception. Jesus took religion out of the scope of secular authority. There is no contradiction between what he said and what Paul said.
Exactly. And there is no contradiction between Paul's statement and weighing the many other commandments Christians are supposed to follow. "What is God's" from the passage you have alluded to can easily be interpreted to mean all the duites we owe God.
I see you aren't going to address my interpretation, including the context and the rather simple idea that one doesn't have to state every exception to a general principle when stating that general principle.
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quote:You made an implicit claim that Hitler had power but not authority. I took that to mean that Hitler's claim to authority was without legitimacy. Are you saying that he was a legitimate authority?
You seem to have forgotten the word "complete" in your earlier attempt to restate my position.
He was not a legitimate authority. That does not mean he had no legitimacy whatsoever.
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posted
Yes, there is a direct contradiction between a clearly worded statement to submit to the authorities and you saying that he didn't mean you had to submit to the authorities. Jesus established that secular authorities did not have authority over what is God's. Thus, there were different classes of authority.
Such is not the case with what you are presenting. It is not the individual's place to decide. The authority only has that authority because God established it for them. If you go against that authority, if you don't submit to it, you are going against what God established, you are not submitting to God's design.
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quote:Yes, there is a direct contradiction between a clearly worded statement to submit to the authorities and you saying that he didn't mean you had to submit to the authorities. Jesus established that secular authorities did not have authority over what is God's.
And what I'm saying is that "what is God's" is not as limited as you say it is.
quote:Such is not the case with what you are presenting. It is not the individual's place to decide. The authority only has that authority because God established it for them. If you go against that authority, if you don't submit to it, you are going against what God established, you are not submitting to God's design.
Except you already said that authority does not have authority over "what is God's."
Do you honestly think that "what is God's" is so easily defined that individual interpretation isn't necessary?
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posted
Dag, I'm not sure I understand. To me it's a binary situation. Either Hitler had the divinely established authority that he exercised over the German state or he didn't and merely had power (what I consider a false distinction anyway). I don't see how this is a partial thing.
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quote: and you saying that he didn't mean you had to submit to the authorities.
And once again, for crying out loud, I HAVEN'T SAID HE DIDN'T MEAN YOU HAD TO SUBMIT TO AUTHORITIES.
I have said there is a set of commands that cannot be overriden in submitting to authorities. Something you agree with for commands to worship state gods.
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quote:Do you honestly think that "what is God's" is so easily defined that individual interpretation isn't necessary?
In Paul's time, you better believe it. The latitude in the Biblical use of submission that you're positing didn't exist.
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quote:Dag, I'm not sure I understand. To me it's a binary situation. Either Hitler had the divinely established authority that he exercised over the German state or he didn't and merely had power (what I consider a false distinction anyway). I don't see how this is a partial thing.
Your insistence on hard-line distinctions that aren't supported by the text is the root of the disagreement.
And, to be clear, I really don't give a damn how you interpret it. I just resent the hell out of you telling me and Farmgirl that we can't interpret it a different way.
Clearly we can. Clearly there are rational reasons for doing so. If you can't admit that at this point I am done with this.
Provided you don't misstate what I'm claiming again, of course.
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quote:I have said there is a set of commands that cannot be overriden in submitting to authorities.
Submission involves, among other things, giving up personal judgement. Explicit in the command is that people could not judge for themselves the rightness or wrongness of God's established authorities on a case by case basis.
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quote:In Paul's time, you better believe it. The latitude in the Biblical use of submission that you're positing didn't exist.
Wrong. Quite simply wrong.
You still haven't explained why this exception (again, not supported by the direct language of the statement in any way) is OK other than Jesus said so.
Jesus also said to feed the hungry. If Congress did pass a law making it a felony to feed hungry illegal aliens, I would submit there is no requirement to follow that law arising out of Paul's statement.
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posted
Can we at least get Romans 13 in context???? I think much is actually explained in the context of the passage. The government is clearly portrayed as a protector of the good and punisher of the lawless. Obviously if it isn't doing that, as in verse 3 there are issues.
quote: Romans 12:18-13:10 (NAS)
18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.
19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord.
20 "BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS ON HIS HEAD."
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
1 Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.
2 Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.
3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same;
4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.
5 Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience' sake.
6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing.
7 Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.
8 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
9 For this, "YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF."
10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
quote:Submission involves, among other things, giving up personal judgement. Explicit in the command is that people could not judge for themselves the rightness or wrongness of God's established authorities on a case by case basis.
In YOUR interpretation. One shared by others, but not the only one.
Why the hell can't you acknowledge that other intelligent people can read what you're reading and reach a different conclusion?
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posted
According to verse five, your conscience is the higher authority than the government's judgement. Obviously if you can't in good conscience follow the government's laws, then the government is not a legitimate godly authority, because all True Authority, for punishing evildoers and encouraging good is from God.
AJ
The context of the passage is that personal vengance is clearly discouraged whatever the reason. And vengance will be paid back by God to those in the authority if those in authority are evil, whether here or in the afterlife.
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posted
If it's definitional then "Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same;" supports my view quite extensively, because anyone who causes fear for doing good would not be an authority.
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Farmgirl, You may notice that the quote commanding submission comes not from Jesus, but from Paul and it is limited to a specific case, namely dealing with the rulers.
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You're reading it backwards. Submission is not predicated on conscience. Conscience is predicated on submission. Paul has already established that people can't have authority except that God allows them to have it. Thus, not submitting to them is not submitting to God's plan, which should trouble your conscience.
By your reading, you have the individual conscience trumping God's plan.
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Paul's basic assumption is the "best of all worlds" panglossian one. He is saying that because God has established these things, they can't be wrong. I think this is obviously wrong, but that's what he is saying.
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posted
Read verse 18, if that doesn't mean conscience exists before submission I don't know what does.
"If possible, so far as it depends on you" as a caveat at the very beginning, means that there are going to be times when it is going to be impossible in good conscience, to leave peacably with all men.
posted
Squick it seems like what you are really arguing is the greater question "if god is good, why does evil happen to good people."
But that's not what everyone else is trying to deal with here. (nor what you asked to begin with) This discourse proves your initial question was not asked in good faith. Otherwise you wouldn't spend so much time attacking people that disagree with you.
posted
Banna, I'm not arguing that question, but that was sort of Paul's starting point. To him, established by God = good and all authority = established by God. Therefore, it is not possible for them to not carry out God's plan and thus you can use them as a reliable determiner of the behavior that is in line with what God wants. To submit to them is to submit to God's plan. To rebel against them is to rebel against God's plan and you are promised condemnation for it.
Also, conscience exists independent of submission. Paul does not preclude the individual conscience. What he says is that your conscience should be clear when you submit to authority and troubled when you don't. He's positing a moral metric.
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posted
It also means that unless the government authorities are impeding your conscience and/or worship of god, you should respect them and their offices as lawful bodies existing for the maintenance of society.
posted
I honestly don't see what says that. Are you talking 12:18 or 13:5 or something else? I don't see Paul making any provision for the disobeyance of those in authority.
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quote: For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. ..... For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil.
I don't know what kind of reasoning it is it may be more inductive than you would like. But if you take these statements and the rest of the passage here is my logic:
If rulers cause those with good behavior and clean consciences to fear, and do not punish evil
Then, the authority of those rulers is not from God.
Otherwise, it is a just authority established by God, and worthy of respect even if those in the ruling offices are human and flawed like the rest of us.
posted
But there can be no authority except from God. No one can become a ruler unless God wants them to.
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In the greater sense, if you believe in the omnipotence of god, yes, god does allow evil rulers to exist.
However, what I believe the passage means specifically is that there can be no just authority except from God. If the authority is unjust then it isn't from God.
posted
You're turning the passage into a call for rebellion, which, though a lovely idea, is the exact opposite of what Paul was trying to do, especially when taken in context.
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The people Paul is talking about are identified. They are the "governing authorities". The authorities that exist were established by God. They are the rulers. No provision is made as to "just" rulers or "legitimate" governors. Merely those who govern, those who rule.
And, as I said, Jesus himself identified the Caesers as the legitimate secular authority
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posted
So, to bring it back around "respecting the office of the president" to some (although I don't want to put words in Farmgirl's mouth) means "the system is still just"
If someone is inconsistent like Rabbit says, then yes, the statement is coming from a different skewed motiviation. However many of the fundamentalists I was raised around, still believed that the office of the president deserved respect even if they felt Clinton was dishonoring the office by his behavior. Most of the same sort of people felt that Nixon showed respect to the office of the Presidency by resigning once impeached (even if he surely would have been convicted by the senate also)
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