The Mighty and the Almighty: An Essay in Political Theology by Nicholas Wolterstorff

Author:Nicholas Wolterstorff [Wolterstorff, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Reference & Test Preparation, Religion & Spirituality, Religious Studies, Theology, Religious Studies & Reference
ISBN: 1107027314
Amazon: B008R9T2CS
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012-07-12T00:00:00+00:00

God does not forbear Israel's wrongdoing; God does not put up with it. But neither does God take vengeance on Israel. Instead God disciplines Israel, reproves her. God's treatment of Israel is like a parent's punishment of her child.

Though God forbears the wrongdoing of the other nations, forbearance is not the last word. Eventually God judges and punishes the nations. What Romans 12:19 says is that God's punishment of the other nations takes the form of retribution. Paul does not explain how God's retributive punishment of the nations fits together with God's offer of justification to all members of all nations – though what can be said, of course, is that God does not “take vengeance” on anyone who accepts God's offer of justification.

It's not our business to deal with the mass of human wrongdoing; that's God's business. God's way of dealing with the mass of human wrongdoing will have a dimension of retribution. Believers are not to imitate God in that respect. They are not to avenge themselves. They are not to repay evil with evil, harm with harm. They are instead to return evil with good. If one's enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

Paul's teaching in Romans 13 leaves you and me with many questions. Do states have the authority to exercise governance over the public for purposes other than curbing injustice – to coordinate certain actions of the citizens, for example, to provide infrastructure of various sorts, to provide benefits of certain kinds even when it cannot be argued that justice requires it? Nothing Paul says implies that states do not have such authority; I myself think it highly unlikely that he thought the Roman Empire had exceeded its authority when it built its network of roads. All we can say is that he does not cite such authority as bestowed on the state by God.

It would be a serious mistake, however, to allow this and other silences on Paul's part to obscure from view the significance of what he is not silent about, the significance of what he has said. The God-given task of government is not to pressure citizens into becoming virtuous and pious; its God-given task is instead to pressure citizens into not perpetrating injustice. Though it is not inconsistent with what Paul says to hold that government has the authority to seek various social goods, we should not fail to be struck by the fact that what he cites as the God-given task of government is deterring, punishing, and protecting against wrongdoing. God authorizes and enjoins the state to be a rights-protecting institution. This implies, as we saw, that it is also to be a rights-limited or rights-honoring institution.

I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter that the novelty of the situation Paul was addressing – how the members of the church are to relate to the Roman Empire – did not lead him to offer a substantially new answer to the question of political authority and obedience.

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