When should sins against God be punished by the State? Part II

First, once again, some housekeeping.

This will take three posts, not two. Sorry, but there's just too much good stuff to talk about in this conversation! I'm afraid I'm going to have to wait until Part III to get to our society, and how I think things should "shake out." But I promise to at least start in that direction below- and get there for sure in Part III! ;)

This one will be pretty much about the nature of God's Law, and its interface with human societies in general- pretty much even without the benefit of the Bible.

Pr. Chryst says the following in the Comments regarding Part I:

This paragraph is perhaps the heart of the issue, for me:

I'm not sure that judging sins by "size" works any better in civil law than in the pastor's study. Again, can there be a "bigger" sin than rejecting Christ? Yet despite the implications of the radical secularists among us, I know of no Christian who suggests that unbelievers should be jailed or executed!

I actually DO believe we can distinguish between sins (in their consequences, effects, etc.. but not in damnability). Why then, are the "bigger" sins (per common sense understanding), which most would see as worthy of death, the "bigger" sins? What makes them so? While at the same time we all agree that jailing unbelievers (arguably the "biggest sin") is inappropriate? Yes, but, why?

Another interesting point was the civil authorities putting heretics to death through the history of Western Civilization. Was this appropriate? (I would argue "no"). This seems a pretty clear violation of the 2 kingdom distinction. But again... looking for those principles.

And I agree. I'd parse the question this way: we need to distinguish between "size" as we have the means and the vocation to address the issue, and "size" as God must address it.

As to damnability, Pr. Chryst is right; we dare not speak there of "big" or "little" sins. To imagine that there could possibly be anything more grievous, considered in itself, than the slightest offense against God is to totally misunderstand Who God is. It is also to miss the point of just how lavish and prodigal is the grace through which God forgives all sin. Christ paid the penalty before God for every crime of the worst mass murderer just as completely and absolutely as the slightest peccadillo of the holiest saint. It's in that sense- considered in themselves- that there is (and can be) no distinction among sins. Or sinners.

But sins can in their spiritual consequences. A moment of lust, or a momentary loss of temper, instantly repented, is a very different thing than apostasy. A sin of weakness is a very different thing than a sin of rebellion. Not all sin interrupts one's communion with God, or deprives one of salvation. The issue is not its magnitude, but the degree to which it constitutes an intentional and ongoing rejection of God's fellowship, His grace, and the faith which cannot co-exist with whole-hearted rebellion against Him.

But that's where things begin to get dicey. We instinctively want to say that, in some sense, the pederast or the mass murderer is worse than the jaywalker. And no doubt he is. I think it's appropriate for us to make such distinctions in civil law. I wonder whether it might not be best to avoid even trying to make them as regards guilt before God. For one thing, only He has all the information- ever- to properly assess relative guilt. And I wonder whether human beings are even ever called to judge the degree of a person's guilt before God, even if we had the information to make such an assessment (which we don't). What purpose would such a purely human judgment serve? Only one that I can see: "Lord, I thank you that I am not as others are..."

We aren't called to be judges, when it comes to offenses against God. It simply isn't a part of our vocation. We're called to proclaim the Law, not to assess degrees of guilt. When we do so, or when we address the phenomenon of manifest and impenitent sinners in our midst who have refused to listen to it, we still are not judges. We are merely clerks, who publish the verdict.

That changes, by definition, when the Kingdom of the Left Hand becomes a matter of the State punishing criminals, rather than the Church proclaiming the Law. There, judges is what we (or at least those called to that role- which, as voters in a democracy, indirectly we all are).

A word of explanation for any who may have been misled on this point: the Kingdom of the Left Hand in Luther's thinking is not the State, and the Kingdom of the RIght Hand- while found only in the Church- is not identical with it. Rather, the Kingdom of the Left is the realm of law, compulsion, and coersion, and the Kingdom of the Right is the realm of sheer grace and utterly free, voluntary response to it. The Old Adams of all human beings are citiizens of the Kingdom of the Left, whether in the church or in civil society; only New Selves can be subjects of the Kingdom of the Right- and only Christians have those.

In the realm of the State, we have to determine guilt or innocence with regard to gross violations of the Law. We also have to assess and enforce penalties. That means determining degrees of guilt, and taking into account aggravating and extenuating circumstances, should such arise.

There have been societies- ancient Israel's for one, and the Saxony of Luther's day, to cite another- in which God's Law was applicable in a very clear and direct way. Ancient Israel was a theocracy; Reformation-era Saxony was, to all intents and purposes, also a theocracy! There was an established church, and established exegesis of the relevant texts. The theology faculties could do double duty as courts of biblical interpretation.

Geneva was a theocracy, too. To this day, in Reformed circles, the ideal is the state run by biblical law- and the task of Christians in a pluralistic democracy is to undertake political action to Christianize civil society.

But Luther disagreed. One comment he made brought the point home well, especially as paraphrased by my seminary advisor, Dr. Ralph Quere: "Better to be ruled by a smart Turk than a dumb Christian!"

Luther had no time for the notion that society needed to be Christianized. He understood that it's people, not societies, who believe- and who are therefore capable of belonging to the Kingdom of the Right.

He recognized what Paul points out in Romans 1: that the Law of God is not simply written in the Bible. It's written in the human heart long before it's inscribed in law books, or even proclaimed from the pulpit. We need the external Word to convey the Gospel- to make Christians. But the natural Law is plenty to make a just society. Luther was even prepared to believe reports (doubtless exaggerated) that the best government on Earth was to be found under the Turk! More than that, it was only to the degree that the Law as written on the human heart (despite the discomfort of my seminary professors at Warthog with this concept, to the degree that it corresponded to the natural law) that Luther saw even the Ten Commandments as binding upon non-Jews!

To take up Chi Chi's question, is adultery- which Luther bemoaned, was not universally punished under civil law- not a violation of that natural law? Of course it is. So is homosexuality, by the way. Does it follow that we should therefore criminalize it?

Not necessarily- though it certainly does follow that we must stigmatize and discourage it. In Luther's society, that might even have meant criminalizing it. But more on that later.

Remember, Luther's view frees us from the burden of trying to repristinate ancient Hebrew society, with all its unique and time-bound cultural foibles which fall outside the realm of the natural Law- the burden Reformed political theory still has to struggle with. It also frees us from another potential pitfall of Reformed thought, as evident among contemporary American "Evangelicals" as in Calvin's Geneva: the presumptuous equation of the contemporary civil community with ancient Israel as in any sense a community specially chosen by God, and thus obligated to remain not only just, but kadosh- holy and set apart- among the nations of the Earth.

But now, let's jump to the opposite end of the question, as it were. Suppose that we're not dealing with Reformation-era Calvinists or Lutherans or Catholics, or ancient Israelites, or contemporary Americans. Suppose we consider instead the ultimate validation of Paul's- and Luther's- insight regarding the nature of the Law as written on the human heart.

We land on a hitherto-undiscovered island. We are the first outsiders the natives have ever seen. Let us assume that our meeting goes well. Good-will exists on both sides. They permit us to study their customs and laws. What are we likely to find?

A great deal out of harmony with God's Law. After all, the Fall has blurred that writing on the human heart- and natural knowledge of God is all these people have.

They worship the creature rather than the Creator. They may be animists. They may be polytheists. Yet either way, there are very rigid taboos about respect for holy things, and the severe penalties for carelessly treating them- or even their names. Participation in religious rites and rituals is obligatory; society cannot risk the wrath of the gods being called down upon all because of the impiety of a few, or even one!

Reverence for older tribe members is a foundational tribal value. Parents are deeply respected. Ancestors might even be worshipped, or their spiris propitiated. Chances are that age and experience are values sought after in leaders. in fact, "the elders" are probably the governing class.

Killing in war or even ritual may be permitted. There may or may not be an accepted practice of capital punishment; depending on the size and nature of a society and its surroundings, exile might be a practical equivalent. There might even be a form of ritual vengence or vendetta. But it's very unlikely that the culture is indifferent to the killing by one person of another outside those carefully defined circumstances.

Any of several patterns of marriage and sexual practice might obtain. Yet they are likely to exist within a surprisingly narrow range. It's interesting that Margaret Mead's alleged discovery of the sexually "liberated" customs of various aboriginal peoples turned out, when the people were later interviewed by other anthropologists, to be fables Mead was told because the natives sensed that they were what she wanted to hear!

However many people may constitute a marriage, its bonds- and the obligations of parents to offspring- are apt to be both strong and well-defined. Those definitions may not be precisely the ones we are acquainted with. But they are there nonetheless- and one disregards them at his or her peril. The consequences of disregarding them are apt to be severe. There is probably some concept of property- communism, however this may dismay those on the Left, is a profoundly unnatural state of economic affairs. Inappropriately strong desire for the possessions of another is apt to be seen as at best bad form, and there aren't very many societies in which lying about somebody else- especially in important matters- isn't frowned upon.

In case you missed it, while not in perfect order, what you have above is a distorted but recognizable version- what Superman Comics might call a "Bizarro" version- of the Ten Commandments. Distorted by the presence of sin in the human heart, God's Law is nonetheless recognizable- and recognized, however distorted it may be- even among those who have never seen a Bible and have never heard a sermon.

"The Tao," C.S. Lewis called it- "The Way." We hear a great deal about the diversity of the human race, and how we should beware of imposing our values upon others. Yet as Lewis and other apologists have pointed out over and over again, what we really discover when we look the peoples of the world is that, for all their diversity, their notions of right and wrong are in far more fundamental agreement than disagreement. "Ethics" is not the relativistic grab-bag we keep being told it is. Rather, there is a truly remarkable consensus on the subject of personal ethics among the peoples of the world- a consensus far more impressive than the differences we find when going from culture to culture!

The Law of God is, after all, written on the human heart. It takes various forms- usually distorted, but always recognizable by those not actively trying not to recognize it. And wherever human beings gather together to form a society, they bring it with them. Their civil laws- their common affirmations regarding the nature of the Tao, and the rules they enforce in the fulfillment of a calling God gave human society with the foundation of the first family- the exercise of authority, the establishment of order, and the protection of the weak from the strong- are a function of that law written in their hearts (however distorted), filtered through their mutual experiences and the elaborations and refinements which take place in the process of a group of people becoming a society. Their agreements and disagreements, together with the circumstances with which they are confronted in trying to live together as a community, all contribute to the development of a common understanding of the way life needs to be lived- to their code of law.

And also on the distinction they make between what violations of the rules need to be punished criminally, and which are best handled by social disapproval- which sometimes can be an even more severe form of punishment. See specifically adultery.

One will search in vain for a detailed biblical guide to how these things ought to work out. The fact of the matter is that the Bible just isn't interested in giving us a code of civil law applicable to any but one specific society which- despite the well-intentioned misuse of its example by pious folks throughout history as in whole or in part a model for other societies than ancient Israel, existing in other times and places, under different conditions, and incorporating without constituting the people of God- is utterly and completely unique.

Buit now, my wife wants me to take her out for dinner, so Part III- and all that stuff Pr. Chryst actually asked me about- will have to wait at least until I get back, I'm afraid!