The Glory of God and the Expanding Power of the State: Last Part and Conclusion
This is the last part and conclusion in the series of articles about a public lecture on The Glory of God and the Expanding Power of the State.
Solution
After discussing the character and the consequences of the expanding power of the state, let us now proceed to the solution. Since we approach this subject from both the economic and the theological perspectives, let us also see the solution considering these two outlooks.
Economic Education
In the last chapter of Bureaucracy, Mises shows us the way to reduce the size of the civil government. Here we find the economist calling the average citizens of the nations of the world to seriously take the responsibility to personally educate themselves on how the economy works. For him, this is the only way to stop the bureaucratic invasion of liberty. He considers this as "the first duty of a citizen of a democratic community. . ." (p. 111) for without it, "democracy becomes impracticable" (p. 120). In his eyes, democracy is not "a good that people can enjoy without trouble", but "a treasure that must be daily defended and conquered anew by strenuous effort" (p. 121).
However, fulfilling the above duty is not easy. There are many obstacles to overcome, and two of them are intimidation by professionals who strongly advocate the expanding power of the state and the popularity of government interventionism considered the third alternative.
Let us deal first with the intimidation by professionals. In this battle of ideas, an ordinary citizen has no match when confronted with objections coming from professionals. Mises identified that these professionals are almost everywhere:
There are, first of all, the hosts of employees of the governments' and the various parties' propaganda offices. There are furthermore the teachers of various educational institutions who curiously enough consider the avowal of bureaucratic, socialist, or Marxian radicalism the mark of scientific perfection. There are the editors and contributors of 'progressive' newspapers and magazines, labor-union leaders and organizers, and finally leisured ambitious men anxious to get into the headlines by the expression of radical views (p. 116).
The goal of attaining economic education is "not to make every man an economist" (p. 115). Instead, "The idea is to equip the citizen for his civic functions in community life" (ibid.) and "to make the civic leaders fit for such encounters with professional preachers of bureaucratization and socialization" (p. 117). This type of education is important because:
The conflict between capitalism and totalitarianism, on the outcome of which the fate of civilization depends, will not be decided by civil wars and revolutions. It is a war of ideas. Public opinion will determine victory and defeat (p. 115).
Let us now turn to the second obstacle, the popularity of government interventionism considered as the third alternative. Mises gave us a more elaborated explanation of the nature of this compromise:
The citizen 'looks upon the conflict between capitalism and socialism as if it were a quarrel between two groups, labor and capital each of which claims for itself the whole of the matter at issue. As he himself is not prepared to appraise the merits of the arguments advanced by each of the parties, he thinks it would be a fair solution to end the dispute by an amicable arrangement: each claimant should have a part of his claim. Thus, the program of government interference with business acquired its prestige. There should be neither full capitalism nor full socialism, but something in between, a middle way. This third system, assert its supporters, should be capitalism regulated and regimented by government interference with business. But this government intervention should not amount to full government control of all economic activities; it should be limited to the elimination of some especially objectionable excrescences of capitalism without suppressing the activities of the entrepreneur altogether. Thus, a social order will result which is allegedly as far from full capitalism as it is from pure socialism, and while retaining the advantages inherent in each of these two systems will avoid their disadvantages. Almost all those who do not unconditionally advocate full socialism support this system of interventionism today and all governments which are not outright and frankly pro-socialist have espoused a policy of economic interventionism. There are nowadays very few who oppose any kind of government interference with prices, wage rates, interest rates, and profits and are not afraid to contend that they consider capitalism and free enterprise the only workable system, beneficial to the whole of society and to all its members (pp. 117-118).
For Mises, to see the differences between socialism and capitalism as simply "a struggle between two parties for a greater share in the social dividend" is equivalent "to a full acceptance of the tenets of the Marxians and the other socialists" (p. 118). This perspective is based on fallacious economic reasoning. Mises concluded that this act of compromise would end in disaster:
Economic interventionism is a self-defeating policy. The individual measures that it applies do not achieve the results sought. They bring about a state of affairs, which-from the viewpoint of its advocates themselves-is much more undesirable than the previous state they intended to alter. Unemployment of a great part of those ready to earn wages, prolonged year after year, monopoly, economic crisis, general restriction of the productivity of economic effort, economic nationalism, and war are the inescapable consequences of government interference with business as recommended by the supporters of the third solution. All those evils for which the socialists blame capitalism are precisely the product of this unfortunate, allegedly 'progressive' policy. The catastrophic events which are grist for the mills of the radical socialists are the outcome of the ideas of those who say: "I am not against capitalism, but ..." Such people are virtually nothing but pacemakers of socialization and thorough bureaucratization. Their ignorance begets disaster (p. 119).
To conclude this part, let us see how Mises understands the importance of the study of economics by declaring a solemn warning in his magnum opus, the Human Action:
The body of economic knowledge is an essential element in the structure of human civilization; it is the foundation upon which modern industrialism and all the moral, intellectual, technological, and therapeutical achievements of the last centuries have been built. It rests with men whether they will make the proper use of the rich treasure with which this knowledge provides them or whether they will leave it unused. But if they fail to take the best advantage of it and disregard its teachings and warnings, they will not annul economics; they will stamp out society and the human race (p. 881).
Theological Response
- Irreligion and False Theology
Four years after the publication of Bureaucracy, R. B. Kuiper of Westminster Theological Seminary published an essay in November 1948, The Word of God Versus the Totalitarian State. The essay has five sections: the function of government, the nature of man, the autonomy of spheres, the kingship of Christ, and the sovereignty of God. Since Mises explained in the Introduction that totalitarianism is the destiny of the bureaucratic system, I want to share what Kuiper has to say on the subject limiting my summary to the first two sections of his essay.
Kuiper began his essay by citing two historical facts related to war propaganda and the generally accepted reason for the ascendancy of totalitarianism. It was believed that the purpose of both WW1 and WW2 was to make the world a better place for democracy. But what was actually accomplished through the two world wars was the emergence of totalitarian states such as Italy, Germany, Japan, and Russia.
Furthermore, it was also believed that the neglect of spiritual values and widespread materialism prepared the way for totalitarian governments. People were willing to trade their liberty for "a big paycheck" (p. 199), and they didn't care about the expansion of the government's power as long as the economy was secured. It was alleged that such an attitude was prevalent during economic depression both under the Roman Empire and in the 1930s. Though there was an element of truth to this belief, R. B. Kuiper identified them not as the roots, but as the symptoms of totalitarian ascendancy. He traced the cause somewhere else, which he described as "basic evil" - "irreligion and false theology" (ibid.). And he cited the experience of Israel concerning this matter as recorded in the Old Testament.
When the Israelites instead of fulfilling their calling to be a great nation before the surrounding nations through God's nearness to them by answering their prayers, through the possession of divine decrees and laws, and through careful obedience to these laws (Deuteronomy 4: 5-8), instead they wanted to follow after the footstep of the nations by asking a king to rule them. God clearly revealed to Samuel that the act of the people was not aimed against Samuel as the nation's judge, but an act of rebellion against Him. The Lord said, "it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king" (1 Samuel 8:7). Kuiper deduced a universal application from this section of biblical history:
In this sinful world, no nation can get along without human government. But that nation which fears God most walks in His ways most faithfully, and so honors Him most consistently as its king, has the least need of government by men. Contrariwise, in the measure in which a nation denies the sovereignty of God, in that very measure, it is certain to ascribe sovereignty to the men that rule it. The people that will not have the God of sovereign love reign over them are bound to accept the rule of despotic men. In a word, the basic cause of state totalitarianism is irreligion (pp. 199-200).
At this point, Kuiper exposed the negligence of "the church of the social implications of the gospel of Jesus Christ" (p. 200). Modernism gently dealt with totalitarianism; fundamentalism "has been handicapped by its strong aversion toward any sort of social gospel;" both Roman Catholicism and American Protestantism have their own vision to put up a totalitarian church, and neo-orthodoxy failed to comprehensively grasp the nature of totalitarianism. As a result, all failed to arrest the continuous growth of totalitarianism. In terms of a comprehensive study of totalitarianism, Kuiper thinks that "Dutch Calvinism has perhaps done best of all" (p. 201).
- Calvinism and Politics
Prior to R. B. Kuiper’s paper, there was actually an earlier lecture delivered during the opening of the 1898-1899 academic year at Princeton and later published as a book in 1931. I am referring to that landmark lecture delivered by Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism.
In the 3rd chapter where Abraham Kuyper discussed the relationship between Calvinism and Politics, he argued that Calvinism is the source and the only way to maintain and protect liberty both from the threats of State tyranny and the popular concept of liberty. In this lecture, Kuyper touches on politics, he wants to dispel the idea that confines Calvinism as purely an ecclesiastical and doctrinal movement. Consistent with the concept that politics is basically grounded on a certain religious or anti-religious idea, Calvinism shares a similar character in providing political changes that affected “three historic lands of political freedom, the Netherlands, England and America” (p. 78).
Kuyper quoting Bankroft, affirms that “a Calvinist is a fanatic for liberty, for in the moral warfare for freedom, his creed was a part of his army, and his most faithful ally in the battle” (ibid.). Referencing Groenvan Prinsterer, he repeats: “‘In Calvinism lies the origin and guarantee of our constitutional liberties’” (ibid.). Such an influence exerted by Calvinism is acknowledged by “every competent historian” and “all scientific students” (ibid.).
Calvinism’s fundamental idea that serves as the source of such political influence is the concept of cosmological “Sovereignty of the Triune God over the whole Cosmos, in all its spheres and kingdoms, visible and invisible” (p. 79). This central concept serves as the basis of “a threefold deduced supremacy, viz., 1. The Sovereignty in the State; 2. The Sovereignty in Society; and 3. The Sovereignty in the Church” (ibid.).
Following the threefold deduced sovereignty mentioned above, Kuyper divided his third lecture into three parts plus an application of the theory. I think we need to revisit again this important lecture reflecting particularly on the relevance of the first two parts in our discussion of the expanding power of the state.
Kuyper’s insightful distinction between the organic character of the human race and the mechanical character of the state is helpful as a corrective to the idea of the paternal character of the state.
By organic, he meant, “Together we form one humanity, not only with those who are living now but also with all the generations behind us and with all those who shall come after us. . . All the human race is from one blood” (ibid.). Maintaining this organic unity politically in the post-sin world is now impossible. Emperors failed to this seriously and that’s why their dream of a world empire did not work. In our time, a similar dream is shared both by social democracy and anarchy, but for Kuyper, such a political project is “a looking back after a lost paradise” (p. 80) and therefore unattainable.
By mechanical character of the State, Kuyper meant that it is “something unnatural; something against which the deeper aspirations of our nature rebel; and which, on this very account, may become the source both of a dreadful abuse of power, on the part of those who exercise it, and of a continuous revolt on the part of the multitude” (ibid.). From this tension, “the battle of the ages between Authority and Liberty” started, “and in this battle, it was the very innate thirst for liberty which proved itself the God-ordained means to bridle the authority” (ibid.) whenever it degenerated into tyranny. And so to understand the true character “of the State with and of the assumption of authority by the magistrate, and on the other hand all true conception of the right and duty of the people to defend liberty,” one cannot get away from the basic idea in Calvinism “that God has instituted the magistrates, by reason of sin” (pp. 80-81).
- Two Dominant Political Theories
Another interesting insight we can glean from Kuyper’s lecture is that in contrast to the Calvinistic concept of politics, two dominant political theories exist in our time: Popular-sovereignty and State-sovereignty. It is this second political theory that is relevant to our discussion of statism.
Kuyper elaborates on this political theory as follows:
. . . the Sovereignty of the State, a product of Germanic philosophical pantheism. Ideas are incarnated in the reality, and among these, the idea of the State was the highest, the richest, the most perfect idea of the relation between man and man. Thus, the State became a mystical concept. The State was considered as a mysterious being, with a hidden ego; with a State-consciousness, slowly developing; and with an increasingly potent State-will, which by a slow process endeavored to blindly reach the highest State-aim. The people were not understood as in Rousseau, to be the sum total of the individuals. It was correctly seen that a people is no aggregate, but an organic whole. This organism must of necessity have its organic members. Slowly these organs arrived at their historic development. By these organs, the will of the State operates, and everything must bow before this will. This sovereign State-will might reveal itself in a republic, in a monarchy, in a Caesar, in an Asiatic despot, in a tyrant like Philip of Spain, or in a dictator like Napoleon. All these were but forms, in which the one State-idea incorporated itself; the stages of development in a never-ending process. But in whatever form this mystical being of the State revealed itself, the idea remained supreme; the State shortly asserted its sovereignty and for every member of the State it remained the touchstone of wisdom to give way to this State-apotheosis (pp. 88-89).
As a result of this high view of the State, the transcendent character of God falls away and has been transferred to the State. We now have a view of the State as a “god”. In this divinization of the State, the most important instrument is the law. It is considered binding in it itself “not because its contents are in harmony with eternal principles” (p. 89). And so, if the majority of people would agree on making something a law though it contradicts the will of God, such a law is considered right and binding. And here’s how Kuyper summarizes this divinization of the State and its will:
That which exists is good because it exists; and it is no longer the will of God, of Him Who created us and knows us, but it becomes the ever-changing will of the State, which, having no one above itself, actually becomes God, and has to decide how our life and our existence shall be (ibid.).
- Sphere Sovereignty
The second part of that lecture is about sovereignty in society. Here is where we get this concept of Sphere Sovereignty. By these terms, Calvinists understand:
that family, business, science, art and so forth are all social spheres, which do not owe their existence to the state, and which do not derive the law of their life from the superiority of the state but obey a high authority within their own bosom; an authority which rules, by the grace of God, just as the sovereignty of the State does (ibid.).
Applying the earlier distinction between the mechanical and the organic concepts to state and society, we see that an antithesis exists between these two entities. Since the nature of state power is mechanical, it cannot intrude and has nothing to command in social spheres, which are organic in nature. Kuyper explains further the distinction between the mechanical character of the State and the organic character of social spheres:
It is here of the highest importance sharply to keep in mind the difference in grade between the organic life of society and the mechanical character of the civil government. Whatever among men originates directly from creation is possessed of all the data for its development, in human nature as such. You see this at once in the family and in the connection of blood relations and other ties. From the duality of man and woman marriage arises. From the original existence of one man and one woman, monogamy comes forth. Children exist by reason of the innate power of reproduction. Naturally, the children are connected as brothers and sisters. And when by and by these children, in their turn, marry again, as a matter of course, all those connections originate from blood-relationship and other ties, which dominate the whole family life. In all this, there is nothing mechanical. The development is spontaneous, just as that of the stem and the branches of a plant (p. 91).
But the case is wholly different with the assertion of the powers of civil government” (p. 92). As nations emerged, “people formed States. And over these States God appointed governments. And thus, if I may be allowed the expression, it is not a natural head, which organically grew from the body of the people, but a mechanical head, which from without has been placed upon the trunk of the nation (pp. 92-93).
With this mechanical personality of the State, “the principal characteristic of government is the right of life and death” (p. 93) and the sword is the best symbol to represent such power. Based on apostolic testimony, this sword has a threefold meaning:
It is the sword of justice, to mete out corporeal punishment to the criminal. It is the sword of war to defend the honor and the rights and interests of the State against its enemies. And it is the sword of order, to thwart at home all forcible rebellion (ibid.).
However, Kuyper emphasizes that serving justice remains the highest duty of the government, and secondly the protection of its citizenry both from domestic and foreign threats (ibid.). The outcome of this organic character of social spheres and the mechanical nature of the government is one of conflict and tension simply because the latter tends “to invade social life, to subject it and mechanically to arrange it. But on the other hand, social life always endeavors to shake off the authority of the government, just as this endeavor at the present time again culminates in social democracy and in anarchism, both of which aim at nothing less than the total overthrow of the institution of authority” (pp. 93-94).
However, despite such detrimental outcomes due to mechanical interference of government, still Kuyper thinks that cooperation is attained between society and the State with “the so-called ‘constitutional government’” (p. 94), and it is exactly in this area that Calvinism made a great contribution.
Kuyper further expounds on the sovereignty of the sphere:
The University exercises scientific dominion; the Academy of fine arts is possessed of art power; the guild exercised a technical dominion; the trades union rules over labor—and each of these spheres or corporations is conscious of the power of exclusive independent judgment and authoritative action, within its proper sphere of operation. Behind these organic spheres, with intellectual, aesthetical, and technical sovereignty, the sphere of the family opens itself, with its right to marriage, domestic peace, education, and possession; and in this sphere also the natural head is conscious of exercising an inherent authority,—not because the government allows it, but because God has imposed it. Paternal authority roots itself in the very lifeblood and is proclaimed in the fifth Commandment. And so also finally it may be remarked that the social life of cities and villages forms a sphere of existence, which arises from the very necessities of life, and which therefore must be autonomous (p. 96).
After summarizing the idea of sphere sovereignty under four categories, Kuyper issued a warning that in all these social spheres “the State-government cannot impose its laws, but must reverence the innate law of life” (ibid.) for God Himself rules in these spheres.
And therefore, by virtue of sphere sovereignty, State’s power cannot be all-encompassing, but limited:
Bound by its own mandate, therefore, the government may neither ignore nor modify nor disrupt the divine mandate, under which these social spheres stand. The sovereignty, by the grace of God, of the government is here set aside and limited, for God's sake, by another sovereignty, which is equally divine in origin. Neither the life of science nor of art, nor of agriculture, nor of industry, nor of commerce, nor of navigation, nor of the family, nor of human relationship may be coerced to suit itself to the grace of the government. The State may never become an octopus, which stifles the whole of life. It must occupy its own place, on its own root, among all the other trees of the forest, and thus it has to honor and maintain every form of life which grows independently in its own sacred autonomy (pp. 96-97).
- J. Gresham Machen
Finally, let’s proceed to D. G. Hart, the librarian of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. I think his article about J. Gresham Machen, The Reformed Tradition, and the Transformation of Culture contains something very relevant to our present topic.
After mentioning his personal assessment of Machen’s influence and the aftermath of the man’s death, D. G. Hart voiced out his bewilderment about the lack of visibility of the Reformed community in the public square. To him, he finds this unacceptable for part of the distinctive marks of Reformed tradition is the affirmation of the inseparability of gospel proclamation and cultural transformation. D. G. Hart explains further the importance of these Reformed marks:
A hallmark of Reformed thought is the idea that Christianity involves the transformation of culture as well as the proclamation of the gospel. According to this view, the gospel does more than prepare the soul for life after death. Indeed, because God deemed his creation to be good, Christians need not renounce so-called 'secular' pursuits in politics, education, business or art in order to be witnesses to the gospel (p. 307).
And then, D. G. Hart shares his suspicion that perhaps the reason for such lack of visibility or delayed response from the Reformed camp is due to the influence of H. Richard Niebuhr:
Part of the blame for this ironic twist may be that the chief interpreter of the Reformed tradition on culture is H. Richard Niebuhr's classic work, Christ and Culture (p.308).
As such, “Niebuhr has become the last word for many on the tranformationist impulse of Reformed theology” (ibid.).
However, exploring the ideas of Machen, D. G. Hart argues that Niebuhr’s stance is not the only voice that represents the Reformed tradition. In Machen, we find a vision of cultural transformation that is both faithful to Reformed theology and sensitive to the issues of the time.
In presenting Machen’s vision, D. G. Hart divides his essay into five parts: the consecration of culture, the separateness of the church, the relationship between church and culture, the modern predicament, and the responsibility of the church in our time. Among these parts, I think the last two will provide us with how Machen relates when it comes to the growing power of the state.
D. G. Hart narrates an unfortunate state of things among evangelicals in America. With their goal to achieve cultural prominence, evangelicals in America had been politicized and divided between the evangelical left and the evangelical right. To their credit, both parties offer rationales that appear to be compatible with a Reformed outlook. Evangelicals correctly point out that Christ's lordship extends to all areas of life, including the public square, and that the Christian idea of salvation involves not just the individual soul but all aspects of what it means to be human. This is the reason why evangelicals often speak about the need to go beyond fundamentalism and its narrow conception of Christianity (ibid.).
However, in their zeal to attain cultural standing, both camps intend to use the state as a means for implementing and enforcing Christian norms and values. Instead of following the mistake of many in the Puritan tradition, Machen thought that it is not part of the duty of the state to interfere in the affairs of individuals, families, and other private associations (p. 322).
Another interesting insight we find in Machen’s concept of the state is related to matters of decision. In the mind of Machen, “the state is an ' “involuntary organization; a man is forced to be a member of it whether he will or not.” ' It was, therefore, ' “an interference with liberty for the state to prescribe any one type of opinion” ' for its citizens” (ibid.). For Machen, this insight has implications to limit the power of civil government. The regulation of private schools and the setting of the “number of hours that children could work” are “matters for parents to decide” (ibid) and they are not within the sphere of a government authority.
Machen believed that the state should not paternalistically require all families to conform to one standard. Thus, Machen rejected the Constantinian paradigm of church-state relations which had dominated Christianity, whether Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Protestant since the fourth century (ibid.).
Contrary to both modernists and fundamentalists of his day who “wanted to preserve Christian civilization in the United States and were willing to use the state to do so, Machen perceived the dangers of such a strategy. For him, these dangers were as harmful to the church and its mission as they were to the civil liberties of citizens and communities” (ibid.).
- Legitimate Duties of the Civil Government
One of the primary criticisms of John Frame in Schlossberg’s book is that the excessive attack on the expanding power of the state left him with an unclear impression that appears to him “that any desire for additional state power is sinful.” He then is left wondering about the legitimate powers of the state.
For R. B. Kuiper, the exact limit of government function is not easy to determine. To him, both "general revelation in nature and history" and the Bible are necessary to identify the legitimate role of the government. And basic to biblical revelation is that the state was instituted by God to prevent sin from destroying human society. To achieve this goal, the state's primary task is "the enforcement of justice and to abstain from all activities not bearing directly on the upholding of justice" (p. 203).
Faithfulness to this task is the only antidote to totalitarianism.
Kuiper recognizes that without civil government, human society would turn into hell. And at the same time, simply because politicians and bureaucrats are also under the power of sin, the government cannot be trusted with total control over all the activities of its people. It is not destined for man to have this kind of power; such desire is "satanic" in nature (p. 206).
In Lectures on Calvinism, Abraham Kuyper clearly spelled out that the civil government has threefold duties when it comes to social spheres:
- Whenever different spheres clash, to compel mutual regard for the boundary lines of each; 2. To defend individuals and the weak ones, in those spheres, against the abuse of power of the rest; and 3. To coerce all together to bear personal and financial burdens for the maintenance of the natural unity of the State. (p. 97).
However, Kuyper emphasized the rule of law in implementing the above duties. For him, government officials cannot decide unilaterally to prevent 'the abuse of power on the part of the civil government'(ibid.).
Ending his lecture on Calvinism and Politics, Kuyper provided us with a more detailed description of the duties of State officials. He divided them into three categories: "1. towards God, 2. towards the Church, and 3, towards individuals" (ibid.).
Concerning the first category, State officials are perceived as servants of God. It is their duty “to recognize God as Supreme Ruler, from Whom they derive their power. They have to serve God, by ruling the people according to His ordinances. They have to restrain blasphemy, where it directly assumes the character of an affront to the Divine Majesty. And God's supremacy is to be recognized by confessing His name in the Constitution as the Source of all political power, by maintaining the Sabbath, by proclaiming days of prayer and thanksgiving, and by invoking His Divine blessing” (ibid.). But for State officials to fulfill this duty, Kuyper emphasized the necessity on their part to investigate the rights of God as revealed in nature and in Scripture:
Therefore, in order that they may govern, according to His holy ordinances, every magistrate is in duty bound to investigate the rights of God, both in the natural life and in His Word. Not to subject himself to the decision of any Church, but in order that he himself may catch the light which he needs for the knowledge of the Divine will. And as regards blasphemy, the right of the magistrate to restrain it rests in the God-consciousness innate in every man; and the duty to exercise this right flows from the fact that God is the Supreme and Sovereign Ruler over every State and over every nation. But for this very reason, the fact of blasphemy is only then to be deemed established, when the intention is apparent contumaciously to affront this majesty of God as Supreme Ruler of the State. What has then punished is not the religious offense, nor the impious sentiment, but the attack upon the foundation of public law, upon which both the State and its government are resting” (ibid.).
However, the application of this duty varies depending on the form of government the specific nation has adopted.
How about the relationship between the government and the visible Church? The answer to this question depends on whether the Church we are referring to is perceived as institutionally one or in diverse forms. And then a follow-up question would be proper. Among numerous churches, is it part of the duty of the government to determine which one among many is true? And then to protect such or church from other false churches? “Or is it the duty of the government to suspend its own judgment and to consider the multiform complex of all these denominations as the totality of the manifestation of the Church of Christ on earth?” (p. 105). From a Calvinistic perspective, Kuyper favors the latter but explains that such a position is “not from a false idea of neutrality, nor as if Calvinism could ever be indifferent to what is true and what false, but because the government lacks the data of judgment, and because every magisterial judgment here infringes the sovereignty of the Church” (ibid.). For if the government will follow the first position, then the result would be destructive to religious liberty. The only legitimate stance of the government in view of the existence of numerous churches is to respect religious liberty and never interfere in religious affairs.
The final category is about the government’s duty in relation to the sovereignty of the individual person as expressed in the liberty of conscience. Calvinism protects this kind of liberty and teaches that neither the Church nor the State has the right to coerce it. God is the only sovereign in human conscience. Kuyper quoted two authors that expressed this kind of individual freedom. One is from Prof. Weitbrecht: "Every man stands a king in his conscience, a sovereign in his own person, exempt from all responsibility" (p. 107). And the other is from a certain Held: "In some respects, every man is a sovereign, for everybody must have and has a sphere of life of his own, in which he has no one above him, but God alone” (ibid.).
The civil government then is expected to respect the sovereignty of individual conscience. Kuyper clarifies what he meant by maintaining such respect:
Meantime what the government in this respect demands of the churches, it must practice itself, by allowing to each and every citizen liberty of conscience, as the primordial and inalienable right of all men (ibid.).
In order that it may be able to rule men, the government must respect this deepest ethical power of our human existence. A nation, consisting of citizens whose consciences are bruised, is itself broken in its national strength (ibid.).
References:
Frame, John. 1984. Review of Herbert Schlossberg’s Idols for Destruction. Westminster Theological Journal.
Hart, D. G. 1996. J. Gresham Machen, the Reformed tradition, and the Transformation of Culture. Evangelical Quarterly.
Kuiper, R. B. (1978). The Word of God Versus the Totalitarian State. The Journal of Christian Reconstruction. Retrieved April 23, 2014, from
http://chlcdnpubs.s3.amazonaws.com/JCRv05n01%20L.pdf
Kuyper, Abraham. 1931. Lectures on Calvinism: Chapter 3: Calvinism and Politics. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, pp. 78- 109.
Schlossberg, Herbert. 1983. Idols for Destruction: Christian faith and its Confrontation with American Society. Nashville/Camden/New York: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
Mises, Ludwig von. 1944. Bureaucracy. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Mises, Ludwig von. 1944. The Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War. Yale University Press.
Sproul, R. C. 2008. Statism. www.ligonier.org.
VanDrunen, David. 2015. Glory to God Alone: Another Look at a Reformation Sola. The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology.