Good Order

Chapter Eight: Good Order

The difference between state and society.

  • Tradition: Continuities between Early and Late. Augustine’s City of God and his definition of 2 cities: the heavenly city and the earthly city. The implications of that for Christians. 
  • Medieval Tradition. During this time, there was a strong presumption in favor of political authorities.
  • Reformed and Early Modern Tradition. Calvin’s vision of a Christian state led to violently competing religious groups. This is turn led to the idea of rights of individuals.
  • The Modern Period. A more nuanced view of the state and the church. Barth viewed the state as part of God’s ordinance for security of humans.
  • Universal. The government as an agent of action should be the last resort. Other entities (the church for example) should act when it can.
  • Subversive. The state, by its very nature, is totalitarian. The church needs to react against that when it makes sense. 
  • Ecclesial.
    1. Karl Barth. The church is the basis of all true sociality.
    2. William Cavanaugh. Church as the “Out-narration” of the state. The church should resist being a political interest group.
    3. Oliver O’Donovan. The church is the destiny of the state.

Justice and Punishment

Six different kinds of justice:

  1. Commutative
  2. Contributive
  3. Distributive
  4. Legal
  5. Retributive
  6. Restorative
  • Justice: In Christian tradition, we are to be just as God is just. 
  • Punishment: Punishment can be viewed as the wrongdoer what they deserve and/or a deterrent to others and to reform the wrongdoer.
  • Universal. They have the same arguments as secular theorists. Punishment is what the wrongdoer deserved—just desert. Punishment is reforming and/or a deterrent. Catholic church uses the principle of the created dignity of the criminal.
  • Subversive. This group tends to be similar with the Universal group with some differences in some areas.
  • Ecclesial. The starting point is the life and example of Jesus Christ which is passed onto the church. The focus is more on restorative justice as opposed to retributive justice.

War

Early Christians were generally pacifist. That changed into a more nuanced position about war. Three various stances with 6 kinds of war:

  1. Pacifism. a) Theological pacifism is rooted in the life of Jesus. b) Pragmatic pacifism believes that nonviolence is more effective than war.
  2. Crusade. 2. Crusades draws from the warring narratives in Joshua and Judges. These wars are fought on God’s behalf. a) Historic crusades examples are the 8 between 1072 to 1270. b) Contemporary crusades. Any was that is designed to change the cultural values of a society is essentially a crusade.
  3. Just War. Augustine’s work influential. Violence may be necessary in the earthly city. a) Just War. Both the rightness of the war and its effects on the innocent are important. Criteria are a legitimate authority, a right intention, and an overwhelming balance of injustice on one side. b) Qualified Just War. 
  • Universal. In the universalist camp, there are both pacifists and just war adherents. Violence is viewed as returning a degraded state to the natural state.
  • Subversive. Violence is viewed more as to radically transform the social order, the creation of something new.
  • Ecclesial. According to some, Christians ought to have a default preference for nonviolent approaches to personal or political threat.
Charles Eklund 2018