Jan
12
The Principle of Sphere Sovereignty, Part 1 of 2
“There has clearly been a radical departure from our Christian moorings in acknowledgement and confession of the sovereignty of God in Jesus Christ for all humanity.” — Joe Boot
The book: Ruler of Kings: Toward a Christian Vision of Government (2022)
The author: Rev. Dr. Joseph Boot, a British-Canadian pastor, apologist, and cultural theologian
I have reproduced excerpts from this book in three other posts, but I promise this is the last time. Well,… after Part 2, that is. In this selection, Boot is examining the proper relation of church, state, and society. He has already reviewed historical attempts to find the right formula or balance and observed abuses by both church (of whatever denomination) and state. Generally speaking, nothing has worked out practically nor was supported biblically. This is where we pick up Boot’s line of thinking below, as he prepares to present another, better solution….
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The attempt of the Roman Church to hold together church and state in ecclesiastical union by making the state the all-encompassing natural institution, supervised by the church as a super-natural one, cannot be justified scripturally and its historic record in providing religious liberty is poor. Yet a version of it has been incorporated into much of modern evangelical thinking. In this evangelical version, the state and socio-cultural life are essentially disconnected not only from the church institute, but from God’s rule, His Word and His redemptive work altogether, and allowed to go their own way. Ultimately, the principle of subsidiarity is a violation of both a creational and scriptural principal [sic] because, “the state does not grant existence to any non-state sphere sovereign social entity. It merely has to acknowledge that, on equal footing, there are multiple distinct and sphere sovereign societal entities.”
These Romanist and evangelical variations on a theme fail to properly distinguish the church and the kingdom of God, viewing the church as the principal or only agent of that kingdom. However, as we have seen, since the church cannot be conflated with the kingdom of God itself, the instituted historical church (of whichever tradition) does not have the burden of imposing its confession or authority on the state or the rest of society — it does not need to control or ecclesiasticize society by bringing it under its control. The unique spheres of family, state, academy, business etc., are not the church, nor are they subordinate parts of the church. Critically however, this does not mean they are not to be Christian, transformed and shaped by the gospel, the Word of God and the Lordship of Christ. It only means they are not required to be under ecclesiastical control. When it comes to political life and society, the church’s role is to prophetically propose, not impose its biblical insight for culture.
With regard to the opposite pole in our false dilemma, the tragic knee-jerk reaction of much contemporary evangelicalism to secularization has not been to try and impose its religious confession on political life, but to erroneously assume a need to dissolve any relationship between Christianity, political life and the broader culture. This is done by implicitly or explicitly devaluing creation and culture as a lower or lesser domain of reality and then essentially collapsing the church and the kingdom of God into one another — often identified as a special domain of grace or ‘redemptive kingdom.’ In rightly recognizing the need to separate church and state in terms of jurisdiction and function, they have effectively separated God, His kingdom and His Law-Word from human cultural activity and the exercise of power and authority in the public square. Many of the intellectuals sympathetic to this response end up adopting and promoting individualistic and progressive liberal democracy as the most suitable political philosophy for preserving freedoms and a minimal right to preach the gospel — a hope collapsing before out eyes in the West.
This untenable liberal position tries to hold together two intractably conflicting principles: a radical autonomy of the individual will (the right to sin against God and be a law unto oneself) on the one hand, and the Christian notion of a transcendent moral law and authority on the other. The result has been the flourishing of a naked pagan individualism alongside a sceptical subjectivism. These ideas find institutional expression in a supposedly ‘neutral’ secular state. Not only is such a state anything but religiously neutral, it gradually undermines all social order and defeats its own purportedly democratic purpose….
It is evident then that a scripturally rooted solution is required that addresses head-on the present crisis of social order and the relationship of Christianity to political and cultural life that doesn’t fall into the false dilemma dealt with in the previous chapter — a choice between a unified ecclesiastical culture and a totally relativized place for the claims of Christ and His church in a secularized order. Any solution will be inadequate if it merely appreciates and respects the historic separation of the jurisdictions of church and state. It must realize that all spheres of life — family, church, state, academy, professional associations and bodies, economic life and business, art, science, and all else besides — are themselves, in their own spheres, to be made subject to the Lordship of Christ and the Word of God, as equally important aspects of the kingdom of God. This creational and kingdom principle (Gen 1:28-31; 1 Cor 10:26,31; Col 3:17) is the polar opposite of the pagan notion of the total state and the syncretistic idea of subsidiarity which seeks to Christianize the pagan ideal. As [Herman Dooyeweerd, the Dutch philosopher and professor of law & jurisprudence,] has explained:
“Neither marriage, nor family, nor blood-relation, nor the free types of social existence, whether they are organized or not, can be considered as part of an all-embracing state. Every societal relationship has received from God its own structure and law of life, sovereign in its own sphere. The Christian world and life view, illumined by the revealed Word of God, posits sphere sovereignty of the temporal life spheres over against the pagan totality idea.”
The basic creational principle at work here (Col 1:15-20; Rev 1:5) was first called sphere sovereignty by Abraham Kuyper. The fundamental teaching of sphere sovereignty rests on four essential biblical principles. The first, as already discussed, is the total sovereignty of God over all creation which He called into existence (Ps 103:19; Prov 16:4). Because of the providence of God active at every moment, He also guides the development or becoming of His creation in the unfolding of its potentiality. As such, His sovereign providence is a constant and absolute (Job 1:21; Ps 75:6-7; Prov 3:6; Dan 4:35; Matt 10:29; Acts 17:26; Rom 11:36). No area of life is exempt from the authority of the creator and redeemer (1 Chron 29:11).
Secondly, all social institutions in their historical disclosure, despite the distortions and disturbance present due to the fall into sin, find their ultimate origin in creation since everything was separated and distinguished ‘after its kind’ in creation, having the right to exist and develop (Gen 1; 1 Cor 15:38-41; Eph 3:14-15). Thirdly, God’s authority is a lawful authority. Though He is above law and not bound by it, as the author of all creation He governs His creatures by law, and promises His covenant faithfulness to that Law-Word. God’s Law-Word is refracted within creation into a vast plurality of forms — i.e., for the inorganic and organic world, as well as the total life of man in all his functions and institutions. These laws, norms and ordinances of creation can be studied and understood, and they express the will of God for creation, providing order and constancy and obligating creatures in all their life activities (1 Kings 4:29:34; Ps 119; Eccl 1:4-10; Is 28:23-29). Fourthly and finally, because of God’s laws for creation, each person and social institution has the right to exist alongside others with a duty to function in terms of God’s Word in creation and Scripture, being obligated to fulfil a specific task and calling in history in terms of God’s kingdom (Gen 1:28; 22:18; Ps 1; Eccl 12:13; Matt 7:26; John 14:21; Rom 2:6-11):
“The laws of creation, therefore, make possible a plurality of social institutions or spheres, each with a measure of autonomy or sovereignty vis-a-vis all others. The sovereignty of any social sphere, however, is always limited by the sovereignty of co-existing spheres and limited to the task or function to which it is called. Moreover, this earthly sovereignty is subservient to the absolute sovereignty of God. It is delegated by God and remains ever dependent upon Him.”
On this view, by virtue of God’s creation ordinances and laws for cultural development there are varied differentiated spheres of life within human society including the family, church, state, business, educational institutions, the arts and so forth, which do not owe their existence to the state, nor do they derive their internal sphere of law from the state. These spheres of life must obey the authority of God and His Word over them. They are not subservient to the state, nor do they relate to the state in parts-to-whole fashion as though they were lesser ‘parts’ of the state. As such the state has no right to overreach and intrude into them. The parts of the state proper are provinces and municipalities, unified under one public legal order within a given territory. Families, churches, schools, businesses etc., may reside and function in that territory, but that does [not] make those entities parts of the state.
On this model each sphere is prevented from dominating, controlling and absorbing each other. Instead, each are of life (including the family, church and state) enjoys an internal sovereignty. God has established these various spheres of life to be governed in terms of their own structural principles, ruled by His Word and subject ultimately to Christ as Lord and king. The state does not grant existence to the family or the church as though they were lesser parts of itself. Instead, the state must recognize their uniqueness, acknowledge the legitimacy of their relative independence and respect the boundaries of the God-given freedom and authority. This important principle cuts both ways. The church institute does not grant authority to the state by directly appointing or anointing it….
Importantly, this direct accountability of the state to God does not set aside the obligation of churches to preach righteousness in the public space and to prophetically speak truth to power. Nor does it diminish the responsibility of all Christians in every area of life and culture to diligently apply their faith and the fulness of the Word of God — whether they are lawyers, politicians, judges, teachers, artists or mechanics. As Kuyper put it, “If one at this point asks whether the Christian religion should not also influence public life, the answer is: without a doubt…; but that influence must come to expression along the constitutional route.”
Our secular culture, in the hope of doing away with God’s laws and norms for creation, has invariably tried to reduce human social organization and relationships to bare ‘natural facts’ with merely biological, psychological and economic causal explanations for their existence. But human social relations are not discerned in the same way that we can observe the causal relations in the behavior of a flock of geese — that is, they are not given to us as empirical natural facts. The various typical structures that allow us to distinguish different forms of human social relationship (e.g., family, church and state) are intangible and so the natural sciences cannot discover them. Attempts to ‘explain’ social structures without creational norms end up explaining nothing.
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Though perhaps slightly redundant at times, Boot does a masterful job at defining and exploring the major issues and what he believes to be the only solution that is both workable and scripturally supported. Naturally, it is Christo-centric.
Part 2 will continue (likely next week) with further discussion of the principle of sphere sovereignty, while looking at the concepts of a just state vs. a power state, as well as public law, civil private law, and non-civil private law. See ya then…
