Dr Greg Bahnsen - Political Ethics: Function of the State- Law & Order,Law & Social Justice (Part 4)

A law and order view of the state that is set in contrast to the law, justice and welfare view that we've seen in Mauritan. This is the most constricted of the contemporary Christian views as to the domain of the state's proper function and has been found mainly among Anabaptists and evangelicals. Though of course those two traditions, the Anabaptist and evangelical tradition with respect to the state, differ very sharply from each other on the related but distinct issue as to whether Christians may actively participate in a coercive and non voluntary institution such as the state. An issue which we won't be giving attention to until later on in our course. Now, to give some specificity to the view of law and order as the proper nature of the state function of the state, we'll look at Carl Henry's book Aspects of Christian Social Ethics. I think in that book he most clearly and consistently elaborates this view. A theme which pervades Henry's thought is his abhorrence for the totalitarian tendency of contemporary states. He says quite explicitly, when the power of the state becomes the means for compelling people to do their whole duty, this power can easily be employed to force people to do what is not their duty at all. That's an excellent quote. When the power of the state becomes the means for compelling people to do their whole duty, this power can easily be employed to force people to do what is not their duty at all. In his discussion, Carl Henry singles out especially two connected causes for the totalitarian tendency of contemporary states. First of all is the belief that the state should act out of benevolence toward the desires of its citizens. Henry believes this is a mistaken assumption, that the state should act out of benevolence toward the desires of its citizens. And then secondly, the belief that the state can and should be an instrument of social transformation and renewal. An instrument of social transformation and renewal. So if you have people who believe that the state should act out of benevolence toward the desires of its citizens and that the state should be an instrument of social transformation and social renewal, then you're going to have a state that bloats itself with powers that it doesn't really have. He sees these beliefs as the principal culprits behind the encroaching welfare state, which he says is no longer dedicated to justice and order, encouraging and enforcing human rights and responsibilities under God, but is benevolently bent toward people's socioeconomic wants. It says on page 169, the welfare state is no longer dedicated to justice and order, encouraging and enforcing human rights and responsibilities under God, but is benevolently bent toward people's socioeconomic wants. Henry is deeply convinced that our society needs renewal, of course, but he's equally convinced that Christians must work for such renewal. What he argues is that this renewal will come about if and only if there is religious change in the hearts of individual men. Evangelism, rather than legislation, he says, is the road to social betterment. And I quote, the reliance on political means to lift all the burdens of mankind is characteristic of contemporary social theory in which secular concerns wholly replace the spiritual. Such secular proposals, while claiming to promote social justice, tend in the long run simply to readjust the existing disorders along new lines. That's a fine insight as well, that when people rely on political means to relieve the burdens of mankind, what happens is that instead of social justice being promoted, the existing disorder in society is just realigned. The disorder is shifted to another sector of society. And so Henry says that the aim of the Christian's political activity is not to produce a utopia, but rather to preserve justice and promote order in a fallen world. And I read that again from page 96. The aim of the Christians political activity is not to produce a utopia, but to preserve justice and promote order in a fallen world. In another place in his book, he asked rhetorically, is not the state's obligation in preserving justice to provide what is due as corresponding to the rights of men, rather than to implement agape by acts of mercy or love? His view is that the state provides justice, preserves justice by providing what is due, rather than trying to implement agape, that is, Christian love, by acts of mercy. And so we can see from this already how Henry views the proper function of the state. The state's proper function is to maintain a system of laws regulating the activities of the members of society, a system of laws which secure good order and protect the rights of the members of the body politic. He puts it this the justification of civil law is that it protects my rights and my neighbors. The role of government is but to declare, to apply and to enforce rights which are given of God and therefore inalienable. The purpose of law is to prevent one person from injuring another. My rights end and become my duty where my neighbor's rights begin. That's on page 92. I'll read one more time. The justification of civil law is that it protects my rights and my neighbors. The role of government is but to declare to apply and to enforce rights which are given of God and therefore inalienable. The Purpose of law is to prevent one person from injuring another. My rights end and become my duty where my neighbor's rights begin. Now, the same point could be put in terms of justice rather than in terms of rights. The laws must be based on principles of good order and justice. For, as he says, justice considers every person a subject of rights and an object of duties. On reflection, this point of view will quite inevitably stimulate, I think, the following kind of questioning, the following line of questioning. Now, do the members of our society have a right to education? A right to fire protection, A right to decent medical care, A right to enough income to live decently if disabled? And so will not a system of laws based on justice secure these rights to to its citizenry? Why then should the securing of these rights be prejudicially described as the benevolent satisfaction of wants? But if the state does actually secure these rights, will it not then become what Henry so abhors, namely a service state distributing benefits? In short, does not Henry's own principle of justice lead to a vastly more comprehensive state state than he himself wants? Indeed, some thinkers have justified a comprehensive service state by the principle of benevolence. But doesn't Henry's own principle of justice lead to the same destination by a different road? That is, Henry says the state should be concerned with justice, not with benevolence. And so the welfare state trying to be benevolent is being an unjust state, not doing the proper job of the state, transgressing the proper boundaries of the state. But somebody else comes along and says, no, wait a minute. What is justice? Isn't it just that people should be able to live, that they should have fire protection, that they should be able to pursue an education and so forth? And consequently, on redefinition of justice or an expansion of justice, they can reintroduce the same benefits that Henry has labeled benefits. However, his opponents now call them matters of justice. Well, I don't think that in fact is a way you can get around Henry's position. And it's very important to see why you cannot get around Henry's position in that way. I don't know whether Carl Henry holds then in our well to do society, citizens have a right to education. But I think it is clear from his writings that even if he does hold that, he does not believe that it is the state's business to provide education. For this is not the kind of right he is speaking of. Henry is speaking of freedom rights. Freedom rights. Not benefit rights. Rights. Freedom rights. Instead of benefit rights, he is speaking of the right to act without coercion. In some area or another, a freedom right is the right to act without coercion with respect to something. So an example of a freedom right might be the right to free assembly and free speech. The right to private property. I have a right to act without coercion with respect to my property, my speech, or with whom I assemble. However, when men speak of the right to education, they don't, or at least often, they don't mean the absence of coercive threats against getting educated. See, if Henry speaks of the freedom of education, he means freedom to pursue an education. Others, when they speak of freedom, education don't mean the right to act without coercion. But rather they mean the right freely to pursue an education and to receive it. That is the right to have it provided by the state. Similarly, the right of the disabled to a decent income is not, for modern liberal theorists, the right freely to go about securing such an income for oneself. It's the right to receive an income. And we might accordingly call these rights benefit rights. Freedom rights call for protection, whereas benefit rights call for provision, freedom rights call for protection or something. Benefit rights call for provision of something. A freedom right is a claim on everyone to respect his right. If I have a freedom right, let's say freedom of speech, then you have a corresponding duty to refrain from keeping me from speaking my mind. If I have a freedom right, you have a duty to refrain from getting in my way in doing what I want to do. You have the duty not to coerce my behavior. A benefit right, on the other hand, is a claim on someone or other to satisfy that right. That is to say that if I have a benefit right to welfare. Then you or somebody has the corresponding duty to provide my welfare. This is one of the most crucial things that you can gain from these lectures. And that's to recognize the distinction between a benefit right and a freedom right. And then we can add to that. Although it's not going to be pursued here. If you'd like to read the chapter in my book on homosexuality, on homosexuality as a crime. I distinguish as well a non discrimination right. And what we mean by non discrimination right. It's not simply a right to dealing with your duty to refrain from something or your duty to provide something. But it's a duty to allow me to pursue something. Not to let, for instance, the color of my skin deprive me of educational, occupational or living services that are provided. Now, it's rather clear that when Carl Henry speaks of rights, he's talking about freedom rights and not benefit rights. And so when he speaks of justice as consisting in establishing a man's rights by securing what is due to him, he is thinking of freedom rights and not benefit rights. It's not social justice but regulative justice that he's thinking of. It's not social justice providing, for instance, welfare and education that he's thinking of, but regulative justice keeping people from violating each other's rights and freedoms. Henry's view is that the state's proper function is to regulate the activities of its citizens by maintaining a system of laws based on regulative justice and good order. It is not the state's proper function to actively promote social justice or the satisfaction of certain benefits. And certainly it's not the proper function therefore of the state to dispense services to people in any area whatsoever. Whatsoever. He states what he thinks is the biblical view on this matter on page 93 of his book when he says the Bible views government as a means of preserving justice and a fallen and sinful order. The Bible views justice, excuse me, government as the means of preserving justice in a fallen and sinful order. It's worth adding, I think, to our discussion of Carl Henry's views that in the course of developing his law and order view of the state, Henry espouses a rather individualistic view of human society. Now, this would not necessarily accompany the law and order view of the state, and you should see that distinction. The Anabaptist, after all, shares the law and order view while holding a non individualistic view of at least the Church. On the other hand, the law and order view does quite inevitably accompany an individualistic view of society. Henry seems to regard all institutions apart from the family, the state and the church as purely instrumental and contractual. No other institutions are regarded as having a definite domain of proper functioning. Thus no other institutions are regarded as having independent authority within a definite domain. And so no other institutions are regarded as entering into the fabric of rights than duties. When Carl Henry speaks of rights, he speaks exclusively of the rights of one individual vis a vis another individual. Now, although this is very close to my own heart in terms of my view of the state, for the sake of being educated and understanding the options and, and understanding even better this point of view, you should understand how people would argue against it, and it might be argued by somebody that what should give us pause in the face of the law and order view of the state is its radical exclusion of social justice from the domain of the state's proper function. What should Give us pause is the way Henry totally excludes benefit rights from being fulfilled by the state. Someone would say it's impossible to read the Old Testament prophets without seeing that it was social justice that they were calling for. It was the deprivation of benefit rights that evoked their denunciations. The Christian cannot possibly regard justice as confined to regulative justice. But now in Henry's defense, we must point out that it's one thing to say that the Old Testament prophets were concerned with benefit rights, and it's another thing to say that social justice belongs to the proper function of the state. To the proper function of the state. You see the difference? The Old Testament prophets could indeed have been arguing against the oppression of the poor and arguing against the failure to take care of certain needs of life and the welfare of those who are disadvantaged without saying thereby that it was the state's job to make up the deficiency that it was the state's job to satisfy benefit rights. But what reason would Carl Henry offer for not moving to the conclusion that the state should be satisfying benefit rights in response, in sensitivity to the pride of the Old Testament social profits? Well, Henry's defense, I think, is that social justice can be secured only if hearts are changed. And conversely, that it will be secured if hearts are changed. Henry would say the reason the state is not to take care of these needs that the Old Testament prophets preached about is because these needs can be met only if hearts are changed. And if hearts are changed, these needs will be met. Is that true? Since I am to Carl Henry's view of law and order as the proper function of the state. You know that isn't true. The idea that these needs can be met only if hearts are changed and will be met if hearts are changed. It is true, of course, that in a society of sanctified men social justice will flow forth. So too will regulative justice. We must admit, indeed, beware of the utopian heresy that the kingdom of God will be inaugurated by the state and its coercive devices. But what concerns us here is not the society of sanctified men, but a mixed society. And it's simply not true that benefit rights cannot be secured in such a society. It's simply not accurate to say that it's impossible to secure benefit rights rights in a society of men where there is a mixed multitude, sanctified and non sanctified. The freedom right to hold private property is protected in our mixed society. And an opponent of Carl Henry could say in the very same society, the benefit right to fire protection could be secured as well. Moreover, fire protection and other such things is not secured. Secured by conversion. When the hearts of men are changed, that does not automatically give them fire protection. Fire protection is secured for people by the very device that Henry suggests cannot be used to secure benefit rights. The legislative action of the state. It must, of course, be acknowledged that in our mixed society we will never succeed in fully securing all benefit rights, either by legislation or by other means. But that's not a good reason, it would be said, for failing to try. We will never fully protect all freedom rights either, but we still try to protect them. And so Carl Henry's defense at this point has got to be supplemented. I don't think he can just say, as a matter of empirical fact, these benefit rights cannot be supplied until hearts are changed, and they will definitely be supplied when hearts are changed. We need to add to that there's a difference between what should be done and what can be done. There's a difference between what is possible and what is moral, between what should not happen, ought not to happen, and what cannot happen. Now, Carl Henry might appeal to Paul's statement in Romans 13 that the state is ordained for restraining wrongdoing and that the state is not given any other function. And he might use this to support the conclusion that the state is not limited to regulative justice and is not to be involved in benefit rights making provision for people's needs. But the opponent of Carl Henry immediately is going to say that surely the deprivation of benefit rights is a matter of wrongdoing. And so if the state is supposed to enforce punishment upon those who are engaged in wrongdoing, it will have to enforce benefit rights. Because when people refuse to fulfill benefit rights, that's a matter of wrongdoing as much as anything else. It's a matter of individual wrongdoing and a matter of collective wrongdoing. It's the, if you will, failure to fulfill one's duties. Amos, it might be said, surely would not have tolerated any suggestion that the deprivation of benefit rights in Old Testament Israel somehow occurred without wrongdoing on anyone's part. The wrongdoing which underlies social justice as well as that which underlies regulative justice must be restrained and punished. But what other institution, then the state is authorized to exercise the power of the sword over the entire citizenry? The argument would go that since it is a matter of wrongdoing that benefit rights are not met. The state will have to use the sword to punish those who will not meet benefit rights. The natural question that Arises here now, though, is, does the state punish all wrongdoing? Does the state punish all wrongdoing? Should the state punish overeating, for instance? And by what standard would we affirm that the state must restrain and punish those who refuse to show charity to their neighbor? What standard has been provided for that view of the state? So there are some people, by way of summary here, who believe that all justice falls within the common good, both social justice and regulative justice. For all justice belongs within the property function of the state. And there are some people who say no matters of social justice are individual concerns, and the state's concern is only with regulative justice. In fact, one must ask whether the view that says all justice is within the domain of the state does not naturally work towards toward a comprehensive service state again and inevitably produce a totalitarian state. That is, if the state is supposed to be concerned with all justice, not just regulative justice, criminal justice, if you will, but also social justice, the meeting of benefit rights, or what are alleged to be benefit rights to welfare, fire protection, a decent education, and so forth. If the state is to be concerned with all justice, all matters of morality, sin as well as crime, to put it another way, won't we inevitably produce a totalitarian state? I think then, in our discussion at this point, we have touched on one of the most basic polarities confronting the evangelical community today about political ethics. One of the most basic polarities we seem to have to choose between blinking our eyes to the deprivation of social justice and acquiescing in the monstrosity of the comprehensive service state. It seems like, on the one hand, you have conservatives who say we need to avoid the totalitarian state. And so, well, the deprivation of social justice is something we blink our eyes at. And on the other hand, we have evangelicals say we can't blink our eyes at social justice and its deprivation. And therefore the totalitarian state is a threat we have to live with. Some evangelicals choose one way and some choose another. Some are more concerned with the cry for social justice. Some are more worried about the comprehensive totalitarian state. Now, in the midst of that tension and problem, it has been proposed that there's a way out, a third way, a synthesis between those two pluralities. There are people who convinced that we can take the view of social justice and the worry about the comprehensive totalitarian state and bring them together harmoniously in what will be called now in our third view, the law and justice view of the state. The law and justice view of the state. This is the Third major view of the proper function of the state that's been developed within the 20th century, and I think it's historically accurate to say it's never been characteristic of any one Christian tradition. It's received fairly clear expression, as clear as you're going to get, I guess, in two thinkers in the Reformed tradition, one more liberal than the other, the first being Emil Bruner in his book justice and the Social Order. The other, Herman Doyoubird in the third volume of his new critique of Theoretical thought, Bruner in his book justice in the Social Order, than Doyevaert. In the third volume of this new critique of theoretical thought, Bruner and Doyoubert have expressed their alarm at the totalitarian state. And that it exceeds the proper function of the state, exceeds God's ordering for the state. And the views of both of these men can be seen as an attempt to shape an alternative and a safeguard against the totalitarian state to form a. To formulate a view that will limit the state's proper function. Bruner says on page 134 of his book justice in the Social Order. The monstrosity which bears the name of the totalitarian state has at least at last. I'm sorry, has at last succeeded in reminding us that there are not only primal rights of individuals and of communities, but that there is a just and unjust order of the state itself. The totalitarian state is not like a dictatorship, a form of the state. It is the absorption of all institutions and all rights by the state. The totalitarian state is the inevitable consequence of the view that all rights obtaining among the people issue from the state. The totalitarian state must of necessity come into being wherever political thought is centralistic and all organization is regarded as issuing from above, from the state center. Then we can add to this Doyouverde's remark on page 441 of the third volume of the new Critique. In whatever shape the absolutist idea of the body politic is set forth, it does not recognize any intrinsic limits to the authority of the state. This idea implies an absorption of the entire juridical position of man by his position as citizen or as subject of the government. Now, at the same time that Bruner and Dooyewerd express alarm over the totalitarian, some evangelicals choose one way and some choose another. Some are more concerned with the cry for social justice. Some are more worried about the comprehensive to totalitarian state. Now, in the midst of that tension and problem, it has been proposed that there's a Way out, a third way, a synthesis between those two pluralities. There are people who convinced that we can take the view of social justice and the worry about the comprehensive totalitarian state and bring them together harmoniously in what will be called now in our third view, the law and justice view of the state. The law and justice view of the State. This is the third major view of the proper function of the state that's been developed within the 20th century. And I think it's historically accurate to say it's never been characteristic of any one Christian tradition. It's received fairly clear expression. As clear as you're going to get, I guess, in two thinkers in the Reformed tradition, one more liberal than the other, the first being Emil Bruner in his book justice and the Social Order and the other Herman Doyouvard in the third volume of his New Critique of Theoretical Thought. Bruner in his book justice and the Social Order. Then Doyoubaerd in the third volume of his new Critique of Theoretical Thought. Bruner and Dojevaert have expressed their alarm at the totalitarian state. And that it exceeds the proper function of the state, exceeds God's ordering for the state. And the views of both of these men can be seen as an attempt to shape an alternative and a safeguard against the totalitarian state, to formulate a view that will limit the state's proper function. Bruner says on page 134 of his book justice in the Social Order. The monstrosity which bears the name of the totalitarian state has at least at last. I'm sorry, has at last succeeded in reminding us that there are not only primal rights of individuals and of communities, but that there is a just and unjust order of the state itself. The totalitarian state is not like a dictatorship, a form of the state. It is. It is the absorption of all institutions and all rights by the state. The totalitarian state is the inevitable consequence of the view that all rights obtaining among the people issue from the state. The totalitarian state must of necessity come into being wherever political thought is centralistic and all organization is regarded as issuing from above, from. From the state center. Then we can add to this Doyvaerd's remark on page 441 of the third volume of the New Critique. In whatever shape the absolutist idea of the body politic is set forth, it does not recognize any intrinsic legal limits to the authority of the state. This idea implies an absorption of the entire juridical position of man by his position as citizen or as subject of the government. Now, at the same time that Bruner and Doyewaerd express alarm over the totalitarian tendencies in modern states, both of these men express their conviction that the state is charged by God with the function of promoting supporting social justice. They are convinced that the word of God lays down the mandate for the state to function in a way that promotes social justice. It would be enlightening to have them prove this particular claim. And one of my greatest dissatisfactions in reading them, to be honest with you, is that there's a whole lot of talk about what the word of God or what God requires of the state without a whole lot of proof texting of what God requires. Some people in Doila Baird, especially in his tradition, as we'll see later, abhors proof texting. The idea that you have to have some specific place in the Bible where something is taught. You can learn things of a more general nature just by giving a general impression or a feeling for the tenor or tendency or inclination in biblical teaching, I suppose. And of course, Emil Bruner, being a neo orthodox theologian, doesn't believe in infallible, inerrant verbal revelation anyway. So I think it's rather telling that we have a, on the one hand, a man who doesn't believe in verbal infallible revelation, and a man who on the other hand believes that you don't have to have specific text to back up your teaching, that they are the ones who tell us that God has laid it upon the state to promote social justice. That's a major defect. They're making a claim which one must wonder how the claim could be defended under challenge. Now, central to the thought of both Bruner and Dojevaert is the vision of a well ordered society as being what Bruner calls the federal society, a society whose institutional fabric contains a large number of distinct autonomous institutions. Bruner's federal society is obviously similar similar to Mauritan's pluralist society. And it's interesting, I think, that there should be a coalescence between a Roman Catholic and an alleged Reformed thinker on just this point. However, there is a difference. You can't strictly identify Mauritijn's pluralist society and Bruner's Federalist society. Mauritiin clearly thought that the Church and the family each had a proper function within a definite domain and that consequently each had an authority that was not derived from the states and had rights to be protected by the state. But Mauritan can be read as saying that all Institutions, except these are in fact subordinate to the state. His recommendation that the state grant grant each a considerable degree of independence can be seen as having no deeper basis than what is good policy in most circumstances. Because while he doesn't want the state to dominate in all areas, he doesn't believe it's wrong for the state to dominate in any areas except when it gets in the way of the family and the church. Now, on this crucial issue, Bruner and Dojo are clear. They hold that the institutional fabric of a well ordered society will contain a great many institutions having a proper function within a definite domain. And each of such institutions accordingly possesses both authority in that particular domain and rights which ought to be respected by the state. The institutions of society are not purely instrumental and contractual. Bruner says, in the Christian understanding of man, communities are just as much established in the divine order of creation as the independence of the individual. They are innate in the God created individual with his capacity and need for completion. Thus, it is not the proper function of the state to make educational decisions for society or of schools to make business decisions, decisions for societies. Each of these God ordained institutions has autonomy in its own domain, sovereignty in its own sphere. The state too is sovereign, but like every other institution, it is sovereign only in its own sphere. And I hope you can hear reflected even in the language I'm using, what we have is the general view that the called sphere sovereignty being developed. And so it is said that the standards of justice I'm quoting Bruner here. The standards of justice obtaining in these forms of community are antecedent to the State. They are formed in manners and customs, agreements, contracts, rites and ceremonies establish rights to which in the first instance no state pays heed. It is not the State which sets this life in motion, not the State which determines by which rules it shall proceed, not the State which can pronounce on its justice or injustice. The state in all this comes late protecting, preserving, regulating, but not as a creative or constituent agent. So what is the sphere of the state's function? What is the domain of its proper function? On this view, it is a twofold one, the state's proper function is to regulate the activities of the members of society, both the individual and institutional members of society, and to regulate them by a system of laws based on good order, regulative justice. But secondly, the state's proper function is actively to promote social justice. The state's proper function is actively to promote social justice. And what is crucial notice, and I hope you get this in your notes, is that it is actively to promote it, Actively to promote it when at all possible. The state is not itself to provide the services and engage in the activities which will satisfy our benefit rights. Rather, the state's function is simply actively to promote a society containing institutions which will and can satisfy those rights. You have to remember that in all its actions the state must respect the autonomy, the sovereignty of other institutions in society. So the state respects the independence of the business community, respects the independence of the educational community, respects all these things, but nevertheless operates in such a way as to promote the satisfaction of benefit rights through these other institutions. Doyevir, page 445 says, the state may promote the interests of science and the fine arts, education, public health, trade, agriculture and industry, popular morality and so on. But every governmental interference with the life of the nation is subject to the inner vital law of the body politic, implied in its structural principle. This vital law delimits the state's task of integration according to the police criterion of the public interest, bound to the principle of sphere sovereignty of the individuality structures of human society. Here, then, we have an escape, supposedly to the dilemma that had been pressed upon us. How can the cry for social justice be answered without making of the state a comprehensive service institution? How can we be concerned with some social justice without making the state totalitarian? Well, Bruner and Doyvard say the state is properly concerned with social justice. Yet insofar as possible, it must not itself become a service institution distributing all sorts of benefits. That would violate the principle of federalism. That would violate the idea of sphere sovereignty. The state's fundamental role in the area of social justice is that of actively promoting a federal society containing non state institutions which themselves satisfy the genuine benefit rights of the citizenry. Okay, and so $verd again, I can quote. A real public legal integration of a country and people is therefore only possible within the internal limits set by the structural principle of the state institution itself. This integration can only be accomplished within the juridical limits set by this structural principle to the competence of the body politic and with due regard to the internal sphere sovereignty of the other societal structures. Every political theory denying these limits is in principle a theory of the power state, even though it masked its absolutization of the state's power by a law state ideology. We need to ask whether this is a solution to our problem at all. Does this in fact reconcile the desire to meet the needs of individuals and their welfare and the fear of the state becoming totalitarian? Undoubtedly, proponents of the views that we've been talking about all the views, but this third view would say that what I've said this morning calls for a great deal more elaboration. But we need to ask, even with this short introduction to these views, whether a solution has been provided by the DOI Verdian view. In the view of Bruner, the theory does not imply that the state may not use its taxing powers, you see, to support non state institutions. Nor does this view imply that the state may never render anything which can be regarded as a service. For instance, the maintenance of a system of good roads is a service and is perhaps to be justified by the principle of good order, that which makes it possible for the citizens to go about their task. And perhaps some benefit rights are such that it is impossible for anything but the state to satisfy them. Maybe that's true of the right to a decent income. If a person is disabled, one would like these kinds of distinctions more carefully articulated. Perhaps. But it does seem like the Bruner and Dollar would allow taxes to be coercively taken from the citizenry and given to non state organizations. Moreover, it would seem that the state is allowed to provide certain services in itself, services like roads or welfare to the disabled. And since taxes are going to be taken for these benefit rights, and since these benefit rights are actually going to be served up by the state itself, one has to ask, have we really taken care of the potential of tyranny at all? Is not the threat of the state becoming an all encompassing service organization still upon us. Now? Our American legal structure, to a rather gratifying degree, recognizes the domain autonomy of many non state institutions. And to that degree, and insofar as we've honored our Constitution, our legal structure is resistant to totalitarianism and we should be thankful for that. But we need to recognize in our own day, as I think all of you do, that undoubtedly our state is drifting in the direction of becoming more and more a distributor of services in a multitude of areas. And the state has become more and more a director of other institutions rather than simply a protector of other institutions. And for this reason there are some occasion to worry about the insidious nature of the state in our own culture, in our own society. Now Bruner states the predicament to which Christians must be sensitive. He says the fundamental Christian realization is that the state has only to intervene where individuals, families, free social groups, the churches, the municipalities cannot perform their task. Any justice created by the state is a makeshift, a substitute for the justice which human society should create of itself and vice versa the greater the decline in the moral vigor of society, the more tasks the state must take upon itself and the greater the expansion, the element of compulsion, injustice, the nearer the approach of the totalitarian state. Hence, the rise of the totalitarian state is in the first instance quite simply a judgment on the wretched moral condition of modern society. We must not fear to add a judgment too on the Christian church and its powerlessness to direct the moral forces of society in the sense of the justice of creation. Let us take as an example the welfare work of the state which has already assumed monstrous proportions. This would not have been necessary if the family, in the narrower and wider sense of the word, the social community, the Christian community and the economic community of labor, had not so conspicuously broken down. Now, without approving of the normative theory of Bruner, I think we can approve, and I do approve quite wholeheartedly of this descriptive that Bruner has put down. He has said the reason we see the state shifting and moving in that insidious direction of totalitarianism today, providing for, through taxes, benefit rights and actually serving up benefit rights. The reason the state is bloating itself with such powers is really to be laid at the feet of the private sector, the society as a whole, the church and individuals. If we had aggressively, creatively and effectively been providing for the benefit needs of people, for the welfare of the disabled, fire protection of those who don't have it, and so forth, then the state would never have had room to move in and try to take over this area as an occasion for self aggrandizement of power. So I think at that point I would agree with Bruner. Well, before I go on, this has been a discussion surely inadequate, but I trust at least the beginning for your reflection on the first major question in Christian political theorizing. What is the proper function of the state? What is the proper function of the state? Mara Taine says it is law, justice and welfare and the state can actually provide the services if need be. Carl Henry says, no, it's only law and order and the state should not provide benefits. Bruner and Doyvaert says the proper function of the state is law and social justice, where we understand that it actively promotes social justice rather than providing social justice. But then of course, the breakdown between view one and view three is conspicuous when we see Bruner and Doibert allowing for taxation and the provision of services in the area of social justice. Anyway. Questions? Oh, yes, yes. Carl Henry's view of law and order is not an obscurantist or a retreatist view from society. What he's saying is, however, that it's not the state's job to take care of benefits. It may be the church's job and individual Christians jobs to get involved in the state, but on the other hand does not get involved in the work of the church and individual charity. So you see how those two come together. The law and order view does not prevent Christians from getting involved in the state, but it does prevent the state from getting involved in the charity of the church. Well, I guess you want to be careful here. We wouldn't say that the state is not involved in any way. The state could for instance, prosecute extortion or mismanagement of books or something like that if there's thievery going on. Let's say some radio evangelist is saying send in your money and we'll take care of starving children in India. And then it turns out that the $6 million he raises gets used for personal pleasure. His own jet and Mercedes and fine clothes and so forth. Rather than going to the people in India. Then the state, I think can prosecute for fraud. So it does have some relationship to the church's ministry and finances. But the state should not be doing the job of the church and providing for the welfare of individuals. However, on the other hand, in the church, individuals could be exhorted to get involved in the affairs of the state and have a moral influence in their state. Okay. In relation to that, would you care to comment on any transformation you see in Christianity Today magazine since Carl Henry has left? It's tempting. The question is, would I like to comment on any change that I've seen in the periodical Christianity Today since Carl Henry has left the managing editorship of it? I'm going to keep it very general for two reasons. One, I'm not really sure that I'm such an expert. I do read Christianity Today, but there are long periods when I get busy that I neglect it. And I do have some general impressions and I definitely have some views as to the various social impacts of the three editors in our lifetime. Carl Henry, Harold Linzel, and now Kenneth Concert. But I'm not sure that all of that is necessarily reflected in what actually turns up in print in Christianity Today. I think Christianity Today had a much more more conservative thrust under Henry, a little bit more. Obscurantist thrust. That's really not the right word because Harold Linzel is not an obscurantist. He believes in taking care of homosexual problem, abortion problem, but nevertheless research oriented thrust under Linzel, or so it seemed to me, and under Kantzer. I think there's a return to the whole culture approach, the whole life approach in Christianity today. However, it's not the conservatism of the earlier Carl Henry. I think you see more of an openness to liberation theology, to the views of the state that we've been discussing that allow for the state to provide welfare and more hesitance about law and order considerations of conservative Christians. However, I don't believe Concert is to be considered a liberal in these matters. I just have to hear more from him and see more what he does with the magazine. Well, I doubt that's really scratching where you're itching, but that's about all I can say. Christianity Today certainly has had a history, and you can see the complexion change with its three editors on social matters. But how accurate I've been. I'll let you judge other questions about these three views. The one view that allows the state to engage directly in welfare, the second view that doesn't allow the state to engage in welfare at all, and the third view, which says the state should stimulate welfare, the provision for welfare. In that third view, would you say then that the state should tax and then give money to institutions? Yes. In the third view, it is allowable for the state to tax the individual citizens and then provide the tax money to to other organizations to provide services for people, fire insurance, welfare for the disabled, or what have you, education. So the state, for instance, could fund the University of California. How about churches? They could fund churches then. No, they wouldn't fund churches because churches are not providing for the material welfare of people. Churches take care of the spiritual needs of people. Or so the breakdown goes. Well, let's take a break and then come back in just a few minutes very quickly and continue with our discussion.