Dr Greg Bahnsen - Political Ethics: The Traditional Theory; Y Self & Natural Law Theory (Part 11)

Problems with the theory of traditionalism. Now, as we pick up again, traditionalism, as I said, holds that the state's right to compel our obedience comes from tradition, that we just uncover our relationship of obligation to the state. Upon reflection, we don't really choose this relationship of obligation. The difficulty with this theory, it seems to me, is that it needs to distinguish between how obligations originate and the justification of such obligations needs to distinguish between the genesis of obligation and the legitimacy of obligation. In the same way that in almost any area of philosophy, you need to distinguish between the origin of a belief and the truth of a belief. Somebody say, well, how do you know that the following claim is true? And the answer offered is, well, because so and so told me, well, there's a difference between where the belief came from and whether the belief is true or not. Moreover, there's a difference between where obligations come from and whether the obligations are legitimate or not. And so the theory of traditionalism may tell us that our obligation arises from tradition, that just by being members of a political community, we're in a relationship of obligation. It can tell us that the genesis of our obligation. But the real question is, where does the state have the right to begin with and holding us accountable for things? Is the obligation to obey the state more like that arising from mutual expectation or from consent? Is the obligation to obey the state more like something that arises of a mutual expectation or from consent? We might expect of each other to respond in certain ways under certain circumstances. That might take place by inclination, by instinct, by habit, might just happen on the spur of the moment and over. Against that concept of having a mutual expectation, we can consider the concept of consenting to do something. I would expect that if I change your flat tire, you'd be willing to mow my lawn. It might just be that we don't have to say a word about it. Even as you would expect that I'd be there with my tire changing tools, that I could expect you to show up on Saturday morning with your lawn mowing tools. That would be a mutual expectation. But what if we got together and we consented to the arrangement? I barter with you, and I say, now look, I'll change your flat tires if you'll mow my lawn. There's a difference between mutual expectation and consent. And we have to ask the traditionalist, Is he saying that the relationship of state to individual, of state to citizen, is one of mutual expectation, or is this a relationship of consent? Has the individual consented to the state, or does he just find that this is kind of I expect the state to give me rules and the state expects me to follow them. Another problem, a third problem with the traditionalist view, is that it tends to view the state because of its longevity, as having moral authority. But longevity itself does not have any moral relevance. And the fact that a state has been around for a long time hardly legitimates what the state is doing. Somebody might argue, but a state that's been here a long time has greater expertise in ruling. Those states which have been around for a while have learned the ropes, if you will. They know what kind of laws are best for people. They know how to govern people. There is a kind of expertise that builds up because of the state being around so long. Tradition contributes longevity, contributes expertise. However, we could respond to that retort that even if the advice of the state turns out to be sound, even if we would grant that this long standing state, this state with a longevity characteristic, is the state that gives us sound advice, the state would still not thereby have authority to bind the conscience of the individual. If I say the state has sound advice, I don't necessarily have to say the state has the right to direct me. Because I may think that you have sound advice, but not believe that you're an authority who has said over me. There's a difference between advice and authority. And so longevity does not have moral relevance, even if longevity is being thought of as contributing to the expertise of the state and being able to give good advice to people. Okay, so the power theory plays down consent. It says it's not so important whether you consent to the state. What's important is that the state has the power to compel your obedience. Traditionalism plays down the role of consent, saying that you don't decide to follow the state. You discover that as a matter of tradition, you're in a relationship of obligation to the state. And both of these, I think, fall quite short of giving us any good reason to hold that the state's authority is legitimate authority. Any questions on these two theories before we move to the third one? The question, pardon me, the objection about longevity. Isn't that the same kind of argument as all often used when it's in the realm of ecclesiology? For instance, the longevity of a church with its substantiated civility. And I ask this question because reform people tend to emphasize the historicity of reformed position. Would you comment on that? Yeah. The question is, what relationship is there between this appeal to longevity on the part of the state and the appeal to tradition or long stand existence on the part, say, of a denomination or of a group of people holding a particular outlook. And I think it's probably true that most church groups tend to place some stock in longevity. That if a group's been around for a long time and if a book was written a long time ago and there's a great deal of tradition, that that is morally relevant. But as much as that's a natural inclination of people, because we do respect elders, those who have wisdom that have the advantage of years and experience and have gone through trials and have learned the ropes, if you will, the fact is that longevity is not morally relevant. What is morally relevant is the wisdom involved in listening to our elders and listening to tradition and, and considering our history and all that. But having a history and having elders and long standing traditions does not in itself legitimate what the tradition teaches or holds. And so I would make the same remarks there as I have here, that the error of the traditionalist in politics just apes the error of the traditionalist in the church. Other questions about traditionalism or power theory. What would you consider the National Review groups to be traditional? The question is how I would consider the National Review group of writers. The mindset that is advanced there. Of all the political theories that we're studying, the National Review would tend in the direction of traditionalism. Yes, Edmund Burke would be something of a guiding light for their philosophical bearing. Any other questions? They're welcome. We don't have to rush on if you'd like to discuss this, but if you don't, I think we'll turn to True Self theory. Now, a true self theory has been advanced by Hegel and in our own generation by Lord Devlin in England. The idea here is that only by obeying the state can an individual become a genuine moral person. Only by obeying the state can someone become a genuine moral person. That is to say, someone who views his own interest as having no special status as such, one who recognizes others as equals, someone who is not totally selfish. Okay, just imagine where individualism takes you. Individualism that says, well, I'll just do whatever I want to do. I don't have to listen to the state, to the larger group, to corporate interest, that sort of thing. The only thing that counts is the rugged individual making his own decisions, going his own way, doing whatever he wants to do. Now, is that a genuine moral person, the individualist, the person who says what's of interest or what counts in morality is my own interest. The person who says I have a certain special status, a person who doesn't see others Is equal. Equal to him in rights or dignity, A person who is totally selfish. Is that a moral person? No, not at all. So obviously genuine morality maturity, when it comes to being a moral being, tends away from individualism. And therefore only by obeying the state can one become a genuinely moral person. To keep from rationalizing one's own private wants, the subjective self, according to Hegel, must be objectified. Objectified, let's say, if I'm laying down rules that I start taking into consideration, well, now this rule is going to help me here and this rule is going to help me there. And it'd be to my advantage to have the social outlook be this and to my advantage to have it be that. And it would be to my disinterest to have the state punish the following kinds of crimes. And how can you be sure that you're not rationalizing when it comes to the laws that you accept as a subjective individual? How can you be sure that you're really taking into account moral considerations, matters of objective justice, rather than just your own wants and desires? Hegel says you must, in order to keep away from rationalizing your private wants, you must objectify yourself. The subjective self must come to be objectified through a codifying of morality, codifying the morality of social relations by means of the state. To keep from being self centered and rationalizing my own interest, I let justice be defined by my objective self. As the state helps define that the state codifies the morality of social relationship. According to the true self theory, genuine individuality results from integrating your wants into something of a coherent system. Of integrating your wants into a coherent system. The state's law is instrumental then in securing a community of moral ideas. The self does not have an identity prior to this socialization of the self that the self is realized. The true self is found when it's part of an integrated whole in society. Genuine individuality results from integrating your wants into a coherent system. The state's laws, instruments then in securing a community of moral ideas so that the self, in the midst of this socialization, does come to have an identity. Maybe an analogy to help you think. This is a really European way of thinking and it's hard for Anglo Saxons and Americans to get into it. It seems to me the true self theory would be self, similar to, let's say a painter wants to be so free that he's not going to be bound by any restrictions like a canvas. Of course, if he's going to be using paints, then he's going to have to choose from the Various tones that are available and various combinations that he's able to mix. But he doesn't want to have those restrictions. He wants to be a truly free individual. As a painter, well, you see that a painter does not free, find his true artistic worth and identity apart from the restrictions of his environment, apart from a canvas and paints and brushes and all the rest. And an individual likewise does not become truly an individual and find his true identity apart from the environment, apart from the social whole into which he's integrated. Where his wants are objectified, where the subjective self self isn't rationalizing duties out of self interest. And where he can be truly moral because his wants are not held above others and he doesn't have a special status. So the true self theory in essence is saying the state allows for the development of our true selves. We aren't truly individuals. We aren't truly human beings except in our social context. Let's say you want to be a moral individual. You want to properly relate to people. But the more individualistic you become, the more like a hermit you become. You withdraw from civilization and from society. And you're living out in the desert on your own. Well, out there. Are you a true individual there? Well, no, because there's no context over against which you can identify yourself whatever you do. It's just a matter of inclination and arbitrariness there. Whereas in a society then you can excel as an individual given your social context. Something of the true self theory is worked out if you reflect on, say, school days. School days. You know, people want to get out of school. They want to get rid of the shackles of their teachers and the restrictions of their school and just do what they want to do. And they really think, you know, that's when life's going to become fun. That's when they're going to really come into their own. When they're. When they are loosed from this restricting social environment of the school with its rules and regulations. But you know what happens when people graduate from school? They find out that there is no structure now to their social life. Their social life is completely a matter of consent and individual initiative. And so where before they might, if you were in school, think of throwing a party. And that's no big deal because you run into these people every day. And the senior class can sponsor a party and you can count on people being there. Now you've got to get in touch with everybody. And not everybody, you know, is going to be at the same place at the same time or have the Same basic social schedule and everything. And so when people get out of school, they find out, well, lo and behold, those school days were good days because I saw these friends day by day by day. We had a common lifestyle of sorts, a common schedule. We had football games and banquets and parties that brought us together. And that structure is really what gave me as an individual, my identity. But once I get away from that structure, who am I? What happens is I've got to now become a member of a corporation or go to university or do something, have a new group where now I can find a commonness of life, some kind of structure, common relationship, and define myself in terms of that. Now this in a very limited way, and I'm doing my best to help you think through patterns of philosophical reflection that are not common to us in a limited way. That is an expression of a true self theory, the true self in the group. The true self requires the structure of the state, the rules of the state, the harmony of all interests, the objectification of personal concern and justice. Now, the natural question, I think, that is to be addressed to the true self theory is if the individual is to be consumed in the wider group in the study, if the state is the context for the self truly to develop, what's to avoid the state moving in an authoritarian, totalitarian, tyrannical direction? How do you avoid totalitarianism? If the individual is not genuinely an individual and a true human being, moral self, unless he's seen in the context of the state, how do you avoid totalitarianism? Well, to avoid totalitarianism, it would have to be claimed that laws can fail in accomplishing the subject's best interest. That is, a person holding the true self theory would have to say, while the true self is developed in the context of the state, sometimes the state passes laws that don't in the end turn out to be be in the best interest of the subject. That states can fail that while, if you will, their tendency is, and their proper goal is to create a social context and a legal structure in which the individual can develop and his interests are served, sometimes they fail in that effort, they fall down. But to make sense, this claim that state can fail to accomplish the best interest of the subject cannot mean that the criterion of failure is the law itself. You obviously can't define this failure in terms of the law that fails. And so what is the criterion of failure? Well, it's going to be either the individual or the society, right? The criterion of a, of a law failing to be in the interest of the individual the true self. That criterion is either going to be the individual or it's going to be the society. Now, let's say that an advocate of the True self theory says the criterion of failure on the part of a law is the individual. But what's the point of the True self theory if the individual is the test of a law's validity and success? See, the difficulty here is that on this criterion the whole theory has been thrown over. The whole theory says the one finds its identity and true meaning. The true self is found in the context of the many. But we judge the rule of the many, the rule of the state, in light of the interest of the one. Don't you see? The theory's whole point is that we achieve individuality only if it is not set up as a final judge of moral interest. The final judge of moral interest must be the group, must be the context within which the individual makes sense and has purpose and dignity. So it would stand to reason that the test of a law and the failure of a law to achieve the the best interest of its subjects would have to be the society. And if that's true, we have to ask ourselves, what does society mean in such a context? Which sub society's consensus is going to turn out to be the overriding consideration in judging the success of a law? You know very well that a poll taken of the society's citizens does not guarantee that moral principles are going to be preserved. If you had taken a poll on the day that Jesus was crucified, you would find that the majority favored his crucifixion as wrong as it was. Consequently, we're faced with fact that asking everybody isn't going to settle a moral question. And so Hegel finally appealed to history, finally appealed to history, saying that history is working out what is in the individual's best interest. And you don't go and ask every individual in society because they don't have the proper perspective. They don't have the benefit of historical development. What we have to assume though, is that that Prussian society, Hegel society was on the cutting edge of history and therefore was forging ahead and was bringing about through the dialectic that lied behind it, the synthesis that was in the interest of the individual. So we appeal to history as inevitably bringing us to the good for the individual. People that hold to the True Self theory appeal to similarly questionable metaphysical principles to guarantee that the society is in a position to, or it has the status of being a standard or judge of what is in the interest of the individual. So it Turns out in the long run that on the true self theory, if you pursue it, this kind of back and forth questioning of well, what about totalitarianism? How about the state's failure? How can the individual judge the state's failure? How can the society judge the state's failure? When all is said and done, we are not told. When the state at times does not represent reason, we're not told. When the state fails to work out spirit or Geist, as Hegel put it, the truth says self theory doesn't in the end offer us any guidance for discriminating between when the state is right and when the state is wrong. We either end up with Hegel and his totalitarian principle saying, well, history is working it out and so submit, or we have the society being the judge of what is in my best interest. But it's just because the society makes mistakes that we're wondering about the laws that are being passed from time to time. And therefore the question is not being answered one way or another. We're just not getting an answer to our question. What do we do when the state fails to do that which is in the interest of the individual? We have sophisticated and protracted answers that end up saying the state doesn't fail or we end up appealing to the individual, showing that his best interest hasn't been served. But that denies the idea that the best interest of the individual has to be found in the midst of the state. So the true self theory, for some initial plausibility strikes me in the end of having no plausibility whatsoever. Alright, it's a little confusing. Maybe the most difficult of all the theories we're looking at. What would you like to ask about it? Follow this up. Okay. No, Cicero would have, as a Stoic held to a natural law theory. And. Of course there. Let me take that back. The natural law theory can work in into this. And you find it in Aristotle, for instance, who also had a natural law theory. The inherent entelechies, everything working at its own proper end in the world. Aristotle also held that man was not truly a man unless he was found in a social context. Man is a rational and political animal according to Aristotle. And so you could harmonize a natural law theory with this idea that man, man is by definition a creature of the state. That that is what makes a man a man, rather than say a penguin or an amoeba or something like that, is that he is part of this social structure that we call a state. Other questions on the True self theory, you're not too terribly Confused. When all said and done, it amounts to saying you as an individual are better off in the context of the state. And then when empirically, that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm not sure that the true self theory has any answer, but one of faith. Well, history is working it out. It will be in the interest of the individual for the state to be advancing the way that it is. Well, let's turn now to the natural law theory of the state. And we'll be using as our illustration here, as Abbott does in his book Thomas, of course, Aquinas. We've studied natural law in our previous course on teleological or situational ethics. And I made some effort there to define natural law and also to criticize it. I won't go over all that ground here. But from the standpoint of political authority, we need to take into consideration natural law. Again, Aquinas said that the condition of being under political obligation is natural to human beings. Quite obviously, the condition of being under political obligation is quite natural to being a human being. First of all, it is the expected and the normal condition that humans have to rely on reason to survive. And reason requires cooperation among people through means of the power of speech. Man is a social creature by nature, Aquinas is saying, a social creature, one who speaks to other people and learns to cooperate through speech with other people and does so in order to survive. So it is expected. Indeed, it's the normal condition that human beings would rely on reason and require cooperation by means of speech in order to survive. Man is a social creature by nature. Secondly, it's natural to human beings to have political obligation because political rule is necessary for social survival. That is, social cooperation is necessary for individual survival, and political rule is necessary for social survival. Political rule is part of the law which governs the teleological nature of all things. In the case of Aquinas, that amounted to providence, in the case of Aristotle was just part of the nature of things, that they run this way and work out in this way. The political rule is necessary for social survival. That, that is to say, it's part of the law governing the teleological nature of all things. So why does the state have the right to compel our obedience? Why does the state have the right to command us? Because it's natural. It's natural. Man's society is necessary for his survival, and political authority is necessary, necessary for the society. And so it's a matter of natural law that we obey the state. Now, a number of difficulties can be brought out with this point of view, the first of them would be this, that there's an obvious shift in what is said here in this discussion. There's an obvious shift from the word natural being used in the sense of ordinary inclination to the sense of something being ordained by God as proper. That is, a shift from what is factual to what is moral, from what is the case to what ought to be the case, from the descriptive to the normative. Okay, is it natural for man to live in society? The answer is yes, because it's the inclination of men to live in societies. Ought men to live in societies? That's a different question altogether. But now you see, the answer is, well, it's natural, therefore it's right. There's a movement from what is descriptively the case, from what is the case to what prescriptively ought to be the case. The notion that whatever is unnatural. Aquinas said that the condition of being under political obligation is natural to human beings. Following up on this question. Quite obviously, the condition of being under political obligation is quite natural to being a human being. First of all, it is the expected and the normal condition that humans have to rely on reason to survive. And reason requires cooperation among people through means of the power of speech. Man is a social creature by nature, Aquinas is saying, a social creature, one who speaks to other people and learns to cooperate through speech with other people and does so in order to survive. So it is expected. And indeed, it's the. The normal condition that human beings would rely on reason and require cooperation by means of speech in order to survive. Man is a social creature by nature. Secondly, it's natural to human beings to have political obligation because political rule is necessary for social survival. That is, social cooperation is necessary for individual survival. And political rule is necessary for social survival. Political rule is part of the law which governs the teleological nature of all things. In the case of Aquinas, that amounted to providence. And the case of Aristotle was just part of the nature of things, that they run this way and work out in this way. Way. The political rule is necessary for social survival. That is to say, it's part of the law governing the teleological nature of all things. Okay, so why does the state have the right to compel our obedience? Why does the state have the right to command us? Because it's natural. It's natural. Man's sacrifice. Society is necessary for his survival, and political authority is necessary for the society. And so it's a matter of natural law that we obey the state. Now, a Number of difficulties can be brought out with this point of view. The first of them would be this, that there's an obvious shift in what is said here in this discussion. There's an obvious shift. Shift from the word natural being used in the sense of ordinary inclination to the sense of something being ordained by God as proper. That is a shift from what is factual to what is moral, from what is the case to what ought to be the case, from the descriptive to the normative. Okay, Is it natural for man to live in society? The answer is yes, because it's the inclination of men to live in societies. Ought men to live in societies? That's a different question altogether. But now you see, the answer is, well, it's natural, therefore it's right. There's a movement from what is descriptively the case, from what is the case to what pre script descriptively ought to be the case. The notion that whatever is unnatural is morally perverse rests on the assumption that what is strange or what is tasteless is somehow evil. Okay? If somebody says, you know, there's something really wrong with this kind of sex act because it's unnatural, one has to ask himself, what does this person mean by appealing to nature to show moral disapproval of something? Well, he either means that it's strange and therefore abhorrent because not customary, not ordinarily acceptable, it's strange to him, or he means there's something very tasteless about it, that it's just not right. It just doesn't fit into polite society. Appeals to natural law or to something being unnatural to point out its moral perversity usually have this notion of unnaturalness behind them. Not common or somehow tasteless, not fitting into accepted patterns of social behavior. But do we accept natural as being morally perverse? Do we accept this connection, this inference from something being unnatural, to it being morally perverse? Is that warranted to do so? Well, we cut cancers out of people, and that is very unnatural. It's very unnatural to use a sharp knife and open up somebody's body and make them bleed and. And cut some kind of mass out of the middle of their body. That's not the sort of thing we ordinarily do. That's not a natural technique. That's an unnatural technique. Therefore it's wrong. Right? It's contrary to nature, and therefore it's wrong. We don't like the inference there. Well, we homogenize milk, don't we? And that's unnatural. Milk doesn't come from cows. Homogenized. So we homogenize it. That must Mean that milk is perverse? Right. No, wrong. We don't draw that inference at all. And we tend to pull up weeds out of our garden. Weeds are one of the most natural things in the world. And therefore it's an unnatural act to pull up weeds. Well, we don't tend to think that pulling weeds is morally perverse. And on and on the illustrations could go quite clearly. The inference from something being unnatural to it being morally perverse is not a good inference. Even though it does seem natural. It is a very easy thing to criticize things which are morally perverse as being unnatural. Now, what if somebody tries to defend the theory that we've been looking at, this natural law theory, by holding the view that whatever happens in nature is ipso facto in accord with natural law, and therefore anything that we do contrary to nature is to break the laws of nature? Well, there you would have an example of natural law shifting from the descriptive sense to the prescriptive sense. If we send a person to the moon, we're defying the laws of gravity. Descriptively, nature has law laws that incline things downward rather than upward. And so we are going contrary. We're breaking the laws of nature that are the laws of nature. Prescriptive laws or simply descriptive laws, are they just summaries of what actually happens, or are they prescriptions as to what must and ought to happen? Well, clearly there's this shift from descriptive to prescriptive. Again in this defense of, of the natural law theory. Why should people act in accord with natural law anyway? If you buy that there is a natural law, why should people follow natural law? Maybe people usually do submit to the state's authority. And generally they do submit to the state's authority. But what good reason is there for people to submit to the state's authority? Somebody says, well, it's a part of natural law to submit to it. That either means people normally do so, that that's the way things customarily happen and therefore that's the way they ought to happen. Or it means that it's in order to realize our true nature, we must appeal to the state. We've already looked at the true nature approach, true self theory of the state, and the fact that it's customary to appeal to the state. That interpretation of natural law doesn't help us and decide whether it's right or wrong because people customarily do things that are wrong. What if somebody says, well, for your own survival, you should submit to the state because personal survival means social cooperation in society depends upon the laws of the state, therefore, for your own survival, you must submit to the laws of the state. Well, what's to get us from survival? Somebody might ask. I mean, why am I under obligation to pursue survival? Let's say somebody answers, most people want to survive, why should I be interested in surviving? Most people want to. It's the natural inclination. But isn't that appealing to the natural law theory to justify the natural law theory? That's once again saying we ought to do it because that's the natural inclination that people follow. It just reintroduces the original problem. And that is, what good reason is there to want to survive? So the natural law theory of politics doesn't end up answering anything. It leaves a whole lot of questions unanswered along the way too. Questions about how do we interpret the word natural? How can we move from what is factually the case to what morally ought to be be the case? How can we defend the inference from something being unnatural to it being morally perverse? And then finally, why should people follow the descriptive summary natural law of what is by inclination taking place? In the end, we don't know on natural law theory why the state has the right to compel our obedience. Now this ends the four theories of political authority which play down the idea of consent. In the power theory, you don't consent to the state. The state just has the authority, the might to compel you to do what you do. On the traditionalism, you don't consent. You don't choose to be obedient to the state to be a substitute to the state. You find that you're born a subject to the state. You just uncover this natural relationship of obligation to the state. On the true self theory, again, you don't consent to be part of the state. You find that you only are a moral self, and you only find your individual identity and integrity in the midst of the context of the state and its relationships. And on the natural law theory, the state has the right to compel obedience because it's part of nature. Men don't choose to obey the state, but by natural inclination need to obey the state for the sake of their survival. What questions and discussion would you like to pursue as follow up to this brief introduction and discussion of the four theories? Yeah, Biblical material on why men have that information. Let me think. I'm not sure that there is biblical support for the premise that it's natural. Well, the question is, is there any biblical support for, for the idea that men have a natural inclination to be part of the state? And I Was suggesting that I can't think of any that teaches that's an inherent quality of men, an inherent inclination. And now the suggestion is that perhaps the Israelites desire for a king shows that it's just natural to men to want a ruler. The problem is there are to some people where it seems they're by their own nature or character, they don't want a ruler over them. They are rebellious and individualistic and anarchist in their outlook. So I don't think that. I think it's probably a descriptive generalization that is accurate to say most people seek political authorities and that pragmatically they see the necessity of doing so. But I'm not sure that we can say that it's somehow built into men. They have a desire to submit to other men. The idea that the state is an order of creation might support that idea. Yes, if you held the view that the state is part of creation and doesn't come in simply because of the fall of man, then it might be more plausible to think that there is something in the very nature of man, from the point of his creation, that desires a ruler over him, another human ruler over him. It just strikes me as somehow not very plausible though. If anything, sin tends to to give to men the tendency to want to lord it over others. What we see is the natural order of domination, dominion, if you will, becoming a desire for ruthless domination. Nimrod and the rest, the Tower of Babel later on men do have, because they're the image of God, this thrust toward dominion in the world to bring things under order and use them for certain purposes. However, after the fall, the purposes are the wrong ones and that dominion becomes domination, as I've said, a ruthless domination. It's of interest to me that you don't have the statement of Eve's subordination to her husband until after the fall. Fall, or if you will, the subordination takes on its darker side, its less pleasing side at the time of the fall. And so if that's true, that what sin has given to men is the natural desire to dominate other people, to have their own way, to be selfish and so forth, it's not, it seems to me that you might almost generate an argument to the opposite effect that there is no natural inclination to be under authority. There's rather a natural inclination to be the sole authority. Not that in every individual's personality development that's what comes out, but that is the nature of sin, self assertion rather than self submission to another. That's an interesting question. I've Never been asked that before and I'll have to reflect more on it. Is there any biblical warrant for saying that men naturally organize themselves into political society? I suppose if I were going to argue the positive side of it, and I'm not convinced where I'll argue, as I've already said. But you would argue that from the fact that Adam naturally is a false father would rule his house, and that would extend to the extended family, which is the first society. And then as groups break off from that, they would take with them also that tradition and that inclination to have the oldest male member be something of an organizer, protector and director. And maybe there is a natural inclination there, for in society is to always have somebody who's going to be the leader and settle disputes. But I can't say much more than that. That would be helpful, I think. Any more questions? Power theory, traditionalism, true self theory, natural law theory? If there aren't any more questions, and what we'll do is go onto those views where consent is made basic to political authority, where instead of being played down, consent is played up, if you will, so that the authority of the state to compel obedience is predicated just on the consent of the governed. The consent of the governed don't make any difference in the first four views, but come to the forefront in these next. The first one we'll look at is the classic contract view held by men like Hobbes, Locke and Rosseau. The classic contract view holds that there is a tacit consent which has been given by the citizens to their states. They've entered into a contract with the state and have given consent that the state has the right to rule over them. And that consent was given tacitly, not actually historically. I mean, you can't find the great day of consent when the contract was signed between Leviathan and the subjects of Leviathan. Hobbes never felt that you could actually find the day in the past where the individual citizens consented to having a state. And so the consent is tacit in nature. This view, as I've already indicated, is that authority rests in the consent of the governed. That authority rests in the consent of the governed and is a result of our decision to accept it. And therefore our obligation to the state is very much parallel to the obligation we have. If a promise has been made, say that I promise to serve you hot fudge sundaes every afternoon for a month. Now, in the midst of serving you a hot fudge sundae some afternoon, some friend says to me, now wait a minute. What authority does he have over you? Why are you under obligation to serve these hot fudge Sundays and be this person's hot fudge Sunday slave? And I said, well, well, I gave my word that I'd do it. I'm under obligation because I promised to do this. Now the state is in a similar position. We have promised to obey the state. We are under obligation because we're obliged to keep our word. This is the obligation of a promise. So the consent of the governed is the authority of the state. And the authority of the state results from our decision to accept its authority. We have put ourselves under the state's authority voluntarily. We have voluntarily put ourselves under the state's authority. And we did so ideally speaking, we didn't do it really, we didn't do it in history. We just kind of ideally did so. We ideally consented to the state and we did so to protect ourselves from the state of nature. Now here you have the state of nature being used in a different way than the natural law theory has in the state of nature. The state of nature is a ruthless state. I mean, in the natural world it's just animals, right? And have you ever noticed who rules in the animal kingdom? Whoever is most powerful. And that rule may be arbitrary. There may be no consistency, principles that are dependable, no predictability, no order, no progress. There's nothing humane and blessed and fair about it. The state of nature is just a ruthless state. Now if we want to protect ourselves from the state of nature where things are just done in the interest of the stronger, the bullies on the block, if you will, then we might organize ourselves into a state to a civil state. Civil state over against the uncivilized state of nature. So we organize ourselves into a state and agree to be ruled by a common power who will effectively maintain our security. So Hobbes, for instance, that we consent to be governed because of our fear of being taken advantage of. Hobbes view was. Well, Hobbes had a certain conception of human nature, saying that because of the evil within men, and because of this ruthlessness of men in the state of nature, fear drives us to consent to the state governing us. Another motivation to consent to the state is to correct a lack in the state of nature where there is no recognized ruler, no impartial judging procedures, no power to rectify grievances, and all the rest. So because of that lack in the state of nature, the community vest in the government the power to execute their will. Now why am I getting together with all of you and deciding to give up some of my freedom and become part of the state. Why am I consenting to this? Because I don't like the fact that when the bully comes along and takes things away from me that I can't recover my losses. So I want us to get together and have the state execute our will. And our will will be that the bullies in this world are going to have to pay off. So you see why I consent. I either consent out of fear with Hobbes. I'm fearful that the state of nature is going to run me over. Or I consent for the sake of having our generalized will done to make up a lack in the state of nature. And just because we have consented to the state that it would execute our will. We maintain the right to dismiss this executor of our will if the state fails to do as we want it to do. And therein arises the right to revolution when the state fails to serve the general interest and to listen to the people. After all, the state only has its power because of the consent of the governed. And if the governed don't give their consent, then the state can be laid on the shelf. And then we'll take a break for a few minutes and come back to this.