Towards a Theory of Government

Towards a Theory of Government

First an apology to regular readers. I was a silly boy and kept on working out of doors after I got the 'flue (it is winter here) and as my wife predicted I caught pneumonia! That is why there have been no posts for the last few weeks.)

“It's already been done!” you may say. Well, yes and no. It is a quarter of a century since I studied this topic during a sabbatical year back at university so I can't recall all the names, but I recall the drift of it well enough. From Rousseau with his social contract, Locke and Hobbes, through Marx and Lenin to all the modern social theorists there has been no lack of ink spilt. But, and this is the big catch, so far as I know they all start from either a blank page and try to build a theory from scratch or like Marx are defiantly atheistic and try to build a human based theory.

So a vital route to developing a theory of what constitutes “good government” has been neglected. That is: if we assume God exists and the Bible is the best source of information about is character and purposes and of human frailties.

Now I know many will protest vigorously: “You can't do that!!! You MUST start from the assumption that there is no God, otherwise you are biased.” Well excuse me, but why is that any more biased that taking their assumption!

As I said way back in discussing the foundation for ethical theory Where Do Morals Come From ? Pt. 2  there is a real problem for atheistic moralists: what makes them right? If you are basing your morals on the moral character of God (I dealt with the question “which God” back then) you at least have some solid ground from which to argue your case, otherwise you are just building castles in the air. Worse still it becomes a case that the person or group with the most power – whether by propaganda or brute force or both – gets to decide “this is good, that is bad, behaviour”. Might becomes Right.

So I think our best route to finding out what a government should aspire to be like is to take the road less (if ever) travelled and look for clues in the Bible.

I think we will likely find three types of information:

1. How God as “King” acts.

2. Direct statements of praise or condemnation of actions of human rulers

3. Stories that show governors in a good or bad light.

From these I hope we can construct an image of what a good government looks like