In his treatise on secular government, Martin Luther makes a distinction between a spiritual government and a temporal government. A spiritual governing, he says is ruled by God's laws and as a result, there is no need for police officers, jails or guns. When they feel wronged, they turn the other cheek and thus the need for law enforcement vanishes. A temporal government is a government set up to constrain the wicked. Most if not all governments nowadays are of the temporal kind.
Luther's distinctions do not actually help his reader to understand the need for secular law because he does not define his terms correctly. According to Luther, there would be no need for a secular law if the entire state were made of Christians because they would obey all of the laws all the time. As you can can see, this is quite absurd. I feel quite confident in calling a Christian, yet I would by no means claim to obey all the law all the time. If you have any doubt just ask my parents. No one, not even the purest Christians can act the way Luther supposes.
1 comment:
Do you think there will be a temporal law in Heaven??
I see where Luther is going, and it actually aligns with God's perspective in that he didn't want the Jews to establish a government on earth. He was their King and he resisted giving them a king until they just about cried like little babies for one.
Will we act the same in Heaven?
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