Video Transcript: Civil Law

So how are we now to think of the nature of the state as an institution? It's an  artifact. It has a founding function that's historical formative with people create  states. And it has a leading function, that of justice. That's what it's formed in  order to ensure. A state then we may define as a political institution in society,  citizens organized under a government. What more can we say about the state? That's what we get from its qualifying its leading functions for the distinction  among the different aspects. There's also matter of its type law, remember that  for individuals. There are also laws that govern which combinations of parts and  properties are possible in the creation. And so we now want to know what the  type law for the state is. Its internal organization. That just about everyone has  ever written about the state agrees on on this arrangement of parts. That is it,  everyone agrees that the state has to do with a relation of might that is power.  And the right, that is justice, the state's the institution that's charged with  establishing the legal order and then enforcing the legal order. So the type law is going to have something to do with a relation of might and right. And as you  might expect, we're going to say, from a Christian point of view, that the right  way to think of this type law, is there organs of determining what is right. And  there are organs of the exercise of might or power. And then it's the right that  should lead the might. And that is, the law determines what it is that will be  compelled or forbidden. And the power of the state is used to enforce the law.  Now, as with other institutions, and other artifacts, it's possible for something to  not conform to its type law. Exactly. Say a marriage has a type law it requires  spouses who pledge love, exclusive love to one another. What happens then,  when one of the spouses doesn't fulfill that doesn't seem to love the other or is  brutal or cruel, is it no longer a marriage? Well, that's calls for judgment. There  are some cases in which, yes, that would be the conclusion others in which it  would be? No, it's now a distorted marriage. It's an abnormal one. But but  perhaps there are ways to save it with counseling, we can restore it to its proper, the proper arrangement between the the married spouses here, same thing is  true. There can be states that approximate this very closely, states that  approximate it almost none at all, there are some states that actually reverse  this, and have might determine what is right. In other words, it's just the most  powerful, the people that are richest, that have the most influence, exercise  control over the armed force, the military or the police, and then force anything  that they want to be declared right? And right, in accordance with law. Laws can  be unjust, just as people can be. And we know plenty of examples of that sort of  thing. So we're saying that a state that's distorted in that way, is still a state, but  a deformed one. The truth is that many kinds of things are able to violate their  type law to a great extent before they cease to be that type of thing. There's  wiggle room, especially when norms are involved, normative behavior, and that's what we have here about rules of justice. The next thing we're going to notice is  that Dooyeweerd adds to this, that what God has built into the world in way of 

justice is the norm. The overarching law that we are to be just in our dealings  with one another. So this differs from natural law theory that holds that  somewhere and it may be a Platonic dimension, something there's a put this into the mind of God. Somewhere there are, there is a set of perfect laws. That  govern every possible contingency here in creation, and our laws are just if and  only if they copy those laws or to put it another way, they're just to the extent  that they copy those, those laws that were in another realm altogether.  Dooyeweerd finds that excessively speculative, we're not told anything like that,  or there is no hint in that direction and scripture, taking the norm of justice, that  we are treat one another as just, Dooyeweerd's contention is that the elected  officials of the state the lawmakers, must then determine the set of laws that is  most just for the most citizens that it can and in most ways that it can. And that  set of laws may differ from one time to another one place to another, they can be different in one place or another place at the same time. It's not true that if you  have a Christian point of view, and you have a state that's close, closely  corresponds to its type law, that you'll again, get the same set of laws for  everybody. No, that's not true. People are living in different circumstances have  different needs, and so on. But one of the examples he gives of this is that  during the time when the economy in Western Europe was pretty much barter,  by trade do this for that very few people had any money. The Roman Empire  had collapsed. Or very hard times, the state, the church made it a rule that  taking interest on money was wicked and evil. Dooteweerd says, That was right, the only people that had money at all were extraordinarily wealthy, and for them  to charge anyone else interest charge, the poor. Interest is a terrible case of  usury. But after the monetary system shifted to, after the economic system  shifted to being monetary, to having representational coins or whatever, for the  value that you are trading for. So I'm not trading this sheep for that goat, I'm not  trading this cow for those pairs of shoes, or whatever it is. But actually, the trade  is in money. Money's in wide circulation, that prescription that forbidding of  taking you three doesn't necessarily have to apply anymore. And that was  Calvin's point and we didn't need apply it. It was right when it was passed. Now  it no longer is. So it's not that the laws, as the natural laws are envisioned by the people hold that theory. The laws are eternal, immutable, they never change, a  just society would be exactly the same in every place for all people. No, no, it  varies very much with what how people make their living, where they live, varies with the climate, and all kinds of other things that influence people's needs, and  which goods are scarce, and can be given a monetary value and that needs to  be governed by rules of justice. So for any in any state, though, there are going  to be organs of determining right. That might be the king's decree. But most of  us nowadays think it's much better to elect lawmakers from the people qualified  people who know who can represent the people's interests, and vote on laws  and pass them and then their are organs of enforcement. These include the 

military, or for foreign matters that require force and the police for domestic  ones. No, there is no controversy in Christian thinking about whether the state is really a proper and necessary institution in human society, or whether it's only  an ad hoc arrangement to restrain sin. This goes back to Augustine. Augustine  thinks about it. And he says, Well, you know, if there'd never been a fall into sin.  If humans had rebelled against God seemed to him we wouldn't need the state  at all. We wouldn't need laws, we wouldn't need enforcement. And so he  proposes what becomes an influential view about the state. That it's not natural  to human life. It's only to restrain sin. All due respect to an esteemed thinker. I  think he's not right about that. The state is not there just to punish evildoers.  That's one of the things it's there for, but it's not the only one. And we are told  that in God's final kingdom, his son will be the king who will rule that's a political  office and who will bring forth justice for everyone So I don't see that the state  itself is unnecessary except for sin. It's going to even be in God's final kingdom,  someone's going to make decisions about what's just when and where conflicts  people have the people may have honest conflicts and nothing's who was said,  I'd like to know where my yard ends and your yard begins. My neighbor would  like to know that too. But we have a way of finding out there are record keepers,  there are people that can calculate that and keep records. And that would be  part of a state duties as it is now. I like what Jim Skillen political philosopher  from the United States has to say about this point of Augustine's, biblically  speaking, Skillen says, family life was created by God for a positive, loving,  nurturing, God revealing purpose. Part of our identity as God's image is that we  are the sons and daughters and frequently mothers and fathers. The family did  not arise as a technical invention to spank bad children. Punishment and  negative discipline are not the reason for the family. We recognize, of course,  that due to sin, parents will have to incorporate punishment into the raising of  their children in order to foster healthy families. But spankings or other forms of  retribution Fit the deeper broader and more original meaning of family life, that fit into that They don't replace it. Life in political communities is quite different from family life to be. Sure. I don't intend to describe civil family life, civic life as family life were it large. Rather, the analogy is this The purpose for government the  reason for political life is not first of all to punish wrongdoers, through police  officers, trial lawyers in the military, rather, the central meaning of political life is  to be found in the positive reality, That of a public community that's there to  foster healthy inner relationships with people through public legal means. So  that commerce, family, life, agriculture, industry, science, art, education, and  many other things can all be carried on at the same time, in the same territory in a harmonious fashion. I think that's a wonderful way to put this point. And it's my reason for thinking that Augustine was wrong about that point. Thomas Aquinas  had it right. instead And many people said so, of course, we're talking about  Kuyper and, Professor Dooyeweerd saying that the state is part of human life. 

Of course, by saying that we have a different view of the state, as Christians,  we're referring to things like the social background and Kuyper's theory of  sphere sovereignty. We're not saying we have a wholly new theory that doesn't  isn't anything like anybody else's? No, we're saying that there are some ways  the general view of what constitutes constitutes a state can be tightened up, it  can be cleaned up from some errors and mistakes. And I think it might help if I  give you just a simple example of what I mean. I'm going to refer now to the  difference between civil law and criminal law. In civil law, if I accidentally do  something that injures another person, I'm liable. I'm assessed a fine or  something like that in order to compensate this person for their loss. If through  my own clumsiness, I tripped someone on the stairs, and they break a leg. I am  responsible for that. And to see that I pay the doctor bills and that this person is  healed. The odd part is that if I do it on purpose, if I deliberately trip somebody  and they fall down the stairs and break their leg, then I'm arrested for assault.  And I may be jailed or punished in some other way. But the injured party isn't  compensated at all. I hope that strikes you as loony. Why should I pay if I  accidentally cause you injury, I pay for it. But if I do it on purpose as a criminal  act, I don't pay you for it. Instead, I'm jailed by the state. I think what lies behind  this blind spot in the civil law, between civil law and criminal law is a false view  of the state. I had it up on the board just going to point to it, but I've erased it. I  had it up on the board in, there's one view that sees that authority originates in  the state. And that's what's at work here. The reason that I pay my I'm punished  by the state, and pay my penalty to the state rather than the injured party, is the  view that the criminal law originates with the state, that's where the authority  comes from. And the state is there for the injured party, I've broken the state's  law. So now I must pay for it. I pay the state, not the victim, not the injured party.  Law of Moses did better than that 3000 years ago. But it comes out of this false  view that the authority originates with the state, I made this point before you  might think sounds like nitpicking, In the Christian view, the authority in the state, for the home, or the school, or the business, or the marriage comes from God.  All authority originates with God. People may bear that authority. If they're  ordained clergy, if they own the business, start a business and own it. Then they have that authority that parents have in the family, because they marry and have children. They may bear authority, but they are not the originators of it. And what this difference in the way the law treats an accident, from criminal activity has to  do with regarding the state as the originator of that authority, so that the  offended party is the state. So we even have the expression that if someone has been convicted of a crime, and served the term and then is released, that  person has paid their debt to society, where society is a synonym for the state.  But society isn't the injured party. The state wasn't injured when somebody  broke that law. It was another human being that was injured who should have  been compensated. We're going to have a lot of examples like that was as we 

go through and expand on the Christian view of the state, and then take a look  at how what effect that would having that view would have on specific laws. But I hope this illustration is enough to get us started. When we come back, we'll go  further into the nature of the state and look further at how our sphere  sovereignty biblical view that looks for its qualifying function, it's type law. Placed in the context of sphere sovereignty would lead us to make laws differently