God and Politics 2e: The Image of God

I forgot this one yesterday...

e) Humanity rules over creation

One pretty major aspect of imaging God that is entrusted to humanity is the rule of creation. Human beings are to govern not only their own society, but also the rest of the world that God has made. All things have been put under man's feet (Psalm 8:6). At a point in time when we are just beginning to realise how much of a profound effect our actions can have on the world in which we live, it would be a significant oversight to ignore the fact that ruling, stewarding and caring for creation is part of what it means to be human. I take it that any human government will need to take seriously the responsibility to rule properly not only over the people they govern but also the part of the earth that has been given to them to steward.

God and Politics 2b,c&d: The Image of God

So, to pick up where I left off over a month ago...

b) Human beings are relational beings

Whatever else it means to be in the image of God, it certainly includes the idea of being relational. Consider Genesis 1:27:

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

I take it that the implication is that the plurality of man - the sameness-but-difference expressed in the maleness and femaleness of human beings - is an essential part of their image-bearing. In fact, I would say that the image of God is less something human beings have and possess and more something that they do, as they relate to one another. In this way they bear the image of the relational God who created them.

The implications for political systems are interesting. I think this counts against systems that tend to high levels of bureaucracy and centralised government. Why? Because it is inevitable that a centralised government and bureaucracy will tend to deal with statistics and not people; it will therefore pursue policies and not relationships.

c) There is a right way for human beings to live

If human beings were just a chance product of random evolution, it seems to me there would be no grounds for claiming that there are better and worse ways to live. At a fundamental level, ethics would be undercut, and that would affect government. In the "randomly evolved society" there would never be any reason for government not to go along with the majority (assuming some form of democracy; without that they could just do as they pleased so long as they could get away with it). But if God made humanity, and if he made it to function in a particular way, then there is a best way to live. There is right and there is wrong, and one way will lead to a healthy society and the other will lead to an unhealthy one. If God made humanity, then it seems to me that human governments and leaders are, to a certain extent, mandated to lead humanity in the right way to live.

d) Human beings are responsible agents

Another way in which human beings image their Creator is in making significant moral choices. In the sphere of government, I think this should qualify what I have just said in point c. Governments cannot simply work out what is best for people and then make them do it. There has to be space for individuals to make real choices, even if that means choosing wrongly.

The combination of points c and d points to a system of law which sets limits on human freedom, but not unduly restrictive limits. Furthermore, as an expression of the rightness of the laws and as a foreshadowing of the fact that people will be held morally responsible by God for what they do with his laws, governments should rigorously enforce the laws that exist, punishing offenders. Laws which are unenforcable deny both c and d - they give the impression that there is no 'right', only what you can get away with, and they give the impression that you can get away with a lot and not be held responsible. So I would argue on this basis for a limited statute book, containing only what must be and can be enforced.

God and Politics 2a: The Image of God

Turning to what you might call Biblical anthropology, I pick up my second major principle for the Christian involved in politics (which should, of course, be every Christian in a democratic society). That principle is:

2. Human beings are made in the image of God

Without getting into a lengthy theological discussion about what that means exactly (I tend towards Barth's explanation, if that helps anyone), there are a number of fairly large applications that can be made to the political sphere. Such as:

a) Each human being is inherently valuable (and of equal value)

Ponder Psalm 8:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the
stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little
lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

Or think about how this is applied to individuals in Psalm 139:

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

It's important to realise that Scripture doesn't just tell us that humanity is valuable: it tells us that each individual human being is valuable. That counts against any political system that tends to treat human beings as statistics. It counts against any system that tends to attach value to human beings based solely on what they can do or contribute. It counts against any system that does not respect each human being at the weakest and most vulnerable times of life: the very young, very sick, and very old.

Systems like this can be found on the left and the right.

It also counts supremely against systems that value the whole but not each individual. Any political system that makes the good of the many its ultimate goal runs this risk. It is a heroic and even somewhat Christ-like thing for the few to decide that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (or the one - yes, that is a Trek reference) and therefore sacrifice themselves; but it is a despicable thing and even somewhat demonic when the many make a similar decision and therefore sacrifice the few. Kant said human beings are always ends and never means: he is right within the sphere of politics and society, if not ultimately and theologically.

Please note that this is absolutely not "self-evident". All the facts as we perceive them count against it. Some people are more valuable to society than others; this is undeniable. On what grounds could we possibly infer from what we see around us that all human beings were valuable? We could choose to accord equal value to all - but I would suggest that this doesn't quite work so long as we have the sneaking suspicion that it is in fact fictitious value. Consistency points us more in the direction of Peter Singer, who argues that healthy chimps have more value than profoundly disabled human beings. That is not, humanly speaking, outrageous: it is simply working from the observable facts. But it is blasphemous, and therefore an outrage against God whose image is to be seen in every human being.