My Thoughts on VanDrunen's Thoughts
A Friendly Response
A few weeks ago David VanDrunen responded in the Reformed Libertarians podcast to my review article about his argument for state legitimacy. I’d like to thank him for reading my review and taking it seriously enough to record an hour-long podcast episode responding to it! He seriously engaged with my article and did so with an irenic posture. I appreciate his work and seriously hope he continues writing on these topics!
I’d also like to thank Gregory and Kerry for hosting myself and Dr. VanDrunen and allowing this back and forth to take place.
With that said, I would like to offer my brief thoughts on some topics he raised and indicate how I think the conversation could continue:
Biblical Issues
First, VanDrunen begins by critiquing a few of my critiques of his biblical arguments. Two in particular are worth noting – the issue of converted Roman officials in the NT and Romans 13.
Converted Roman Officials
Concerning the converted Roman officials my basic argument was that it is plausible that a Christian can serve in the government if he has can mitigate the evil it does. One might think of Daniel and his friends serving as officials in the idolatrous and beastly state of Babylon.
VanDrunen’s pushback was that if the state is inherently illegitimate and then to participate in it would be morally akin to a Christian working in a brothel because he can make sure the women are treated better. In particular, he points out my discussion of John the Baptists instruction to tax-collectors in Luke 3 as inconsistent with the libertarian view of the state.
Briefly, I think VanDrunen is right that this is the weakest part of my article and, in particular, my discussion of Luke 3.[1] I confess that I find that text in particular to be one of the most difficult to square with libertarianism and with the general NT view of tax-collectors – who are often viewed as paradigmatic sinners (Matthew 18:17, Luke 18:10-13) and whom Jesus lists as exemplary sinners alongside prostitutes (Matthew 21:31-32). However, I do need to investigate this text further and hope to do so in writing eventually.
That being said, for me, I am hesitant to make this one passage a lynchpin of my political theology (not to say that VanDrunen is!) as there are others that I believe are clearer and more direct. Every position will have some “problem texts” and it seems to me that there are fewer and less significant problems with the libertarian view than otherwise.
It also seems to me that the New Testament left certain ethical questions underdetermined, providing the theological rational for them but not drawing out all the consequences explicitly. For example, in Luke 3, John the Baptist does not tell Roman soldiers to quit – and yet the Roman military was inextricably bound up with the imperial cult[2] and early Christian theologians viewed participation in the Roman military as incompatible with the Christian faith (Origen, Tertullian, Lactantius). Similarly, Paul does not command slave masters to free their slaves in Ephesus or Colossae, yet fundamentally undermines the institution in his letter to Philemon in such a way that Christians have almost universally come to condemn slavery and forbid slave-holding. Perhaps the same thing is going on here.
One final point is that I believe a libertarian can say that the state is illegitimate without saying that every activity carried out by the state is illegitimate. In a free society there would still be law, rights enforcement, and debt collectors. Just as I believe a Christian can serve in the food industry even if it is unjustly monopolized by the state, so a Christian could serve in the other functions of government even though they are unjustly monopolized. This is, I believe, a distinction between the state and a brothel.[3]
Romans 13
I don’t have much to say here except to make the point that, though it may appear very odd to us that God would call an idolatrous state His servant, but there is very clear OT precedent to this which I show in my article.
I did not engage as much with VanDrunen’s exegesis of Romans 13 because it seemed to me that his primary interlocutor was one with an expansionist view of the state and so his exegesis was not aimed at demonstrating the legitimacy of the state from that text but rather arguing against the expansionist view.
I do believe that a rigorous exegesis of Romans 13 has been lacking from a libertarian perspective and that is one thing I have been working to remedy here.
Definition of Consent
Second, VanDrunen takes issue with my discussion of consent, saying that I have departed from his meaning. He says that, “When I talk about consent in regard to the customary legal order, I’m not thinking about the private opinion of each and every member of the society.”
However, I don’t think he’s being quite consistent here. Consider his discussion on page 317 of unjust customs,
Someone might note that most horrific customs do not enjoy the genuine consent of all parties involved, and thus do not fit the idea of ‘customary legal order’ as I defined it. That is true.
So, the issue is what he means by “genuine consent of all parties involved.” In the interview, VanDrunen speaks of consent as “the broad practice that represents the customs of a community” in distinction from “private agreement.” I will leave the reader to determine whether that constitutes the “genuine consent of all parties involved” and whether the state has such consent.
However, a few more issues need to be addressed. I think there is actually an anthropological question here. I take it as a given with the vast majority of the Christian tradition that the will is a faculty of an individual soul. In other words, a person is able to act because his soul is endowed with the faculty of will. This implies methodological individualism. All human actions are fundamentally individual actions because there is no such thing as a collective soul and therefore no collective will. If consent is an action than it is an action of a will which belongs to an individual soul – there is no such thing as “collective consent” in this sense.
Of course, it is not always necessary to speak in the language of methodological individualism. We can speak in collective terms in generalities but those generalities can always be disambiguated into particulars. For example, I may say something like, “Our whole family got together at Christmas.” This is true in general even if one niece wasn’t there. But if pressed I can always disambiguate and particularize by specifically saying who was and wasn’t there. This is the sort of ambiguity present in all discussions of a general will or collective consent and I suspect that in almost all cases it serves to obscure rather than clarify the exact nature of what lies beneath it – bare majority rule. If VanDrunen’s account of consent reduces to mere majority opinion then I confess that I do not think it really can be said to be the “genuine consent of all parties involved.” But I also confess I am still not quite sure what his precise definition of consent is.
On this, I think libertarian theorists have shown convincingly how a system of law and defense might be provided by the sort of private agreement consent inconsistent with the state – see Hoppe and Murphy on this.
Monopoly
VanDrunen makes some clarifying remarks about the state and monopoly but I think more needs to be said. For instance, if the state is not a monopoly, as he says, because it is authorized by the customary legal order and is therefore not the final authority, how can it prevent others from not opting out (as he admits that it does)? It seems to me that if the state does not allow one to opt out, it claims a de facto ultimate authority status since it would disallow, say, the citizens of certain states from changing the customary legal order and seceding.
So, the questions I have for VanDrunen are: Do you think there is a right of secession? If so, to whom does it apply? If states may secede from the nation, may counties secede from the state? And if so, may towns secede from the county? And may households secede from the town?
I think Lincoln was right in this, that “the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.”[4] (Ironically, he seemed to have temporarily forgotten how the United States was founded and the right of rebellion that he had previously supported.[5]) If one allows for the right of secession (which is really the freedom of association), then there is no logically consistent stopping place short of a private property society based on voluntary contracts.
Negative Rights and the Noahic Covenant
Fourth, I would like to hear how VanDrunen elaborate more on the activities of the state in regards to negative natural rights. In an earlier article he states, “Political power may be wielded to defend against those who violate others’ rights, and for this purpose only.”[6] I agree wholeheartedly! But I struggle to see how that is consistent with the state whose very existence is dependent on taxation which is manifestly not a defensive power. Moreover, it seems hard to square the use of political power to prevent people from opting out with a solely defensive use of power.
On Genesis 9:6, VanDrunen states that he’s not sure it can be seen as a regulative principle of civil government even though there is part of him that wants it to be true. Well, here is a brief argument for why it is:
P1: Scripture gives sweeping prohibitions on the use of violence (Exodus 20:13, 15).
P2: The created order provides the theological basis for these sweeping prohibitions (Genesis 1:27).
P3: Therefore, uses of violence must be explicitly authorized by Scripture.
P4: Genesis 9:6 explicitly authorizes only defensive violence and prohibits initiating violence.
Conclusion: The only scripturally legitimate use of violence is defensive.
An analogy to this is how the Bible treats sex and marriage. There are sweeping prohibitions concerning sex (Exodus 20:14, Mark 7:21, Romans 1:29). There is a theological rational for these sweeping prohibitions grounded in the created order (Genesis 2:21-24). Therefore, sex is only permitted in cases where Scripture explicitly allows, i.e. within the bounds of a marriage covenant between one man and one woman.
Pragmatic Argument Against the State
Fifth, since they did not get to address everything in my article (and understandably so), I would like to hear VanDrunen’s thoughts on the theological and economic tensions I raised.
If the core functions of government, law and defense, can be provided privately – would it not be better for them to be so provided?
Do not the very economic laws which show why coercively provided goods and services will become more costly and less quality apply to the provision of law and defense as well?
International Anarchy
Finally, something I didn’t even mention in the article but would like to hear VanDrunen’s thoughts on is the case of international anarchy. It seems to me that contemporary states exist in anarchistic relations to one another – thereby proving the possibility of anarchy. But I see no logical reason why this cannot be moved downward by steps until we reach the family unit.
Conclusion
I am very thankful for VanDrunen’s interaction on this matter and hope that this grab bag of thoughts could provide opportunity for continued discussion.
[1] This was not a text that VanDrunen dealt with in his book, but one I brought up to steel-man his argument.
[2] Helgeland, Daly, Burns, Christians and the Military: The Early Experience, “Roman Army Religion,” p. 48-55. They make such statements as, “The army had a religious structure that informed nearly everything it did” and “The Christian in the army was caught in a religious net of very fine mesh.”
[3] Another fruitful line of argument which I cannot develop fully here but am working on elsewhere is the connection between taxation and slavery which provides another potential argument against taxation vis a vis the Christian argument against slavery.
[4] First Inaugural Address.
[5] “Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, – a most sacred right – a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movement. Such minority, was precisely the case, of the tories of our own revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines, or old laws; but to break up both, and make new ones.” Abraham Lincoln, Speech in United States House of Representatives: The War with Mexico, January 12, 1848
[6] David VanDrunen, “The Protectionist Purpose of Law: A Moral Case from the Biblical Covenant with Noah,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 35, no. 2 (2015), p. 105.