Moral Government

Government may be defined as control, guidance, direction by a set of rules or laws. This tends to be a more generic definition and so we will define Government more clearly by dividing it into two main areas, physical government and moral government. All government is either moral or physical and in that perspective it exercises control in either a physical or moral way. Physical government is control exercised by a law of necessity or force. It is in direct conflict with free will or liberty. Physical government is the administration of physical law or the law of force.

On the other hand moral government consists in the administration and declaration of moral law. It is the government of free will that is controlled by motives rather than a government of substance that is controlled by force. To say that God uses irresistible grace and predestines a person to be saved fits more accurately into the definition of physical law than into that of moral law. There must be a choice or there is no virtue or morals. If, as some propose, God makes all the choices, then man is not a moral being and therefore not guilty of his own sins. Moral law is the administration of moral principles as opposed to physical principles or laws.

Why do we need something called moral government? No one has the right to make rules and to make an attempt to control another being unless there is a very good reason for doing such a thing. If there is no necessity for moral government, then anyone who tries to make moral laws and then to govern by them is practicing tyranny. So what could be the reason why moral government is a necessity? It is the nature and relations of moral beings that makes holiness or virtue indispensable to happiness. It also gives them glory as it gives God glory. When people are moral, they are happy, and God and they share with God in receiving glory as persons indwelt by the Spirit of God. When people follow after holiness without which no man may see the Lord, they are happy, they receive glory. When people live more and more like Jesus Christ and the Father up in heaven every day, they are happy, God gets glory. This all happens when people come to know God and then grow in that knowledge every day. Knowing God is also what makes us holy. So we see that holiness or virtue makes us happy, gives both God and us glory and holiness cannot exist without moral law and moral government; holiness cannot exist without knowing God.  The reason is that holiness is nothing more than conformity to the moral law.  Moral government, then, is what makes moral agents keep the moral law and it is therefore necessary.  The whole universe depends upon moral government to secure the highest good of the whole universe which is the glory of God and the imparting of the uncreated life of God into mortal beings.

Next, we may ask, who has the right to govern, since moral agents depend on someone to do so?  We may say that just the bare need to be governed does not make one moral agent qualified to be the moral governor over other moral agents.  The one that has a right to govern must be someone that as a result of this need to be governed can only fulfill the moral needs of the governed by being the moral governor of these moral agents.  The right to govern implies a duty to govern.  The right to govern implies the fulfilling to the dependent party the duties of love or benevolence.  The right to govern, in the strictest sense, is founded in the intrinsic value of the interests secured by this government and also it is conditioned upon the necessity of this government to secure these interests.  So, to discuss moral government in detail let’s look at certain main points:

1. It is impossible to exist without government of some kind.

2. Everything is governed by laws that suit the nature of that thing or being.

3. Matter is governed by physical laws and is not something that can be governed by motive.

4. Free actions and free will must be governed by motives; moral beings are governed by moral considerations because if they are governed by force, then there is no free will.  If it is not free will, then it is not moral since morals require choices.

5. Moral beings are conscious of moral agency and can only be governed by moral government since it fits their nature and relations as moral agents.

6. Our circumstances and our natural moral nature demand that we be placed under moral government because:

u Moral happiness depends upon moral order.

u Moral order depends on the interactivity of the moral powers of moral agents in harmony with one another as members of society.

u No community can harmonize their views and feelings without a perfect knowledge of everything necessary to make their actions in the areas that they are called upon to act, the proper actions, thus the need of a moral governor.

u No community ever existed in which everyone possessed the same degree of knowledge and therefore all the members of that community agree perfectly with everyone on every issue.

u If it is true that they don’t all harmonize perfectly on every opinion, then they won’t agree as to a course or direction to take in every situation.

u Because of these commonly know facts, there must be some form of standard or rule of duty to which every member of the community has agreed to be bound and to conform themselves voluntarily.

u This means that no matter how diverse their opinions are, they must all agree that the will of the lawgiver is right and his will thus becomes the universal rule of duty.

u This lawgiver must have authoritative power, not just be an advisory.

u This, then, means that for the lawgiver to have power there must be a penalty attached to or incurred by any and all acts of disobedience from a moral agent in this community.

u If disobedience persists, the lowest penalty that can be inflicted is for the moral agent to be denied the benefits and privileges of government that would normally exist had he not disobeyed.

u We could thus imply from a series of logical conclusions that the good of the universe requires the existence of a moral governor.

The next question that we might ask is who has a right to govern moral agents? Since the necessity of a moral governor is a condition of the right to govern and since the highest good of all moral agents and even of the universe is the end of moral government, then the only one that has a right to govern must be someone whose moral and physical attributes make him qualified to secure the end, or the good of the universe.  Every eye should be directed to One who has the ability to govern, to exercise control, to bring the very best end to the entire universe and of moral agents in particular.  He must be capable of administering just rewards and punishments to moral agents.  Only One that can do what we have here described has the right to govern.

The only possible conclusion that we can come to is that God has the right to govern. What brings us to this conclusion?

u Our consciousness brings us to this conclusion.  All living moral beings have an inner belief in a God that created them, unless taught differently by some form of higher intellectualism.  Since God created them, all moral beings feel a moral responsibility to God, their creator.  We feel responsible to Him for the correct exercise of our rights and powers.  Since our good and God’s glory both depend upon the conformity of all moral agents to holiness as God is holy, he could not be a good moral governor unless he required all to be Holy as God is Holy.  This happens when a moral being comes to know God.  This is the same standard by which He conforms his whole existence and being.

u God has the natural attributes (as does no other) to be the supreme moral governor of the universe.

u God’s moral character qualifies him to be a moral governor.

u His relationship to the universe in being the one that creates and preserves, and because of these attributes makes him the one with a right to govern.

u His relationship to the universe and our relations with each other demand that he be the moral governor of the universe.

u God’s own honor demands that he should be the one with a right to govern.

u God’s conscience demands that he govern.  He could not create a universe of moral agents with the nature and relations that require them to depend upon Him for government and then not be willing to take that responsibility upon Himself.  He created them, they depend upon him, only He can govern them, they would have no moral government without Him.

u God’s glory demands it.  God could not receive glory unless he acted in accordance with His own conscience to be the governor of the universe.

u God must be the moral governor or God is not wise.  Wisdom means choosing the best result and also the best way to achieve that result or end.  God would not be wise unless he were the one that was governor to obtain the best end for all moral agents.

u God’s very conduct indicates that He designs to be a moral influence on moral beings.

u The good judgment and management of God shows that the universe of the mind is best governed by laws that are suited to the nature of moral beings.

u Every moral being has an inward law, a conscience, which gives us a sense of the moral quality of our actions.  This was given to us by God.

u This inward conscience, an unspoken rule of duty that is part of all of us and to which we feel a strong obligation, implies through our spirit that God is the supreme Moral Governor, and even though we can’t give any logical explanation, yet we all know deep down inside that it is true.

u God must be a moral governor or our very nature which demands Him to be our governor has deceived us.  An atheist is deceived and wants to live without conscience.

u If God is not a moral governor, then the whole universe of knowledge has deceived every living being who all expect to be governed by such a moral governor.  An atheist must take the position that only he has the correct knowledge and every other being in the universe, even God, is wrong in their belief in a moral governor.

u If there is no moral government and no moral governor, then there is no such thing as moral character.  However, we are all conscious of moral character as strongly as we are certain that we even exist.  This is because we have that inner affirmation that God is a moral governor and we are moral beings subject to his moral standard.

u All nations of the world have a perception of a “god” as a moral governor.  The perceptions may not match, but they exist, none-the-less.  This shows that the concept of God fits the very nature and relations of all moral beings, whether they have had the revelation of Jesus Christ or not.  The atheist must deny the basis of all human sociology found in the concept of a moral governor, namely God.  An atheist is truly one in complete denial of what all cultures accept as fact.

u Our own nature requires that we believe in God as moral governor.  No matter how hard we try to deny it, we cannot escape from the truth that speaks to our spirit in words that we hear as a still small voice in our most inner being.  Even the most scientific minds, when confronted with the complexities of the universe can find no better logical explanation than that of a supreme creator who is also a governor of the universe.  This voice is crying out for us to know God.

u We could never have confidence in the very moral Character of God if He could possibly ever create a universe of moral agents and then not be willing to be a moral governor over them or to know them.

u We can’t help but make a connection between lack of morals and suffering in order to know that a moral governor does exist.  Again, the very nature and relations of moral beings and the results of lack of morals that leads to suffering and distress is a strong argument for a moral governor.  We can also see societies that have had no God as we know God and were in this state of suffering, but when they changed their perspective of God, a totally new society emerged, they came to know God in a real way.

u The Bible, the most scientific proof of the existence of God and of all moral values, contains a most simple and still comprehensive system of moral government. The Bible is the greatest book that will help one to know God. No other book in history has continued to be a best seller and has had such a profound influence on society as does the Bible in every period of history.  The Bible is the strongest proponent of God the moral governor of all moral agents in the universe and is meant to help them all come to know God.

u If we are not sure that we are the subjects of moral government and that we are moral beings, then we are sure of nothing in this universe.  To deny that we are moral beings with a moral government and moral laws is to deny that we exist as human beings.  All of these things are a priori truths that cannot be denied by any rational living being.

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