It seems easy enough to argue that Jesus was an anarchist. In answering the Pharisees’ trick question, "Should we pay taxes to Caesar?" Jesus could not have said "no" or even "not voluntarily" as that answer would have been his last. Answering a simple "yes" would have been easy enough if that was what he wanted to say, but he said "Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God that which is God’s." Answering with a tautology was not a proper answer, but it allowed him to keep his head, at least a little longer. If Brutus gave to Caesar that which was Caesar’s, that would be consistent with Jesus’ answer. However, though Jesus was a revolutionary, he did not share Brutus’ methodology. (See Shakespeare for the approximate history.)
Paul, on the other hand, is often attacked by anarchists for penning such notorious phrases as, "Submit to governing authorities…The authorities are ordained by God…Rulers are not a terror to good works…He is a minister of God to you for good."
This passage has had only one common interpretation since the time the Church decided to collude with Constantine in about 320 AD. Once engrained it seems impossible to interpret it differently (until you discover the true and intended meaning.) Even a Christian anarchist writer such as Jaques Ellul in his book Anarchie et Christianisme tries unsuccessfully in my view to reconcile Romans 13 with anarchism. But now, you will see it done shortly and simply with no doubt that this is what Paul intended and the only possible internally consistent position.
The first clue is this: perhaps Paul ever so slightly disguised his answer just as Jesus did. If he was trying to give any message that could be against the Roman State, then he was bound to write between the lines if he wanted Christianity to survive for a single generation.
The second clue will unravel 1700 years of misinterpretation with a single rhetorical question. "What constitutes a legitimate governing authority?" Ah! Everyone just assumed that a State was a legitimate governing authority oblivious that the fundamental issue is legitimacy. By unknowingly assuming legitimacy for the State, the concept of governing authority itself becomes incomprehensible, as shown below. Let us then assume that the State could be a legitimate governing authority and see how it could be obeyed…or even if it could be obeyed.
If one is to assume that the State is a legitimate governing authority, then conquest, as the only means of establishing and continuing the State, and as the defining element of Statehood, must also be legitimate. That conclusion seems enough to disqualify the State from potential legitimacy, but look at a different problem instead.
States often war and take territories from other States. Then they reward those who supported their side of the war and punish those who supported their enemies. After the Revolutionary War the Loyalists were punished for siding with their current state against their future state. By trying to avoid treason, they committed it against the side that won in the end, and were punished for it. When Queens, New York even took up arms to defend their neutrality, the revolutionaries were the ones who sent a militia to destroy them. (1) You can also be sure the revolutionaries would have been punished for treason if they had lost the war. The Civil War had the opposite conclusion and the Rebels were punished. Each time, like thousands in history, two or more states or potential states claim that residents owe allegiance only to them, and not to the other. So if we are to obey State authorities, then we must always know all possible conflicts in the future and take the side that will be the successful conquerors! Yet, even this picture understates the problem. During the war a person could be punished for "disobedience to governing authorities" by the side that will eventually lose.
This problem could be called the "Problem of Incomprehensible and Uncertain Masters" which is a more complicated extension of Jesus stating, "No one can serve two masters." A dedicated believer in the conceptual State may claim he is only following one master, Conquest. Yet, just as in Colonial America, that does not tell you who in particular is the conqueror of the moment, in any particular location, or what to do if your current obedience to your current state will be considered punishable disobedience by your future state or repositioned current state. Nevertheless, Paul is attempting to describe an ethic by which people could live. Since obedience to state authorities is not something one can do without perfect knowledge of the future (or really even with it), this certainly cannot be the ethic that Paul is trying to promote.
Some will object that although at times to which state is due obedience may be in question, for most people most of the time it will be obvious and it should be obeyed. They are wrong. Before I prove that, it must be noted that if they claim to defend the principle of obedience to State authority, but admit to times when multiple states claim allegiance is due, then their principle is not a universal principle, and is therefore not capable of being an ethic.
So then let us assume a single stable unrivaled state over a geographic region. Is it capable of being an internally consistent legitimate authority? No. How would you obey it anyway? It has statute laws, but who is to interpret them? You? No, you are responsible for interpreting the official interpretations! Even then, if the laws or official interpretations of them change, then your prior actions can be punished! Ex post facto punishments are a historical and guaranteed future reality. Other laws such as anti-trust laws are Catch 22s. You can be punished for raising prices, lowering prices, for not changing them, for selling too much or too little! Meanwhile, when States reposition their ruling coalitions they will raise to sainthood some of those (such as Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, etc.) who broke or break its own laws.
Finally, there are de facto laws and some that can vary based on the individual bureaucrat enforcer. In some places bribery of officials is considered a required social norm. Their supervisors up the chain of command promote the practice. To pay the bribe may violate the letter of the law, and even the official interpretation. Nevertheless, the de facto interpretation may have been the only interpretation intended, as the official interpreters may have only intended their official interpretation for appearance and not for practice.
Some critics are ready to agree that the State is an incomprehensible and thus unauthoritative master, but that I have only assumed that the Apostle Paul knew this, so prove he intended this all along! Glad you asked.
In Romans 13:3-4 Paul states,
"Rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil."
Paul knew that the Roman Empire was a terror to Christianity, and that Christians would not receive praise from it. His intended audience knew this as well. What he has just listed are qualifications and properties of legitimacy that beyond a doubt would eliminate the Roman Empire and anything like it from the category of legitimate "governing authorities" from the minds of his readers.
"Therefore you must be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake." Romans 13:5
Paul is referring to natural authorities that one’s conscience would also feel obligated to obey. He knew no one would feel guilty for not worshiping the emperor or whatever other insane ideas a State may think fit to put on paper and call statute law, state law, royal law, etc. (Or not put on paper and enforce as a defacto law, or make a stealth defacto law by not punishing those who attack people of a particular belief or action.) And would one’s conscience ever feel guilty for not knowing the current and future official and de facto interpretations of all the millions of possibly contradictory laws of states? I think not!
"For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing." Romans 13:6
In modern times taxation has been defined as the systematized universal takings by the State from the population, but this was not the only definition in history, and it was not always so in the time of Paul. Roman citizenship was something that could be purchased and would give the buyer some protection of person and property. In such cases the taxation was voluntary. It was not until 212 AD that emperor Caracalla made Roman citizenship universal and compulsory (2) (which was taxation for the defense of person and property which is the only kind of taxation to which Paul is referring according to v. 8-10) to increase the size of the State. If Paul here meant taxes to mean compulsory state taxation, then there is no moral or even logically consistent way to defend Paul’s statement. The main use of compulsory taxation is the conquest of humanity, plundering the productive to support the parasitic. All other uses are used as attempted justification for that fundamental purpose. One’s conscience should feel guilty for paying taxes instead of avoiding them.
At this point I must expand and clarify the concept of legitimacy as some readers might have just found an inconsistency. States may be illegitimate authorities over what they claim to have authority. Nevertheless they may perform some legitimate tasks and have some legitimate laws in their attempt to claim legitimacy for the whole of their laws and actions. So whenever a state says not to murder, steal, rape, etc. (harm to a neighbor as Paul calls it) it should be obeyed, and when it punishes those who violate person and property its punishments are also valid. (Assuming the punishment is harsher than neither the crime warrants nor the victim approves.)
"Render therefore to all their due, taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, and honor to whom honor." Romans 13:7
If there was any question whether Paul was following Jesus’ pattern of speaking between the words, then this shows he was. "Give taxes to whom taxes are due" says no more than "Give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s." It does not say to whom taxes are due just as Jesus did not say what was Caesar’s! Both worded their phrases as to be non-revolutionary in letter but revolutionary in spirit.
"Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery,' 'You shall not murder,' 'You shall not steal,' 'You shall not bear false witness,' 'You shall not covet;' and if there is any other commandment, all are summed up in this saying, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no harm to his neighbor: Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." Romans 13:8-10
Commentators usually fail to see that these verses are also regarding government and qualifications for legitimacy. However, these three verses are more than that. They are one of the classic summations of free market anarchism. Legitimate governments derive legitimacy only through protecting property rights, and that is also the total (sum or fulfillment in Paul’s words) of their legitimacy. Since we can owe no one anything other than the love that does no harm to a neighbor, we can owe no further allegiance to the State, even if allegiance to the State was a rational coherent concept, which it is not.
Additionally, it is deceptive to call our duty to do no harm to a neighbor as even a partial allegiance to the State. It is to each person that our duty to not harm is due. So whether the State tells us to not harm a neighbor or not, it does not change the Christian’s duty, and is therefore at best irrelevant. However, the State may attempt to command people to harm a neighbor, and these verses are then a direct command to disobey the State.
Sometimes it is assumed that "owe no one anything" is referring to the debtor/creditor relationship, but that has nothing to do with the context of governing authorities. Again, what it says is the allegiance owed can never be anything more than doing no harm to a neighbor. Statists who try to use Romans 13 to defend anything from conscription, government welfare, drug prohibition, or provision of roads are not only out of luck, they are eternal enemies of the Apostle Paul.
Paul elsewhere makes statements that appear to be outright irrationalism, but once one realizes that Paul is an anarchist, it can be seen that he is not attacking reason.(3)
"For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent…Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" 1 Corinthians 1:19-20
Paul is not trying to say that 2+2 is not 4, and he is not attacking the usefulness of applied sciences like engineering. What he is doing is opposing the intelligencia and the propagandist class that the State creates to invent all these elaborate justifications for the State. From the "Divine Right of Kings," the "Will of the Gods," the democratic "Will of the People," "Making the World Safe for Democracy," "Duty to One’s Country," to John Rawl’s "Original Position," all these are really foolishness promoted as wisdom by those whom the State subsidizes and hails as wise to give itself the illusion of legitimacy and authority.
Currently, state leaders are spreading the "worldly wisdom" of John Maynard Keynes that in order to solve our economic problems, consumers must spend, not save to "restore economic growth." So we must borrow to buy things we do not need with money we do not have instead of investing in capital that would be able to pay off the debt that society (or shall I say Atlas?) can not much longer carry. It is social engineering like this from which human society must be "saved."
Otherwise individuals discover that pursuing their own good will lead them into conflict with society (though actually just with the State not society, which hides the distinction between State and society). Then they feel alienation or "lost" in the conflict. Even Marx realized this, but he only made the problem worse. It was the heterodox (or perhaps un-worldly in Paul"s term) thinkers such as Herbert Spencer, Lysander Spooner, and Ayn Rand who made a science of resolving this conflict.
ADDENDUM:
I have to defend Paul against the charge of creating the doctrine of Original Sin, the idea that a person can be guilty of actions committed by ancient ancestors. This dogma was probably created by the wildly imaginative mind of Origin about 200 AD, and then made into an official doctrine by Augustine to defend the practices of the Church. (In general, practice creates doctrine to rationalize it.)
Once the doctrine was invented, it seems possible to read it into the figures of speech Paul uses such as in Romans 5:12. According to Original Sin, the consequences and the guilt of Adam’s first sin passed to his descendants. They are then all "damned to hell." This concept renders sin, guilt, and personal responsibility all unintelligible and meaningless. But in disproof, Paul is referring to an event of Jewish scripture of which every Jew was familiar. If Jews did not already believe in Original Sin, then there is no reason to think Paul is creating a new doctrine from Genesis that says even all infants are pure evil, through no action or belief of their own, and need to be "saved from sin." That is perhaps the most despicable doctrine ever imagined in the history of all religions.
Another concept forced on Paul by translators is that of human's "sinful nature." The Greek word in the original translates literally as "flesh." By this Paul means the same as Ayn Rand does when she criticizes those who would live by "instinct." Both writers are defending reasoned action against impulsive desires. Paul never believed in "sinful nature" and if it were true, to paraphrase R. W. Emerson: If that be our nature, it can only be our duty to follow it.
One last defense of Paul is for a quote George H. Smith uses in his book Atheism: The Case Against God. He quotes Romans 14:23 and only lists "He who has doubts is condemned." (p. 168) In Smith’s context, he makes Paul imply God damns those who doubt Christianity. However, this verse is proceeded by "Happy is he who condemns not himself in the things he allows." It is clear Paul is referring to those who violate their own beliefs and stand self-condemned. Yet, I still have much respect for Smith as a fellow anarchist.
What about patriotism? According to the US Code, Title 36, Chapter 10, paragraph 176 (j): "The flag represents a living country and is itself considered a living thing." So the United States is not just implicitly pagan, but explicitly and legally pagan. (According to the definition of pagan being one who worships inanimate objects of man’s creation and considers it living.) So a person who would pledge allegiance to an inanimate flag is also explicitly pagan regardless of any other claimed Christian beliefs.
Regarding anarchism and the Christian Bible in general, is the issue of statism important in it? Yes. Nimrod is listed in Genesis 10 as the founder of Babel and the first conqueror of men. His name means rebellion (against God) and is identified by the first century Jewish historian Josephus as the founder of the first state. What few realize is that in Hebrew Babel and Babylon are the same word. Babylon is then the symbol of the State and statism from Genesis 10 to Revelation 19. It is the instrument of oppression towards the people of God. Still, its nature and disposition will be unknown to every non-anarchist. Here is the Revelation 17:5 description: "MYSTERY: BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." It was translated in most translations in all capitalization, and is the longest phrase like that I have found. Ask yourself if the Christian scriptures address the State. I have found my answer.
1. Murray Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty Vol. IV p. 75.
2. Charles Adams, For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization p. 105.
3. Jesus makes similar statements. "I thank thee O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes." (Mat. 11:25) Jesus and Paul are basically accepting the terms given them but not the meaning. If those in power define what is 'wise' or 'orthodox' then Paul and Jesus are accepting 'heterodoxy' and 'foolishness.' Not in fact, but in verbal usage. George H. Smith confuses this with supporting irrationalism. Unlike Ayn Rand, Jesus and Paul did not think it necessary to correct vocabulary, terminology, and usage. Both sides are justified given their different audiences of the common man or the intellectual. September 24, 2001
