The Moral Argument for Christian Nations
The First Proof in a Series Arguing for Christian Nations
(1) All moral entities ought to acknowledge the true God in word and deed.
(2) Nations are moral entities.
Therefore, (3) nations ought to acknowledge the true God in word and deed.
(4) The true God is the Triune God.
Therefore, (5) nations ought to acknowledge the Triune God in word and deed.
All moral entities ought to acknowledge the true God in word and deed.
Key here is understanding the nature of all moral entities. Moral entities are required to do good and not to do evil. Creation is largely composed of non-moral entities, which is not to say that they are bad, only that they cannot choose between good and evil. Rocks have no such choice; and non-rational animals (e.g., bears), while having volition, do not have moral choice. Moral entities can acknowledge good and evil and choose between them.
Man is under a moral law, which is the rule or standard of his right acting or righteousness. This law is natural to him in that it is engraved on his heart, is suitable and fitting for the sort of being he is, and is the rule to his natural end, namely his happiness. But even though man’s moral law is natural to him, the law is essentially command. Man’s nature demonstrates to him what is good and evil, but the oughtness (or the precept of natural law) comes from the free will of God himself—the One who Commands. In other words, the natural law is both demonstrative and preceptive. This both/and, middle-ground rejects the famous claim of Hugo Grotius—that natural law is binding even if God does not exist—and the Occamist position that the natural law is nothing but divine command. The middle position is that of Thomas Aquinas, Fransisco Suarez, Francis Turretin, and (to my knowledge) most Reformed orthodox theologians (before knowledge of the question was seemingly lost among Protestants)[1. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II, qu. 71. Art. 6; Francisco Suarez, Selections from Three Works, 206-32; and Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 11.2.11. Turretin calls this position “the more common opinion among the orthodox.”].
The important point is this: even though the natural law says what is good and evil—and even though its goodness flows from God’s moral nature, is discoverable in principle by natural reason, and is suitable to the natural constitution of man—the natural law still flows from the command of God exercising his free will toward his creatures. Natural law is command. The oughtness of natural law is found in divine command.
The natural law being divine command, all moral entities (being under that law) are under commands issued by the Commander. Thus, all moral entities must acknowledge the will behind the moral precepts, which is nothing but the acknowledgment of God himself. An atheistical world might have moral council, but it does not contain moral obligation. This is precisely why John Locke, for example, while promoting maximal religious liberty, called for magistrates to suppress atheism: “Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all.”[2. See John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration.]
The acknowledgement of the true God—being the Supreme Being—must exceed mere affirmation of his existence. It must lead one to beseech, give obeisance, recognize dependence, and act in light of his purposes from the world. This is not the mere “god of the philosophers” or the god of the deists, but the King of the universe.
Put simply, since all moral entities are under moral obligation, they ought to acknowledge God in word and deed, because moral obligation itself comes only from God’s will.
Nations are moral entities.
Nations are entities, because they can form political communities. All legitimate political communities are formed by consent—consent being a collective expression of an entity. Thus, if nations can express consent, they must be (collective) entities. It follows that nations have a collective personhood—they are moral persons—and therefore act morally as singular entities.
Furthermore, since the members of civil societies are bound by majoritarian decision (unless grossly unjust or tyrannical), the members are bound together as a whole. Thus, a nation as a civil society is a collective entity, for majoritarian decisions (e.g., laws passed by majority vote in a legitimate legislature) bind all persons, even the dissenting minority.
They are moral entities for several reasons. First, to speak of nations as “barbarous” assumes that the nation as such has a moral standard. Second, the nation institutes civil government for its good. The state must act for the good of the community, and it can act for evil. This presumes that the nation as nation is under a standard of goodness for which the government acts to bring about, sustain, or facilitate. Third, civil law itself must be derived from the moral law to bind citizens to obligation. Otherwise, it is no law at all. Thus, nations are under the moral law. Lastly, God regularly judges and condemns nations as nations for their acts of evil, even heathen nations (Ps. 110:6). If nations can be condemned for moral failure, then they are under a moral standard, namely moral law.
We can conclude, then, that nations are moral entities.
It follows (from the valid syllogism above) that nations ought to acknowledge God in word and deed. Nations are not human persons; they differ in species of moral entity. Yet they are moral persons, and so God wills nations to act morally.
While nations have international moral obligations, I focus here their acting for themselves. They act for themselves in two ways: law and custom. They enact law mediately through civil government. Laws are explicit and outwardly promulgated by legitimate authorities who enforce them through civil command and sanction. Customs (differing from law as species of ordering) are a sort of implicit authority, operating above the people in a way as “social facts,” to use Émile Durkheim’s terminology, and enforced socially. Thus, God’s will for nations is to act through law and custom for the good of the nation, and these acts ought to flow from acknowledgement of God.
The true God is the Triune God.
Now, we might conclude that nations ought to acknowledge the Triune God in word and deed, because the true God is the Triune God. I admit that this may not appear to be not solid proof, because the true God is also the God of creation. One might conclude that nations simply must acknowledge God as Creator. But while we should distinguish God as Creator and God as Redeemer (as Calvin did)[3. See John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.2.1.], we cannot separate. For contained in God as Creator is the will for eternal life (since Adam was promised eternal life for obedience)[4. The majority of Reformed orthodox theologians held this view. Francis Turretin states, “The received opinion among the orthodox is that the promise given to Adam was not only of a happy life to be continued in paradise but of a heavenly and eternal life.” See IET 8.6.8.], though the former means to the end (the covenant of works) is no longer attainable. Hence, God as Redeemer, revealing himself in the person and work of Christ, is now the only means to that original will of God as Creator. The will of God as Creator is attained through God as Redeemer. So, we distinguish but not separate. It follows that if nations ought to orient man to his original, heavenly end—namely eternal life— per the will of God as Creator, then they ought to orient man to the proper means to it, namely Christ. To prove the antecedent: Nations ought to orient man to his heavenly end, because the nation acting as such is a means to loving one’s neighbor; and what is greater love of neighbor than pointing people to their highest good?
Conclusion
I conclude, therefore, that the Christian nation—being a nation that in the totality of its acting orients its members to eternal life in Christ—is not only possible but true, good, and beautiful. It is the nation perfected in form.
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