Idolater
"Matthew 16:18-19" Dispensationalist (Catholic) χρ
And is America such a country?
First we must as far as I'm concerned grant that the Apostles and Jesus never said that absolute monarchism was an inherently moral regime, constitution or political situation, but the New Testament didn't foment revolt against the current political situation of the Apostolic era either, but accepted it as current reality.
The most clear NT passage I think we have on the matter is Romans 13:4 " . . . if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." Implied in this verse is the virtue or value of justice, that is to say, that the Apostle is not approving of "the sword" being used on people guilty of no evil, and equally neither is he approving of any evildoers avoiding "the sword". Paul also does not specifically clarify what he means by evil.
Based on this, any biblical, Apostolic, Christian, regime, constitution or politics must be capable of earnestly administering justice. This implies the rule of law, which simply stated means that whatever the law is, there is nobody 'above the law', everybody in a biblical, Apostolic, Christian, regime, constitution or political situation is vulnerable to "the sword" if he, she, or neither he nor she, does evil.
Any political situation that does not preserve, honor and cultivate the rule of law cannot be biblical, Apostolic or Christian. This positively rules out absolute monarchism and any other autocracy, dictatorship or tyranny.
While idealistic communism doesn't necessarily rule out the rule of law, in practice every communist regime has and does neglect rule of law.
Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas was the most brilliant diamond from the diamond mine of the scholastic era, but he lived in a world where Christians only had one choice as to how to live the Christian life; all Christians basically were Catholics when Aquinas lived and wrote, especially in Europe where he was. If Aquinas lived a few centuries later perhaps we would be singing his praises even more than now, for at that time Christians had all sorts of choices about which ecclesial community to participate in as Christian people.
It took the American founders, who are together the most brilliant diamond of the scholastic era in the Reformation era, to crack the nut of human rights (which I'm sure that Aquinas himself would have recognized had he lived in their time) and how to design a constitution which respects them. The Americans took the idea of rights from the Englishman John Locke, who had taken the idea from ancient Rome, the basic concept being that people carried around with them, in an inalienable way, what we call moral rights. This concept is opposed to absolute morality primarily being expressed as laws, and this changed the whole nature of political inquiry.
Justice, in particular, has come to be seen as a matter of rights violations, rather than as breaking some transcendent moral stricture.
The basis of our belief in rights is as the founders said "self-evident", which means that they do not need to be argued ontologically, but in this day and age it is necessary to provide some sort of reasonable support for the notion. Which can bring us back now to the Scripture, and the most commonly repeated law from the Torah in the NT, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Where there are friends, enemies and everyone else (being our neighbors), it is self-evident when you're doing something wrong to a neighbor, people might say, "Is this your enemy?" and when you tell them no, they say, "Well then why are you doing that to them?" iow our rights are self-evident within the context of Love your neighbor as yourself. It's certainly not to love your neighbor as you love your family or friends, nobody thinks that if you don't treat your neighbors as you do friends and family that you're breaking their rights as people, but if you treat your neighbors (who have done you no wrong) as if they're your enemies (people who do your wrong), then rights have been broken, it is self-evident.
So this puts the idea of both rights and evil (from Romans 13:4 above) within the biblical context of You shall love your neighbor as yourself, and based on this and on the above, as far as I'm concerned the United States is a country with a biblical, Apostolic and Christian, regime, constitution and politics.
First we must as far as I'm concerned grant that the Apostles and Jesus never said that absolute monarchism was an inherently moral regime, constitution or political situation, but the New Testament didn't foment revolt against the current political situation of the Apostolic era either, but accepted it as current reality.
The most clear NT passage I think we have on the matter is Romans 13:4 " . . . if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." Implied in this verse is the virtue or value of justice, that is to say, that the Apostle is not approving of "the sword" being used on people guilty of no evil, and equally neither is he approving of any evildoers avoiding "the sword". Paul also does not specifically clarify what he means by evil.
Based on this, any biblical, Apostolic, Christian, regime, constitution or politics must be capable of earnestly administering justice. This implies the rule of law, which simply stated means that whatever the law is, there is nobody 'above the law', everybody in a biblical, Apostolic, Christian, regime, constitution or political situation is vulnerable to "the sword" if he, she, or neither he nor she, does evil.
Any political situation that does not preserve, honor and cultivate the rule of law cannot be biblical, Apostolic or Christian. This positively rules out absolute monarchism and any other autocracy, dictatorship or tyranny.
While idealistic communism doesn't necessarily rule out the rule of law, in practice every communist regime has and does neglect rule of law.
Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas was the most brilliant diamond from the diamond mine of the scholastic era, but he lived in a world where Christians only had one choice as to how to live the Christian life; all Christians basically were Catholics when Aquinas lived and wrote, especially in Europe where he was. If Aquinas lived a few centuries later perhaps we would be singing his praises even more than now, for at that time Christians had all sorts of choices about which ecclesial community to participate in as Christian people.
It took the American founders, who are together the most brilliant diamond of the scholastic era in the Reformation era, to crack the nut of human rights (which I'm sure that Aquinas himself would have recognized had he lived in their time) and how to design a constitution which respects them. The Americans took the idea of rights from the Englishman John Locke, who had taken the idea from ancient Rome, the basic concept being that people carried around with them, in an inalienable way, what we call moral rights. This concept is opposed to absolute morality primarily being expressed as laws, and this changed the whole nature of political inquiry.
Justice, in particular, has come to be seen as a matter of rights violations, rather than as breaking some transcendent moral stricture.
The basis of our belief in rights is as the founders said "self-evident", which means that they do not need to be argued ontologically, but in this day and age it is necessary to provide some sort of reasonable support for the notion. Which can bring us back now to the Scripture, and the most commonly repeated law from the Torah in the NT, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Where there are friends, enemies and everyone else (being our neighbors), it is self-evident when you're doing something wrong to a neighbor, people might say, "Is this your enemy?" and when you tell them no, they say, "Well then why are you doing that to them?" iow our rights are self-evident within the context of Love your neighbor as yourself. It's certainly not to love your neighbor as you love your family or friends, nobody thinks that if you don't treat your neighbors as you do friends and family that you're breaking their rights as people, but if you treat your neighbors (who have done you no wrong) as if they're your enemies (people who do your wrong), then rights have been broken, it is self-evident.
So this puts the idea of both rights and evil (from Romans 13:4 above) within the biblical context of You shall love your neighbor as yourself, and based on this and on the above, as far as I'm concerned the United States is a country with a biblical, Apostolic and Christian, regime, constitution and politics.