Plato and Paul on the Law

In Romans 13.1, Paul says,

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God (ESV).

The notion that everyone should be subject to governing authorities is sometimes misinterpreted as a subjection to authorities simply because they are in authority.  This is a mistaken view.  Paul is saying that people are under authorities because their authority is derived from God and because their authority rests on their exercising the law.  In saying so, he is not offering some new insight or political theory.  His point was uncontroversial.

Plato’s Laws begins with the accepted view that state laws ultimately derived from the gods.  So, for example, the Cretans believed that Zeus gave their laws to them and the Lacerdaemonians (Spartans) believed that they received their laws from Apollo (1.624).  This belief is not a mere nod to religious devotion.  It recognizes that civil laws need some higher basis than merely human choice.  Modern societies might advocate that ‘human rights’ are universal values, but the question remains: whence do such rights derive?

Secondly, the Cretan states that their laws are formed due to war (1.625).  Perhaps this claim is related to a much older philosophical debate whether all things proceed from Unity or Strife.  Diodorus Siculus attributes the argument that everything proceeds from Unity to a philosopher named Musaeus.  Other pre-Socratic philosophers of the same view were Linus and Anaxagora (Lives of Eminent Philosophers 1.3-4, Prologue).  Alternatively, the Magi, who were Zoroastrians (star worshippers) proposed two original principles, a good and a bad spirit (1.9).  This is one version of the view that all things proceed from Strife.

Pre-Socratic philosophers like Heraclitus claimed that the first principle is Strife, not Unity.  We might say the choice is about what establishes society: Thomas Hobbes’s view in Leviathan that society is formed for protection against enemies versus the view of, say, Cicero, that society begins with the natural bonds of families and expands from there.

Two crucial arguments support the Cretan’s view that laws are formed on account of strife.  First, every person, household, village, and state is either in authority or under an authority (1.626-627).  This leads to the second view that ‘all men are both publicly and privately the enemies of all, and individually also each man is his own enemy’. Strife calls for authorities in every sphere of life to bring order.  The individual is internally at war with himself, trying to gain control (1.626).  This is, we might note, what Paul says of the human state prior to coming to Christ:

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…. ¹⁷ So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³ but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Romans 7.15, 17-24).

Paul famously posed that the answer to this strife was not law but Christ (Romans 8.1-17).

Returning to Plato’s Laws, the Athenian conversation partner then asks the Cretan about good and bad governance.  What if a bad majority gains authority over a minority of good people? (1.627).  The Athenian offers three possibilities: A good judge in this situation might destroy all the bad, force the bad to be good, or reconcile the two groups through laws that he passes.  The last possibility would mean that laws would be passed for peace, not war (1.628).  (Recalling the pre-Socratic discussion, Unity would be the primary principle.) 

Paul famously posed that the answer to human strife was Christ our peace, who breaks

down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility (Ephesians 2.14-16).

The interlocutors of Plato’s Laws agree that laws established for peace, not because of war, would be best approach to law-making.  The options of ‘war and peace’ relate to Paul’s argument in Romans 13.1-8.  He proceeds from claiming that authorities exist to carry out ‘God’s wrath on the wrongdoer’ (v. 4) (i.e., because of Strife) to telling the Roman church to ‘Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law’ (v. 8) (i.e., Unity).  Law may exist to punish wrongdoers, but the person who loves his neighbour does not do wrong to him; he fulfills the law (v. 10).  That is, he fulfills the intent of the law.  Paul allows that laws are passed because of Strife/war, the wrongdoing of bad people, and that such laws fulfill the aim of Love/Unity/Peace.  He agrees with Plato that the best understanding of law is law intended to bring peace or, as Paul puts it, the love of one’s neighbour.  Law is not to force bad people to do good towards others but to keep them from doing bad to others, and yet the person who loves another needs no such laws.  He fulfills the Law’s intent.

Paul’s view, then, is that the Christian does not need the law himself but because society has in it wrongdoers.  In 1 Timothy, Paul writes,

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, ⁹ understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane…. (1.8-9).

Just laws are just because they express God’s justice.  Paul continues in vv. 9-10 to expand laws around the Ten Commandments of God.  Those in authority, returning to Romans 13, are entrusted to exercise God-given laws.  What is not stated but assumed is that humans at times pass unjust laws which, of course, do not represent Divine Law.  Paul’s concern, though, is that Christians should not take the law into their own hands as though they have no protection from wrongdoers in the larger society.  He says, ‘Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord”’ (Romans 12.19; cf. Deuteronomy 32.35, 41; also cf. Proverbs 20.22).  Thus, he says that God has provided authorities to address wrongdoers—again, assuming that they are just authorities exercising just laws.  Christians can fulfill the aims of such laws because they live under the law of love.

Now, we might add, this not only applies to Roman laws, or some other society’s laws.  It applies to Jewish Law as well.  The Ten Commandments, Paul goes on to state, are fulfilled by the law of love of one’s neighbour.  He says, quoting Leviticus 19.18,

For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13.9-10).

These verses complete the point Paul was making back in Romans 12.9: instead of avenging wrong, exercise love.  The connection is the Leviticus 19.18 reference, which Paul is exegeting:

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

We may now understand the choices Paul makes in his characterization of the Christian community even earlier, in Romans 12.9-21.  He is describing a community exercising love, not itself having to live under Law:

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. ¹⁰ Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. ¹¹ Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. ¹² Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. ¹³ Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. ¹⁶ Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. ¹⁷ Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. ¹⁸ If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. ¹⁹ Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” ²⁰ To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head” [Proverbs 25.21-22].” ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

An outline of Romans 12.9-13.10 brings into focus how 12.9-18 is put on hold until 13.8-10:

            The Virtues of a Community Living under the First Principle of Love: 12.9-21

                        Law and the Authorities Enforcing It Because of Wrongdoing: 13.1-7

            How Love Fulfills the Purpose of Law: 13.8-10

Verses 8-10 of Romans 13 complete the argument.  If one believes that Strife is the first principle requiring laws to bring justice, as the Cretan argues in the beginning of Plato’s Laws, how could one suggest that a community might instead live by the first principle of Love, Unity, and Peace?  The Athenian’s view is the opposite of the Cretan’s: ‘The highest good, however, is neither war nor civil strife—which things we should pray rather to be saved from—but peace one with another and friendly feeling’ (Laws 1.628).

Paul’s answer agrees but goes a step further.  It is the argument that God’s salvation brings transformation, explained in Romans 6-8 and stated in 12.1-2.  Christ Jesus and the Spirit of God change the wrongdoer himself.  In Romans 13.8-10, this transformation is something the Christian can do because of Christ but that he must embrace:

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. ¹² The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. ¹³ Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. ¹⁴ But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Thus, Plato’s Athenian speaker’s best scenario of laws made with the object of producing a peaceful society, good as that may be, is rejected by Paul.  As long as there are wrongdoers, society needs laws punishing wrongdoing and just authorities enforcing the law.  What can eclipse this, however, is a society in which the people themselves ‘cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light’ (Romans 13.12).  To achieve that, however, one must ‘put on the Lord Jesus Christ’ (13.14).

So, what is the first principle for Paul?  Are laws to be made to enable Strife or warfare, or are they to ensure Unity and Love?  Paul appreciates that laws and persons in authority to exercise them are needed, even God-given, for there are evil people in the world.  Yet he wishes to achieve love, not simply justice.  Justice is achieved through law, but love does not need law and is not achieved by law.  Paul changes the alternatives by introducing a different possibility: Christ Jesus.  Instead of law—including the Jewish Law—Christ brings peace with God, with others and within ourselves.