The church and the Roman Empire were at odds from the very beginning.
There were a lot of citizens that rejected the religion and even started wars.
However, the church was getting bigger and bigger so quickly that no matter
how much the Romans wanted to get rid of it, they had no choice but to
recognize Christianity as legal. Although Christian religion had become legal
“it was still in an uncomfortable relationship with the state” (Chroust, 1944)
and that never went way. The struggle of Christianity and the Roman State
led to the obliteration of cities and it can be thought that it was because of
the division and destruction. For the following centuries, “Western society
look[ed] more like a collection of military camps than a cohesive civilization”
(Chupp, 2021).
Augustine states that there were at least four types of law: the eternal
law, the natural law, the temporal law, and divine law. Eternal law is God.
Natural law is the belief of eternal law being predisposed on human beings,
which is another form of God. Temporal law can be referred to as human law
or positive law, which changes over time and circumstance. Divine law is any
laws passed down by God. (Gronewoller, 2019).
St. Augustine created the City of God as a response to those that
wanted Rome to return to paganism. St. Augustine laid the foundation for
“the whole natural (moral) law of the following centuries by introducing the
basic concept of theistic “lex aeterna”” (Chroust, 1944). He started the first
complete Christian history that upheld that God had created a plan that used
states, people, and events to bring salvation to everyone. Those who
recognized God and walked with him were members of the City of God, and
those against the Church were citizens of the City of Man.
In the City of God, there was no political establishment but there was
enough to establish an early Christian covenantal statesmanship. “The
Church as the trustee of God’s redeeming gospel and the State as the
guarantor of order, justice and liberty have distinct functions in regard to
society. The church’s concern is to witness to men of the realities with outlast
change because they are founded on the external will of God. The concern of
the state is to provide men with justice, order, and security in a world of sin
and change” (Taylor, 2018). The fact that the Church and state had different
roles in society, makes me wonder if the division of church and state was
actually necessary. On one hand, the church must cooperate in order to work
under the standards of the will of God. However, on the other hand, the state
does not have these kinds of limits, which may be needed in certain
governments.
This leads to the discussion of dual citizenship in the City of God and
the City of Man. When Augustine was speaking about the cities, he was
talking about communities of like-minded people with opposing ideas of
heaven and earth. Augustine used the two-city model to understand the
relationship between the Christian religion and the secular government. “The
City of Man begins not with creation but with the fall. Its desires and agenda
are deeply disordered, driven by the love of self and not of God, and
operating according to the standards of the flesh and not the Spirit. The
redeemed, who make up the City of God, seek God as the highest good and
orient everything around a love for Him. As Christians, then, we live among
the City of Man but belong to the City of God” (Taylor, 2018).
Regarding statesmanship, I believe that it is imperative to attempt to
do what is best for citizens. This is ultimately what God wants, what natural
law strives for, and what our country’s government should strive for. Psalms
37: 3-4 states, “Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend
faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of
your heart”. It can be seen that when the church took over structural
management, there were several significant social changes that were
happening under the surface. Perhaps most prominent is the change of
Roman agricultural slaves to servers and then to peasants, which occurred as
slaves were partially freed and then allowed to keep portions of their
production (Chupp, 2021). All this proves the fact that religion has influenced
politics since the very beginning. Also, there has always ben a discussion
between whether religion and state should be separated. After reviewing the
materials, I realized that you can never really separate them, regardless of
how hard you try, when the founding of government is based on religion.
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