SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE (in progress)
John Kilcullen
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Separation is
again Contentious
In 20th Century America, and in countries of similar political culture,
it seemed a permanently established principle that there should be a
"wall of separation" between Church and State. But the separation has
again become contentious. It is rejected by Muslims and in the US it
is under attack from "evangelical" Christians (see "Theocracy watch"
website). It seems useful to look
again at the doctrine of "separation of Church and
State", to see what various things the phrase might
mean, and
what reasons there might be, for and against, regarding at least some
of the possible formulations of the doctrine.
To illustrate a possible Muslim view, here is an extract from Bernard
Lewis, The Political Language of Islam
(University of Chicago Press, 1988), pp. 2-3:
When we in
the Western world, nurtured in the Western tradition, use the words
"Islam" and "Islamic", we tend to make a natural error and
assume that religion means the same for Muslims as it has meant in the
Western
world, even in medieval times; that is to say, a section or compartment
of life
reserved for certain matters, and separate, or at least separable, from
other
compartments of life designed to hold other matters. That is not so in
the
Islamic world. It was never so in the past, and the attempt in modern
times to
make it so may perhaps be seen, in the longer perspective of history,
as an
unnatural aberration which in Iran
has ended and in some other Islamic countries may also be nearing its
end.
[written in 1988]
In
classical Islam there was no distinction between Church and state. In
Christendom the existence of two authorities goes back to the founder,
who
enjoined his followers to render unto Caesar the things which are
Caesar's and
to God the things which are God's. Throughout the history of
Christendom there
have been two powers: God and Caesar, represented in this world by sacerdotium and regnum,
or, in modern terms, church and state. They may be
associated, they may be separated; they may be in harmony, they may be
in
conflict; one may dominate, the other may dominate; one may interfere,
the
other may protest, as we are now learning again. But always there are
two, the
spiritual and the temporal powers, each with its own laws and
jurisdictions,
its own structure and hierarchy. In pre-westernized Islam, there were
not two
powers but one, and the question of separation, therefore, could not
arise…. At
the present time, the very notion of a secular jurisdiction and
authority--of a
so-to-speak unsanctified part of life that lies outside the scope of
religious
law and those who uphold it--is seen as an impiety, indeed as the
ultimate
betrayal of Islam. The righting of this wrong is the principal aim of
Islamic
revolutionaries and, in general, of those described as Islamic
fundamentalists.
The
account of the Christian view embodied in the above passage cannot be
right. With all due respect, Jesus's saying "Give to Caesar
what
is Caesar's, and to God what is God's" (Matthew 22:21) must
be theologically unacceptable to Christians, since it implies that
there are some things that are not God's. Christians, like Muslims,
really believe that everything is God's. "Therefore, whether you eat
or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God", 1
Corinthians 10:31. For believing Christians, as much as for Muslims,
there cannot be any "unsanctified part of life that lies outside the
scope of religious law and those who uphold it". So what possible basis
is there for a separation of Church and State, or religion from
politics?
The Wall of Separation
The term "wall of separation" is classic in American politics. The
term is not used in the US Constitution First amendment,
which says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". However, one of
the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, in a letter of 1802, wrote that
the First Amendment built "a wall of separation between church
and
state", and in US politics this has become a common way of
referring to the effect of the First Amendment.
The term "wall of separation" had in fact been used by Richard
Hooker in The
Laws of Ecclesiastical Politics
VIII.1 (originally published 1648; ed. McGrade, Cambridge University
Press, 1989, p. 131). Hooker used the term to characterise a Puritan
position that he rejected. In this respect Hooker stood in a medieval
Catholic tradition, according to which Church and State are distinct
but not sealed-off from one another.
The classical formulation of the
medieval theory is found in the canon Duo sunt. "Two
there are, august emperor, by which this world is chiefly ruled,
the sacred authority of the priesthood and the royal power. Of these
the responsibility of the priests is more weighty, in so far as they
will answer for the kings of men themselves at the divine
judgment... [I]n the order of religion... you ought to submit
yourselves [to priests] rather than rule... [T]he bishops
themselves... obey your law so far as the sphere of public order is
concerned" (Gratian, Decretum, dist. 96, c. 10; translated Tierney
[1980], pp.13-14).
During the middle ages the relationship between religious authority and
royal power (and equivalents, such as the power of the emperor and the
power of city governments) was the subject of intense controversy. On
the one hand there were popes and theologians who argued that the
Church (especially the head of the Church, the pope) could
intervene at will in any political matter and in such cases Church
authority would prevail. Others tried to define the extent of Church or
papal power in such a way that the pope could not claim a right to
intervene except in certain circumstances.
(On these controversies see my article "Medieval
Political Philosophy" in the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy; see also my article "Medieval
Political Theory" in the Sage
Handbook of Political Theory.)
A social compact
The best way, it seems to me, to define the boundaries of Church and
State is not to say that religious rules do not apply to some areas of
life, but to say that some religious rules are not enforceable by
certain means--notably, not by the coercive powers of the State. By
religious rules I mean all the rules that any authority in any
religious institution says ought to be followed, including
rules that are supposed to be followed by members of that religion and
rules that are supposed to be followed by people generally. These may
include rules of morality (such as the ten commandments and other rules
Christians believe should be followed by everyone), and other rules
laid down by God (e.g. the dietary rules of the Jewish Bible).
There is no area of life to which such rules may not apply--there is no "unsanctified part of life that lies outside the
scope of religious law". Morality
governs everything a person does, and obviously human beings cannot
set restrictions on what God (if he exists) has power to make
rules about. Neither can human beings set restrictions on the means by
which God may enforce his rules. If, for example, it is believed that
God has commanded that the power of the State be used to enforce some
dietary rule, then those who believe this must try to get the
State to enforce that rule. But if God is not
believed to have commanded use of State power to enforce a certain
rule, then it is possible for the citizens of a state to agree among
themselves (for good reasons) that the power of their State will not be
used to enforce that rule, or rules of a certain kind.
In States of European culture such an agreement has come into being
since the "Wars of Religion" in the 17th century (see here
and here).
The agreement is a
tacit agreement, it is not universal, it might well lapse. But those
who believe that the lessons of the Wars of Religion are still relevant
and important will try to recruit support for this mutual understanding
in their own generation and into the future. See my essays "Reciprocity
arguments for toleration" and "Bayle
on the Rights of Conscience". Under this agreement, the only
rules that State power may be used to enforce are those needed to
prevent people inflicting on one another anything that any citizen
would recognise as harm, and State power may be used to bring about
only effects that any citizen would recognise as good. (This
is only a rough statement of the agreement--for a more accurate
statement see "Reciprocity arguments" section 5.)
Other rules and ideals can be recommended by persuasion, but cannot be
enforced by the State (or, according to the finer details of the
agreement, by private action using material incentives and
disincentives). God can of course enforce his rules as he sees fit, but
human beings (unless clearly commanded by God) cannot (under the terms
of this agreemet) use State power to do God's work.
Several strains of thought in earlier times foreshadowed this 17th
century agreement: (1) Augustine on cooperation between the citizens of
the Two Cities (City of God,
XIX.17); (2) Augustine and Thomas Aquinas on the question whether human law should repress all vices; (3) the medieval interpretation of a number of Bible texts (see here),
and (4) the argument of Marsilius of Padua that God does not himself
enforce, or wish human beings to enforce, his laws in relation to
salvation in the next life, since God wills that divine law should
be enforced by sanctions
only in the next world, to give every opportunity for repentance
before death (Marsilius of Padua, Defensor Pacis, trans. Alan
Gewirth. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), pp. 164, 175-9).
On this topic see: Michael Hogan, "Separation of church and state?", and Wikipedia, "Separation of Church and State".
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