A kingdom not from this world
Stephen Curkpatrick

The potential condition of humans without governance is a war of all against all. This condition, according to Thomas Hobbes, necessitates state power, which exists to limit the possibility of violence in people’s natural quest for self-preservation: without some form of cohering power that people commonly esteem, they are in a state of war—a war of all against all. (Leviathan)

Hobbes describes the state as a condition of mutual self-deference and concession to others in peace under sovereign law, which is not achieved by humans left to natural circumstances of survival amid others. This view of society appears to be pessimistic concerning people’s initiative and capacity to work together toward harmony. It has been described as realistic.

In the absence of stable governance, a society can collapse into violence without competent judicial restraint on raw power seized by the strong. During war, revolution or natural disaster, social chaos can quickly surface. In the absence of civic order, the young, aged and sick are the first casualties of pervasive disorder. Social cohesion is always preferred to social chaos.

The potential for chaos in the absence of social order is the eventual and realistic effects of Pascal’s perspective: the assertion of my place under the sun is the first step to absolute chaos. In living toward a horizon of death, humans generate fear in the anxious quest for self-preservation, with consequences of mutual suspicion, enmity and violence. For Hobbes, governance allays potential violence, inducing self-interested deference among people, for the sake of peace, under sovereign law.

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Christians have consistently recognized that governance, through the accountability of its servants, ultimately to God, is an instrument of civic stability and cohesion toward human nurture, protection and social interaction. Yet this is frustrated by human self-compromise or sin, which is a recurring observation of biblical testimony. State power is necessary but limited as humans in the relativity of their social truths, compete tribally and politically to preserve their status and resources.

Christian testimony articulates a redemptive possibility in the kingdom of Christ, which is not from this world. This is a reign of truth otherwise than competing voices of tribes or social factions, each asserting their perspective, with the eventual triumph of one or some voices, at least for a time. Only a new trajectory in creation that cannot be accounted for within either partisan political positions or apolitical pragmatism is able to transcend human anxiety in quest of a secure place under the sun.

Political conflict recurs throughout history. Every partisan possibility is called into question by the reign of Christ, which cannot be aligned with the purview and possibilities of any tribe or state. The reign of truth has its source in the Word from the beginning through whom all things came into existence, who before Pilate the statesman declares that I came into the world to testify to truth; those who belong to the truth hear my voice.

The reign of truth, which does not have its origin or imprimatur within this world, confounds Pilate in his focus on power. In his anxiety to be well placed under the sun of Rome’s pleasure, Pilate defers to the Jews’ accusations concerning Jesus. Yet Pilate has Jesus brutally mocked and with irony, presented as king of the Jews to belittle the accusing Jews, reminding them of their inferior place under Rome’s rule. In response, the Jews declare that they have no king but Caesar! Intrigues concerning power, political or religious, end in contradiction for all.

Like Russian dolls, each locale of power is implicated in another that ultimately compromises everyone’s place under the sun. Hobbes depicts those jealously concerned with power as posturing gladiators about to engage each other in mortal battle. In the deadly quest for power, each maneuvers to establish an advantage over another to secure a place under the sun.

Wedged within a play of power, Pilate loses his nerve before the reality of power otherwise than his own power with its games and inevitable compromises. Aware of an uncanny difference between his assumed power and the enigma of real power before him, Pilate seeks to release Jesus but remains bound within the untruth of political power that is without deference to the reality of God.

Those who serve the state are wholly accountable, despite the temptation to use state power for self-interest in the anxiety of securing a place under the sun. Their power exists only because it is conceded to them as a volitional responsibility. Pilate thinks he has power over Jesus, to release or to crucify, but Jesus reminds Pilate that he has no power that is not already given to him from above.

The state has no ultimate power. Through Pilate’s inability to escape the Jews’ counter-charge as no friend of the emperor if he releases Jesus, state power is shown to be inadequate to truth that is otherwise than the purview, will and performance of any power.

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Human society is always in a state of compromise. This is not new to biblical testimony. Integral human dignity is only known in the kingdom of Christ, which is unlike anything a society can generate or concoct in its competing ideologies. It is a kingdom of truth heard in the voice of Christ.

Truth is heard as a vocative summons, which is everywhere present in biblical testimony, yet unknown within manipulated and contested ideals within society. The reign of truth exists in hearing and responding to the veracity of another word, which has its source in the Word who enlightens all. Obfuscation of this word occurs as humans in their freedom for God, nevertheless seek to secure a distorted place under the sun. In doing so, they encounter anxiety, compromise and conflict amid change and the reality of death.

One human possibility is replaced by another possibility for a normal and durable place under the sun. Successive generations of tradition and social mores reflect this. Each brief experience of respite that is assumedly secured against human compromise, therefore human diminution, is in turn given to new distortions and violent redress. The pervasive biblical testimony to human self-compromise, therefore the ever-present reality of human suffering, is a theological perspective that does not figure in political evaluations.

Grace and truth, as the possibility of human dignity and right responsibilities, have their integral focus in Christ and not merely from one of many possibilities within partisan politics. The Word through whom the world exists remains unknown, except for the new community in the Spirit of triune love. This paradox establishes the Christian church’s relationship to politics—politics is subject to Christ the Word as the source of all things, yet no political expression, however seemingly plausible, is adequate to the reign of Christ the Lord. This reign is disclosed and known within a new trajectory of humanity that is expressed through gift and veracity in Christ, the source of definitive grace and truth for human life.

Politics can only address human life from positions of human self-compromise within inevitable political compromise, of which Pilate is exemplary. Genuine human possibilities are only accessible in Christ through grace and truth that is otherwise than existing political possibilities. True human dignity exists with durable integrity in acknowledging that the reign of truth in the kingdom of Christ is ultimately not from this world, even as it is lived in tangible grace in word and deed by those who hear the voice of Christ.

 

References: Hobbes Leviathan; Pascal Pensées.