Romans 13:1 and Nazi Germany

[Justin108]

Romans 13:1 "Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God."


A few comments/questions regarding Romans 13:1

1) My click-bait title. So I am to understand that every single government authority, no matter how corrupt or immoral, was established by God? Including Nazi Germany?

2) Would making people establish governments not violate free will? Was it not the free-will decisions of founding members to establish these parties?

3) Does Romans 13:1 not sound suspiciously like a means of using religion to control the masses? Does it not seem like Paul is using Christianity to pacify Christians into submission to the Roman government?

[theophile]

[Replying to post 38 by DanieltheDragon]

I'm not following. Are you seeing these two statements of mine as inconsistent? If so, elaborate.

[Willum]

[Replying to theophile]

So, your claim is that the most celebrated documents ever told being missing isn't evidence?
Your applying an academic standard to this scenario is non-sequitur.

If you are looking for a phenomenon, then that standard is true.
If it benefits someone that something can't be found - its absence IS evidence.

What if the government decided to "restore" the Magna Carta, and all it's previous versions disappeared and were replaced with something pro-Marxism? Would you use the same argument? of course not.

Then you have the Dark Ages and it's run of deliberate destruction of anything contradicting Christianity...

Do you have anything more solid?

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 38 by DanieltheDragon]

I'm not following. Are you seeing these two statements of mine as inconsistent? If so, elaborate.

I am saying your are not being logically consistent. If Hitler and others were not appointed by God because they do evil things that would be a different conclusion from the axiom that God uses evil things to achieve a greater good.

The statements are not directly contradictory because they are talking about separate subjects yet they are interrelated on this issue. Like I said defending a square circle is a hard thing to do. You can hand wave all you want but that won't help your position any more than the "authorities or whatever" can.

[theophile]

[Replying to Willum]

So, your claim is that the most celebrated documents ever told being missing isn't evidence?
Your applying an academic standard to this scenario is non-sequitur.

If you are looking for a phenomenon, then that standard is true.
If it benefits someone that something can't be found - its absence IS evidence.

What if the government decided to "restore" the Magna Carta, and all it's previous versions disappeared and were replaced with something pro-Marxism? Would you use the same argument? of course not.

Then you have the Dark Ages and it's run of deliberate destruction of anything contradicting Christianity...

Do you have anything more solid?

I'm not following. Your whole argument relies on there being some pristine, original Pauline documents that have never been found and that there is no evidence of...

My argument is simply that the versions of Romans we do have are the source or close to it - that no major rewriting took place by Roman authorities.

Also, that the version we have has within it strong evidence of being a subversive text, i.e., it is not pro Rome at all, but proclaims a new King of the Jews in opposition to Roman rule.

The lack of pre-redaction Pauline texts hurts your case, sorry to tell you. I'm not sure how you get around that fact.

Again, if Rome rewrote the fundamental texts of a growing religion, there would have been outcry. Graffiti in Christian catacombs. Hiding of the true letters as per the lost gospels that were later expunged...

Yet there is none of that apparently. No concrete historical evidence whatsoever to speak of. Just conspiracy theory.

[theophile]

[Replying to post 43 by DanieltheDragon]

I am saying your are not being logically consistent. If Hitler and others were not appointed by God because they do evil things that would be a different conclusion from the axiom that God uses evil things to achieve a greater good.

I said they are not established by God because they use their power to serve their own interests. Paul makes very clear that the true authorities - those established by God - serve the good of others.

And yes, sometimes evil is necessary to do that. God has shown willing to wipe out entire peoples for the sake of life more broadly - when those people prove an intractable threat to live on earth.

But I'm pretty sure if we cut to the heart of it that Nazi Germany was serving only its own interests and was doing evil to achieve only its own ends. Lebensraum for the German people.

That is the difference.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 43 by DanieltheDragon]

I am saying your are not being logically consistent. If Hitler and others were not appointed by God because they do evil things that would be a different conclusion from the axiom that God uses evil things to achieve a greater good.

I said they are not established by God because they use their power to serve their own interests. Paul makes very clear that the true authorities - those established by God - serve the good of others.

And yes, sometimes evil is necessary to do that. God has shown willing to wipe out entire peoples for the sake of life more broadly - when those people prove an intractable threat to live on earth.

But I'm pretty sure if we cut to the heart of it that Nazi Germany was serving only its own interests and was doing evil to achieve only its own ends. Lebensraum for the German people.

That is the difference.

Tell me...what's the difference between Nazis saying this land is theirs by right, and Hebrews saying this land is theirs by right? What's the difference between Nazis saying "God is with us" and the Hebrews saying the same?

In this reply from yourself, you seem to be suggesting that there are two categories of evil in the world - that done by people such as the Nazis, which you can somehow tell is NOT from God, and that done by God, and somehow the evil done by God is justifiable/A-OK, even if its the same kind of acts perpetrated by the Nazis.

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 45 by theophile]

And yes, sometimes evil is necessary to do that. God has shown willing to wipe out entire peoples for the sake of life more broadly - when those people prove an intractable threat

Why kill the animals then? Was it necessary to kill the animals? That just seems like a blatant disregard for life. Serving no purpose of people were the intractable threat.

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 45 by theophile]

I said they are not established by God because they use their power to serve their own interests. Paul makes very clear that the true authorities - those established by God - serve the good of others.

What if God wanted to punish the Jews to bring them closer to God? It's not like he hasn't made them wander for 40 years in a desert. Like Romans says authorities don't raise the sword without reason.

[Kenisaw]

[Replying to Willum]

My 2 cents is that Rome, with a 600 year history of re-writing religion to suit their needs, did not write the book of Romans for Christianity, rather it wrote Romans for the Romans.

So Paul was either faking being a Christian or someone else wrote Romans?

Also there is the bit about paying ROMAN taxes that leaves the sane man suspicious.

Paul doesn't say to pay taxes to Rome, but to the authorities. If we take what I'm saying seriously, Paul identifies the true, God-established authorities as those who serve others (again, see verse 13:4). If that is Rome, then great, pay taxes to Rome, because those taxes will be used for the good of others. But the archetype of this authority is Jesus. Not the typical Roman emperor...

Again, we would be absolutely wrong to see Romans 13 as putting a divine foundation under all "powers-that-be."

Having true authority is not the same thing as having power.

There was an interesting discussion a while back in some other thread about Paul/Saul actually being a Roman agent, who made sure to mention that Jesus said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's (pay your taxes), and to turn the other cheek (because they were tired of Jewish activism). In other words the Romans had Christianity created to get the masses to calm down and be good little subjects of the Empire. Eventually the Romans killed Paul/Saul to keep their secret intact either because Paul/Saul became a blabber mouth or he actually started believing the tale he wove.

Interesting hypothesis if nothing else.

[historia]

Historia thinks God took them into heaven.

Historia believes the New Testament autographs most likely wore out and were eventually discarded after being copied, as happened to virtually every document from the ancient and Medieval world.

Anyone who wants to assert that Paul's letter to the Romans was re-written by the Roman government needs to tell us what was changed and when the change was made. Previous requests for that information have been met with evasive answers and ad hominem attacks -- one can only assume because the proponent of this idea fears it won't hold up to any serious scrutiny.