Subscribe now

All people are sinful, but does this mean we need the state to control all people?

There are certainly those who would agree that people need to be controlled. One of the key philosophers who advocated this idea was Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes maintained that individuals pose a direct threat to each other, thereby making the existence of the state a necessity for maintaining order. He believed that power to govern equally distributed among individuals was a motivator for people to attack one another, and that power held centrally, by either an organization or a single person, resulted in peaceful cooperation. James Madison echoed this in his famous quip, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

But since libertarian Christians recognize that all people are sinful and have a propensity toward corrupting power, we disagree that the state is a necessary apparatus for tempering sinful behavior. Indeed, the last thing we want to do is concentrate monopoly power in the hands of sinners. Instead, it’s the role of the church to encourage moral behavior, and the role of the Holy Spirit to sanctify us, in part, toward that end. Contrary to popular belief, “legislating morality” is outside the scope of God-ordained civil governance.

To create the conditions for human flourishing society needs civil governance. Civil governance is the administration of civil justice, which is based on the legitimate use of coercion. The initiation or first use of coercion is always illegitimate, regardless of whether it’s an individual acting alone or people acting in the name of governing authority. So straight away we see that it’s improper for civil governance to control anything through the initiation of force. Instead, civil governance can only be responsive, and only to previously (and thus improperly) initiated coercion.

Subscribe now

Satan was originally created by God too, but we do not presume to think that makes Satan good or that everything Satan does is approved or justified by God. Consider that even in the case of Job, God was permitting Satan’s actions but not approving. Likewise, we can recognize that God created everything in this world, including the state, but this fact neither makes the state a good institution nor justifies its activities.

God gives no special privileges of position to do evil or to let ends justify means (Jas 2, Rom 2:11, Rom 3:8). Therefore, we should oppose institutions that claim such power to coerce and the privilege to commit aggression against others—which is inherently what states do. This does not mean we take up arms and fight every chance we have against such institutions, but rather, we act peacefully to persuade and help people realize that there are better ways to organize ourselves and solve problems than committing acts of aggression against each other.

God has given his creation a measure of self-determination: the ability to “choose this day whom you will serve” (Josh 24:15). We see Satan as choosing to rebel against God and thus fall from grace, and God allowed it. Humans commit a similar rebellion through the institutionalization of aggressive force—that is, the formation of the state—and God allows it as well. Romans 13 gives us an idea of how to act within it, but the passage does not morally justify its existence or behaviors.

This question is from Faith Seeking Freedom: Updated & Expanded, launching June 2026 in paperback, PDF, and Kindle. Subscribe to this Substack so you don’t miss updates, previews, and the launch announcement.

Subscribe now

Every proper authority in society is necessarily limited. The authority of parents is limited to their own family. The authority of church officers is limited to the church. The authority of an employer is limited to the sphere of business. Government is not an exception. To treat it as an unlimited touchstone of societal order is to make an idol of it. Libertarians believe that we should evaluate questions of justice uniformly, regardless of whether a person is an agent of the state or a private individual. The American Declaration of Independence recited a radical claim about governments “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Consent is the crucial difference between competitive boxing and criminal battery. Consent is the essential ingredient that must be present in order for any government power to be just. The claim that consent is relevant even for the sovereign logically implies that justice is not just a matter of what government says. Justice is a standard not subject to modification by any mortal person.

For Christians, these claims should ring true. The Bible tells us that God’s law does not ever change (Luke 16:17). God’s law of love applies equally to every person made in his image, prince and pauper alike. “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34b, KJV), which means he doesn’t play favorites. Christ-followers must be opposed to the perversion of justice to recognize social station, wealth, or for any other reason (Jas 2:1–4, 8–9).