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The fundamental principles of self-ownership and non-aggression are self-evidently true (see Questions 14–17). In other words, people intuitively know them. In fact, you’ll find that arguments against them are derived from premises which assume they’re true. How can this be? God’s creational order entails laws written into the fabric of reality. This involves physical laws (e.g., the law of gravity), but also involves normative laws (e.g., “you shall not murder,” Exod 20:13). God’s law is written on the hearts of humankind (Rom 2:15), even if they try to suppress the truth of it (Rom 1:18).

Beyond this, disputes arise as human beings come in contact and interact with one another. Along with voluntary human action comes disagreement; this is inevitable. There are two ways people would know what authority to obey if the government didn’t create new law: contracts and dispute resolutions.

First, with contracts, the rules governing parties are established at the onset of the relationship. This is useful when dealing with an exchange of services (if you do this, then I’ll give you that), where stipulations aren’t self-evident and therefore need to be defined. But contracts cannot foresee all possible outcomes and disputes arise. For these disputes, resolutions need to be made by third-party arbitration. These might be courts or private agencies. Part of any good contract you find today is an agreement to use third-party arbitration in the event a dispute arises. So our society is already acclimated to this form of governance.

If the dispute happens to be a common problem, then the resolution could become common practice where it’s effective and upholds the property rights of the parties involved. In our current system, we might refer to this as “case law.” And even case law can (and would) be challenged in a libertarian society. No doubt, there will need to be a way of keeping track of effective dispute resolutions, which means there will be a market need for impartial record keeping. Some have suggested that blockchain technology could serve this purpose. But whatever the solution, the need for contracts and resolution necessitates a market response, not a monopoly response from a state government.

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It’s helpful to understand what is meant by “keep the peace.” This phrase has become a rather meaningless idiom. We used to call our judges “justices of the peace” and our law enforcement officers “peace officers.” Supporters of law enforcement often (and, in our view, mistakenly) associate Matthew 5:9 (“blessed are the peacemakers”) with law enforcement officers. But it’s a contradiction to attribute “peacekeeper” to people who regularly initiate force and violence upon others.

If the state exists to keep the peace, then they sure aren’t doing a very good job of it! Criminal justice reform is a regular campaign issue. On the one hand, there are problems with the administrative side: police brutality, no-knock raids, corrupt or careless judges, etc. On the other hand, there are problems with the effectiveness of the policies: high recidivism rates, mandatory minimums, overcrowding and rising cost of prisons, etc.

How much peace we enjoy today is really due to market forces and not because of (or in spite of) government policies?

There are a couple of ways we can conceive of civil governance as “keeping the peace.” One classic metaphor is the “night watchman.” Another is a “referee.” Either way, the peacekeeping role of civil governance necessitates the impartiality of the peacekeeper in a given dispute. Historically, the difficulty has always been holding the peacekeeper accountable when disputes arise involving them. This is part of the ongoing dialogue between libertarian anarchists and libertarian minarchists (see Question 32). The aim of both, however, is that civil governance is only successful in “keeping the peace” when it’s properly and effectively limited.

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This is a tricky question. Libertarians are a diverse bunch situated across an ideological spectrum. And we have to talk about what a “government” is.

Some libertarians advocate for a government in the form of a minimal, “night watchman” state. These libertarians believe that a few things are best provided through a limited state; usual examples include so-called “public goods” like roads, national defense, and a court system. Other than those limited public functions, minarchist libertarians believe that markets can reliably serve the needs of society.

Other libertarians reject the need for the state altogether. These libertarians believe that public goods can be provided by competing enterprises operating on a voluntary, profit-motivated basis. They are pessimistic about the prospects for keeping limited states within their appointed bounds. These libertarian anarchists want markets to be entirely self-regulated.

But one thing that all libertarians do believe in is some form of governance. Libertarians all believe in keeping the peace and protecting the vulnerable. We just have different ideas about how those important functions might be carried out.

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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.

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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.

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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).