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What is government?
Objectives:
o Describe the four basic
characteristics of a state.
o Outline the four most influential
theories of the origins of the state.
o Explain the purposes of why
government exists.
• Psa_67:4 O let the nations be
glad and sing for joy: for thou
shalt judge the people
righteously, and govern the
nations upon earth. Selah.
What is Government?
o What is a government?
o Do we actually need a
government?
o What is a government
responsible for doing?
What is Government?
o Government is the institution
through which a society makes
and enforces its public polices.
o Government is made up of
those people who exercise
government’s powers, those
who have authority and control
over other people.
What is Government?
o Public policies: All things
government decides to do,
including taxation, national
defense, education, crime,
etc.
What is Government?
o State: body of people living in
a defined territory, organized
politically with a government
with the power to make and
enforce law without the
consent of any higher
authority.
What is Government?
o Population: The number of
people in a state.
o Largest China: With 1.25
Billion people.
o Third largest is United States
with 270 Million people.
What is Government?
o Territory: The recognized
borders of a land that
encompasses the state.
Sovereignty: o Supreme and absolute power within its own
territory.
o Each state can decide its own domestic and foreign policies.
o It is neither subordinate nor responsible to any other authority.
o The location of sovereignty within a state who, in fact, holds that power is of supreme importance.
o If the people are sovereign, then the government is democratic.
o If, on the other hand, a single person or a small group, holds the power, a dictatorship exists.
Sovereignty:
o Government: Every state is
politically organized.
o Every state has a government.
o A government is a institution
through which society makes and
enforces its public policies.
How did government come into existence?
o “The LORD reigneth; let the earth
rejoice; let the multitude of isles
be glad thereof. Clouds and
darkness are round about him:
righteousness and judgment are
the habitation of his throne.”
Psalms 97:1-2
Origins of the Government:
o The Force Theory: When one person or group claimed control over an area and forced all within it to submit to that person’s or group’s rule.
o When the rule was established all the basic elements of the state-population, territory, sovereignty, and government- were present.
• The law of love being the foundation of the government of God, the happiness of all intelligent beings depends upon their perfect accord with its great principles of righteousness. God desires from all His creatures the service of love—service that springs from an appreciation of His character. He takes no pleasure in a forced obedience, and to all He grants freedom of will, that they may render Him voluntary service.—Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 33, 34
The Evolutionary Theory:
o Claim that the state developed
naturally out of the early family.
o They hold that the primitive family,
of which one person was the head
and thus the “government” was the
first stage in political development.
The Evolutionary Theory:
o Over countless years the original
family became a network of related
families—a clan.
o In time the clan became a tribe.
o When the tribe first turned to
agriculture and gave up its
nomadic ways, the state was born.
The Divine Right Theory:
o The theory of divine right was widely accepted in much of the Western world from the 15th through the 18th centuries.
o It held that the state was created by God and that God had given those of royal birth a “divine right” to rule.
o People were bound to obey their ruler as they would God; opposition to “the divine right of kings” was both treason and mortal sin.
“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.” 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4
In the law of the kingdom of God who rules the sinless inhabitants of heaven are to be found the principles that should lie at the foundation of the laws of earthly governments. The laws of these governments should be in harmony with the law of Jehovah, the standard by which all created beings are to be judged. No man should be forced to act in harmony with human laws that are in direct opposition to the law that God has given. {17MR 319.1}
Social Contract Theory:
o Most influential to the American
political system.
o Philosophers such as John Locke,
Thomas Hobbes in England, and
Rousseau in France developed this
theory in the 17th and 18th
Centuries.
Origins of the Government:
o Hobbes believed that the state
existed because of self
preservation.
o Hobbes wrote that in earliest
history humans lived in a “state of
nature.”
o No government existed; no person
was subject to any superior power.
Social Contract Theory:
o That which people could take by force belonged to them.
o However, all people were similarly free in this state of nature.
o No authority existed to protect one person from the aggressive or violent actions of another.
o Thus, individuals were only safe as their own physical prowess could make them.
o Human life in the state of nature, wrote Hobbes, was “nasty, brutish, and short.”
Social Contract Theory o Human beings overcame their unpleasant
condition, says the theory, by agreeing with one another to create a state.
o By contract, people within a given area agreed to give up to the state as much power as was needed to promote the well-being of all.
o In the contract—that is, through a constitution—the members of the state created a government to exercise the powers they had granted to the state.
Social Contract Theory
o The social contract theory argues that the state arose out of a voluntary act of free people.
o It holds that the state exists only to serve the will of the people, that they are the sole source of political power, and that they are free to give or to withhold that power as they choose.
Discussion Question:
o What theory of government do you feel is
the best in your opinion and explain why.
o Activity: Go to the sign post in the room
with the government theory you think is
best.
THE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT:
o “We the people of the United States,
in order to form a more perfect Union,
establish justice, insure domestic
Tranquility, provide for the common
defense, promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessings of Liberty to
ourselves and our posterity, do ordain
and establish this Constitution for the
United States of America.”
TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION:
o United States evolved more and
more to a more perfect union.
o 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments to
the Constitution and such.
To Establish Justice:
o As the concept of justice has
developed over time in America
thought and practice, it has come
to mean this:
o The law in both its content and its
administration, must be
reasonable, fair, and impartial.
To Insure Domestic Tranquility:
o Order is essential to the well-
being of any society, and
keeping the peace at home
has always been a prime
function of government.
TO PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENSE:
o Defending the nation against foreign enemies has always been one of the government’s major responsibilities.
o You can see its importance in this striking fact:
o Defense is mentioned far more in the Constitution than in any of the other functions of the government it created.
o The nation’s defense and its foreign policies are but two sides of the same coin the security of the United States.
PROMOTING THE GENERAL WELFARE:
o Few people realize the extent to which
government acts as the servant of its
citizens, yet you can see examples.
o Public Schools, FDA, EPA, building of
roads and highways, services.
SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY:
o American tradition is to promote
liberty.
o Benjamin Franklin: “They that can give
up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither
liberty nor safety.”
Discussion Question:
o Do you think government is essential to
regulate both our own and our neighbor’s
conduct?
