OPINION:
The Dutch Reformed theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper (1836-1920) once proclaimed that “the conscience marks a boundary that the state may never cross.”
In arguing for the preeminence of the conscience as an independent sphere of life, Kuyper was articulating a basic insight into the nature of democratic self-government and the relationship between virtue, authority, and responsibility. Kuyper’s vision of social life including his dynamic understanding of “sphere sovereignty” provides a vital framework for understanding the proper scope and limits of government and an appreciation for the institutions of civil society, including families, schools, churches, charities, and businesses.
Kuyper grounded his doctrine of sphere sovereignty in the realities attested to in Scripture, that there are diverse earthly authorities and that Christ has been given power and authority over them all. As we read in the Great Commission, Christ proclaims, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18).
In turn, Christ rules over the world through different institutions and in different ways and for different purposes. The family is instituted to be the primary place of procreation and nurture of the next generation. The church is where the sacraments are celebrated and the gospel is proclaimed. The government is where the coercive power is instituted to promote justice and protect rights. And the marketplace is where human beings organize and exchange to provide goods and services to others.
Each of these orders as well as all the innumerable other institutions and spheres, such as schools and little leagues has its own ordering principle, its own purpose and its own authority.
The conscience is thus, in some ways, the most fundamental but also the smallest of the spheres.
Each individual person is called by God to exercise his or her gifts, talents, dispositions, and relationships in the service of others. Each person has a responsibility to be a good steward of all these endowments, including those “unalienable rights” attested to in the Declaration of Independence.
Such stewardship responsibility requires the right to pursue the use of those gifts in a way that will serve the common good and promote social flourishing. For some, that means a career in the law, litigating for justice. For others, that means practically caring for the needs of the poor, the sick and the suffering. For others, that means a life of intellectual exploration and scholarly discovery. And so, too, are some equipped to generate wealth through commercial activity, which serves to meet the material needs of society as well as provide the basis for continued social and economic development.
All these and more are callings that are celebrated by the Christian understanding of stewardship and social life.
Kuyper’s doctrine of sphere sovereignty is helpful because it both outlines the legitimate role of government as well as defines its limitations.
For Kuyper, the government exists to promote public justice and can serve as a kind of referee or mediator between other spheres when they are in conflict. It can also intervene to correct or help reform an institution when it has become corrupted or is no longer healthy. But all such actions and interventions must be governed by the principle that each sphere has its own authority, and when it has broken down, the goal is to restore it to proper functioning.
This makes such government interventions temporary, oriented towards a distinct end, and no longer necessary when such goals have been realized. In such cases, says Kuyper, “the central government is a caretaker, a deputy, and therefore nothing but a temporary curator.” This supportive role of government means that its “duty is to withdraw again as soon as the energy for self-rule is sufficiently aroused.”
Sphere sovereignty further involves the principle of decentrism, which recognizes that those who are closest to a problem are the most likely to have both the local knowledge and the embedded incentives to see it addressed in a sustainable and responsible way. In this way, Kuyper’s understanding of sphere sovereignty can be seen as embodying the same spirit as the modern Roman Catholic social principle of subsidiarity.
Kuyper’s teaching concerning sphere sovereignty is thus a principle of limited and responsible government, but it is also a principle of broader social diversity and human flourishing.
God has embedded in the creation order practically infinite possibilities and tasked human beings with discovering those potential goods and making them manifest. This happens through a wide variety of social institutions, some of which, such as the family and work, have been instituted from the beginning, and others, such as fantasy football leagues and modern stock corporations, have come into existence only recently.
But as Kuyper rightly recognized, God not only rules over all of these spheres of life, but can properly be glorified in them as well. And this is a vision for authentic human flourishing.
• Jordan J. Ballor, DTh, PhD, is executive director at First Liberty Institute’s Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy.
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