Mighty Right vs. Mighty Wrong

The task must be to banish from mankind's thought the idea that anybody has the right to use force against righteousness, against justice, against mutual agreements – Solzhenitsyn

And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. -- Matthew 28:18

And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. -- Luke 15:20

We sometimes read Matthew 28:18 as “all power”, but the Greek word is transliterated as exousia, authority.  God is a God of authority – because He’s God.  He is not the God of compulsion.  If God compels everything then we are not free moral beings. 

When Jesus told the story of the Prodigal, it was in the context of two other parables in Luke 15, the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin.  These three stories share some common elements, but the last story differs in one critical aspect.  In the case of the lost sheep, the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine and goes in search of the one to carry that sheep back into the fold.  When the woman lost a coin, she brought in lights and actively swept the floor seeking her lost treasure. 

When the younger son came asking for his inheritance, the father gave it to him and allowed him to leave home.  The father did not travel into the far country looking for the boy, nor did he send his servants out to find him and drag his worthless rear home.  There is no active intervention on the father’s part – until the son makes a decision to leave the pigpen and go home.  The father has been watching the road, sees his son and recognizes him at a great distance.  He does not wait at that point but runs out to welcome and embrace him.  Why didn’t he do that before?  Why didn’t he go after his son? 

A man is not a sheep or a coin.  We are God’s highest creations, given a free will, given a choice to rebel or obey.  The first two parables illustrate aspects of God’s love and concern for us, His longing for us, while the story of the Prodigal gives us a fuller indication of how God works in the world.  Never is it God’s will that there be rebellion and evil any more than it was the will of the father that his son abandon his home, squander his inheritance and wreck his life.  The father had authority, but he refused to use force or compulsion.    

There may be cases where God makes it almost impossible for a chosen one to “kick against the pricks”, as happened with Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus.  The Good Shepherd may go after a sheep and carry it in.  He may unleash the Hound of Heaven on our trail to rout us from our briars and holes.  But even then, He leaves us free to choose.  At the very least, we lift up our heads and utter a plaintive cry for release from the pit into which we have fallen.  We must take the first critical step away from the filth and muck, back toward home.  Certainly then His hand will be upon us to sustain us on that right path. 

The quote from Solzhenitsyn helps us realize that authority is no longer something in which the world is heavily invested.  The world recognizes only the perverted authority that flows from force – from the barrel of a gun, to put it in Marxist terms.  This seems to be the case with much of Islam, certainly with the dominant elements of political Islam.  Conversely, the Judeo-Christian worldview rejects force and compulsion and recognizes what we sometimes call “moral authority”.  This is a redundancy as, in reality, there is no other kind. 

We use force against compulsion in defense of righteousness and justice, life and liberty.  That is the only reason for it, the only justification.  When force is used in place of authority, when the government uses armed and armored intimidators to enforce compliance, we call it a police state.