“All authority is from God” — but not every ruler is
What does any ruler dream of — rulers of all times, from the head of a housing maintenance office to presidents and kings? The answer is obvious: they dream of having others submit to them.
First and foremost, of course, through fear. Yet rulers understand that fear — including fear of losing money, a mansion, or an estate — is not a reliable instrument. When a person, for whatever reason, loses that fear, he ceases to obey and may even develop a strong desire to avenge his humiliations. Not every “boss” may grasp this consciously, but even the leader of the most primitive tribe intuitively understands it.
Therefore, there must be a motivation higher than fear or money — something that compels subjects to carry out the orders of their king or petty ruler. But such motivation, in essence, cannot be created by mortals. There must be some kind of “supernatural force,” of which the ruler claims to be the “representative.” All of them — from the lowest bureaucratic chief upward — live with this, in my view, illusory dream.
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When we speak of God, that submission is of a different kind. As Gregory of Narek wrote: “Not only in fear of Your judgment, but in love of Your mercy.” No human being can command such sincere devotion. Moreover, when the existence of God is denied, His place is taken by artificial constructs — such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s volonté générale, the “general will.” “The people,” “the will of the people,” “the people’s mandate” becomes a kind of sacralized Grand Être (“Great Being”) — a favorite expression of another Frenchman, the 19th-century philosopher Auguste Comte. Through the sacralization of the word “people,” leaders with authoritarian tendencies attempt to rule over society and justify any baseness or wrongdoing.
Understood in this way, “the people” becomes, for such rulers, the “proof” of the “divine” nature of their authority. In that context, they sometimes like to quote the Apostle Paul: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Romans 13:1).
The quotation is accurate. The meaning, however, is distorted.
The Apostle Paul is referring to the institution of authority as coming from God — not every specific individual who happens to hold power. Authority itself is part of God’s order, a mechanism established by Him. But those who are vested with authority vary greatly. They may be insane, immature, or ignorant. They may be lovers of money or of luxury. They may even be outright criminals. The 20th century provided many such examples. Who would dare to say that the power of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, or Pol Pot was from God?
Thus, Paul calls for obedience to the divine order — not to specific individuals who, on the contrary, should not be obeyed if they themselves do not recognize that order. The same Apostle Paul emphasizes that humanly constructed hierarchies are subordinate to the relationship between God and all people — all people without exception: “He who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord; likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ” (1 Corinthians 7:22).
In the Armenian translation, the word “servant” somewhat softens the social reality. But the context makes the meaning clear: the slave is free before God, and the ruler, like everyone else, is God’s servant. It is precisely within that higher hierarchy that obedience to a ruler is justified — and only to the ruler who sees himself as part of that hierarchy.
Rulers generally find this order difficult to accept. “What do you mean? Our scepter was given to us by God (by the people, by my father) — why should I be equal to those servants?” In such cases they often turn against traditional religion and attempt to create their own, with themselves at the center.
The dictators mentioned above were engaged in precisely that endeavor.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
