Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

You don’t even need to spend time in libertarian circles arguing with state-worshipers to hear the old refrain that “government is a necessary evil.” This is a common fallacy that exists among the furthest reaches of the population who have not only been trained in the lies of statist propaganda, but always sinfully had it in them to justify such evils by any means. This has become a popular slogan of apathetic men have found themselves repeating, following after the sins of their fathers.

While some form of this fallacy has always been around, it was perhaps Thomas Paine who popularized it in our time. He famously wrote in Common Sense (1776) that “government, even in its best state, is a necessary evil.”

While this idea that government is at best still an evil may be somewhat better than the millions of people (democrats, socialists, and conservatives alike) who find the State to be a positive and necessary good that does thousands of “great” things for society, it is still an idea which admits that such an institution is inherently immoral but, for some reason, is still seen as “necessary.” It admits, also, that it is highly likely to become tyrannical but, for some reason, believes such an evil can be restrained, minimized, and avoided (though obviously this didn’t work) — and that it’s still (supposedly) preferable to have an inherently evil, highly-likely-to-become-tyrannical political system than none at all.

There are more variations on this idea that evil is somehow “necessary” for us to support and/or tolerate. We also hear a lot from statists how we should at least vote for the “lesser of two evils,” assuming that evil is unavoidable and should at least be minimized. We are made to think that we should support man-kings in addition to the Lord our King.

Rarely do we hear anyone ask why we should vote for evil at all. Why should we believe there is any Christian duty to get behind one hand-fed candidate or the other?

Is supporting evil Biblical?

But nowhere in the scriptures are we told that evil is “necessary” and that we should throw our weight behind it. Jesus did not teach us to “seek ye first the lesser of two evils,” but rather to seek His kingdom for all other things to be added unto us (Matt 6:33). There is no scriptural case that some evil is “necessary” and that we ought to trifle with it. We’re told, rather, to walk away from it and have nothing to do with it. The scriptures say, “Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it” (Psalm 34:14). They don’t say to accept it as a supposedly “necessary” and permanent feature in our lives, or to seek the violence that statism necessarily entails as a means for having social order. 

God calls us to seek the straight path regardless of whatever evils are going on in the world, not to try and vote on different Pharaohs and believe we can change the outcomes or direction of inherently evil empires. We are told to “not turn to the right nor to the left; turn your foot from evil” (Proverbs 4:27).

Did God err in His design? 

But why should we assume that evil is somehow necessary to our lives? That the providential economic and moral law somehow requires that we violate it in order for things to work out for us?

The Most High God, the Great Praxeologist, did not make our world in a way that social order and society itself depended upon evil to bring it about. God didn’t design anything such that we must do evil (though he left the option available). If He did, what a confusing God that would be to instruct us in righteousness, but then leave us in a state of disorder unless we ignored His instruction and did evil. How great of a contradiction would it have been for the Creator to give us a world where establishing peace and order required that we embark upon political violence to attain it? But there is no such contradiction in the providential order of God that requires us to use violence to achieve peace. Evil means only bring about evil ends or results. As the Lord Jesus Christ taught, 

“So every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit” (Matthew 7:17-18).

Thus, there is never an instance where following the commandments of God and turning away from evil means that our duty as servants of the Lord leaves us to have to forsake social order in the process — that failing to do evil means we forgo society. Rather, social order—peace, civilization, law, prosperity—is only achieved when we obey God and forsake evil. The ethics of God and peace and prosperity are bound-up with one another, not at odds with each other. 

We should never believe that in order to have things work out right for us, we must continue to allow some (supposedly necessary) evil to exist in our lives. The scriptures suggest just the opposite. 

“When a wicked man turns away from his wickedness which he has committed and practices justice and righteousness, he will save his life. Because he considered and turned away from all his transgressions which he had committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die” (Ezekiel 18:27-28).

When God tells us to “not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evildoers” and to “avoid it” and “do not travel on it” but “turn from it and pass on by” (Proverbs 4:14-15), He is not leaving us in some situation of orderless or lawless anarchy, but rather instructing us on how to avoid the violent and lawless political society that is filled with numerous evils. We do not oppose the State because we seek lawlessness, but it is precisely that the State is a criminal agency that it cannot be tolerated.

Those who trust in God believe that He will provide for us in all circumstances, such that they would never believe that they needed to “vote” to try and fix the Egyptian system we live under or support government police and government militaries as a means of finding protection. Faith in God is not just about one’s soul-salvation in the afterlife, but a faith that God will take care of us in all things, even our earthly matters, if we trust in Him to do so. But trusting in men (i.e., governments) is decidedly the way of distrusting God. Men form governments when they fear men more than they fear God. For the God-fearing man doesn’t need a man-gods, who call themselves “government,” to rule over him; he trusts in the Lord to provide for his safety and sustenance. Indeed, God’s people fear God so much they wouldn’t dare form a government, knowing what God does to such people and their systems. 

Freedom or slavery

Contrary to those who spin the defeatist propaganda that governments are necessary or inevitable, there is no Law of God saying that we must have the present “social” system that we have today, that things must be organized through the political means of violence and robbery, as opposed to the voluntary, economic means of free trade and production. We have a State only because men, in their sin, desired one and begged for kings after rejecting the Lord as their King (1 Samuel 8). States are not necessary to social order, but indeed its very enemy. For social order or “government,” so to speak, God gave us the family and the instruction for right living found in His word.

It could be argued that “government” is necessary, but that government would be a God-centered patriarchy, as God prescribed, not bureaucratic government as we know it, and certainly not a democratic secular system like we have today where we yoke ourselves to infidels.

But God never suggests that evil is “necessary” if we are to have an ordered society, but instead tells us that order comes through submission to the Lord and His word, through trusting in God to provide for us and forsaking and wholly rejecting the kingdoms of men. Furthermore, God does not desire that we live under the curse of government, but that we repent and come out of it. God will give us whichever one we choose: (1) the freedom and prosperity that comes with making the Lord our God, or (2) the slavery and poverty that comes with putting man-gods (i.e., governments) in charge of “social” order. 

“Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and multiply, so also it will please Him to annihilate you and destroy you” (Deuteronomy 28:63).

It is on men to choose today which one they want: (1) liberty and prosperity under God, or (2) poverty and slavery under men. For now, they have decidedly chosen (2) the latter and are facing an even worse situation should they continue down this road to serfdom. It remains to be seen if the increasingly harsh consequences for (2) choosing statism will lead men to be corrected and seek (1) God’s kingdom instead of the kingdoms of men. But the choice is available; evil is never “necessary” nor needed. 

Conclusion

The statist idea that the inherently violent governments of men are a “necessary evil” for us to seek is surely not a Biblical one, but rather a worldly doctrine of men used to justify political violence against populations of people. It is an old sinful fallacy that has been passed down through the ages into the hands of men who were all too ready to take up this slogan of their ancestors as a means of dismissing their own sinful walk down the path of statism, rather than confront the lie and lead themselves to a position of repentance and a new walk on the path to God. 

The idea that governments are “necessary evils” is not just a secular fallacy repeated by men who never considered an alternative society to their political enslavement, but highly demonstrative of the very sins that God’s word regularly points out to us: that the great ignorance of men is most evident in their false belief that they need human governments to rule over them and can’t live without them. This old, tiresome statist slogan is not just a philosophical error but a perfect picture of the sin in men: to follow other (false) “gods” than the Lord as their King. 

It should be expected that the God-hating masses would claim systems like the “United States Government” to be “necessary evils.” But any Christian arguing that any evil is necessary needs to check their worldview because they’re trusting in the wisdom of the world and leaning on their own understanding.