Angels Enjoy Government

It is baffling to me why reasonable men who are well-read in the Scriptures persist in using the axiom, “If all men were angels, no government would be necessary,” to defend their thoughts on politics.

Before the creation of mankind, when there were only angels, government nonetheless existed. There are many orders of angels, some more glorious than others, hence the difference between angels and archangels. What is more, in the original society of angels, one-third proved rebels, and rebellion presupposes the existence of a government.

In brief, Scripture is rather clear that societies of angels do actually exist, that they are not arranged democratically, but hierarchically, and that government should not be viewed as a thing which is necessary, but as a good in itself because God has ordained it.

This is the rather conventional conservative approach to government, though. When Burke defended the English monarchy against the encroachments of French Revolutionary ideas, he did not give any sort of priority to the idea of “limited government.”

The idea that power corrupts and should thus be spread as broadly and thinly across as many people as possible segues rather neatly into communism. The desire to liquidate and redistribute power that was popular in the late 18th century naturally gave way to Marxism just fifty years later.

A more venerable form of conservatism holds that money and power become increasingly meaningless as they become diffuse. One man can do more with a million dollars than a million men can do with a dollar each. The same is true of political power.