바울과 아우구스티누스의 법·국가사상 비교

Abstract

In this paper, after considering the law and national thoughts of Paul and Augustine individually, standpoints of these two men are evaluated on various levels like the origin of state power and the issue of limits, the necessity and legitimacy of state power, the duty of national political leaders, and the problem regarding the right of resistance. Paul is a person who explains the justice of God of Jesus Christ the best. Romans chapter 13 section 1 below and First Corinthians chapter 6 section 1 he wrote seem contradictory to each other. However, this is not to support already existing order but to avoid revolutionary means for Paul. In other words, because power is from God, it is saying that there will be judgement when disobeying it. Practically, the power of the state is provisionally needed. This opinion of Paul matches with the statement of Jesus christ saying that the authority of Pilatus is a tool actualizing the will of God and old prophecies with the divine origin. On the other hand, since the state and the power is given by God in order to restrain sins of corrupted humans, people should not only obey its authority and but also avoid defiance despite of the fact that the state itself is like a capital of chaos. He was stringy about accepting the independence and autonomy of justice in the matter of the state, and he thought that it is impossible for the state to exist unless it is based on the justice of the kingdom of God. In fact, it is said that the state is subordinate to the church regrading the matter of justice. In today’s state society believing in the separation of church and state, the law and national thoughts of Paul and Augustine are not totally reasonable. However, the community believing in christianity is still feeling the necessity of the state as well as its authority while subjecting to tensions between the kingdom of God and a civil society or the state. That is, it is not necessary to obey a general rule of not only extrinsic but also relative law. Yet, the community of believers knows that the general rule and the system on this earth is based on the eternal kingdom of God and his everlasting righteousness. In this sense, the law and national thoughts of Paul and Augustine are meaningful to the community of christians until these days.