Government is not God: Wanting the State to Do What Only God Can Do

When he read the letter, the king of Israel tore his garments and exclaimed: “Am I a god with power over life and death, that this man should send someone for me to cure him of leprosy? (1 Kings 5:7a)

More: Some men think the Earth is round, others think it flat; it is a matter capable of question. But if it is flat, will the King’s command make it round? And if it is round, will the King’s command flatten it? (Bolt, Robert. A Man For All Seasons)

Everybody wants the quarantine to be over. As it drags on, more people are getting more forceful in insisting the government end it. Others seem perfectly willing to declare that if only the Government had done X or if we had elected Y, we wouldn’t be in this state. Both of these groups seem to be forgetting that governments do not have power over disease. The best a government can do is implement policies in response that justly protect the common good.

The people protesting the quarantine seem to be forgetting is that the necessity of the quarantine depends on the reality behind the coronavirus. Both sides partially grasp this: If the threat remains high, ending the quarantine does not serve the common good. But if the threat is low, strict quarantines do not serve the common good.

Likewise, the arguments over what the government should have done in preparation, or what candidate should have been elected does not serve the public good. Regardless of what should have been done to reduce the impact, it’s clear that governments by themselves could not have spared us from the existence of the pandemic. Countries with both more and less government than the United States have been impacted by the coronavirus, and—regardless of what role you might think government should play in health care—countries with one form of government or economic system were not spared the pandemic compared to another.

That’s because governments are made up of human beings and human beings are finite in both knowledge and power. Even when served by competent people of good will, it is not guaranteed that they will be able to respond as needed. 

Government is not God. It cannot perform miracles. It can only respond to the crises as they emerge, trying to limit the threat as they become aware of it. We can pray to God to deliver us and to provide insight to scientists and leaders so they might find cures and more ways to mitigate the harm†. But the debates over when to end the quarantine or who would have prevented the pandemic from beginning is to confuse Government with God.

Until we remember that fact, there will continue to be a lot of wasted debate over things that are actually uncontrollable. 

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(†) Personally, I have no way of knowing whether the COVID-19 virus will be curable or not. I certainly pray that it is.