God’s Commandments and their Political Presence: Notes of a Tradition on the ‘Ground’ of Ethics

Abstract

The paper describes the biblical understanding of God’s commanded law in its indispensable political form, i.e. the law of God’s people. This is distinct from a confinement of God’s commandments to a moral code independent from that political context as it is present as the ‘political worship’ of God’s people.This worship has to be seen as the ground for ethics. From here follow consequences for human laws and legislation concerning human life forms. That disposition of theological ethics has been elaborated in a particular form by the Lutheran-Reformed tradition especially in its concepts of God’s twofold regiment and the estates.