Ch 2 - Government Under God Flashcards
Sovereign
Having supreme power and right to govern all nations and their rulers
Government
The authority and power to control, to direct, and to rule the actions and affairs of others
Flow of governmental authority
From God to human institutions to individuals responsible for ruling others within those institutions
First foundational civil ordinance
Capital punishment for murder
Gods purpose for government
To protect the innocent by punishing the guilty
English jurist who wrote Commentaries on the Laws of England
Sir William Blackstone
Laws
Rules of human action or conduct
Revealed law
Laws given by god explicitly in the Holy Scripture
Natural law
Laws discernible by all men as image-bearers of god
Commandments
Orders from God telling men what to do and what not to do
Positive law
No higher law
Higher law
A law of god on which mans law must rest
Code of Hammurabi
Codified Sumerian laws of Babylonian king Hammurabi
Theocracy
A government where God rules directly
Autocracy
Rule by one whose will is supreme
Secularism
The belief that government should remove everything religious from its domain
Democracy
The people rule, either directly by popular vote or indirectly thru elected representatives
Dynasty
Rule by a single family
Distinguishing feature of a monarch
He received his position by inheritance
Absolute monarchy
A system of government in which the monarch has unlimited power
Constitutional monarchies
Systems if government in which the monarchs power is limited by a constitution and is equal to or subservient to an elected representative assembly
Dictatorship
Ruler does not inherit his power and rules with absolute authority
Totalitarian
Controlling all aspects of society
Fascism
A totalitarian dictatorship in which all power is vested in one ruler
Communism
A totalitarian dictatorship by one or more persons that advocates the violent, revolutionary overthrow of the existing economic, political and social order and sets up a tyrannical state that dominates the person, property, and thoughts of all citizens by means of physical and psychological force and terror.
Socialism
A system of government control over a nations economy.
Socialists key tenet
Government, not individuals, should control a country’s resources and it’s means of production
The price of socialism
Freedom
Direct democracy
The people rule directly by popular vote
Indirect democracy
People rule indirectly through elected representatives
Constitutional republic
The people and their representatives are limited by a constitution
Republic
Voters elect others to represent them in government
Separation of church and state
The church and government are to remain institutionally separate
The cornerstone of American government
The character of the American people
Greek definition of monarch
To rule alone
Gods purpose for government
To protect the innocent by punishing the guilty
