God’s left hand and human reason
God’s left hand work of law is comprehensive and pervades all creation. God’s left hand governing of the world begins with God’s ongoing creating of the natural world as the environment for the fl ourishing of all creatures. God’s left hand governing extends then into establishing our most basic human relationships and enduring social life and institutions ( family, work, citizenship and other institutional arrangements for creating and preserving human and environmental well-being).
Within these relational, social and environmental networks, we also discover what God would have us do and not do in order for earthly life to fl ourish rather than fl ounder. Finally, we discover how God uses dissuading and rewarding consequences to prevent sin and evil from proliferating, and to preserve and promote both human fl ourishing and the well-being of all creation. Luther also called God’s left hand governing God’s “political” or “civil use of law,” remembering that God’s left hand work is more extensive than what we today refer to as government, politics and citizenship.
Luther taught that God fervently desires that all humans share in God’s own left hand governing. We are called and sent in our various vocations to be God’s “masks” in the world, as he liked to say, through which God’s left hand governing happens. As God’s co-creative creatures, we serve our neighbors in solidarity and love, seeking justice, peace and well-being.
God thereby endows human beings with remarkable capacities of “reason,” making it possible for humans to participate in God’s left hand governing. Reason was Luther’s shorthand to identify the broad scope of worldly wisdom, including the sciences, the arts and humanities, and especially the traditions of moral wisdom.
Five advantages of Luther’s two kingdoms Luther distinguished God’s left hand and right hand ways to govern, fi rst of all, to ensure that the gospel remains gospel and, secondly, to ensure that the law remains law. The integrity of both of God’s hands is thereby honored. Indeed, God has the whole world in God’s hands, “both” of them.
For his time Luther had a full-bodied notion of reason, borrowed from Cicero, which is why he strongly advocated for universal education. God desires that we, too, employ the best worldly wisdom available to us in our time.
Famously, Luther noted that Christians seek human welfare as we “ ‘put on’ our neighbors” as Christ has “put on” us. In this way, Christian faith enlists the capacities of full-bodied, enfl eshed reason in order to serve our neighbors.
Citing Psalm 82, Luther urged citizens and political authorities to promote social justice with special attention to the most vulnerable among us: “Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.” Doing so, citizens become “partakers of Divine majesty.”
Exercising our citizenship is the joyous experience of sharing in God’s left hand governing, which we do with other Christians, with those of other faiths, and with those of no particular religious faith at all. We can “joyfully enjoy the joyful things when they are present,” as Luther once encouraged his students.
Gary Simpson is professor of systematic theology at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn.
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