Reformed Theology and the Politics of Divine Authority

Reformed accounts of political freedom predictably draw inferences from their understanding of God’s authority, governance, and saving work. Yet leading Reformed authorities disagree about both the nature of God’s freedom and rule and then accordingly also about the nature of human freedom and just politics. One important and under-appreciated sticking point in these debates is the threat of divine domination and the domineering political inferences it enables. In this paper I draw on recent work from political theorists of domination to help precisify this concern. I then argue it helps reveal a strand of Reformed reflection that is chiefly concerned with non-domination and eager to weed domination out of Reformed theology. I conclude by noting that domination poses a distributive, systematic problem for Reformed theology that is more expansive and troubling but also more constructive and promising than other statements of the problem suggest.