Passive obedience is a religious and political doctrine, which states that people have a moral duty to obey the law, in particular accepting punishment as part of this obedience.

George Berkeley

The most notable publication describing this doctrine was Bishop

George Berkeley George Berkeley (; 12 March 168514 January 1753) – known as Bishop Berkeley ( Bishop of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland) – was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immate ...

's ''A Discourse on Passive Obedience'' (1712). The tract is considered Berkeley's major contribution to moral and political philosophy. In ''A Discourse on Passive Obedience'', Berkeley defends the thesis that people have "a moral duty to observe the negative precepts (prohibitions) of the law, including the duty not to resist the execution of punishment."Hayry, Matti. "Passive Obedience and Berkeley's Moral Philosophy." Berkeley Studies 23 (2012): 3-13. Web<http://berkeleystudies.philosophy.fsu.edu/content/download/95864/978821/file/BS_023 _Hayry_Article.pdf> However, Berkeley does make exceptions to this sweeping moral statement, stating that we need not observe precepts of "usurpers or even madmen" and that people can obey different supreme authorities if there are more than one claims to the highest authority (§52). On the other hand, Berkeley also insists that disobedience to a tyrant remains wrong, even when the tyrant's violation of moral law is a worse violation than rebellion would be; when such immoral tyranny becomes insufferable, rebellion is predictable, and violates no rights of the tyrant, yet may still violate moral law (§44). In some places, Berkeley's argument for blind obedience to a ''

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with '' de jure'' ("by l ...

'' authority resembles Thomas Hobbes's argument in ''Leviathan'', on the grounds that rebellion can lead to anarchic violence and chaos which is worse than the worst tyranny (§§16, 47, 51), although Berkeley disagrees with Hobbes's idea that moral and political obligation ultimately rests on the law of self-preservation (§33).

Other views

Calvinism Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John C ...

, salvation depends on

Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...

's active obedience, obeying the laws and commands of God the Father, and passive obedience, enduring the punishment of the

crucifixion Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagi ...

suffering all the just penalties due to men for their sins. The two are seen as distinct but inseparable; passive obedience on its own only takes men back to the state of Adam before the Fall. Reformed theologian,

Louis Berkhof Louis Berkhof (October 13, 1873 – May 18, 1957) was a Dutch-American Reformed theologian whose works on systematic theology have been influential in seminaries and Bible colleges in the United States, Canada, Korea and with individual Christia ...

helpfully wrote: "His active obedience consists in all that He did to observe the law in behalf of sinners, as a condition for obtaining eternal life; and His passive obedience in all that He suffered in paying the penalty of sin and thus discharging the debt of all his people."(Manual of Christian Doctrine 215) The Scottish theologian John Cameron's support for passive obedience at the start of the 17th century meant that he was principal of the University of Glasgow for less than a year in 1622. At a human level a similar contrast distinguished between actively obeying the ''de facto'' power and law even when it conflicted with God's law or laws of nature, and passively obeying (not resisting) when it came to punishment for not actively obeying. It was usually associated with the seventeenth-century

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...

and the

Scottish Episcopal Church The Scottish Episcopal Church ( gd, Eaglais Easbaigeach na h-Alba; sco, Scots Episcopal(ian) Kirk) is the ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion in Scotland. A continuation of the Church of Scotland as intended by King James VI, and ...

of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and was central to the ideology of the

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...

Party and the

Jacobites Jacobite means follower of Jacob or James. Jacobite may refer to: Religion * Jacobites, followers of Saint Jacob Baradaeus (died 578). Churches in the Jacobite tradition and sometimes called Jacobite include: ** Syriac Orthodox Church, sometimes ...

. It is most generally seen in reference to Tory opposition to the

Glorious Revolution The Glorious Revolution; gd, Rèabhlaid Ghlòrmhor; cy, Chwyldro Gogoneddus , also known as the ''Glorieuze Overtocht'' or ''Glorious Crossing'' in the Netherlands, is the sequence of events leading to the deposition of King James II and ...

, which saw Parliamentary determination of the succession of the English crown against

primogeniture Primogeniture ( ) is the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn legitimate child to inherit the parent's entire or main estate in preference to shared inheritance among all or some children, any illegitimate child or any collateral relativ ...

and the wishes of James II. Passive obedience appears twice in

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

's ''

Les Misérables ''Les Misérables'' ( , ) is a French historical novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862, that is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its origin ...

'', first as a scene heading "The Heroism of Passive Obedience" when the bishop entertains Valjean, and later in the text on the impact of armies when describing French intervention in Spain in 1823. During his coup d'état of 2 December 1851, the then French president Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte reminded officers and soldiers of their pledge and duty of passive obedience to his orders as chief of the government, since he individually was responsible to the French people and posterity.

Notes

{{Reflist Religion and politics