WE BELONG ONLY TO GOD
«Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s». These words of Jesus have been frequently used to establish a clear frontier between what’s political and what’s religious, and to thus defend the absolute autonomy of the State in the face of whatever questioning is made from the faith.
According to this interpretation, Jesus had located the human being on one side before some obligations of civic-political character, and on the other side before a religious questioning. As if a human being would have to respond to the sociopolitical issues in the face of the political power and to the religious account in the face of God.
Jesus’ intention isn’t that. The accent of his words is on the last part. They have insidiously asked about the problem of taxes and Jesus quickly resolves the problem. If they carry coin that belongs to Caesar, they must subject themselves to the consequences that that implies. But Jesus introduces a new idea that doesn’t appear in the question of the adversaries.
Unexpectedly he introduces God into the approach. The image on the coin belongs to Caesar, but human beings mustn’t forget that they carry within their very selves the image of God, and therefore they belong only to God. Thus does the biblical tradition affirm. It’s then that we can grasp Jesus’ thinking. «Give to Caesar what belongs to him, but don’t forget that you yourselves belong to God».
For Jesus, Caesar and God aren’t two authorities of like kind that must divide up the submission of people. God is above any Caesar, and Caesar can’t ever demand what belongs to God.
In some times when the power of the State is growing and for the citizens it ends up all the more difficult to defend their liberty in the midst of society, where almost everything is directed and controlled, we believers mustn’t let ourselves be robbed of our conscience and our liberty by any power.
We must honorably fulfill our civil debts, but we mustn’t let ourselves be molded or directed by any power that opposes the fundamental demands of God’s reign.
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
