Passive obedience

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

George Berkeley

The most notable publication describing this doctrine was Bishop George Berkeley's treatise Passive Obedience; or, the Christian Doctrine of Not Resisting the Supreme Power (1712). The tract is considered Berkeley's major contribution to moral and political philosophy.

In 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." However, Berkeley does allow that people can obey different supreme authorities if there are multiple 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 authority resembles Thomas Hobbes's argument in Leviathan (1651) 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 uses

In the Protestant branch of Calvinism, salvation depends on Christ's active obedience, obeying the laws and commands of God, and passive obedience, enduring the punishment of the crucifixion and suffering all the just penalties due to men for their sins. The 1658 Savoy Declaration said "11.1 Those whom God effectually calleth he also freely justifieth ... by imputing Christ’s active obedience to the whole law, and passive obedience in his death for their whole and sole righteousness, ..." 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 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.