Joe Carter at the Evangelical Outpost has announced a a new blog symposium — Judeo-Christian Morality in an Ethically Pluralistic Society. I wrote something vaguely near that topic last summer, so I’m slightly tweaking it and presenting it here for my entry in the symposium. I’m specifically addressing how Christians should approach law making, in any human society.
Christian Libertarian – that’s how Josh Claybourn describes himself. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I think that Christianity with its emphasis on faith is more libertarian than works (following the law) based religions.
What are the beliefs of Christianity (at least from my point of view) on law? Well, God does have laws. There are laws you have no choice about — the physical laws that govern the universe. They are the same everywhere and universally obeyed by all of creation without any possible choice.
But there are also other laws, where we do have choice. Let’s call them moral laws, and we can keep them, or we can break them. Up to this point, some other faiths would be agreeing with me. But here’s where Christianity comes in — nobody follows moral laws perfectly. We are all sinners is a basic Christian teaching. And what is the penalty for sin? Death. Now I happen to think that there are immediate consequences for vice and virtue, and there are defered consequences. But what’s clear is, under God’s law, every person on the planet has transgressed against God’s moral laws, and the penalty for doing so is death. I see dead people, and they don’t even realize they are dead.
So if we were to institute God’s law as our own civic laws, we’d have to execute everybody on the planet. So really, what would be the point? And quite frankly, it seems awfully presumptious to pre-empt God. Since no man is saved by the law, why then should we try? And what would our plan of salvation be?
What then should our laws be based upon? Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is a good start. Human laws should be for our own use, not our own goodness. If God does not compel good, how and why should we, especially since our means are so much less. And as our means are so much less, so too should our laws be.
To be sure, there is overlap between God’s moral law and what should be human laws – thou shalt not murder comes to mind. But who’s going to enforce thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s spouse or stuff? Or love God with all your heart, or love your neighbor as yourself? Jesus called out the last two as the wellsprings of all the commandments, and is there any real way to humanly enforce these laws?
Now don’t take this to mean that I don’t think following God’s laws isn’t important — I just think that is between ourselves and God, with the help of our fellow children in Christ, not the local constable and magistrate. The law doesn’t save. Repeat that after me: the law doesn’t save — Jesus saves. It’s okay if humans don’t outlaw everything that God does. By all means we should never shirk declaring what’s right and what’s wrong nor should we lose sight of the power of our example.
