They say as if it's true, "You can't legislate morality." If, by that, you mean you can't pass laws to make people internally moral, that's fine. But the truth is that many of our laws are based on morality and the goal, if not to make people moral, is to make them behave in a moral fashion.
Now, I think it's pretty clear that there is some distinctions between law and morality. First, not all laws are based on morals. Speed laws are for matters of public safety, for instance. We don't limit driving on the freeway to 65 MPH because it is immoral to drive faster. So some laws are predicated on public welfare rather than morality. I also think that any one of us could come up with some easy examples of laws that are not moral. The easiest example would be the law that makes abortion legal. Laws that legalize murder would be immoral. Laws that prevent people from doing moral good are immoral. So, while there is a connection between morality and law, there is also a disconnect.
The reason I've been thinking about this whole thing is the matter of illegal immigration. I'm not talking about immigration. Legal immigration is ... legal. And I'm not talking about some sort of racism. Racism is immoral. I'm talking about the concept of illegal immigration.
Do a search on the subject and I'm sure you'll find pages and pages of sob stories about poor families locked in dead-end existences with no hope except to flee to the wealth of the United States despite the laws against it. If these stories have no effect on you, you have no heart. On the other hand, we have Scripture that calls us to obey the government and we have the law that forbids this kind of activity. Beyond this, the effects of illegal immigration are not minor and the are, too often, damaging to the people of this country. If these facts have no effect on you, you have no brains.
So I come up against a paradox. I can see that the laws of the nation are there for a reason. I can see the damage done by illegal immigration. I can see the problems it causes. I can see why it is wise to obey the law. And, yet, on the other hand, I can see the sad cases of people in need. I've been to Mexico and seen the genuine poverty (as opposed to the wealth that is called "poverty" in our country), the children suffering from malnutrition, the hopelessness. I've been to El Paso, Texas. Two hillsides face each other separated by the Rio Grande River. One side is dirt-poor and the other in-your-face rich. Dilapidated shanties look across at luxurious hotels. How can they not want to violate our laws and get some of that?
So here's the question. Given the biblical mandate to obey the government over against the biblical mandate to love your neighbor, what is the right approach to take? I believe that it is possible for a government to make laws that violate biblical principles, and if they do, we are required to violate those laws. Are the immigration laws of the United States such a violation, or are they reasonable laws put in place by a reasonable government to provide reasonable protection for its citizens? In these cases, how do we correlate morality and law?
6 comments:
Stan,
I've posted on my take so I won't repeat any of that here. I would like to throw something out for your consideration. I've been listening through an apologetics course by Douglas Groothuis and he said in a portion of one of his lectures, almost in passing, "all laws are an imposition of morality". I thought that was an intriguing statement and have been thinking about it a lot since. He's not saying all laws are moral, but that laws are one governing groups' attempt to impose their set of morals on those they are governing.
So, even your example of speed limit and legalized abortion could be seen as even a secular government imposing its idea of morality (i.e. public safety and "free choice") on society at large. So the question would be not whether laws are moral, but whose definition of morality is currently being imposed on society.
It's an interesting concept and it does change the way laws are viewed. Seems to me it would make a shortage of laws a premium, and would help preserve an attitude of liberty. Imagine if elected officials were required each time they offered up a bill for consideration had to begin the document with something like, "I am recommedning that the following moral imperative be imposed on the consituency..." Probably a lot more of the public would think about whether they really needed that law. Seems a lot closer to the founders original concept of law and government that what we have now at any rate.
Anyway, the more I think about it the more I like the statement. I'm still rolling it around. Your thoughts?
For most Christians there is a distinction in Old Testament Law between the "moral law" and the "civil law" (and the "ceremonial" or "sacrificial" laws). The Jews didn't have that distinction. To us, the whole shellfish and mixed thread clothing and eating pork thing was were civil laws that were there for their safety, not for moral reasons. But to them, violating those laws ... was immoral.
I agree with the notion that laws impose a morality. My dilemma, in fact, is that it looks like, in Scripture, it is immoral for Christians to violate the civil law if there is no overriding reason to do so.
I agree. In fact I would say that a great deal of Christian outrage or speaking against civil policy is unwarranted because our position in those cases is to submit to the authority over us, up to and until there is a conflict with God's moral imperatives.
My biggest problem is that if laws are in fact an imposition of morality, and if our elected officials are required to leave all their "religious bias" at the bottom of the capital steps, what is the morality they will impose look like? Immigration may boil down to Christians just abiding by the policies enacted and continuing to share the gospel message of Jesus Christ to native and immigrant alike, but in the future we may find that an increasing number of new laws absent of or in direct conflict with God's moral law. In that case things are going to get dicey for Christians in this nation. We had better be prepared in advance, have a pretty good idea of God's nature and His moral law, and have already established a biblical "line in the sand". Our next conversation might well be concerning Christians and civil disobedience.
Ditto on Jeremy's first comment.
On your question it would be impossible for us to violate an immigration law unless we were to move illegally to another country. The hope would be that should we choose to carry out such a plan that the country of our choosing would have been so affluent in its recent history to allow them the folly of thinking that their affluence comes with the air they breathe as opposed to a governmental system, and a country that has no idea who it is except that it is extremely hyper sensitive as to who it does not want to be seen as. Both of these will allow you to send them into a vortex of navel gazing and self-perception paranoia enough to give themselves a warm feeling of moral superiority and human adequacy just by standing up for you in your illegal activity.
Jeremy, I expressed a similar concern in this post. If we evict God from the political arena, what do we get? Nothing ... or worse.
Danny, you're signed into your wife's account again ... or is it that you're just starting to look so much like her? Anyway, well said. (I cannot imagine why you question your writing skills when it's always so much fun to read what you write.)
Stan,
How did I miss that original post?!? I knew April had gone by quickly, but for pity's sake.
I think even the proposition "Freedom from Religion" is a straw man to begin with. You mentioned many of the outworkings of religious beliefs (hospitals, holidays, etc.) but religion is not totally tangible. Christianity in particular is concerned with the thoughts and attitudes of the heart, the outworkings come on the tail end of a change of heart. So, where some group may push for elimination of the outworkings of religion (which you well articulated would be a logistical improbability if not impossibility) but there is nothing that can seperate any Christian and their Lord.
Also it seems to me a bit impertinent to use the freedom provided only by a nation established on religious grounds to plump for the elimination of the very religion that made the freedom possible. Sort of like cutting off the branch you're standing on.
I'm reminded of a quote from G.K. Chesterton which I cannot remember and I don't have the source in front of me, but went something like - I could choose to turn away from God, but in Heaven's name to what? (Chesterton and Lewis have got to be my all-time favorites) I'm afraid many who are so quick to push seperation of church and state (which now seems to somehow be equivalent with eradication of religion) may some day get what they ask for, and find out only too late the extent of the subsequent entailments.
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