Some thoughts on whether we need laws

This may seem an obvious or overly technical point to make, but it’s actually relevant. Explaining why is a bit tricky though. Various Christians have been arguing, lately, very confusingly, that morals are just for individuals and have no relevance at a national level. It very confusing because it undercuts their arguments for why they should be involved in politics and assert their morals within them. There’s also a very fine distinction I wish to draw. You can’t legislate morality. And by that I mean, precisely, that you can’t make a person be good merely by external force. However, you can legislate morally good standards of behavior. To explain, I can’t make a person a good person with a law. But I can pass a just law that compels people to do the right thing. I cannot make a law that can prevent or change someone from being covetous. But I can make a law that prevents someone from stealing (and motivates them through the risk of punishment). You can’t make a killer good by exercising the law on them and sending them to jail. But it is still justice to do so. The fact that you cannot make people good by external force (although try try all the time with our children, and criminal law is merely parenting writ large) does not make laws meaningless or without value, nor is the law and the execution of it sufficient for making people good. It’s not an all or nothing situation. It’s not enough to merely have just laws, but just laws are not without value. External force through law or collection action is not sufficient for true morality, but it is helpful, it is of moral value. Churches are great. We need churches, because we need to change people’s hearts. But we also need police and judges and even armies. The world is full of ignorance and deceit and greed and violence. And we need structures to deal with the outward expressions of that, even if they cannot change the human condition. They can restrain it and they can help guide it.

In ancient Israel, it wasn’t enough to just tell people they should be kind and generous, to simply give them the ten commandments that tell them what their hearts should be like and leave it at that. They needed constant reminders. Often they had to be constrained to be trained toward the inner state they were meant to be working toward. And it was understood that there was a direct connection between national moral character and individual moral character. It was incumbent on the nation to create laws that expressed and supported the moral growth of the people. Whatever was true for an individual was true for the nation. And whatever helped the nation conduct itself in a more just and moral manner was helpful to the moral development of the people. It couldn’t force it, external force alone is not sufficient, but the natural connectivity of individual character with the moral actions of the nation and the moral standards of the nation helping with the moral protection and development of the people created a circular feedback loop whose goal was to make the people, and the nation by extension, more the people God wished them to be. Good character of people leads to good laws and national actions, good laws and national actions protect and support the development of the character of the people. In the legal expressions of our nation we create both a servant and a teacher for ourselves to remind us of who we are trying to be.