Our human laws can only go so far

UNLESS our human laws can capture the logic behind that divine commandment to love one another as Christ has loved us and continues to love us, even to the extent of loving our enemies, we can only say that indeed our human laws, despite all the good things they can accomplish, can only do so much for us.

Our human laws can only struggle to capture the divine wisdom of loving our enemies because they are designed more to maintain order, human justice and protection within a society, whereas the commandment to love our enemies is a moral and spiritual teaching that certainly goes beyond the scope of legal codes.

Our human laws can mandate behaviors like not harming others, but they cannot legislate things that are mainly on the spiritual and supernatural levels which actually are the ultimate dimensions that shape our life not only as persons but also as children of God, created in God’s image and likeness.

While we obviously need to be governed by the rule of law, we should also see to it that we manage to distinguish between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, and know how to understand and apply our human laws properly.

Ideally, both the letter and the spirit of a certain law should be in perfect harmony. But that is hardly the case in real life. The problem, of course, is that the articulation of the law is conditioned and limited by our human powers that cannot fully capture the richness of human life, considering its spiritual and supernatural character that will always involve the intangibles and mysteries and the like.

That is the reason why we can go beyond but not against a particular human law, when such law cannot fully express the concrete conditions of a particular case. We know very well that strictly following the letter of the law may not align with the law’s intent or broader justice. We need to discern the spirit of the law that involves considering the context, intent of the lawmakers, and the ultimate purpose the law aims to achieve.

For this, we have to understand, first of all, that all our laws should be based on what is known as the natural law that in the end is a participation in the divine eternal law of God, our Creator and the first and ultimate lawgiver. And that part of natural law that is specific to man is called the natural moral law that would recognize, as its first principle, God as our Creator and source and end of all laws.

A legal system not clearly based on this fundamental principle about laws would already be a system that is defective ab initio. A legal system that is based only on some human consensus would put the spirit of the law in full subservience to the letter of that law.

Our human laws certainly need continuing refinement. They should not be regarded as something static or stagnant, averse to the need for improvement. They should continually be diligently perceptive to evolving things, and should be adaptive to new conditions.

That’s simply because charity, truth, justice, and mercy, which our laws should in the end embody, have aspects that can be mysterious and that will always demand new requirements from us.

Let’s hope that the proper structures are made available to address this ongoing need with respect to continually polishing our laws.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com