“Now, I would know by what authority – I mean lawful – there are many unlawful authorities in the world – thieves and robbers by the highways – but I would know by what authority I was brought from thence and carried from place to place, and I know not what. And when I know what lawful authority, I shall answer. Remember, I am your King – your lawful King – and what sins you bring upon your heads and the judgment of God upon this land, think well upon it – I say think well upon it – before you go further from one sin to a greater. Therefore let me know by what lawful authority I am seated here and I shall not be unwilling to answer. In the meantime, I shall not betray my trust. I have a trust committed to me by God, by old and lawful descent. I will not betray it to answer to a new unlawful authority. Therefore, resolve me that, and you shall hear more of me.”
Charles I at his trial, January 20, 1649
It becomes an endless cycle of talk instead, rather like rabbis in the Talmud giving their opinions. Law is not an opinion but a recognized authority which is enforced by a sovereign. To the extent that a law has no enforcement mechanism it ceases to be law. Two components are needed for law: recognized authority and enforcement. Rule by the sword alone is not law, and something recognized as an authority but with no enforcement mechanism, is also not law.
Natural law and Divine law are instituted by God. Divine law says love God and the neighbor as oneself.
Natural law is the fabric of all creation. Atheism violates natural law since the universe is created by God. Transgender, sodomy, stealing, perjury all destroy the rational body and soul of man. Death is proof beyond telling.
Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment gives a very good description of the conscience of man in virtue and in crime, that is breaking Divine and natural law.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Lex Naturalis
De Re Publica
Liber III
Pars XXII
Est quidem vera lex recta ratio naturae congruens, diffusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna, quae vocet ad officium iubendo, vetando a fraude deterreat; quae tamen neque probos frustra iubet aut vetat nec improbos iubendo aut vetando movet. Huic legi nec obrogari fas est neque derogari ex hac aliquid licet neque tota abrogari potest, nec vero aut per senatum aut per populum solvi hac lege possumus, neque est quaerendus explanator aut interpres eius alius, nec erit alia lex Romae, alia Athenis, alia nunc, alia posthac, sed et omnes gentes et omni tempore una lex et sempiterna et immutabilis continebit, unusque erit communis quasi magister et imperator omnium deus, ille legis huius inventor, disceptator, lator; cui qui non parebit, ipse se fugiet ac naturam hominis aspernatus hoc ipso luet maximas poenas, etiamsi cetera supplicia, quae putantur, effugerit.
Natural Law
There is a true law, a right reason, conformable to nature, universal, unchangeable, eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose prohibitions restrain us from evil. Whether it enjoins or forbids, the good respect its injunctions, and the wicked treat them with indifference. This law cannot be contradicted by any other law, and is not liable either to derogation or abrogation. Neither the senate nor the people can give us any dispensation for not obeying this universal law of justice. It needs no other expositor and interpreter than our own conscience. It is not one thing at Rome and another at Athens; one thing today and another tomorrow; but in all times and nations this universal law must for ever reign, eternal and imperishable. It is the sovereign master and emperor of all beings. God himself is its author — its promulgator — its enforcer. He who obeys it not, flies from himself, and does violence to the very nature of man. For his crime he must endure the severest penalties hereafter, even if he avoids the usual misfortunes of the present life.
According to the Supreme Court, it was law that the Biden administration couldn’t bribe lazy democrats by paying off their student loans.
Biden ignored that law and paid off his constituency anyway, to the tune of $180 billion.
That didn’t mean the law didn’t exist, it meant that Biden was a lawless criminal.
Just my 2¢ 🙂
Biden’s effort failed because there are enforcement mechanisms. That his staff, Biden being non compos mentis, found other ways to skin a cat does not surprise me at all due to my familiarity with the frequently conflicting and confused statutes governing student loans.
Natural law and divine law are authored by God, and therefore part of the fabric of reality. All other regulation by man is either an extension of such law or a perversion of one (or both) of them.
Because we seek to alienate God from our democracies, we wind up with mob-ocracies where the majority works their will, doing whatever the majority wants.
The success of our current mob-ocracy depends entirely on the proportion of the 51% who still honor God’s two codices of law (divine and natural) and 250 year old guardrails put into place by men who understood the divine and natural law far better than we do.
During my lifetime, the percentage of voters acknowledging, following or even being taught the divine and natural laws has dwindled while the number of people kicking down guardrails has increased.
The post WWII rules are dead. Trump (as usual) is blamed for this. However, he is not the reason they died, just the illustration that it is so.
The game of geopolitical Jenga is starting. Trump may have pulled one of the first pieces, but he is using it to reinforce the tower. Others, as they start pulling pieces will pocket the pieces to the detriment of the tower.
Natural law and divine law are authored by God, and therefore part of the fabric of reality.
And of course men differ radically as to what divine law and natural law are, or even if they exist. I have the traditional Catholic understanding myself as to both.
Because we seek to alienate God from our democracies,
Facts asserted that are not in evidence. Nostalgia for monarchies has always left me cold.
The success of our current mob-ocracy depends entirely on the proportion of the 51% who still honor God’s two codices of law (divine and natural) and 250 year old guardrails put into place by men who understood the divine and natural law far better than we do.
The success of our democracy is perhaps a matter of luck as much as anything else. As Lincoln noted in his Lyceum speech, we had broad oceans to protect us and no foreign power that could conquer us. Our only realistic threat was suicide by our own actions, and we came close to doing that a few decades later in our Civil War. The maxim that God looks after fools, drunks and the United States of America has a fair amount of truth to it, although we have been pressing our luck the past few decades.
During my lifetime, the percentage of voters acknowledging, following or even being taught the divine and natural laws has dwindled while the number of people kicking down guardrails has increased.
For Leftists power is an end in and of itself. Too many conservatives are going down that path also.
The post WWII rules are dead. Trump (as usual) is blamed for this. However, he is not the reason they died, just the illustration that it is so.
Trump’s historical purpose is to expose the rot and to demonstrate how many of our cherished assumptions rest on nothing but hot air and fever dreams.
The game of geopolitical Jenga is starting. Trump may have pulled one of the first pieces, but he is using it to reinforce the tower.
Trump is firming up American domination of our hemisphere. I think he views most of Europe as a waste of time for the US, with our main effort to be made in Asia, although I suspect he thinks China is a vast Potemkin village waiting to fall apart.
As I understand it, there are four types of law: Eternal, Natural, Divine, and Human. Eternal law is God’s perfect will. It’s unknowable to humans – not even the angels know it fully. Natural law is the law written in nature and on the human heart. It’s debated endlessly, of course, but it points nearly everyone in nearly the same direction nearly all the time. Divine law is God’s revelation given to us to increase our understanding of His will. I’d include some Church doctrines in this along with revelation. Human law is the collection of silly stuff that lawyers talk about. It’s an attempt to apply at least natural law, and maybe divine law depending on the society and its constitution, to the day’s events.
As examples, the prohibition against abortion is eternal law, it’s part of natural law even if many people deny it, it’s in divine law through the Church, and it may or may not be part of an individual nation’s law. The law about which side of the road to drive on is human law, but grounded in a need for a common rule in order to promote the natural law.
International law is a form of human law. If we were better people, it’d conform to natural law. If we were a Christian world, it’d conform to divine law. It could never conform to eternal law, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek to improve it.
I think the success of constitutional government is contingent on the willingness of all consequential parties to respect a set of conventions regulating competition between them. There has been a secular decline in the willingness of the Democratic Party to do that and it has disappeared entirely in the last ten years. This will not end well.