Response to:
"You can't legislate morality."
The Bible teaches that sex outside of marriage, homosexuality and abortion are wrong. But many people don't agree that those things are wrong. They have their reasons for believing that they are alright, at least when they involve consenting adults. They reason, "If fundamentalist Christians were in power they would make these things illegal. People have different ideas of what God is like and whether the Bible is relevant in these issues. Other religions have different viewpoints, as well. When one group imposes its viewpoint on another, it is not fair to the people in the oppressed group. Furthermore, terrible atrocities have occurred when Christians have had absolute political power. They just want everyone else to live like they want them to. They're just like the Taliban." To be quite honest, when I hear some fundamentalist Christians talk in public or in private I become concerned, too. I wouldn't vote for someone just because they say they are a Christian and want to "bring America back to God." They'd better have a game plan that doesn't involve things like locking homosexuals up in jail before they'll get my vote.
With that said, we can keep a few things in mind: First, fundamentalist Christian politicians are never able to get enough votes from other less fundamentalist Christians. So the fears and the amount of fear-mongering are not really warranted. Second, there are enough checks and balances in our political system to prevent that kind of abuse—hopefully! After all, fundamentalist Christians are certainly in the minority and would be held in check. Third, the real issue is not whether or not morality can or should be legislated. Every law is based on someone's moral and ethical system, whether a dictator, monarch or the majority political party. That's just the nature of law. So the real issue is whose morality is going to be legislated?
With that in mind, we must then ask what system of ethics and morality is the best one to base our laws on. We have two broad choices. One is a system that says moral values are created by people in their own context of community, culture and time period. In other words, moral values are relative to the situation or group or time period. The other one is a system that says moral values come from one source that transcends all individuals, cultures, communities and time-periods. The major battle going on in our legal system today is over which of these two systems should be the basis of our laws. Therefore, we should be asking, which system is the right one to impose on people through laws?
It stands to reason that the moral system that should be imposed is one that is consistent with the way the universe really operates. C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), was a world class scholar of English Literature at Oxford University. He was also an atheist. But as an intellectually honest man he began questioning his basic assumptions about life and the universe. He reasoned,
"My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?"
He realized that there was not only a transcendent law to which every man appeals but also a transcendent Law-giver. This Law-giver had to be perfect in every way in order to know what perfect justice is. This Law-giver also had to be a living and intelligent personal being with perfect knowledge of all things. Why? No impersonal force could think up what perfect justice means. C. S. Lewis gave his life completely over to God and is now recognized as one of the greatest of 20th century Christian thinkers.
It is telling when we observe people to see which system they really believe in regardless of what they say they believe in. What happens when the person who says he believes there are no moral absolutes is the victim of a crime? If they are consistent with their stated belief they would really have no right to complain. The judge should say, "The suspect believed he was doing the right thing in robbing you to support his drug habit, and you believe he was wrong to do it. To what standard of right and wrong outside of yourself are you appealing to when you say he is wrong and you are right?" Merely by stating he thinks the suspect is wrong he has confessed that he really does believe in an absolute standard of right and wrong that transcends him and the suspect. The fact that everyone does this reinforces our conclusion that moral values come from one source that transcends all individuals, cultures, communities and time periods.
Large libraries full of elaborate theories and arguments to try to prove that laws are only relative to situations and social groups show just how desperate legal philosophers and scholars are to avoid reality. And guess what, when a crime is committed against them, they show by their actions they don't really believe all that nonsense they come up with. They will want justice and that can only come from a morality that transcends them and the law.
Let's be frank, a lot of people who say, "You shouldn't try to legislate morality" aren't really thinking of all the merits of various legal and ethical systems. They are not being that thoughtful or noble minded. You could go through hours of discussion on the finer details of legal theory, and it wouldn't make a difference. From my experience it comes down to this: the most cited reason is a selfish and self-centered demand of a guarantee of personal sexual freedom. I'm not kidding; it's often all about sex! They are afraid that if the religious right comes into power they'll make it illegal to have sex with someone outside of a heterosexual marriage. Many even whip up enough irrationality to be afraid that even sex will be regulated inside of marriage! In addition, they are afraid that abortion will be illegal again and they will have to be responsible for raising a baby that came as a result of their self-proclaimed right to sexual freedom.
Conclusion
Finally, the story of Zacchaeus illustrates how when a person sees Jesus for who He truly is he doesn't even need laws to motivate him to do what is right. Laws are meant to control a person's behavior from the outside, but isn't it always better when people are internally motivated to do good? In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to legislate morality, because we would automatically know what is right and wrong and do only what is right. We wouldn't need external motivation. Well this is far from a perfect world, yet we all know there is a perfect standard of goodness out there somewhere otherwise we wouldn't judge actions like murder as being evil or wrong. But not only is there a perfect standard but a perfect God who gives that standard. Actually, Jesus and His perfect character is the standard. Christianity offers something that no other religion or philosophy offers. Jesus offers to come live inside of us and change us so we have the internal motivation to do what is right whether or not there is a law about it or not.
This is what happened when a guy named Zacchaeus met Jesus (Luke 19). Zacchaeus was a tax collector for the Roman Empire. He was told how much tax to collect from people. He had to collect this amount and give it to the authorities. Now it was typical for a tax collector to bring his "friends" with him to your house and collect more than the official amount. The Romans would look on. As a result they were wealthy and hated. I guess they would rather be wealthy than popular. One evening, Jesus and a large gathering of people were eating supper with Zacchaeus in his house. (Jesus invited himself to dinner.) I wish I could have been in on the conversation Jesus and Zacchaeus were having to know what Jesus said to the man. All of a sudden, Zacchaeus stands up and says, "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount." What did Jesus say to him, "Zacchaeus give back all the money or I'll turn you into a toad"? I don't think so. And it probably wasn't just what Jesus said but who Jesus is. Zacchaeus found himself in the presence of Someone with a flawless character who showed him that deep down inside we really want perfect moral goodness. Zacchaeus internalized the desire to do good. He didn't need a law to force him to do it.
References
Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity.
Copyright 2005. Gary C. Burger and New Media Ministries. This article may be reproduced and distributed freely as long as it is done so in its entirety. If quoted it must be properly cited as a reference.
