Legislating Morality

 By Dr. George Grant - Posted at Florilegium:

Published January 20, 2025

Alas, the modern church, like much of modern society, tends to shy away from the Biblical imperative to "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly" with our God (Micah 6:8). We assert that we must not be sidetracked by any peripheral issues that might deflect interest in the Gospel. We don't want to offend. "And besides," we sanctimoniously reason "you can't legislate morality in a pluralistic society."

On the contrary, as D. James Kennedy so often asserted, "Morality is the only thing you can legislate." That's what legislation is. It is the codification in law of some particular moral concern--generally so that the immorality of a few is not forcibly inflicted on the rest of us. Legislating morality is the very cornerstone of justice.

Murder is against the law because we recognize that the premeditated killing of another human being is a violation of a very basic and fundamental moral principle--a moral principle that most of us still cherish: the sanctity of human life. Theft is against the law because we recognize that taking someone else's belongings without permission is a breach of another one of our most basic and fundamental ethical standards: the inviolability of private property. The fact is, all law is some moral or ethical tenant raised up to social enforceability by the civil sphere.

Thus, the question is not "Should we legislate morality?" Rather, it is "Whose morality should we legislate?" The question is, "What moral standard should we use when we legislate?" Will it be the unchanging, unerring Scriptural prescription for justice or will it be the ever-shifting, ever-changing notion of pluralistic accommodation?

Robert Goguet, in his authoritative history of the development of judicial philosophy in this country, argued that the Founding Fathers, though a few were not confessionally Christian themselves, they unanimously recognized the importance of choosing some identifiable objective standard upon which to build cultural consensus. The precedence they gave to Biblical morality was a matter of sober-headed practicality, "The more they meditated on the Biblical standards for civil morality, the more they perceived their wisdom and inspiration. Those standards alone have the inestimable advantage never to have undergone any of the revolutions common to all human laws, which have always demanded frequent amendments; sometimes changes; sometimes additions; sometimes the retrenching of superfluities. There has been nothing changed, nothing added, nothing retrenched from Biblical morality for above three thousand years."

Continue here...