Scripture and the Law

So, I had a tremendously interesting discussion last night about Romans 8, which is well worth exploring in more detail. It revolves around what is meant by "the law". The best resource to consider this discussion is Thomas Aquinas' Treatise on Law, from the Summa Theologica, questions 90-97. If you have time to read Aquinas' treatment, the study will richly repay you. Here, I will attempt a summary of the 139 pages, with a bit of explanatory commentary.

Aquinas distinguishes four different kinds of law, each one a different reflection of the one Divine Law:

1. the laws of nature,
2. natural law written on the heart,
3. human law aka "man-made" law,
4. Mosaic ceremonial law, the precursor/foreshadowing of the sacraments

In Romans, Paul references three of those four categories:

Mosaic ceremonial law (with references to natural law in first part of v. 2 and in v. 7)

Romans 8:2-3:  2 For the law of the Spirit[a] of life in Christ Jesus has set you[b] free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin,[c] he condemned sin in the flesh... 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot,

The Natural Law (cf. ceremonial law)

Romans 2:12-15: 12 All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. 15 They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them

Human "Man-Made" Law (cf. natural law in verse 5)  

Romans 13:1-5: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; 4 for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority[a] does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience.

God is several things at once. He is pure Rationality. He is pure Love. He is the Divine Law. So, to fulfill the Divine Law, the only rational thing we can do is love, after the manner of God. And that is where distinguishing the different kinds of law becomes important.

The natural law, that is, the Ten Commandments, is written on our hearts (Romans 2). However, because we are fallen, our intellects are darkened and our will is weakened. We have trouble discerning what we should do (darkened intellect), and even once we identify it, we have trouble doing it (weakened will):

Romans 7:19 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do....22 For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind...

So, the natural law is the moral law, held in our hearts, but hard to access due to the Fall. Even though the Fall has marred our understanding and our ability to live it, because we are in the image and likeness of God, the law of human nature (i.e., the natural law) is always present in our inmost self. How can we access it? God made it easy by writing it down for Moses in the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are therefore not an external law, but a concise summary of the natural law, which is our inmost self, the image and likeness of God within us. Within us, the natural law is part of who we are, it is wordless. In the Ten Commandments, God wrote it out in order that we might more clearly see and understand it. 

In a like manner, the laws of nature are also wordless, but the laws of nature still reflect God's Divine Law, His Divine Being:

Psalm 19:1-3
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
    and the firmament[a] proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours forth speech,
    and night to night declares knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words;
    their voice is not heard;

The laws of nature are the laws of physics, chemistry and biology. These laws are not just extrinsic, they are, like the natural law, also woven into our bodies, our very being. The natural law fills our hearts and mind, the laws of nature weave together and mold our bodies, through both sets of these laws, we function within the physical world. Both kinds of law reflect who God is in Himself. 

The difference between the laws of nature and the natural law is a difference in the ability to choose. The laws of nature cannot be ignored or broken. I literally have no choice in whether I follow them. Gravity, radiation, electron shells - these express God's will, they operate independently of my will. The laws of nature are a reflection of God's love, a love that can be absolutely pitiless, relentless, impossible to ignore, impossible to break. Sometimes these physical laws are conducive to our physical well-being. But, if every intricacy of the physical laws is not fully understood and lived (and even if the intricacies are understood and lived), these laws of nature just as often bring inexorable suffering. In fact, the laws of nature eventually bring death. Yet, paradoxically, even those these inexorable laws of nature inflict remorseless suffering and death, still they "tell the glory of God's" love.

In contrast, the natural law "written on our hearts" is the moral law of the Ten Commandments and their implications. I can choose whether to live by or against the natural law in a way that I simply cannot choose whether to live the laws of nature. This ability to choose has implications.

Consider two sets of parents, each with a newborn child. Let us assume that, due to the laws of nature, each child is seriously ill and suffering. The parents have essentially two possible responses. The first is the response of the ancient pagan Romans: abandon the child on the side of the road, or in the forest, and let the laws of nature take their course. The child will naturally die, possibly in great agony, but will die in a completely natural way. The second possible response is to take the child to the hospital, where s/he will be hooked up to machines, IV infusions, injections, drugs, artificial temperature control, and the like. 

Look carefully at the word "artificial." It means "made by human artifice, human art, human skill." The child will be subject to the tools of men, to man-made technology, to the rules of man-made technology and to all that is artificial. Which response best expresses the natural law? God seeks our good, He does not abandon us, and we are in the image and likeness of God. Thus, since the second response seeks the healing of the child, even though it invokes enormous man-made artifice and man-made rules, taking the child to hospital is in best accord with the natural law. By healing the child, even though we subject ourselves to man-made tools and rules, we image God.  

Man-made tools, whether those tools be heart-lung machines, or man-made law, are in accord with the natural law when those tools (including the machinery of law) properly reflect the Divine Law. Remember, all law flows from the Divine Law. Natural law is a reflection of the Divine Law written on our hearts. Man-made, artificial tools, such as man-made law, are valid insofar as they reflect the natural law, itself a reflection of the Divine Law.

This is why St. Paul can insist that a governing authority (pagan Roman law) which was, at best, indifferent to Christianity, and on several occasions actually implacably opposed to Christianity, was both a man-made law and a governing authority that Christians were required to obey. Any law which did not directly impinge on Christian belief had to be obeyed because those laws came from the hearts of men who were trying to do right. So, Christians could disobey the emperor's command to offer incense to pagan gods, because that human law directly contradicted the Divine Law, but those same Christians could not refuse to be offered up to the lions in the colosseums, because that refusal to accept the legal penalty would undermine the authority of all human penalties, and thus undermine the authority of other human laws which were valid.

By their willing submission to the penalties imposed by even an unjust human law, each Christian could "make up in my body what was lacking" in the human law, which was supposed to reflect the Divine Law. Submission to the law, even the pagan Roman law, was critically necessary for Christian life precisely because that pagan law was a "darkened... weakened" attempt to write in words the law that is written on every person's heart. Human law is man's co-creation with God, it is man's attempt to write the image and likeness of God into the world, it is his imitation of God writing the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. Human law is what we are called to do to image God. 

If all of this is true, then what is the law Paul rails against in Romans? This is the ceremonial law of the sacrificial Temple. The ceremonial law was also an expression of God's Divine Law. How could it be anything else, given that God himself gave instruction on the ceremonial Temple Law? 

But if the ceremonial law is a reflection of the Divine Law, then how could Paul insist it only brought death because it was impossible to follow? Why is it the subject of Paul's calumny? Paul takes pains to point out that the ceremonial law is detailed and unbreakable, just like the laws of nature, the laws of physics, chemistry, and the experimental sciences. But, while the ceremonial law is, like the laws of nature, inscrutably complex, unlike the laws of nature, the ceremonial law was a choice. In fact, it was not only a choice, but a shadow of things to come.

The ceremonial Temple law of ritual sacrifice and ritual purity were foreshadowings, harbingers, of the sacraments which Christ established. As long as the Temple stood, the ceremonial law could not be ignored:

Matthew 5:18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter,[a] not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

According to Jewish teaching, the Temple represented the entire earth, it was earth's connection to heaven. In Matthew 5:18, Jesus tells us that even though the ceremonial law no longer had force, the law had to be obeyed until God destroyed the Temple. The Temple tax still had to be paid. But, as Paul pointed out, the ceremonial law was no better than the laws of nature. It was too complex, and like the laws of nature, no matter how scrupulously we follow and implement the laws of physics, chemistry or ritual Temple sacrifice, we are still going to die.

But that sacrificial death was acceptable because ceremonial law was a reflection of Divine Law. Like the pagan Roman law, the ceremonial law still had to be submitted to and obeyed insofar as was physically possible. The punishments of the ceremonial law still had to be accepted, even if we could not, with our darkened intellects, fully understand why the punishments were being administered. None of that mattered. The punishment came from the law, from the authority of God, and had to be accepted. 

In Romans, Paul contrasts the foreshadowing with the reality that it pointed to. Christ establishes the new law of the sacraments, replacing the ritual ceremonial Temple law. Paul knew that, once the Temple was gone, new ceremony, new ritual, the new sacramental law, would replace the old ceremonial law.

The old law came from God's prophets, the new law comes from Christ, His apostles and their spiritual authoritative successors. This new law is the law that describes how to administer and live the sacraments. This is new law is the law of the Magisterium, the laws of the canonical code, promulgated by the successors to the apostles, who carry the divine authority of the First Apostle sent from the Father, Jesus Christ.

The Mosaic ceremonial law was written out by Moses so that the people could learn the foreshadowing, and be able to recognize the sacraments when they came. The code of canon law is written out by the divine authority of the Church, to provide a written guide to our darkened intellects and weakened will on how to live. 

Now, some of canon law may seem obscure or even a violation of modern state or national law. For instance, 

Check the 1983 Code of Canon Law.  Canon 1083 currently sets the age of marriage as 16 years of age for boys and 14 years of age for girls. This maintains the ages set in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 1067. But, the 1917 code was a change from the pre-1917 code, which set the canonical ages of marriage at twelve for both ages (younger marriage was possible if the spouse had entered puberty). And for most of the Church's history, one could be betrothed to marriage by the age of seven, although younger betrothals were not uncommon.

I have heard many Christians express horror at these facts. It is certainly the case that canon law is not in conformance with the man-made secular law on age of consent for marriage in some (albeit not all) US states. In fact, it is arguably the case that pregnancy at age 14 is not even in accord with biological laws of nature, as pregnancy at 12 or 14 is often much more dangerous than pregnancy after age 18, and that, precisely because the female body is often not yet mature enough to carry a baby to term.  

So, why does the Church still permit marriage at such a young age? Just as the people at the foot of Mount Sinai spent a long time practicing the ritual ceremonial Temple Law, so that they might more easily recognize the sacraments later on, so the canons remind parents that we must be prepared to accept our children as adults. We must constantly remember we raise the child so we might have a colleague, an adult brother or sister in Christ, who must be treated as an adult, not a child. 

Is the code of canon law primarily man-made law? Most certainly. But, like the injections, the IV infusions, the antibiotics, the artificial temperature control, man-made canon law is the divinely authoritative reflection of the natural law. It is the law written on the heart now written out so that we may more clearly see. 

Every teacher has encountered students years later, outside of the classroom. Both student and teacher see each other with new eyes: the student suddenly recognizes the shrunken old man as a former source of god-like classroom authority, but now a mere shadow, at best, of that former lofty status. Meanwhile, the teacher sees in the student the living adult who was only foreshadowed in the classroom. Both recognize the locus of authority has shifted: one has decreased, the other has increased. Some teachers welcome this, others find it an unpleasant shock. But, shock or no, this is how the laws of nature, written into our bodies and our hearts, work. 

As parents, we must transition from seeing our children as children and constantly practice seeing them as adults, fully capable of making their own decisions, fully capable of leading their own lives apart from our authority. The fourteen year-old may not take wedding vows on her fourteenth birthday, but we, as parents, must be prepared to treat her as an adult woman capable of taking adult vows by that day.

By twelve, by fourteen, by sixteen, our children must be prepared to leave their father and mother and cleave unto each other. God the Father grants each Christian, each of His children, a radical freedom. This freedom is so radical that one Christian may choose to pick up a sword and cleave his brother in two (Luke 22:35-38), and God - who holds all things in existence - will hold that sword in existence as one Christian uses it against another to cleave joints from marrow. It matters not whether the Christian does this out of justice or injustice, God will not cause the sword to fall out of existence. He will hold everything in existence so we may do as we please. Even if we are immature. Even if we mis-use the freedom. Even if the hand that wields the knife is only two or three years old. It doesn't matter. God gives each of us that level of radical freedom from the moment we are born, until the day we die.   

If God the Father grants that level of radical freedom to His children, so also we, as parents, must be willing to grant that level of radical freedom to our own children by the age of 12, 14, 16. We must have raised them in such a way that the children we raised can bear that radical freedom without breaking under the load. This is the cross that parents bear, the cross that they hand onto their children. It is the cross each adult Christian bears, of being personally responsible for one's own life decisions. In a family, parents train children as the vinedresser trains the vine, but parents must also train themselves to release their doves into the flood, knowing full well that they may "not return to him anymore."  And the parent has to trust their own 12, 14, 16-year old children enough be ok with that.