Natural law is easy to legislate. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. These laws can be derived from the second greatest commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." They stop you from doing something wrong.
Positive laws aren't so easy to legislate. "If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother." While this and similar laws are also based on the second greatest commandment, instead of stopping you from doing something wrong, they command you to do something that is right.
I have no quibble with God doing so. He is fully within His rights to do so. I have an intellectual problem with a government of man doing so. Barry Goldwater once said, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have." In the same way, a government big enough to force you to do good is also big enough to force you to do evil. We can see this in that while the government sponsors welfare, it also sponsors Planned Parenthood.
What is the intellectual justification for a secular government strong enough to force the doing of good? The libertarian in me screams that there really isn't one. The Christian in me, in some ways, wants there to be one. What are your thoughts?
0 comments:
Post a Comment