God’s law and human law

WE need to understand this point very well. And more

importantly, we also need to understand the many intricate and

practical implications involved in relating our human law with God’s

law.

            With the way today’s legal and juridical systems worldwide

are drifting toward extreme positivism that simply bases itself on our

perceptual experiences and people’s consensus and systematically

shutting out any input from faith and divine revelation, we need to

remind ourselves that God’s law is in fact the foundation, the

inspiration and the perfection of our human law.

            In other words, without any reference to God’s law, our

human law cannot help but be out on a limb. For all the brilliance,

wisdom and success a Godless human law can have and accomplish, it can

only go so far. It cannot go the distance required by our human

dignity. Sooner or later, it will fail and fall into forms of

injustice, many of them so subtle that injustice can be committed

under cover of our human law.

            A clear example of this latter case is the law on

abortion. It is a lot worse than the so-called extrajudicial killing

we are hearing about these days. Abortion is clear murder of the most

defenceless member of our human society—the infant while inside the

mother’s womb.

            Of course, rationalizations can come aplenty. It’s not yet

a baby, they say. It’s just a bundle of tissues. It does not have life

on its own. But no one can contest the fact that that so-called clump

of tissues has the DNA of the parents, and that it cannot but be a

living baby if it is allowed to develop to its full course and no

problems and complications come along the way.

            The Bible has many passages that the unborn is already a

child, a person, chosen by God, etc. The Book of Jeremiah, for

example, says: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before

you were born I consecrated you. I have appointed you a prophet to the

nations.” (1,5)

            And to be more blunt about it, precisely Christ before he

was born was already the Son of God who became man to redeem us! Could

Mary and Joseph have thought of aborting the unborn Christ because

they thought he was just a bunch of tissues while still in the womb?

            Of course, we have to understand that to make God’s law

the foundation, inspiration and perfection of our human law is not

going to be easy. It would require effort to plunge deep in our

understanding of God’s law which is full of mysteries, which will

always have something new to say even if we would already know its

essential part.

            This will require constant study and reflection, a lot of

prayer and consultation, the habit of reading the changing signs of

the times in the context of our faith, and also that basic attitude of

always deferring to the authority of the Church magisterium who has

been given the divine authority to teach and interpret God’s

revelation.

            There will always be a need to update, purify, amend,

revise our human laws from time to time to make it more in synch with

God’s law that is mainly characterized by mercy more than justice,

forgiveness more than vindictiveness.

            There certainly is a need for us, and especially our

lawmakers and public officials, to be truly skilful in relating our

human law with God’s law. Let us hope and pray that we can achieve

this ideal.

Our blindness and our proper vision

UNLESS we see things through Christ who said that he is

the light of the world (cfr Jn 9), we actually cannot see things as

they ought to be seen. If we simply rely on our senses and even on our

intelligence, but without Christ through the exercise of our faith, we

actually are blind. This we have to acknowledge.

            We need to be more aware of this predicament of ours and

start to develop and use the appropriate means to correct, if not

avoid, that delicate situation. We need to be humble and to always

feel the need to be with God even in our most intimate thoughts, let

alone, our words, deeds and public interventions.

            There is actually no other way to correctly and properly

understand and react to things and events in our life. We have to be

wary of our tendency to rely solely on our human estimations of

things, quite independent, if not contrary to the way God understands

them.

            In fact, not only should we be guarded against this

tendency. Rather, we should also actively fight it, converting it into

what is our proper way of thinking, judging and reasoning. And that is

to do all these spiritual operations with God as the main guide and

inspiration.

            The story of the man born blind does not end there. The

coup de grace still had to come. It continues: “Some of the Pharisees

near him heard this, and they said to him, Are we also blind? Jesus

said to them, If you were blind, you would have no guilt, but now that

you say, We see, your guilt remains.”

            We have to be most careful when because perhaps of our

education, our experience, our position, among other things, we feel

that we would already have enough reason to make ourselves our own

standard of what is true, good and beautiful.

            We always need to be like the man born blind, and resist

the attitude of the Pharisees mentioned in the gospel. That’s simply

because it’s when we acknowledge our blindness, deficiency and

inadequacy to tackle our temporal affairs that we attract God’s grace,

his light, his wisdom, his strength.

            That’s when we would know how to live by the ideal of

pursuing the truth in charity. Especially in our contentious issues,

like in politics, we need to see to it that our views and opinions, no

matter how strongly we feel about them, should always be given with

utmost delicacy.

            We would be quick to understand others in their opposing

positions, and would know how to derive some good and benefits from

them. We would know how to be open-minded and tolerant even as we

express our opinions too.

            To be like the Pharisees mentioned in the gospel is to

make ourselves and no one and nothing else to be the standard of truth

and fairness. We become rigid and closed-minded, prone to dogmatizing

opinions, absolutizing what only have relative value.

            It’s always good to acknowledge our blindness so we can

see things clearly through God’s grace.

Fostering inner freedom

THIS is a big challenge in educating young people. We need

to make sure that all the classes and lessons imparted are taken in

seriously, and are properly assimilated by the students, and not just

learned superficially and mechanically.

            That is to say, that the lessons are made their very own

also. These lessons should become their convictions which should shape

their lives—their thoughts, desires, words and deeds—in a manner that

is fully free and responsible.

            They just don’t think, desire, say and do things by

blindly obeying a certain authority or ideology or, worse, a certain

vague impulse or urge that can come from mere instincts or feelings,

or from external pressures.

            They should do things with convictions, with full freedom

and responsibility, and they should be willing to face whatever

consequences their deeds may have, favorable or unfavorable.

            Of course, we have to understand that true inner freedom

can only come from one’s relation with God. Without God, any

understanding of freedom is always suspect. It can happen that people

can act with an appearance of acting in convictions and still miss the

point.

            This can happen with intelligent, talented and privileged

people who can know a lot of things and can form some strong beliefs,

but still would not be acting properly. Some of words of St. Paul can

describe this phenomenon graphically. He said people can hold “the

form of religion but deny the power of it.” Or they are “always

learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (2 Tim

3,5&7)

            Of course, this duty of fostering the inner freedom of

people, especially the young, will take time. But it should be pursued

without let-up, clear from the beginning about what is to be

accomplished and also about the steps to be taken to achieve it.

            We should never get distracted from this goal, and should

install all the means that can assure that this goal is being pursued.

The means can be, on the part of educators, like parents and teachers,

a regular examination of conscience, and some indicators to determine

if some progress is made in this regard.

            The idea is to avoid making people robots who just do

things mechanically or superficially, without convictions, or people

with some appearance of convictions that ultimately are not grounded

and oriented properly, but are merely subjective. This latter case is

trickier to discern and to handle, but we should be ready for this

eventuality.

            Obviously, we can somehow know that certain progress is

achieved because the youngsters behave more responsibly and maturely,

and they can handle different situations, including setbacks and

failures, properly. Even externally, there can be signs like a serene,

cheerful and confident disposition.

            Definitely, people who act with inner freedom would always

show charity, empathy and compassion, patience and fortitude,

self-restraint and moderation. They would have more balanced and

stable dispositions, and always optimistic.

            Educators should regularly assess whether they are doing

their job properly in fostering inner freedom in the youth of today,

so taken now by merely technocratic, mechanical and routine attitude

toward life in general.

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