"To some extent, it is actually the lowest (and certainly the least theological) aspects of our morality which ought to be enshrined in law."
Here is a paradoxical statement about the relationship between the law and morality if ever I've made one. Yet, isn't this exactly how we proceed with writing laws? We agree concerning our least-common denominators, as it were, and so therefore ban such grossly immoral acts as murder or rape or theft and (on the other hand) such relatively "benign" acts as speeding or parking in a handicap zone without a permit. But anything else is immediately contended. It's worth noting that, of the Ten Commandments, only the last 6 are to some extent enshrined in law: and these commandments are written in order of importance.
Do I really mean to say that blaspheming God is worse than murdering somebody? Or that dishonoring one's parents is worse that theft? Well, no, not in human terms--which is what our common laws ultimately recognize. But in divine terms, it's something else entirely. Blaspheming God, and I mean really blaspheming, as in being obstinate in sin or resisting a known truth, really is worse for us in the long run that killing somebody is--because we can be forgiven the latter, if we repent. The former is ongoing, and so cannot be repented of. Thus, we see that there is a movement to canonize Dorothy Day, a woman who had an abortion but later repented; no such canonization is possible for the man who gives in to contumely resistance of the Church's official and dogmatic teachings, even if he believes that he follows his conscience. We can't know the state of such a person's soul.
We can know that murder is permanent only in this life, since everybody will be raised up in the final resurrection. We can know that it is a horrible crime, possibly the worst crime committed against man. We can also know that there are crimes committed against God and God alone, sins of wrath and sins of pride, and that these sins against God can be everlasting. They are sins which in the final measure cannot be forgiven, and so cannot enter into heaven. We rightly recoil at murder and rape, and rightly punish any number of other sins which harm another person's well-being. We also cannot punish some of the sins which most harm another--in a permanent sense--the scandals (sometimes of a purely spiritual nature, such as hypocrisy) which cause another to lose his faith. We cannot punish that sin which is greatest of all, blaspheming the Holy Spirit, nor really any of the seven deadly sins which so often underlie all of our other sins. The civil law is, after all, the lowest law, and it punishes only the grossest crimes, the grossest of sins. The rest we leave to God to judge, though we must rely upon the Church for guidance--the law is on these matters silent for the sake of freedom.
Tags: Morality Religion
