Religion and Law Go Hand-in-Hand<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 
 
Humanistic liberals do not believe in the supernatural but only the natural world that occurred by accident and for no purpose. The liberals have used their "separation lie" to send the message to the American people that law and religion do not mix. Such a worldview allows the liberals to base law on their own reasoning, their own desires, and their own man-centered worldview. The liberals don't want to be bound by or be accountable to the God who created natural and divine laws.
Without an eternal, all knowing, Holy God, there can be no law that is just, fair, and reasonable. Apart from God, man is left with only himself and his evil, deceitful heart that changes with the whim of his evil desires that seek and invent new ways to be evil.
Only a self-absorbed, self-centered humanistic liberal could believe that man could be the source of laws that protect the righteous, punish the wicked, and secure peace and seeks justice for all.
If all that exists is the natural world, then the survival of the fittest and might make right are the only real laws. We have seen the consequences of such a worldview as lived out by Hitler, Stahlin, Mussolini and many other humanist dictators and tyrants.
If all that exists is the natural world, then it does not matter what the laws are. Why? Because there is no one to judge us or punish us for breaking or keeping the laws of nature. The laws of nature only make sense unless they were placed in nature by a spiritual and supernatural source as a reflection of our Creator's goodness, mercy, holiness, and love of justice. Indeed God is the author of the laws in nature.
What sets man apart from the animals? It is the fact that we are created in God's image and live by the moral law, or Ten Commandments, etched on our minds and hearts.
<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />America's foremost legal scholar at the time of the Founders, William Blackstone, wrote of the connection that is obvious between religion and law:
 
Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the law of his creator, for he is entirely a dependent being…[A] state of dependence will inevitably oblige the inferior to take the will of him, on whom he depends, as the rule of his conduct…And consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his maker's will. This will of his maker is called the law of nature…This law of nature, being coeval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to all other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.[1]
 
Blackstone also understood that not only is man bound by the laws created by God, but everything God created is bound by the laws that God placed in every aspect of his creation of the universe:
 
Law…signifies a…rule of action, which his prescribed by some superior, and which the inferior is bound to obey. Thus when the supreme being formed the universe, and created matter out of nothing, he impressed certain principles on that matter, from which it can never depart, and without which it would cease to be. When he put that matter into motion, he established certain laws of motion, to which all moveable bodies must conform.[2]
 
James Wilson signed the Constitution and was one of the original Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Justice Wilson also wrote some of the original legal commentaries in America, and this is what he had to say about the relationship between law and religion:
 
Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is Divine…Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other. The Divine law…forms an essential part of both.[3]
 
George Washington also understood that without religion and religious convictions ¯ without a religious worldview that acknowledges absolute moral truth, good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice¯ there is no foundation for morality and peace:
 
Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds…reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.[4]
 
In the very same "Farwell Address," President Washington asked this pointed question:
 
Let it be simply asked, 'Where is the security for life, for reputation, and for property, if the sense of religious obligation desert?"[5]
 
© Brannon S. Howse 2006

[1] William Blackstone, 1 Commentaries, *39, 41.

[2] William Blackstone, 1 Commentaries, *p. 38-39.

[3] James Wilson, The Works of the Honourable James Wilson (Philadelphia: Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), Vol. I, p. 106.

[4] George Washington, Address of George Washington, President of the United States, and Late Commander in Chief of the American Army. To the People of the United States, Prepartory to His Declination (Baltimore: George and Henry S. Keating, 1796).

[5] Ibid,