122. The purpose of law, and why not to obey bad laws
122. THE PURPOSE OF LAW, AND WHY NOT TO OBEY BAD LAWS
What should I do when there is a conflict between what some human law obligates me to do and what my moral conscience tells me I am obligated to do?—assuming I have made an honest effort to form my conscience. Can obedience to a legitimate human law be evil? Isn’t goodness the whole purpose of the law, including human law?
. . . [T]he definition of law . . . is nothing else than an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated (I-II,90,4).
We are to obey human laws too, but not all human laws are really laws. The practical payoff of St. Thomas’ famous definition of law is that if a supposed law lacks any one of the four essential features of law, it is not really a law at all, and need not be obeyed:
(1) if it is not an ordinance of reason: if it is irrational, pointless, meaningless, a mere expression of the will to power;
(2) if it is not for the common good but for harm to the community;
(3) if it is not made by one (or those) who have authority over the community;
(4) or if it is not promulgated (made known).
All God’s laws are, by this definition, true laws, but not all human laws are. The Apostles said to the Jewish authorities, “We must obey God rather than man” when they were commanded to stop preaching Christ (Acts 5:29). Divine laws and natural laws always bind; human laws do not always bind.
However, the onus of proof is always on the one who disobeys. The default position, the fall-back position, is always obedience. A law, like a person, is to be treated as innocent until proved guilty. For the purpose of law is to habituate us to what is good; and this is true both of human law and of divine law:
. . . [S]ince law is given for the purpose of directing human acts, as far as human acts conduce to virtue so far does law make men good. Wherefore the Philosopher says . . . that lawgivers make men good by habituating them to good works (I-II,92,1).
From becoming accustomed to avoid evil and to fulfill what is good through fear of punishment, one is sometimes led on to do so likewise with delight and of one’s own accord. Accordingly law, even by punishment, leads men on to being good (I-II,92,2).
The purpose of law is to make men good. It is ignorance of that simple principle that is one of the main causes of all the problems in modern society. A society of moral relativists no longer claims to know what it even means “to make men good”.
The purpose of law is not merely to make life more pleasant and peaceful by protecting men from each other’s external harms (although that is an attendant benefit). It is also to make men morally good within. Protection, peace and pleasure are only corollaries or properties of law that follow from the essential purpose of law, which is moral goodness. If that essential thing is not there, if law does not make men good, then these corollaries or properties will also be lacking, since the properties of an essence cannot exist without that essence.
That is the fundamental reason why modern societies, which often have superior legal systems to ancient societies, have not eradicated evil from the world. Evil can be eradicated from the world at large only when it is eradicated from the hearts and lives of individual human beings. Only when there is virtue in souls can there be peace and happiness in society.
External laws work through fear of external punishment. The internal law of conscience works through fear of evil itself, and the guilt that comes from committing it. External laws motivate us to obey internal laws, as St. Thomas explains in his last paragraph. (Of course, they also deter and protect.)