(Town Hall)
Dr. Alice Baldwin reported in 1928 that Scripture’s direct tie to the American founding and its incorporating compacts eluded historians. She revealed, “The significance of the belief in the binding character of law upon God and man seems to have escaped many who write of the Revolutionary philosophy. It is fundamental to any understanding of American constitutional thought. God’s government is founded on and limited by law, and therefore, all human governments must be so founded and limited, if patterned after His.”[1]
Pope Leo XIII venerates this point writing that “laws only bind when they are in accordance with right reason, and, hence, with the eternal law of God.”[2] Here, Leo is referencing Thomas Aquinas, when he divulges that “Human law has the character of law to the extent that it is in accord with right reason and, so understood, it clearly flows from the eternal law.” Saint Aquinas continues, “However, to the extent that human law departs from reason, it is called ’unjust law’ (lex iniqua) and has the character not of law but of a certain sort of violence.”[3]
“Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety.”[4] This freedom was the understanding of our Forefathers and Founding Fathers. These laws were what built the colonies; and, in turn, were the foundation upon which the American Union was constructed. Not freedom to do as one pleased, but freedom to live in abundance under God’s Law Read more