I am writing this letter to let all candidates for office know on what basis I am evaluating them when I vote in the primary and general election, and to provide the general public with a basis for evaluating candidates,
Before it is possible to discuss the law, who makes the laws needs to be established. Is it Congress? The President? The Supreme Court? Governor? State Legislature? County Commissioners? The Majority? Public opinion? Nature? You? Me? Just who is it?
If I were you I wouldn’t trust me as I am prone to error, and I certainly don’t trust you for the same reason. Just look at history to see that the Majority have discriminated against African Americans, Jews, Christians, or just those on the wrong side of the track. Tomorrow it could be you or me because the Majority just took a dislike to us so I would not trust the Majority on the same ground as I would not trust you to make the laws, likewise for public opinion. How about the national government? Just read the Constitution to see that our founding fathers so distrusted the national government that they severely restricted the ability of the federal government to enact laws, and rightly so considering the track record of such governments as Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and the Confederate States of America, among others. Ditto for state and local governments. In fact any form of human law making is subject to mistakes, self interest, fraud, and corruption.
That just leaves nature (natural law). From nature we understand that theft is bad, so is murder, rape, adultery, child molesting, pollution, drunk driving, etcetera. But who says what murder is? Or rape? Or adultery? Or pollution? Or drunk driving? To use the classic example, if a starving person takes a loaf of bread from a merchant, is it theft? To the starving person it is not, it is survival. To the merchant it is theft, and could mean starvation to him if unchecked. So who is right? Both are doing what they think is right. Nature does not resolve the dilemma.
But nature does point to the solution, it points to the existence of a creator, a creator who is logical, predictable, unchanging, wise, and knowable. In fact, it is these very characteristics that are the basis of the scientific method, the basis of all modern science. Most ancient religions, and a large number of ancient myths, point to this creator. Ancient laws point to him. A creator that is knowable, unchanging, predictable, logical, truthful and 100 percent accurate. A creator who has told the history of events centuries in advance, and has been proven to be exactly correct with no errors.
Who is it? I declare to you today that that person is the God of the Bible who has declared “for the invisible things of him are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made” (Romans 1:20 KJV) and “which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts the means while accusing or else excusing one another” (Romans 2:18 KJV) which is the source of Natural Law. God has declared this law to us simply in Exodus 20:1-17, otherwise known as the 10 Commandments. Not only has he given us the law but he has told us how to interpret and apply it in the rest of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It is from this law that my future letters will address today’s hot issues, as to what is right and just.
William Menager
Hamilton