Of Lawyers and Theologians
The modern fields of law and theology are not generally regarded as having anything to do with each other. For many, the law is that lucrative practice of precision and rhetoric which seeks to leverage the legal system to the advantage of clients. Theology by contrast, is a field considered fanciful by some and impractical by others, which deals with highbrow ideas and would certainly not have any kind of bearing on what happens in the courtroom or the law firm.
This state of affairs amongst these professions is a new one and would be surprising to the majority of westerners who have gone before us. James Wilson, an eighteenth-century Scottish lawyer and signer of the Declaration of Independence, took a somewhat remarkable view of the connectedness of the professions of law and theology. In his Lectures on Law, Wilson states “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, as discovered by reason and the moral sense, forms an essential part of both.” Clearly, Wilson understood those who study theology and those who study law to be, proverbially, barking up the same tree.
In order to understand how this can be, we must first understand what Wilson means by “The Divine Law.” The Divine Law, in Wilson’s view, is the order by which the universe runs according to the Will and Being of God. It is the “rule of action” to which every created thing is bound. Wilson holds that, because God created the world in an ordered and intentional way, there exists baked into the fabric of all reality rules by which all things rightly function. This is true of all things in the natural world (the stars, animals, geological formations, trees) as it is true of human beings (humans are supposed to give worship to God alone, not cheat one another, respect parents, do no harm). This means that, for Wilson, the laws of morality are just as fundamental and objective as the laws of physics.
Wilson divides the Divine Law into sub-categories, which are responsible for governing different aspects of creation. The ones that matter for our interests are the Natural Law, the Revealed Law, and the Human Law. The Natural Law is the law that we can perceive by reason and by moral sense. This includes laws of morality which, generally speaking, are held by most people throughout time. This is what Paul refers to in Romans 2 when he says “For whenever the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things required by the law, these who do not have the law are a law to themselves. They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, as their conscience bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or else defend them” (Romans 2:14-15). There is a law written on the hearts of mankind which people discern by intuition and reason. This law is the concern of both lawyers and lawmakers.
The Revealed Law is the law which is found in Christian scripture. It does not conflict with or abolish the Natural Law, but instead supplements and expands upon it. The Human Law is the law that people create in order to govern society and nations. It derives from and rests on the Natural and (sometimes) the Revealed Law.
The existence and legitimacy of the Natural Law (not to mention the Revealed Law) is controversial, and a multitude of thinkers would be quick to decry Wilson’s proposal. As it is not within the scope of this piece to offer an adequate defense of the Natural Law, allow me to entreat the reader to temporarily assume that Wilson is right, and then consider the consequences. What a starkly different picture of the field of law we get from Wilson! Laws are not merely agreed-upon conventions that keep order within society, but instead are rules of action which rest upon objective and authoritative principles that have existed since the beginning of time.
This means that the task of the theologian and the task of the lawyer and lawmaker mirror each other. The theologian searches the scriptures in order to determine what is right and good, and then seeks out the right way to explain and apply those moral truths to the context of modern believers. The lawmaker seeks to establish law according to what is good according to natural law and the lawyer searches through decisions of lawmakers and the precedent of other lawyers who have gone before and seeks to apply the law.
It is here that the real radicalism of Wilson’s claim begins to take form. Nobody bats an eye when a theologian or a pastor is condemned for forsaking the truth in favor of turning a profit for himself or an interested party. But to say that a lawyer or a lawgiver ought to be held to that same standard would be laughable. We have learned to expect that those who deal in the lawmaking do the bidding of “the people,” which in reality means the highest bidder. The same is more explicitly expected of lawyers, who sell their services, often without much thought to what moral purpose their labor serves.
There are notable exceptions. Not every lawmaker or lawyer is corrupt or morally adrift, but these generalities witness to something true. Fundamentally, the proper task of the lawyer and legislator is in discerning and implementing the tenets of that natural law which permeates all of reality. Accepting this claim means accepting that the world has a creator who is sovereign over it, and that people are designed in their being to act and live according to a certain standard. If lawyers thought in this way, they would be far more right than most of those who deal in law and policy in the United States right now. Therefore, let our lawyers be as theologians, and pursue what is true and right above what is advantageous and profitable.