Have we strayed?
Mar 10th, 2008 by Randy Toman
With the framers of our “Constitution” we had a Biblical Higher Law that was the bases of Western Civilization and especially here in the United States. The Biblical law took precedence over man’s law and man’s law was null and void if there was any contradiction with the Bible. We had within the law moral principles that could not be separated from the philosophical precepts of natural law. God is then the originator and author of all law, and His ten commandments acted as the fundamental bases for all laws, with His “Bible” as an explanation, adding knowledge and interpretation.
Let us see what has happened to twist all this into the mess we now have. Out of the enlightenment we had a challenge come to God’s law and to God Himself. It changed any number of things but the two main tenants that it had changed and caused the beginning of the confusion and terrible mess we have today are these.
1/ Man is the center of all things.
2/ Man is good and needed only to be cultivated, nurtured and taught and he would be able to work things out.
Man is not the center of all things and man is evil as the Bible teaches and he cannot correct himself without Jesus Christ.
The following presuppositions change dramatically the intent of the “Constitutional Law” and how it was used as the law of the land. These changes in basic suppositions allowed for moral deterioration.
1/ Law and morality should and must be separated.
2/ Positive Law (reality, expository, analytical) should be the only concern of judges in actual judicial decision-making. Positivism—A system of philosophy elaborated by Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
3/ Natural law as used from Biblical teaching and found within constitutional law is the realm of Philosophy and religion and is impotent to aid judges in judicial decision-making.
4/ Moral Philosophy cannot be evaluated using moral (Biblical) terms because it allows no room for cross-cultural truths.
In addition to the above four points the Supreme Court and Constitutional Law slipped into an academic realism of:
1/ Darwinian scientific interpretation, were there is no absolutes, nor a higher authority. Evolution and constant change is the only acceptable law.
2/ Legal Realism–the concerns is for action thereby giving you manipulation rather then interpretation of law the rule.
Legal Realism started in earnest with Christopher Langdell, the first dean of the Harvard law school. (1870’s) He applied evolutionary principles of Darwinism to the law with his development of the “case method” of teaching and studying law. Langdell successor as dean of Harvard law school was Roscoe Pound. Pound also taught that no current hypothesis is reliable, as ideas and legal philosophies change radically and frequently from time to time.
Oliver Wendell Holmes bought these teachings to the Supreme Court (1902-1932)
So we can see that there are no absolutes as we review these critical aspects of error in time. Each in it’s own way took us off the correct path. Each small error in judgment was not disputed to the point that the error was disallowed and/or corrected.
We have now for this Presidential race change being offered for change sake and the leaders of the Republican Party have no idea as to how to argue their positions if they have one. And I’m not sure that they might not even agree that change for change sake is good, thereby not caring that O’bama is promoting this type change. As a matter of fact maybe our party leaders wished they had come up with the idea. God help us to return to your righteous path for we have strayed big time.