We’ve all heard the expression “laws are meant to be broken.”
Unfortunately, this motto describes many aspects of modern culture. From gender roles to etiquette, traditional standards of morality to traffic regulations, people today will resist anything which forces them to obey a rule they did not choose for themselves. Obedience and respect for laws play an important part in allowing our society to function, but what do they offer to the individual? If they are beneficial, why is it so difficult for us to obey them?
Much of modern society is characterized by a crippling fear of commitment. We idolize personal autonomy and reject anything that restricts our behavior, even if that means renouncing promises we made or laws we agreed to keep in the past. However, this distorts the idea of autonomy and leads us to mistake true freedom for enslavement to fleeting passions.
Because we are constantly battered by the storms of temptation, we need an anchor to hold us to what we know is right – what we truly want to do – when we are tempted in the future. Laws and principles serve this purpose and come with differing degrees of accountability and responsibility.
Laws are effective because they hold us accountable to high authorities, and disobedience to such laws comes with external penalties. However, some people may be tempted to believe it is acceptable to break laws they do not agree with as long as they are not caught. Respect for authority is essential for laws to be beneficial because it can be easy to displace individual conscience from externally imposed rules, and we need something higher to believe in than the laws themselves to make us willingly obey them.
It is important for Christians to remember that our highest authority is the Lord, and that the laws we are to obey before all others are found in Scripture. Because human laws cannot require that we love our neighbors as ourselves and do not illegalize pride, envy, and other forms of immorality, Christians must maintain principles that hold us to obedience of the commandments of God.
Maintaining and following a principle is more than just believing in a certain moral value. Principles are values that people keep specifically when it is difficult – when they are tempted and no longer wish to hold themselves to that value. It is pointless to have principles unless you obey them even when it is most tempting not to. When we develop principles in line with Scripture, we vow to live in accordance with what we know is right regardless of our circumstances. We ought to make vows to God and to our neighbors which hold us to godly obedience and treatment of others.
Charlotte Bronte reinforces the importance of laws and principles with a speech in her novel Jane Eyre. At this point in the story, Jane has just found out the man she loves is married, and he is trying to convince her to live with him even though it would be sinful. Although she desperately loves and wants to be with him, Jane answers resolutely:
I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth—so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane—quite insane: with my veins running fire and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by. There I plant my foot.
It is easy to obey God when there is no temptation. Vows save us from disobedience when everything in us wants to sin. We make vows when we are in our right minds, with a clear vision of what is honorable and right behavior. We forget what we truly want to do in the agitation and bewilderment of temptation, and vows hold us to good conduct whether we remember why we made them or not.
We need principles and moral standards because we cannot save moral judgements for individual decisions, letting circumstances dictate our behavior instead of truth. In moments of temptation, our wills may fail us and we will forget what is right and wrong or how we truly want to act. Principles help us retain our autonomy because they hold us to what we want to do when we are “sane” and not beset with temptation. We ought to draw these principles from Scripture and from traditional standards of virtue that have lasted through history. In an age of moral instability and spiritual turbulence, such principles keep us grounded in a way of living that we may depend on even when we lose sight of our original motivation.
