Chapter 7: Law

[bookhobbit]

I've been putting this chapter off partly just because I've had a lot going on (end of the semester) and partly because I have a horrible feeling it's going to be wretchedly Islamophobic and not even fun to pick apart. Oh, well. Let's get into it.

 

He starts off as usual by accusing "human-centered" systems of being inherently and obviously flawed and being responsible for the wars of the 20th century: 

The reigns of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Tse-tung are gruesome examples of societies in which law was twisted by the state to allow the murder of millions of human beings, more than in all previous centuries combined.

I had to look up that last one, but it's Mao. Noebel uses an older transliteration and also, more bewilderingly, the first name only??? The impression I get from this is that he thinks that Zedong is Mao's surname, not his first name, because he doesn't understand how Chinese names work.

Anyway, I've dealt with this so many times that I'm not going to talk about it more.

If God exists and imparts divine law, then any society that ignores His laws is risking untold consequences. People who ignore or deny the law of gravity by jumping out a tenstory window earn severe consequences. Societies that ignore or deny the prohibition against murder or theft also suffer severe consequences.

arrrgh. If. IF!! Noebel, IF. You can't say "if" and then assert that God's laws are as obvious and unignorable as gravity!! Also, what societies don't have at least some social rules against murdering and stealing? Those are pretty universally things that humans don't like other humans to do to them.

The bankruptcy of the world's legal and ethical codes demonstrates the need for a legal system based outside human interests. 

You remember how like 30% of the world is Christian, right? If the world is ethically bankrupt, that's a bad argument for Christianity.

John Warwick Montgomery writes, "The horrors of our recent history [have] forced us to recognize the puerile inadequacy of tying ultimate legal standards to the mores of a particular society, even if that society is our own."'

Yes. Indeed. That's why we shouldn't tie them to a particular religion, either.

There's a whole bit on positive law where it's like "we shouldn't base the law on flexible things because that's bad":

The Christian view of law produces a legal system that does not fluctuate according to our whims and preferences; rather, it remains constant and therefore just. This perspective provides law grounded on the absolute foundation of God as the ultimate Lawgiver.

So what about if it's not just? What about if it's unfair to a particular group? Interpretation of the Bible HAS changed over time.

Legal positivism cannot adequately explain the nature of law—why it is necessary and why human-determined law is not just.

I find this baffling. I reckon most people would say laws are necessary because they govern people's behavior and if you don't have any guidelines then people might do stuff that would hurt others. As for the second part, though it's filtered through Noebel's biases, we could still explain it this way: "everyone has biases, including lawmakers".

Christian legal theory, on the other hand, explains that law is necessary because we are universally in rebellion against God and His moral order, and we need earthly law based on His moral order to curb our rebellion. 

This doesn't follow from the sentence I just showed, right?? None of this makes sense, right?? I feel like I'm skipping sentences but that's LITERALLY THE NEXT SENTENCE. His argumentation is getting so lazy and fragmented.

Further, our implementation of laws is always imperfect because our fallen nature prevents us from formulating and enforcing a totally just legal system. 

Hm. Then what makes Christian law better than secular law if neither of them are perfect and if the problem with secular law is that it's not perfect? What is happening here???

Christians believe that in spite of our corrupted, fallen nature we can, nevertheless, know God's laws through general and special revelation.

This is just.........a complete non sequitur. He's just putting sentences down. The last four sentences I've picked apart were ONE PARAGRAPH.

Christians believe that we can know God's will or natural law through our conscience, our inherent sense of right and wrong.

Here's the thing: our perception of inherent sense of right and wrong IS filtered through our society, culture, and interpretation. It's not an objective sentence handed down from God. It's human-centered. Therefore, it has the exact same problems as other human-centered justice systems. This is not good for producing a system that "does not fluctuate according to our whims and preferences".

Folks, I'm really struggling to spork this. It's just sentences he puts down with no coherence and no external data sources whatsoever. He's trying to explain the nature of "natural law" as a concept and also about how special revelation exists, but it's just like:

• God created humans, so we have to do what he says. 

• What he says is in the Bible and in our consciences. 

• We have to rely on our sense of right and wrong to know what God wants. 

• God tells us what is right and wrong through our conscience. 

• We are sinful and beholden to God.

That is literally ALL of the argument in this section. He doesn't even define natural and positive law. He just quotes various legal scholars talking about how God exists and we should follow his laws and the Bible saying basically the same and repeats it in different words. He quotes William Blackstone without acknowledging that he lived in the 18th century or explaining the context of his work.

Divine law, based on these two foundations ["the law of nature" and "the law of revelation"], provides a definite means for evaluating human laws. Legal positivists, however, have no criterion for judging the appropriateness of a law other than the sense of a perceived or evolving need.

I just....I just.... I feel like I'm losing my ability to read here. Noebel argues that What People Feel Is Right And Wrong plus What God Says in The Bible is a "definite means for evaluating human laws" while legal positivists' "we need this law" isn't a definite means. What??

As Christians, we can and must refer to divine law as the basis for declaring a human law just or unjust. Whitehead argues that the very term legislator does not mean one who makes laws, but one who moves them "from the divine law written in nature or in the Bible into the statutes and law codes of a particular society."" Thus governments exist not so much to create laws as to secure laws—to apply divine law to general and specific situations and to act as an impartial enforcer of such laws.

So basically the government should only do what the Bible says and no other laws should be made. This is important for understanding Republicans but also keep that in mind for later, when he starts talking about Islam.

The concern of courts, rather than the creation of laws, should be the application of laws so that God's justice is served. In the past, this concept was implicit in legal theory, although today that line is blurred.

The courts that upheld slavery and Jim Crow and the murder of Indigenous people were totally upholding God's justice, sure. The thing is I don't think this is a cognitive dissonance thing. His racism in the past chapters leads me to believe that he probably doesn't disapprove of those things as much as the people impacted by them did.

A society that consciously turns away from divine law will suffer consequences. Montgomery says, "The clear pattern throughout Scripture is that those who do God's will live and those who flaunt His commands perish." The Bible tells us clearly that the wages of sin is death.

Y'see, no proof of anything, just saying THE BIBLE SAYS SO ad infinitum. 

Grounding our legal system in divine law paves the way to true freedom because all disobedience results in personal and/or political enslavement.

How did that work out in the 1700s, Noebel? Were people super duper free then? 

Christian law consists of five basic precepts:

1) That the source of all divine law is the character and nature of God. Schaeffer says, "God has a character, and His character is the law of the universe."' Not all things are the same to God. Some things conform to His character and some do not.

2) That the moral order proceeds from and reflects the character of God—His holiness, justice, truth, love, and mercy. God's moral order is as real as the physical order.

3) That we are created in God's image and thus are significant. Our life is not an afterthought or an accident. God established human government to protect human life, rights, and dignity (Genesis 9:6; Romans 13).

4) That when Jesus Christ took on human form, human life assumed even greater significance. God the Creator became God the Redeemer (John 1:14). 

5) That God through Christ will judge the whole human race according to His standard of good and evil (Acts 17:31; Romans 2:16; 2 Corinthians 5:10).

I'm highlighting this because it overall helps you understand Republicans, but also because 4) is WEIRD to me. I've never heard a pastor claim that human life is more significant after Jesus. I find that quite heretical, frankly. This must be a Noebel-ism.

As Christians, we realize our guilt before an awesome God and flee to Jesus Christ for safety. The extent to which we as individuals or societies acknowledge and obey divine law powerfully affects our entire existence. Nowhere is this truth more important than in the area of human rights.

THAT'S fucking rich.

Christians believe the Bible is the only true source for discovering the rights that God confers on us. The Bible tells us we are created in God's image, making our life of inestimable worth and meaning. Our system of human rights must be built upon this foundation.

Reading between the lines, this means the Bible gets to decide what rights people get and what rights they don't.

Divine law limits our rights as well. God commands us to act according to His universal order, not our own way. 

Told you.

Every sin cannot be made explicitly illegal. Morality and legality are not synonymous—a specific law cannot enforce every moral action. A biblical legal system should attempt to legislate morality only to the extent that order is maintained and human rights are protected.

So the thing is: again, this requires interpretation. What does it mean to maintain order? Where is the line that governs "only to the extent of protecting human rights"? And why does it involve criminalizing giving gender affirming care to trans kids? (Noebel doesn't mention this issue, I'm pulling from the news, but I can tell you with absolute cast-iron certainty what his opinion on it is without looking having seen the political blog he runs.)

God uses law not only to ensure justice, but also to show us the folly of demanding our just desserts.

"Demanding true justice is bad because you deserve hell" was an argument used a lot when I was a kid. It makes me so sad because it shuts down basically any youthful attempt at saying "this isn't fair". It's getting out in front of any attempts to ask that people be treated

Anyway, more stuff about the Bible and God's law and that's it. This section has been nightmareish and honestly kind of triggery.

On to Islam. Expect it to be bad. Right away we start off with Sharīʿah law, and Noebel says:

"The goal" of Muslim jurists "is not law making, but fiqh—understanding or knowledge of a law deemed to exist already."

Hey Noebel, is this you?  "governments exist not so much to create laws as to secure laws—to apply divine law to general and specific situations and to act as an impartial enforcer of such laws." He doesn't remotely acknowledge this commonality.

THE VERY FUCKING NEXT SENTENCE IS

Some of the legal pronouncements encased in Shari'ah include the stoning of adulterers (though the Qur'an says the punishment should be whipping), cutting off the hands of thieves, and killing apostates.

HOLY SHIT. He couldn't give TWO INCHES to the idea that Muslims are human beings and that he sees their view of law as similar to his view of Christian law, he jumps straight to "these are savages and they have savage laws".

Yet several difficulties result from depending exclusively on the Qur'an: it simply does not speak to all (or even many) legal issues. In addition, many of its statements are ambiguous and addressed to specific historical situations.

Oh? Really? You don't say? That makes it an unideal source to base a whole legal system on, you think? Well then I guess we shouldn't BASE OUR ENTIRE LEGAL SYSTEM ON THE BIBLE EITHER. The fucking HYPOCRISY here!!!

Modem Muslims, especially those educated in the West, perceive the difficulty inherent in failing to acknowledge the historically specific nature of such interactions and responses.

Oh fuck you and your "educated in the West", you screaming baboon. I know I'm not being objective or useful here but I'm so angry I could eat a chair. What the fuck. What the FUCK.

To illustrate the threatening nature of Shari'ah law, consider the case of Abdul Rahman. 

The "threatening" nature, not of extreme interpretations of this law, but of the law itself. Why is the law threatening and not the government enforcing it? Again, Christian governments have enforced some fucking horrendous laws.

A fundamental difficulty is that many of the Hadith present conflicting or contradictory rulings arising from different places and times. Because much of the historical context is unrecorded, examples and rulings are left open to debate.

How lucky this isn't a problem with the Bible...wait, it is.

Some stuff about how not everyone agrees and how there are different schools and so forth. Then "critiquing" Islamic law.

The result is that nations with a predominately Muslim population tend toward dictatorships or monarchies and in consequence lack personal freedom.

*screams*

In their report Freedom in the World 2003, Freedom House lists forty-eight nations that receive a rating of "Not Free." Of these, twenty-five in total have largely Islamic populations, and of the nine worst rated countries, six are Islamic (Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, and Turkmenistan.) Throughout the report, the authors insist that these facts "should not suggest some kind of inexorable link between Islam and tyranny." A few paragraphs later they again make clear that the lack of democratic reform in "large swaths of the world populated by Muslim majorities" is not "directly related to religious beliefs as such."

Cool. So your tyranny bullshit argument is irrelevant because the very sources you're citing say it's not true.

Yet, even a casual look at Freedom House's own "Map of Freedom," which highlights the world's freest nations, reveals the link between freedom and worldview." The nations that have the highest regard for basic human rights and the rule of law are those countries that have come under the influence of Christianity. In light of this, it seems that Freedom House is merely attempting to explain away the obvious conclusion that worldviews really do matter.

*screams into a pillow* You can't just look at a MAP without looking at HISTORY!!! There's statistics AND geopolitics you have to pay attention to (like the fact that the United States has destabalized the governments of a LOT of Muslim-majority countries for strategic reasons). If the people who wrote this report don't think there's a causal link between Islam and tyranny, why do you think you know better because you skimmed the map one time?

Like I don't want to downplay the potetial biases of Freedom House, but it's a US based organization, so they're more likely to be biased against Muslim countries, not in favor of them. 

A few Muslim-majority nations seem to stand out as counter examples. For instance, India, although it has a large population of Muslims, is rated a free nation. 

India is only about 15% Muslim, which is not even the plurality let alone the majority. The majority of the government is going to be from a Hinduism and other related religions perspective. This fucker couldn't even bother coming up with an actual Muslim-majority country. 

However, it is true historically that India's foundation for freedom and democracy was laid by the British at a time when Great Britain was still inclined toward a biblical view of humanity. As this biblical worldview replaced Hindu indifference toward human life, it led to a new understanding of human dignity and regard for individual liberty.

Are you kidding me? Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME????? I showed this to my British partner in incredulous horror, and he said "I'm sure the british practiced biblical regard for human life when they MURDERED THOUSANDS THROUGH PARTITION". I can't get over "Hindu indifference toward human life". CITATION??? Where are you getting this? 

Blah blah Muslims want to kill all nonbelievers etc etc basically the same propaganda you saw in 2001, assuming you were sentient in 2001. The section ends pretty much on that note. God I am disgusted. On to Secular Humanism.

A lot of this is repetitive, but I want to highlight something:

They view God's commands (traditionally understood to be the absolute moral order) as harmful fiction.

"Traditionally". He uses that word a lot to try and make his own views look like the only true, correct, real ones.

Anyway, weirdly, Noebel's contention is that secular humanist law is based on evolution with the view that law can make humans evolve into perfect beings. Not how evolution works.

A moral as well as a legal dilemma arises from the belief that we are evolving animals on an equal footing with baboons— why should we (humans) enjoy rights that other animals do not enjoy? 

I love this because he phrases it like a gotcha that no non-Christian has ever considered but this is a serious point of debate in some circles.

Christians believe that God implanted laws in the universe and inscribed natural law on our hearts, but Secular Humanists are kept from accepting this explanation for the source of natural law by their vehement denial of God. Instead, they must fall back on evolutionary theory for their explanation. 

I don't think either God or evolution are necessary to explain "humans have certain shared very very basic moral precepts". We are social animals and we often live in groups and living in groups with minimal strife involves a certain degree of cooperation. I don't pretend to be a scholar on these things, so I don't know the degree to which there are basic moral precepts that are actually universal and not the result of cultural contact, but if there are, I don't think it would be at all hard to explain just thinking about the principle of "well, living together peacefully means we have to work out some rules for getting along".

Wadleigh believes that natural law is basic and instinctive in human beings because we are evolving social animals.

Ha, see, that's what I was saying. But it has nothing to do with evolution particularly. I mean theoretically you could conceptualize a deistic worldview in which God created humans as they are, as social creatures, and this would still be true. We don't have to have evolved this way for the argument to work, we just have to be this way.

In saying this, Wadleigh is conceding that he sees natural law as an unstable, evolving guide, a stark contrast to the view the authors of the Declaration of Independence had in mind of natural law as a stable foundation for moral behavior.

Oh no! We have a different view of the world than 56 men who lived in 1776! How will we cope! (I really don't want to keep bringing up slavery because it's cheap and thoughtless to use it as a gotcha, it has serious consequences even for descendants of slaves today, but like, 41 of these people held slaves and it's hard to reconcile that with the idea that we have to obsessively follow every moral precept they had in mind, you know?)

[For Secular Humanists] Law must be human-centered, rather than God-centered.

Laws are always human-centered because they are all created by and for humans.

Humanism's rejection of natural law leads to the understanding that humans are therefore responsible for the creation of all laws.

Again...in practice, that is literally true.

A system of legal positivism results in an arbitrary legal code. When legal positivism is combined with evolution, Humanist legal theory grows capricious. Kurtz describes the result: "Laws . . . provide us only with general guides for behavior; how they work out depends upon the context.""'

AGAIN, JUST HOW ALL LAW WORKS IN PRACTICE. Even true of Biblical law.

The real problem created by Humanist legal theory, however, is not the potential disobedience of its citizens; rather, it is the government's potential to take advantage of its position as the ultimate source of legal truth.

Agreed! But did you know this also happens in Christian communities?

Onto Marxism. He repeats the secular humanism intro for Marxism, stating that Marxist law rests on the belief that humans are evolving animals and God doesn't exist. Suspect a lot of this will involve repetition. Then some stuff about the bourgeoisie, mostly quoting Marxist theory so that's all right.

According to Marxist legal theory, the working class may break capitalistic law if such an action is in pursuit of equality.

This is such a weird way of looking at it. I would phrase the position more like this: capitalistic law is inherently unjust and unequal, so breaking it does not imply any moral failure. 

Basically the whole Marxism section is the same thing he said in secular humanism plus some description of Marxist economics. So I'm not going to do anything more with it. Onto Cosmic Humanism.

Cosmic Humanists do not spend a lot of time discussing law. They prefer to concentrate on personal inner development, getting in touch with the God within.

Maybe you should stop trying to contort texts into pretzels so that they show views that these people really don't have, then.

Only after achieving higher consciousness by connecting with the God within can Cosmic Humanists act under proper authority. Their actions are lawful when they conform to the reality they are creating. Gawain explains, "As each of us connects with our inner spiritual awareness, we learn that the creative power of the universe is within us. We also learn that we can create our own reality and take responsibility for doing so.'"

This has nothing to do with law. I feel like Noebel really just wanted to talk about positive law and Islam and is struggling to get everyone else to say something about everyone else.

Cosmic Humanists believe (incorrectly) that the Bible teaches individual autonomy and personal freedom that allows individuals to communicate with their godhood.

The judginess. So much for presenting these worldviews on their own terms.

Again, an extremely short section, so I don't have much else to say. Finally, onto the last section: Postmodernism. He starts off with a section where he talks about how Western law is endangered because people are doubting it, because in WWII:

That war, fought within the Western powers and traditions, cast grave doubts about the viability and desirability of Western traditions, as the most enlightened, best educated, most scientifically astute of all peoples proceeded to mow themselves down in frightening numbers.

So westerners, are, in other words, "the most enlightened, best educated, most scientifically astute of all peoples". AAAAAAAA THIS WAS BEING TAUGHT TO ME IN SCHOOL

Postmodernists view the European Enlightenment as a white male undertaking that elevated reason and empirical data.

I mean it was. I don't know what part of that statement you're disagreeing with, Noebel, because it's all factually true.

Postmodernists insist that Western law, which grew out of Christianity and the Enlightenment, reflects white male bias.

Ah. Here we go.

For this reason, Postmodernists are intent on eliminating religious roots and transcendent qualities from Western law. 

What "transcendent" qualities?

They desire more fragmentation and subjectivity, and less objective morality than the Judeo-Christian tradition demands. 

I bet that's not how they describe it, Mr "I want to let the worldviews speak for themselves!"

In the end, they are intent on creating and using their own brand of social justice merely for left-wing political purposes.

This is so bizzare...what do you think the link between left-wing political purposes and social justice is? The implication is that leftist social justice is part of a conspiracy to destroy Western civilization, and not an end goal to itself. In theory at least left-wing politics are supposed to be for social justice purposes not the other way around.

At the center of this assault on traditional Western law is the Critical Legal Studies movement. Critical Legal Studies (CLS) publishes "critiques of law focused on progressive— even radical—political change rather than on efficient government."'

This quote is from Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry, Beyond All Reason: The

Radical Assault on Truth in American Law so you can be assured that Critical Legal Studies scholars are not the ones giving this definition. Noebel quotes this source something like 10 times in this section. The citations that follow this particular quote are just ibid, ibid, ibid 5 times in a row. Again, I thought you were going to let the worldviews speak for themselves? 

In fact, the CLS slogan is "critique is all there is." Using Derrida's deconstruction principle, they dissect a law to discover its subjective meaning, no matter what the law objectively states.

Oh god I hate this. The idea that critique involves ignoring the ""objective"" meaning of a text, I think? The idea that deconstruction reads FAKE meanings into things whereas Noebel's camp reads REAL meanings into things?

Noebel spends a long period talking about how Postmodernists care about politics more than principles. To prove this, he quotes only one person: Susan Estrich, a professor of political law who as far as I can tell doesn't either work in Postmodernism OR identify as a postmodernist. So what makes her a postmodernist? Just her beliefs in politics over principles. Which Noebel argues characterizes postmodernism, using only this anecdote as evidence.

Estrich, like Marx, Nietzsche, and Foucault, sees law simply as a tool for political power. According to Marx, "Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another."'"

See, he's trying to bait and switch and make it look like Marx thinks that the law is a tool we should manipulate to gain political power. But what Marx is actually saying has nothing to do with law. He just says that political power is the ability to oppress.

Thus, the law is no longer a God-ordained, objective standard by which to judge behavior and maintain an ordered society, but a weapon to beat political opponents into submission to a point of view.

This would be a better point if Republicans didn't do that too all the time.

One current issue that illustrates the Postmodern use of stories is global warming. Although empirical scientific data show no significant temperature increases worldwide,'

This is the source for this "fact". I don't even know where to link to show that there is empirical data for temperature increases, because there are just so many sources. I don't know, here, here's an interesting article.

There's a bit more about how truth IS real and postmodernists are FAKE and MEAN for denying it. But I am DONE. There has been exactly one factcheckable claim in this entire article and it was so obviously wrong I didn't even know what to do with it. This section hasn't included any kind of fact or citation or anything remotely useful. It's just been Noebel's opinions sprinkled in with random quotes from people he claims belong to the worldviews he basically made up out of thin air. I am getting tired of this man.