Divine Law Sets the Boundaries Between the Social Contract and Natural Law

The limits of human interaction are bounded by the state of nature and the state of the social contract. Each of these limits, however, is further limited by Divine Law.

In the state of nature, there are no rights of man and no laws to govern him, only freedoms to take what he can by force to enable him to extend the longevity and happiness of his life. In the state of nature, man has boundless freedom to take from others what he can, but the ensuing chaos leaves all but the strongest few with less happiness, less safety, and less life.

To improve the likelihood of achieving most men’s divine and natural goals, over time they entered into social contracts with others to establish societies. Through social contracts, man gave up natural freedoms that allowed him to take whatsoever he desired by force, but in giving up his natural freedoms, he gained the structure through which he could increase safety from having his happiness and life taken from others. The essence of the social contract became law, and the process of creating law was embodied in political society.

An uneasy balance between the social contract and natural rights has been our struggle of human existence ever since. Power struggles within tribes for dominance have shifted this balance through the many political systems to which we have subjected each other. And between tribes, the social contract was neglected and wars pitted tribe against tribe, executing organized natural law to shed blood for profit.

Within tribes, the struggle between social contracts and natural rights is bounded by the limits of authoritarianism and anarchy. Kings and priests shared authoritarianism in early societies. Today, most society’s powers are divided amongst representative governments and the “new kings” of the international, powerful, financial elite. Yet whether by kings, priests or financial elite, power is still bounded by the opposite limits of totalitarianism and the threat of revolution or devolution into anarchy.

Within the realm bounded by these firm human limits are the limits required by Divine Law. Divine Law suggests that neither of the limits of authoritarian control or of the natural state provide optimum communion with God. Both extremes take away from man’s divine purpose on Earth.

The Declaration of Independence recognized that Divine Law should govern man well before he ever is subjected to the extremes of human law. The founders agreed by signature that men are:

“endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”

Declaration of Independence, 1776

Divine Law Calls for Full Employment with Living Wages

Balance of moderation is what is required yet the world’s system of governance drives us toward imbalance. It seems that moderation is not a natural state of governance, that man drifts toward either extreme. On the one hand, we have state sponsored religion that strives for moral imperatives yet enforces them through state regulation. On the other, we have separation of church and state that suggests natural law is a moral substitute for divine law, and yet natural law in the absence of divinity degenerates to survival of the fittest. It is toward one of these extremes or the other that mankind seems to find itself in tortured equilibrium.

Neither extreme provides the moderation necessary for a nation to prosper. In progressing, or regressing as it were, from one extreme to the other, a nation reaches its peak and then degrades over time into obscurity. Finding that optimum balance in the middle is what modern nations strive for but seldom obtain.

In America’s beginnings, a founding group of men, many of whom were Deists, sought to find a moderately balanced starting point that separated church and state but that maintained religiously derived principles in its laws. Yet these same religiously derived laws retained bigoted principles of slavery that were incorporated in the nation’s founding documents. Those principles had been hardened into centuries of state sponsored religious doctrine.

Over two hundred years, principles of separation of Church and State have progressed in America’s doctrine and laws, yet in so doing, they have also allowed the progression of the natural law of survival of the fittest, for they go hand in hand.Natural law does not allow for living wages for all men. Natural law does not allow for the raising up of community. If balance to a nation is to be restored, divine principles might be required, even while maintaining separation of the state.

The divine principle that must be adhered to is that of man’s ability to commune with God. If that were a true principle, then no law could be created that caused a loss of communion. If laws then were created that caused man not to have a living wage, that caused strife in his ability to provide the basic necessities of life sustenance, that in turn distract his communion, then these laws would necessarily be put down. Communion then is the driver for rights of man, and a living wage becomes man’s right. With this right, full employment changes from a fluffy goal not adhered to by our politicians, to a high priority of the nation. This is as it should be.