God In Law, It’s Not What You Think!

God in Law intrigued me, so I searched through a number of law dictionaries for the definition of “God” as to put God into perspective from the aspect of “law” and from every man’s stand point regardless of their beliefs (or non-beliefs) and/or religion. It falls along the lines of Natural Law…

God in Law is Natural Law…

The only definition I have found so far came from the Common Law dictionary Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, 1856 Edition. The simple definition: GOD. From the Saxon god, good. The source of all good; the supreme being.

Good or all things good. (If you want to play around with this, take away an “o” from the word good and what do you get?)

Apply it to our law – our heritage – and all it means is do good to your fellow man or bring no harm to your fellow man. A pretty simple concept and if we all lived by it, this world we live in would be a completely different place. I completely believe in that concept, and as an intelligent species who have so much to look forward to thanks to technological advances (when used for the right purposes — for good), I believe we would already be colonizing other planets because it is in our nature to explore and we would be that much further ahead as a species.

There is a number of Maxims of Law (indisputable truths in Law) that speak to doing good to your fellow man. Some of them are:

“Use your own property and your own rights in such a way that you will not hurt your neighbor, or prevent him from enjoying his.” Frequently written, “Sic utere tuo,” etc.” (Ita utere tuo ut alienum non laedas. – Black’s Law Dictionary Revised 4th Edition) 

“It is forbidden for any one to do or make on his own [land] what may injure another’s.” (Prohibetur ne quis faciat in suo quod nocere possit alieno – Black’s Law Dictionary Revised 4th Edition)

“No man ought to be burdened in consequence of another’s act.” (Nemo ex alterius facto praegravari debit – Black’s Law Dictionary Revised 4th Edition)

And then there is what has been labeled “The Golden Rule”. This rule was derived from Luke 6:31 and has a number of translations from different versions of the Bible. It states: “Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.” Or you can revert it to the concept of how Confucius said it, “Do not do unto others what you don’t want others to do unto you.” (There are some who even claim that this is a Maxim of Law as well, but I haven’t come across it yet in any law dictionaries. And, as a side note, many maxims were derived from the Bible.)

I think you probably get the point by now.

It isn’t about religion or religious beliefs and if there is a supreme being, surely He would be of good intentions – a divine God – and one we would all want to follow.

Naturally, God created man and gave man dominion over all the earth (see the first page of the Bible in Genesis). With these good intentions, it was up to man to “grow” and eventually recognize the good intentions of Natural Law. We can and should never divert from this path and that is why so many of today’s Acts of law need to be abolished because they “harm” (and/or burden) people in numerous ways. It is my contention that Supreme Law dictates that Natural Law obeys no human legislation and if we were all educated men and women of principle, we would be living in a more divine world.

It all comes down to the Divine law that is good and that Natural Law is the path we should always be on for the sake of future generations.

For more in depth reading as to the origins of Natural Law, I highly recommend reading this document The Search for Natural Law which came with the law course Jurisdictionary.