In the Name of the Law...

Hold on. I'm about to get ridiculous. My friend and I were talking about rules yesterday and why I don't respect them. Let me explain myself. There is a very real need for laws, and obeying them is necessary for our health both as individuals and as a collective. I guess what I don't agree with is the idea of the innate power of law. I'm not sure I believe that anyone individually or collectively has the innate authority to enforce law over me. Neither do I have that power over them.

Please don't confuse this statement as a proposition of anarchy, nor as a negation of absolute law (divine law, natural law, the Tao, what ever you would like to call it). As humans, we are subjugated to by our place in the universe to inescapable absolute laws. Gravity and the Laws of Thermodynamics will forever constrain our physical existence to a certain number of possibilities. People who argue with these laws tend to end up dead in a way that is very messy and unpleasant to speak of.

Likewise, there is an absolute law that governs our souls just as our bodies are governed. I don't argue with the innate authority of this law over us. What I am referring to are the regulations implemented by ourselves upon each other. It's a bit like Mrs. Brown's pre-school class trying to set up their own Supreme Court to regulate themselves during nap time.

So, what am I talking about? Should we forget rules altogether? If we were only under our own laws, then yes, I think we could. If that were the case, we would have problems on a much bigger scale and worrying about our own little laws would be a bit superfluous. However, this is not the case. We are still under the absolute law that dictates that we love. As Christian scripture teaches, the entirety of the law is summed up in love because love does no harm to it's neighbor. Seeing as we don't understand the first thing about how to love others, we still need rules to keep us from hurting each other too much (in theory at least).

So why don't I respect the rules? I don't respect them because they aren't an authority over me. But I obey them anyway because of the authority that is over me. (well, I should be doing anyway) This is where submission comes into play. The reason the idea of submission is so offensive to us is that we see it as an endorsement of an illegitimate authority over us that insults our autonomy and freedom as an individual. We think of submission as an act of inferiority when in fact it is an act of magnanimity.

I don't respect the rules, but I should respect those who make them because of the freedom inside of me.