The Christian Right today insists that the Ten Commandments should be regarded as the basis for American law. They are minorities in this, but it should be acknowledged that they aren't the first to make such an assertion. This belief has been standard to Catholic theologians for centuries.

Darrell Cole writes in the Spring, 1999 issue of the Journal of Religious Ethics:

For Aquinas, the Ten Commandments are the primary precepts of justice and all law, "and natural reason gives immediate assent to them as being plainly evident principles" (ST II-II 122.1). The precepts of justice — those that show "that a man is under obligation to render to another that which is his due" are not to be thought of as means to an end; indeed, they help to establish relationships that make up our living a just life, the end of which is our ultimate end: the beatific vision of God. We keep these precepts, therefore, because failure to do so would destroy our character and prevent us from achieving our ultimate end.

I doubt that most of those on the Christian Right care very much about what a Catholic theologian like Aquinas had to say, but Aquinas’ point here should be taken seriously: the Ten Commandments are the basis for all law and justice not simply because they are good rules to live by, but because living by them helps us achieve our proper goal of reaching God. The purpose of the Ten Commandments is thus not secular or even legal, it’s religious — promoting them is designed to promote a particular sort of a relationship with a god that one particular group believes in.

There’s probably no better argument for denying the Ten Commandments any legitimacy in the modern, secular state.

 

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Ten Commandments:

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