The Law Behind the Law

Author: John Stonestreet and Dr. Timothy D. Padgett

On a recent episode of The Daily podcast, New York Times legal expert Charlie Savage, while discussing President Trump’s capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, said, “There are two types of law: international law and domestic law.” 

In fact, many experts have appealed to international law in recent years and recent days, from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the Israeli retaliation to the October 7 massacre to the American raids on Venezuela.  

Not only do such appeals suffer because bad actors such as Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran head up many of the international bodies charged with overseeing such law, but also because it’s difficult to explain how such morality came to be and why it should be binding. After all, unless some kind of transcendent law exists, appealing to international law is a game of smoke and mirrors played by powerful nations who insist on enforcement only when convenient. 

The recent “Nuremberg” movie depicts the attempt after the Second World War to prosecute the Nazis for their war crimes and attempts at genocide. Of course, had the Allies just shot or hanged Hitler’s cronies at the time of their capture, no one would have batted an eye. However, they wanted to make it clear to the world and to history that what the Nazis did was not ordinary wartime behavior. Rather, they perpetrated an extra-ordinary evil. 

Attaining that verdict was difficult, partly because it had never been done before. As one character said early in the film: 

It can’t be done. . . There’s no legal precedent for a trial. There’s no international law to base the charges on. . .. the whole concept of international law is that one country can’t tell another country’s citizens how to conduct themselves. … Trying these men in a German court would be different. But what you’re talking about is trying them in some sort of legal limbo that doesn’t exist, using case law that hasn’t been written yet. 

Everyone knew the Germans did wrong. However, how does one break a law that does not exist? The Nuremberg trials attempted to establish that there were universals to which all countries must abide. 

If law is only a temporary and artificial construct, then it is true that only “might” makes “right.” To move beyond this transactional morality requires a higher law, and thus a Lawgiver. Secularists claim that such laws can be derived from nature, as David Noebel put it in his classic work, Understanding the Times: 

[H]ow can the Humanist claim man has rights apart from other animals if the only source of those rights is man’s own transactions and interests? … A belief in natural law and natural rights lets the Humanist off the hook in one sense, because it provides a more stable source for law than does any human interpretation of legal principles. However, the Humanist is faced with the problem of explaining the origins of this natural law. Whereas the Christian believes God implanted the law in the universe and inscribed natural law on the hearts of men, the Humanist cannot tolerate such an explanation. 

In other words, there are two kinds of law, but they’re not international and domestic. Or, to put it more clearly, beneath both international and domestic law is either natural law or positive law. Natural law appeals to universals. Positive law appeals to the changing nature of human society and assumes (wrongly) that it is evolving, not devolving. 

In this, the Christian worldview provides what a secular view cannot. Because God has made Himself known, the reality of revelation provides a foundation to know what is right and what is wrong. From revelation comes the dual insights about the image of God and the Fall in Eden. Thus, every individual has both an indelible dignity worth protecting and also potential for evil. A just law, whether international or domestic, will secure the prior and punish the latter, without resorting to mere power.