§10. In spite of those adaptations, this divine Higher Law seems too harsh and too

§10. In spite of those adaptations, this divine Higher Law seems too harsh and too absolute for mankind. It knows no exception and retributes the sins their full price. Given the human weaknesses (Q4:28), this is quite worrying; all the more as some transgressions give death to the soul. This Law seems to be a curse, a Law of death.

God created the Universe for His glory, i.e., for the full manifestation of His attributes. Among those attribute is Justice, but there is another one: Love, or Mercy. And Love wants the beloved to be happy. God wants men to be happy, in this world and/or the next. Moreover, God’s love is understood as prevailing on His justice and His attributes are subordinate to Love. Hence this Law must also be an expression of God’s love.

And, indeed, the real first commandment of the Law consists precisely in its reward: “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life.”(Dt 30:19). God’s glory (happiness) depends on man’s happiness – by definition of love. But this happiness is contingent upon man’s own choice of happiness. And this happiness is not a given, it must be chosen by consistently following God’s Law and, more generally, God’s Will. That Law brings happiness is found in most religions. The Rig Veda reads: “For one who lives according to Eternal Law, the winds are full of sweetness, the rivers pour sweets. So may the plants be full of sweetness, the rivers pour sweets. So may the plants be full of sweetness for us!"(I,90,6-7) and in Islam: “Whoever does right, whether male or female, and is a believer, We will make him live a good life, and We will award them their reward for the best of what they used to do.“(16:97)

§11. God’s Love is active not only in giving Law its end but also in the very process of retribution. Law can bring destruction if applied too harshly. Here, God’s love appears as Mercy – not paying back sins their exact price and giving men more than they deserve: “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities”(Ps.103:10), especially if one sincerely repents. The Quran begins each surat by invoking Allah the Merciful and says: “whatever misfortune happens to you, is because on the things your hands have wrought, and for many (of them) He grants forgiveness.”(Q42:30). It was also revealed to Sister Faustine, a Catholic Nun, that Mercy was God’s greatest attribute. Indeed, mercy helps us following the Law and becoming the beings of Love God wants us to be.

Hence, Law, as a spiritual mechanism, is subordinate to Love, to the point that every measure of justice is at the same time a measure of mercy. The Spirit of Law reveals itself as Love. The Spirit of Law is Love: Love is the First Commandment: to love God, to love one self, to love the others. This is the Teaching of Jesus: “Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."(Mt.22:37-40)

That’s why justice must be delivered with love, even if the sanction is harsh, and must be conscious of its true purpose: to educate sentient beings to true love. This educational purport of Law is underlined by Saint Paul, who describes Law as a guardian and a trustee(Gal.4:1-2).

Love grounds and transcends justice. Indeed, in the eyes of God, a single powerful act of love has much more worth than mere external compliance with the Law. Love can redeem a life of disorder, as did Mary Madgalen: Pr.10:12: “love covers all sins”. And we Christians believe that mere Love for God, especially focused on the person of Christ, informs us in His image and perfection, and thus helps us to follow the Law.

Second part: Law at a global scale

§12. The current world order has a purely secular basis and is bound to fail since the latent and open conflicts plaguing mankind cannot be resolved but by true justice. The spiritual meaning of Law and Justice has been lost, and the spiritual roots of those conflicts are ignored by those who could solve them.

There also exists a state of conflict between mankind and God, as a result of sin and the neglection of God – the first commandment, indeed, is to love God and most don’t. The only way to solve it is to recall God’s exigencies to mankind and promote repentance. It is likely, however, that many tribulations - judgments from God, will be needed to reestablish bonds of love of trust between God and mankind.

Besides, the very idea of the unification of mankind in a single political body is spiritual. According to most traditions, the first man, Adam, was a universal soul including all the future diversity of mankind: all the kings, all the nations, all the prophets and all the religions. Thomas Aquinas says: “all were in Adam by origin”(S.T.15.1.2); the Jews define Adam as a universal soul (neshama klalit); and the Quran reads: “O mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another.“(Q49:13) A political unification of mankind must take this idea into account. That’s why the person of Jesus, the New Adam, is so important; it serves as the focal point of this unification “to gather together into one the children of God who are scattered away”(Jn11:52). ”Unto Allah ye will all return”(Q5:48).

The future era of peace will certainly rest on spiritual basis. Law will be recognized in its spiritual dimension and as belonging to God’s plan for mankind. The diversity of nations will no longer be conflictual. The common spiritual ground of all religions and legal systems will be acknowledged, and perhaps will they subsist so that each individual be judged according to her religion: « judge between them by what Allah has revealed.»(Q5:49).

This cannot be done now because the spiritual meaning of Law and Justice has been lost; a genuine global political order must be founded on God’s Laws and on God’s Love, as the Catholic encyclical Pacem in Terris (1963) makes it clear. But this is not possible for now. The Era of Peace will be difficult to establish, and might be preceded by violent conflicts: the ‘birthpangs of the Messiah’ in Judaism and Christianism.

§13. But something prevents this era to appear: the very nature of the civilization in which we are living. This civilization, with all its material benefits, is indeed spiritually blind, especially in Europe. To understand its secular tendencies, it is necessary to understand its origin: Rome. The Spirit of Rome has so much imbued the Western World that it could be considered as the continuation of Rome under another form. Strikingly, the Romans developed Law and Politics as no other people before, so we could appreciate those realizations. But the problem is that Roman Law and Politics are submitted to the Spirit of Rome.

What is this Roman spirit? Montesquieu, in his Dissertation sur la politique des Romains dans la religion, remarks that all nations subordinated the State to religion, except one, Rome, who subordinated religion to the State. They had “no divinity but the genius of the Republic”, and no other prophet than Romulus, their king, God and lawgiver. Every effort had a single aim: to promote Rome’s power and glory.

Roman power was associated to religion from the very beginning. The first kings of Rome had the imperium, that is, the power to consult the oracles to know the will of their gods concerning Rome’s development. The ritualistic tendencies of the Roman religion reduced it to a set of formulas whereby everything could be magically obtained, and Rome began to think in purely secular and utilitarist terms, far from any true spirituality. There were many admirable men in Roman history for sure, which were almost worshipped by European thinkers for many centuries, but this was a secular heroism, subordinate to the Glory of the State. Likewise, Rome’s most remarkable intellectual achievement, Roman Law, expressed this ideal of mundane glory and political control.