The Horror

A man punches his ex-wife's abdomen repeatedly to bash the life out of the a baby in utero. Ford Motor Company is labeled by a professor as a "good corporate citizen" for performing a cost-benefit analysis comparing probable burn deaths in manufacturing the Ford Pinto to the cost of adding a safety device to prevent accidents. A woman sues a man who committed adultery to have a relationship with her because he broke a promise to care for her after having cheated on his own wife.

How does this affect me as a Christian? Is law school taking its toll on spirituality?

I am not afraid of losing my faith in humanity, as one of peers said he is. I have, by definition, lost my faith in humanity. What I have lost finitely, I have gained infinitely. In refusing faith in the fundamental goodness of human beings, I have gained faith in the ultimate and exclusive goodness of God.

And I am mindful that the law of man and law of God are two separate things. The human law is only an attempt to appropriate divine law. It sometimes succeeds at this appropriation and usually fails. This is fine with me. It is simultaneously troubling, for I am a stranger and pilgrim in this land. As G.K. Chesterton said, I am "astonished, yet at home."

As a law school graduate and friend put it the other day, the study of law is a study of the failure of grace.