There is but one inviolable law: God’s law, which is common to all people; human law can only be a law as long as it does not disagree with God’s law.
Jesus therefore answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone desires to do his will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is from God, or if I am speaking from myself.”
— John 7:16–17
What is the voice of duty if not divine inspiration?
But maybe it is a precept of your imagination? An imperative inclination of your conversation with yourself?
Or perhaps it is only an echo of human opinions, a submission to the demands of public opinion?
But no: if it were a law of our own imagination, we would be able to forgive ourselves for violating it, we would be able to abolish it. But we feel that the force of this law is beyond our control and that we cannot ignore it.
Neither can we allow it to be an influence of public opinion, because this voice has often elevated us above public opinion, gave us the strength to fight the injustice of the mob, to fight for the good of a single person without any hope of success. You will sooner convince me that daylight is a creation of my eyes or of public opinion than that the perception of goodness is not a direct perception of God.
Just as our senses teach us about the things outside our bodies, so does the perception of God teaches us of what is outside our spiritual personality, teaches us that justice, goodness and truth are not the creations of our personality, but are invested in us by God.
— Martineau
The main difficulty that we now face of implementing God’s law consists in the fact that existing human laws are in direct opposition to it.
Human laws are good and valuable only when they conform to God’s law, when they apply it and build on it. And they are always bad when they contradict that law, and in those cases we do not only have the right, but also the obligation to destroy them.
— Giuseppe Mazzini
Before a human being can begin studying and solving the most important questions of life, it is necessary to refute the false constructions regarding these most essential questions, which have accumulated over the centuries and for whose support the whole force of the ingenuity of the mind has been employed.
The establishment of the state is in essence a clear sign that the human being has lost the consciousness of his divinity in public life and therefore must resort to external authority. Having lost this consciousness, he has to lean on external law. External law, however, is always erroneous. There would be no discord if everyone could maintain this consciousness, shared with his neighbors, but, when this consciousness grows weak, it needs to be supported by artificial means, and in this way, as the consciousness of one’s unity weakens, a form of government arises that represents not the true expression of the life of the people as a whole, but only the externally coercive authority of the ruling class.
— After Carpenter
What is to be done if God’s law contradicts human law? Hide God’s law and proclaim human law? This has already been done for 1900 years, but God’s law is becoming clearer and clearer and the inner contradiction is growing ever stronger and more painful. There is only one thing left to do: replace human law with God’s law.
