What is Law?

The words Logos in greek, Dharma in Sanskrit can be replaced with the english word Law. But Law is a confused term. Jesus is described by John as being the Logos - the word/law. The planets orbit according to laws of physics and the government votes on the countries laws.

In general a law would be that which determines a behaviour, or a way of being. Legal laws are in place however because people have in the past behaved otherwise, and authority is mobilised to "force" them into adherence. The planets on the other hand can never stray from the physical laws. The moral laws are different again. A wise person always behaves in accordance with the Law, only those who cannot see stray, and the cost of straying is suffering (this is the general religious code). People like Abraham who could "hear the will of God", are what we would call wise. The wise always obey the law.

So the physical law and the moral law are alike in that they refer to a Law intrinsic in nature that the wise or learned can discern. Physics is still advancing its tools and its description of the physical laws (I suspect an endless process because of the well documented issue in this blog of the Woozle problem of Self-Reference that eventually the descriptions will have to refer to oneself at some level). Both the physical laws and the moral laws can best be described as Reality. The scientist and those on a spiritual path are one and the same then, listening with ever growing quietness to the voice of reality. The good scientist and the good student of suffering are both humble servants to reality.

This leaves legality as the odd one out. Legality does not describe a reality, it is something like a social contract or a protocol that enables people to work together harmonously. It is like the rules of a game, that have no fixed nature, and are held temporarily for fun or for some purpose. However legal law can never replace Reality, and where they conflict people are the loser because suffering comes. So in fact better than Legality is just wisdom and adherence to Reality. If everyone did that we would have the perfect society and no need for Law.

Law can never be given that much significance because it is at best a bad copy of Reality, and at worst a recipe for suffering. So the adage, 'Rules are for the instruction of fools and the guidance of wise men' proves its worth.

Is not the lesson of King Knut this? He made the common mistake of believing that his authority was real, rather than simply an agreement with the people. So he sat before the sea and ordered the tide to recede. Of course the tide knows nothing of human "law" and obeys only reality and so King Knut got his feet wet.

Human authority is a fantasy as real as the significance attributed to that ball going on one side of a line rather than the other ... which they call a goal in football... but it never really happens ... balls often cross lines and mean nothing!