Alastair's Adversaria - What is Good Law

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

The following was first published on the Anchored Argosy: https://argosy.substack.com/i/185256465/what-is-good-law Follow my Substack, the Anchored Argosy at https://argosy.substack.com/. See my latest podcasts at https://adversariapodcast.com/. If you have enjoyed my videos and podcasts, please tell your friends. If you are interested in supporting my videos and podcasts and my research more generally, please consider supporting my work on Patreon (www.patreon.com/zugzwanged), using my PayPal account (https://www.paypal.com/donate/?business=4WX77P4F8S7WL), or by buying books for my research on Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/3…3O?ref_=wl_share). You can also listen to the audio of these episodes on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/alastairs-adversaria/id1416351035.

The following reflection is entitled, What is Good Law? It was first published on the anchored argosy. Perhaps one of the most common questions that people ask about the Old Testament law concerns the way that it allows for the practice of slavery. The Old Testament speaks of the law as perfect, as exemplary of wisdom, and as something worthy of meditation. Yet within it we encounter an institution that few contemporary readers can regard as anything but evil. How ought we understand this? How can such a law be good? In Matthew chapter 19 when asked concerning divorce, Jesus responded by alluding to Genesis Chapter 1 and quoting Genesis chapter 2 verse 24, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

Faced with a follow-up question about the case law of Deuteronomy chapter 24, verses 1 to 4, within which Moses seemingly permitted divorce, Jesus made a startling claim. Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. Matthew chapter 19, verse 8. Here the case law of Deuteronomy seems to conflict

with the fundamental creational intent of God, with Jesus arguing that the latter invalidates the former. The recognition that some of the laws of a book like Deuteronomy might respond to a hard-hearted people, seems to offer a welcome escape for challenging apologetics questions on issues such as slavery. However, it does not free us from our difficulties. It might cast much of the Old Testament law into doubt.

To the extent that it is accommodated to a hard-hearted people, is it simply to be treated as hopelessly suspect, an unreliable guide to God's will? Are we left to our own lights to judge what parts of it should be jettisoned and what parts retained? What are we to do with the parts of the law that are so accommodated? Should they be mentally bracketed out of inspired scripture? Here we ought to consider what a good law actually is.

As Oliver O'Donovan argues in the ways of judgment, in attributing the mosaic legislation to the Israelites' hardness of heart, Jesus was not declaring that the Mosaic divorce law was bad law. O'Donovan observes, this regulatory arrangement was the right way to condemn divorce, because it told the truth about the Israelites' hardness of heart. One thing to bear in mind here is that the case laws of Exodus chapter 21 to 23, or Deuteronomy Chapter 6 to 26, are part of a much broader body of material

that could be referred to as the law, from which they should not be abstracted. That body of material did not merely contain the regulations of divorce practices in Deuteronomy chapter 24, but also contained the original creational design for marriage in Genesis 1 and 2, which Jesus alluded to in his response to the Pharisees' first question. His response did not simply play one part of the law off against another, dismissing the one in favour of the other, but depended upon a deeper literacy in the way that the law functions. Good law is not the presentation of some perfect or absolute standard,

but law that is well tailored to those who are ruled by it. This means, for instance, that it must be practically and consistently enforceable. Unenforceable laws lead to a general weakening of the force of the law, and laws that are enforced very inconsistently can inject partiality into the law. If there are no competent or suitable institutions to exercise legal regulation of something, there may be no direct law against a patently evil practice, but other forms of regulation of it. Laws are constrained by such issues of practicality,

what it is possible to regulate in various circumstances. Laws must also be accommodated to the moral standards and understanding of a society rather than being idealistic. Most parents probably have had direct experience of the very different sorts of rules, measures and punishments that are required for a toddler, as opposed to a responsible older teenager. Establishing an idealistic standard for the behaviour and parenting of the toddler would be both futile and likely can,

counterproductive. Frustrated with unrealistic demands, the child might just be further provoked to rebel against their parents. Parents can employ measures with younger children that they would never employ with older children. A toddler who was causing trouble might need to be picked up and forcefully relocated. Few parents would employ such a measure with their misbehaving teenager. The employment of such physically coercive forms of discipline is not ideal, but is appropriately accommodated to the age and understanding of the toddler. As the child grows up, discipline will change in ways suited to their age and their developing understanding, maturity and character. As Thomas Aquinas puts it, the purpose of human law is to lead men to virtue, not suddenly, but gradually. Good law

addresses us where we are. It is also good law to permit certain evils that, were they illegal, more important goods would need to be sacrificed. Society's resources are limited, and governments or parents must often pick their battles. Some evils are deeply embedded in society and could not be tackled without considerable cost and damage. Increasing policing of certain crimes might come at the cost of trust in and support for the police and disruption of the lives of many law-abiding persons.

Higher conviction rates might lead to more wrongful convictions. In other cases, a society or person has not yet reached a point where it can easily outgrow certain practices, whether due to practical factors of enforcement, the moral state of the people, or social and economic necessity. Good lawmakers are mindful of such trade-offs and the imperfectability of society. The fact that drug abuse can be a great evil, for instance, does not settle the question of whether it is good to have aggressive drug policies. relating all this to Old Testament treatment of slavery, it is important to keep in mind a few things. First, slavery in Old Testament Israel was typically indentured servitude on account of debt. There was slavery on account of primes and also slavery of war captives.

However, Israel was not to engage in predatory warmaking. In contrast to some of its neighbours, peace was supposed to be the normal state for Israel, not predation upon weaker neighbours through constant war or routine raiding parties. Second, man stealing was subject to the death penalty, Deuteronomy chapter 24 verse 7. When we think about slavery, we tend to think about racialized intergenerational chattled slavery founded upon man stealing, a form of slavery very different from that practiced in Israel and regulated by the law. Third, Israel had no welfare state and what welfare system it had had. had was the extended family. When someone sank into destitution, indentured servitude was a sort

of reversion to childhood dependence upon and subjection to a master, taking pause Galatians 4 verses 1 to 3 analogy in the other direction, which might be the alternative to starvation. Fourth, the case laws of Deuteronomy and Exodus are approached under the rubric of the Ten Commandments. Deuteronomy chapter 6 to 26 refract the ten words. words in sequence into case laws, granting Israelite judges literacy in the underlying logic of the law. Much slavery legislation, for instance, is tackled under the rubric of the Fourth Commandment, the Law of Sabbath, in Deuteronomy Chapter 15, in connection with principles of charity to the poor and in a way that focuses upon sabbatical release. It also presents the situation of the slave who

wants to stay with a good master as a live possibility. It is in studying this sort of interplay between the ten words and the case law that we are given resources to recognise where the case law is being accommodated to the exigencies of a more tribal society with limited governmental resources and little in the way of a social safety net, or to a society where certain evils were deeply embedded. Fifth, Israel's own experience in the House of Bondage of Egypt is treated as paradigmatic for their attitude towards their slaves,

liberation and provision for self-dependence is the goal. Israel was slaves once too. Principles of Sabbath are applied to slaves in the household too, the goal being their greater enjoyment of this liberation. As are Britain elsewhere. In the chapters following the giving of the ten words in Exodus chapter 20, we find several instances of the Sabbath principle being unfolded as an ethic for the treatment of vulnerable community members.

The body of case law in chapter 10, is 21 to 23, opens with an application of a Sabbath principle to the institution of slavery. Exodus chapter 21 verse 2 says, When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. The Lord set Israel free from its slavery and gave them his Sabbath rest. In such case laws, Israel is called to treat their slaves in a similar manner. The Mosaic law reorders slavery towards liberation. The liberation enjoyed collectively by the nation must be extended to all its members.

And in the sabbatical form given to these laws of emancipation, Israel must recognise the foundation of its society in an act of the Lord's liberating grace and its duty to live in terms of that grace, communicating it to others. Sixth, the biblical narrative encourages identification with slaves and their experience of injustice. Note, for instance, the way that Israel's experience of servitude in a foreign land is foretold in Genesis chapter 15, verse 13. They will be strangers in a land not their own and will be afflicted. In the next chapter, Hagar, whose name evokes the figure of the stranger, is described as being afflicted in the house of Abraham and Sarai, chapter 16, verse 6.

That chapter plays out an Exeter's pattern, in which Sarai in particular plays the part of Pharaoh. Also, an Adam and Eve fall pattern. Later on, in Chapter 39, Joseph's experience mirrors that of Hagar and Ishmael. He was sent down to Egypt with the Ishmaelites. In Chapter 37, his mistress, Potipher's wife, sought to use him for her sexual ends. She then blamed her husband and accused Joseph of mocking them the same reason for which Ishmael and Hagar was sent out in Chapter 21, as we see in verse 9 of that chapter. In such stories, in addition to the more general reminder of their having once been slaves in Egypt,

the principle of the golden rule in relation to the practice of slavery is instilled into Israel. Many Christians, reading the case laws of Exodus or Deuteronomy, can feel perplexed or embarrassed by them, not knowing what to do with them. Generally, they will treat them as having to do with Israel's ancient near-eastern cultural setting and having little to do with us today.

A few concerned that this both fails to reckon with their character as Holy Scripture and with the supposed wisdom of Israel's law, as we see in Deuteronomy chapter 4 v. 5 to 8, have argued that they continue to apply today and should be employed in contemporary society. Both of these approaches are misguided, that they both seek to maintain different important truths. We should consider the interplay between the ten words and the case law, which helps us to consider the law in both its perennial and in its culturally and contextually accommodated character. The Mosaic Law is an ordered collection of both more fundamental divine law,

chiefly the ten words summarised in the two great commandments, an accommodated case law, all situated within a broader narrative setting. The case law is an inspired application of an accommodation of the former to Israel's social, cultural and historical circumstances. The case law and the ten words must be interpreted in relation to each other. The regulation of the practice of slavery is good law, as it is realistically accommodated to Israel's experience, while pushing beyond the existing social possibilities, failures and evils. The capacity of the law both to address the contingencies of Israel's experience and circumstances, while beckoning it beyond its current social forms and practices is part of its genius

and is one reason why it is fruitful to study the case law in its wider literary setting. Thank you very much for listening. This and other reflections like it are found on the anchored argosy, the substack that I share with my wife Susanna. If you'd like to support my work here, there and elsewhere, you can do so using my Patreon or PayPal accounts. Such support means a very great deal. and it makes it possible for me to do a lot of things that I would not be able to do otherwise.

God bless.