Right, Wrong and Sonia Sotomayor

A commentary by Jeremy Lallier

When it comes to deciding what's right and wrong, mankind has maintained a less-than-impressive track record.

I wrote this commentary during the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor. As expected, last night the Senate approved her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court where she will function as one of nine judges with the collective ability to establish U.S. judicial precedent—in other words, to decide what counts as right and what counts as wrong.

Impartiality or empathy?

The confirmation process highlighted different opinions about what standards should be used to judge a judge. A recent Washington Post article quoted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as saying that judge Sotomayor "has repeatedly stated that there is no objectivity or neutrality in judging" and "has dismissed judicial impartiality as an 'aspiration' that cannot be met even in most cases."

The same article quotes President Barack Obama as saying that the issues that come before the Supreme Court are matters of "life and death. And we need somebody who's got...the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young, teenaged mom; the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African American or gay or disabled or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."

Both arguments deserve consideration. Impartiality and empathy are both good traits. But can either be achieved or yield true justice in human hands? The outcome of a judge integrating empathy in his or her rulings could easily be a skewed interpretation of the law that favors whichever party has the sorriest-sounding story rather than whichever party is in the right according to hard-and-fast laws.

On the other hand, even if a judge could be truly impartial, couldn't the human laws themselves be flawed?

The divine law and Judge

The Bible's standard of justice is much higher.

Jesus Christ can perfectly "sympathize with our weaknesses" (Hebrews 4:15), and upon true repentance is more than willing to remove the eternal death penalty that accompanies sin.

But the Bible also makes it clear that "God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him" (Acts 10:34-35).

What counts with God is not the ability to feel for those who have done wrong. What is wrong according to God's standards will always be wrong, regardless of age, race or gender—these and other qualifiers will never justify any action that conflicts with God's law, because "God shows personal favoritism to no man" (Galatians 2:6).

What counts before God is a willingness to do what is right as defined by His perfect law. When we break that law, the sacrifice of Christ allows for our forgiveness and then our continued rededication to keeping it—but having a good-sounding "excuse" for breaking the law in the first place never justifies us.

Two ways of living

In short, for a nation or as an individual, there are two ways we can choose to follow:

• The "way that seems right to a man" (Proverbs 14:12).
• "The perfect law of liberty" (James 1:25).

Each verse concludes with the end result of its respective path. A person who "looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it…will be blessed in what he does," while "the way that seems right to a man" definitively and without exception ends in "the way of death."

Which path will you take? Read more about law and choices in the article "Liberty Through God's Law." VT