Of Legal Theory and Language: What Does "Meaning" Mean?

The Word of the Lord self-refers as a transnational and transcendent legal code: The Law of the Lord. This self-reference sets it over against all man-made legal codes, over which it resides as the vastly superior template, the very definition of justice, and foundation of all civil rights.

This is easily demonstrable.

A fundamental problem exists in U.S. legal theory with respect to the proper interpretation of the Constitution in any one instance. The conflict inherent within this -- and all other man-made legal codes -- stems from a divergent possibility for the term "meaning," when asking what the founders of this document -- the self-proclaimed "supreme law of the land" -- intended by this or that statute or right.

Sometimes asking what they "meant" requires a response which assumes that "meaning" amounts to their particular intentions (meaning as intentionality), and many will invoke the Federalist Papers and other primary source documentation to aid them in this endeavor. At other times, however, asking what the second (or perhaps third) Amendment "means" requires a response which assumes that "meaning" refers to the logical implication(s) of the particular amendment in question in some contemporary context not native to the time of the founders. For example, "What is the meaning of the Bill of Rights" for the new legal field of online copyright law.

In terms of intellectual property rights, the rise of the internet presents some novel and challenging jurisdiction dilemmas, and other legal questions which will require (eventually) the U.S. Supreme court to apply the rights of individuals to questions regarding the intervening civil authorities who (will allegedly) have done what one will say amounts to a violation the rights of the individual.

This will require logical rigor on the part of the Supreme Court in its applications of the relevant aspects of constitutional law to the matter at hand.

Somtimes it is the case that what a legal document strictly implies by its wording runs up against what the founders would have wanted (their authorial intent). For instance, in the early years of the U.S. as a nation, it was commonplace for the state (federal government) to swubsidize missionary efforts of religious organizations. Justice Joseph Story argued that so long as this subsidizing did not involve favoring one denomination over the others that the non-establishment clause of the first amendment had not been violated.

Today this would raise the hackles of just about everyone -- who would invoke the non-constitutional phrase "separation of Church and State." The founders envisioned (and the US practice for many decades in its early years) plural support by the state for the Churches, not non-support for all churches.

The non-support interpretation -- a very late latecomer in legal interpretation of the Constitution arose by the study of the logical implications of the various relevant constitutional features which bear on the subject (and so far as I can tell, probably got it right, more or less).
But this would have the founders flipping over in their graves, who clearly would have seen this as anti-religious, not simply "secular."

The logical outworking of their own doctrines implied conclusions they did not want. They, like all men, all not that logically self-conscious about the choices they make, and it is very difficult to anticipate more than about 20 years down the road even what legal questions are likely to arise, forcing a careful scrutiny upon one section of a document more critical and analytical than anything the authors of that document themselves might have applied to it.

In short, humans do not know, and cannot ascertain ALL the logical implicates of ANY document they pen, in all possible combinations. Thus, their intentions for writing a document can easily run up against the implications of the document itself (which they did not anticipate, and would not have liked if they could have discerned them).

So this raises the question: What is one supposed to do when the legal implicates of the constitution plainly contradict the intentions of the founders who wrote it? The constitution does not deal with this problem at all. Nor do the Federalist papers.

Note that whatever document one uses to answer this question could easily establish new laws when applied to the U.S. constitution, and yet it would have to come from a source OUTSIDE that constitution. This would make the governing document the non-constitutional referee chosen to settle the question.

In order to avoid this problem with legal codes -- their own insufficiency to answer the future problems of interpretation, intention and logic (and there are others I could highlight at some length) dooms them to failures as the "final" or "supreme" law of the land. Whichever document finally interprets and determines the implicates forms the ACTUAL supreme law of the land. This is because whoever finally interprets finally judges (all judgments devolve upon the interpretations of legal codes and their logical rules for applying them to specific circumstances in this or that case.

To have a single legal code that is sufficient as the real "supreme law," one would needs its author to anticipate all possible future problems of interpretation, langauage use, logical regulations, and every situation in which a legal problem might arise. In short, it would take a God.

This is the greatness of the Law of the Lord. Because God can and does know all possible and actual conditions, conclusions, facts and reasons, He alone is able to yield a legal code where the intent of the Author (behind the human authors) could never be at odds with what His statements (properly understood) imply in any possible combination. God INTENDS exactly and ONLY what He says AND IMPLIES by what He says.

Only the Law of the Lord then avoids (by the Author's exceedingly great Wisdom) the problem of intentionality vs. statutory implicates. These two are one in the Word of God because it has the mutual consent of all the parts, ascertained judiciously, and infallibly examined BEFORE the code ever met with pen and paper.

The U.S. constitution shows itself insufficient, dependent on a theoretically endless number of secondary authorities which actually function to govern the "governing document." Thus, the Constitution lies in suggesting that it alone is the "supreme law of the land." That option is simply not available to the imaginations of men. Human wisdom and ingenuity -- because they are made in God's image -- can only get you so far. They make pretty good coffee.

But truly supreme legal codes, the foundations of justice, mercy, prudence, infallible judgment - these come only from the "only Wise God," whose law is perfect, who wisdom is unfathomable, and whose ways are beyond finding out.

The Law of the Lord is perfect. The U.S. Constitution has -- well - issues (unresolvable issues to be precise). All men -- and their legal codes -- are like grass, which flourishes today, and tomorrow is no more. And their "civil rights" rise or fall with their legal code which defines them. But the Word of the Lord stands forever. This is where justice lives, and the contrary is impossible.

THAT is the "meaning" of today's post.