Is underage drinking justified? Last week’s feature article in The Cor Chronicle gave a comprehensive treatment of drinking culture at the University of Dallas, but there is more to discuss when it comes to obedience to underage drinking laws.
The underage drinker says in his heart: “There is no problem.” This angle seems to suffice for many, but it suffers the appearance of dishonesty. However, I don’t think offering an airtight prohibitionist argument is the solution.
Rather than stir up a spiritedness against underage drinking, I would like to redirect the underage drinker’s thought toward a simple application of a complicated text by St. Paul. Some argue that the Catechism’s criteria for a just law offers prerequisites for following any law. However, applying the Catechism’s criteria in a way that assumes all laws demand obedience until proven unjust best explains a difficulty in understanding St. Paul on authority.
Positing that the Christian must obey established authorities, St. Paul asserts in Romans 13 that “he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment… one must be subject, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.”
It seems from this text alone that all laws must be followed because laws are given by authorities appointed by God. Obedience of this sort is not irrational because the laws of authorities participate in God’s ordering of creation.
End of story? Not really. This quick interpretation ignores a critical question: “Why does St. Paul say nothing of Herods?” You probably aren’t unique if you say Hitler should be disobeyed. But it seems that according to St. Paul, all authorities, and consequently all their laws, are established by God.
Was Hitler an authority appointed by God? It is doubly odd that St. Paul both refuses to distinguish what authorities to obey and neglects a criteria of laws to follow. Yet we have an intuition that not all laws should be followed.
In determining what laws to follow, Church teaching offers insight. In paragraph 1903 the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that a law should be followed if it “seeks the common good … and if it employs morally licit means to attain it.”
Further conversations must elaborate on the application of these two standards. On the surface level, however, it’s worth noting that a law must merely “seek” the common good rather than accomplish it for it to be just.
Perhaps it is somehow contrary to either of these standards if the government commands that alcohol must be consumed in a particular way; this must be the way that undercover proponents justify underage drinking. But to which side does the burden of proof belong: those who favor simple obedience or those who favor private judgment of laws before deciding to follow them?
There are two contradictory approaches to applying the Catechism’s criteria. One perspective states that no laws should be followed until they are proven to be seeking the common good and using morally licit means: a positive way. On the other hand, perhaps all laws should be followed unless they are expressly not seeking the common good or not using morally licit means. This application of the Catechism’s criteria is a way of negation that considers all laws innocent-until-proven-guilty.
Under the positive way, the citizen gains as much license as he has neglect to reason – how can there be guilt on his part if he decides not to prove to himself that a law should be followed?
Alternatively, the negative way best resolves the oddity of Romans 13’s simultaneous neglect of Herod and optimistic view of law – as if, shocked by your asking, St. Paul would declare: “Of course you should disobey laws that go against God’s law!”
On the other hand, the positive way seems to undermine the same text. St. Paul does not say “one must obey laws which you prove just” but rather “one must be subject.”
Further discussion on precisely how it could be possible that underage drinking laws are either not intended to seek the common good (keep in mind: intention is all that matters) or that these laws do not use morally licit means can only happen successfully once we agree on the way of negation method coming from a careful reading of St. Paul.
Awaiting a compelling case on whether disobedience of underage drinking laws is just, the best course of action for those of us not of age appears to be an abstinence that imitates Christ’s obedience: an obedience that obeyed an unjust Pilate even unto death.