Law and Intrinsic Evils

Gospel: Matthew 5: 17-19

What are we to make of Jesus' words today, telling us to obey the smallest commandment of the Law?  After all, the Apostles did away with obeying most of these laws and even more serious ones like the dietary laws and circumcision in order to accommodate Gentile converts.  Jesus himself violates the law several times in the Gospel for the sake of a greater love and principle.  What, then does all this mean?

Some will argue we are to follow the divine command theory of ethics and obey whatever God says.  This would make ethics arbitrary and intrinsic evils nonexistent as God could, and has in Old Testament stories, commanded heinous things.  Others will say we should obey whatever religious leaders tell us to do, but we have seen all too painfully how well that works, i.e. not well at all.

At the end of the day we have only the law of love and the example of Jesus as our guide.  Our ethic is based on virtue and not deontology, seeking to imitate the life and example of the morally excellent One who lived by the law of love in all things.  This way of life demands a constant discernment that is rigorous and trying at times, but represents the only authentic way of the Lord Jesus.