Fr. Gregory Pine

wouldn't necessarily think instinctually.

Yeah, so I think that for us, this takes a kind of work of recovery to set forward how law is good.

So St.

Thomas will define a law as an ordinance of reason, which again, somewhat jargony, but the basic idea is that it's a reasonable dictate.

It's not just something that I enforce.

It's not just something that I will into existence.

Because I think a lot of people suspect law of just being will to power.

When truth be told it's, no, there is a natural law at work in the world.

And we as rational animals are capable of discerning something of that natural law and then of determining it or specifying it further for our particular life together.

So,

It's not just a mere matter of efficiency or expediency.

It's a matter of how do we, as a polity, host a conversation as to what's good and then frame laws, which can be educative, which can be pedagogical, conducting us to that good.

So he'll specify further, it's gotta be by a legitimate authority.

It's gotta be for the common good.

It's gotta be promulgated.

He'll hem it in, but at the heart, it's an ordinance of reason.

So it goes back to the same point that we can actually know what's good.

and that we can actually come to an agreement as to what's good?

I don't know if anyone's told you that, but

Let it be known, you're good at this.