![](http://static.icr.org/i/wide/doctor_j0289289_wide.jpg)
Just Laws Rely on Truth
Societies need to apply just laws in order to resolve social disputes and problems. Personal rights, valuable relationships, and social responsibilities are at stake. Therefore, the legal system needs to recognize and uphold the true and the right, while rejecting the false and the wrong.
But to have just laws enforced, truth must be distinguishable from falsehood, and right from wrong. Does such a law exist?
One objective moral standard is the justice principle called the Golden Rule: the standard of evaluating our own actions as just or unjust based on whether we would want those same actions to be done to us. This is a type of universal law that is "written on our hearts" (Romans 2:15). Slanderers don’t think it right when they themselves are slandered. Likewise, thieves don’t feel right about their own property being stolen. Even savage cannibals don’t want to be eaten by their neighbors!