Edited by Jim McCrory, Tuesday 24 March 2026 at 07:11
Why are some morals objective?
A Law Without a Voice
The queue barely moves as my wife and I wait for our flight to Sweden to visit old friends.Suitcases edge forward by inches, then stop again, wheels turned at slight angles as if they’ve grown tired of straight lines. A child sits on the floor, tracing the grooves in the tiles with one finger. Somewhere behind, a man exhales loudly, not quite a sigh, more a signal to anyone listening that time is being wasted.
Then the couple arrives.
They don’t rush. They don’t rush, they saunter then look at the queue with surprise. Then, they notice familiar faces near the front—laughter, “How are you both? Goodness, it must be about ten years?”A brief pat of shoulders—and drift inward, folding themselves into that small circle as though they had always belonged there. It is done lightly, almost gracefully. But the effect ripples outward. Conversations stall. Eyes lift. A woman flabbergasted shifts her weight and looks down the line then looks at those around as if to say, “Did you see that?” No one speaks, yet something shared has been disturbed.
It is difficult to name what exactly has been broken. No rule has been written on the airport wall forbidding such movement. No official steps in. Still, the tension is unmistakable. It settles in the space between strangers, in the way people avoid looking at one another for too long.
We live as though this instinct requires no account of itself. It feels native, like balance or hunger. Yet it carries a peculiar authority. It does not present itself as preference. It does not say, I would rather things were different. It speaks more plainly: This is not right.
That distinction matters.
If such responses were only habits formed by convenience, they would bend more easily. They would shift with circumstance, soften under pressure. But they resist. Even when inconvenient, even when costly, they remain. A person may ignore them, silence them, argue against them—but not without effort, and never without some remainder.
There is a passage, written long before airports and council offices, that describes something similar. It speaks of those who have not received formal instruction, yet still act in accordance with a standard they seem to recognise. Not consistently, not perfectly, but often enough to suggest that the awareness precedes the teaching.
That idea lingers.
If our responses were the product of accident alone, it is difficult to see why they would carry this weight. Survival might explain cooperation, or even restraint, but not the quiet insistence that certain actions are wrong regardless of advantage. The person who steps into the queue gains time. Yet the reaction of others does not disappear simply because someone profits.
Perhaps this is why such moments feel larger than they are. A queue at an airport is not a court of law, but with an awareness that seems already present.
Consider the following quote from a book,
“Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.”
Ponder on that. If we are products of a blind evolutionary process, why would “nature” drive us towards a sense of justice? The book quote is from the Bible; from the book of Romans chapter two.
The Christian understanding does not treat this as an accident. It suggests instead that what we experience in these small disturbances’ points beyond them. That the quiet protest we feel is not self-generated, but received. Not invented, but recognised from an external source.
If that is so, then the unease in the queue is not merely irritation. It is a faint echo of something steadier. The dissatisfaction at unequal treatment is not simply preference. It is a response to a pattern that does not align with what we sense to be fitting.
And if such awareness is indeed given, then it speaks of a giver. Namely, God.
Note:
The quotation comes from Romans 2:14. It suggests that although people of the nations were not given the Law of Moses, they nevertheless lived in accordance with its moral principles by instinct. The idea that God’s moral order is embedded within creation itself and can be discerned through human reason.
Today's Thought: A Law Without a Voice
Why are some morals objective?
A Law Without a Voice
The queue barely moves as my wife and I wait for our flight to Sweden to visit old friends. Suitcases edge forward by inches, then stop again, wheels turned at slight angles as if they’ve grown tired of straight lines. A child sits on the floor, tracing the grooves in the tiles with one finger. Somewhere behind, a man exhales loudly, not quite a sigh, more a signal to anyone listening that time is being wasted.
Then the couple arrives.
They don’t rush. They don’t rush, they saunter then look at the queue with surprise. Then, they notice familiar faces near the front—laughter, “How are you both? Goodness, it must be about ten years?” A brief pat of shoulders—and drift inward, folding themselves into that small circle as though they had always belonged there. It is done lightly, almost gracefully. But the effect ripples outward. Conversations stall. Eyes lift. A woman flabbergasted shifts her weight and looks down the line then looks at those around as if to say, “Did you see that?” No one speaks, yet something shared has been disturbed.
It is difficult to name what exactly has been broken. No rule has been written on the airport wall forbidding such movement. No official steps in. Still, the tension is unmistakable. It settles in the space between strangers, in the way people avoid looking at one another for too long.
We live as though this instinct requires no account of itself. It feels native, like balance or hunger. Yet it carries a peculiar authority. It does not present itself as preference. It does not say, I would rather things were different. It speaks more plainly: This is not right.
That distinction matters.
If such responses were only habits formed by convenience, they would bend more easily. They would shift with circumstance, soften under pressure. But they resist. Even when inconvenient, even when costly, they remain. A person may ignore them, silence them, argue against them—but not without effort, and never without some remainder.
There is a passage, written long before airports and council offices, that describes something similar. It speaks of those who have not received formal instruction, yet still act in accordance with a standard they seem to recognise. Not consistently, not perfectly, but often enough to suggest that the awareness precedes the teaching.
That idea lingers.
If our responses were the product of accident alone, it is difficult to see why they would carry this weight. Survival might explain cooperation, or even restraint, but not the quiet insistence that certain actions are wrong regardless of advantage. The person who steps into the queue gains time. Yet the reaction of others does not disappear simply because someone profits.
Perhaps this is why such moments feel larger than they are. A queue at an airport is not a court of law, but with an awareness that seems already present.
Consider the following quote from a book,
“Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.”
Ponder on that. If we are products of a blind evolutionary process, why would “nature” drive us towards a sense of justice? The book quote is from the Bible; from the book of Romans chapter two.
The Christian understanding does not treat this as an accident. It suggests instead that what we experience in these small disturbances’ points beyond them. That the quiet protest we feel is not self-generated, but received. Not invented, but recognised from an external source.
If that is so, then the unease in the queue is not merely irritation. It is a faint echo of something steadier. The dissatisfaction at unequal treatment is not simply preference. It is a response to a pattern that does not align with what we sense to be fitting.
And if such awareness is indeed given, then it speaks of a giver. Namely, God.
Note:
The quotation comes from Romans 2:14. It suggests that although people of the nations were not given the Law of Moses, they nevertheless lived in accordance with its moral principles by instinct. The idea that God’s moral order is embedded within creation itself and can be discerned through human reason.
See Romans 2:14 Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.