Should Sin Be Illegal?

During my work as a writing tutor, I get to help work on some interesting papers, and every once in a while, one of them really makes me think, and not just about what part of speech "off" is in "I drank some water to cool off." Seriously, is it still a preposition if you do that, or does it become something else? It's not acting much like a preposition just hanging out there at the end of the sentence like that. But I digress.

Recently, one of my students came in with a paper about morality and the risk of the collapse of society. Specifically, the argument was that if everyone gave in to their carnal impulses, then society would fall apart. Given that, wouldn't it make sense to pass laws restricting such vices, and thus bolster society against a sinful collapse?

The paper must have been well-written because, at first, I was swayed by its argument, but now that I've had some time to think about it, I'm not so sure. While it certainly makes sense to have laws against killing and stealing, it doesn't sound ethical to pass or enforce laws against most other sins. No one should try to dictate morality for the rest of society, and even if we could all agree on what standards we should keep, it doesn't seem right to enforce those standards with the threat of violence. People can't be forced to live righteously, and no government should even try it. With the threat of punishment looming over everyone's heads, the test of character which life is supposed to be would be weighted.

Still, part of me thinks that the test is already weighted, since we have many unflattering descriptions of hell in the scriptures, and even more favorable descriptions of heaven. If God can use a system of punishments and rewards to encourage good behaviour, then why shouldn't we also do so through our laws?

The answer to that rhetorical question is partly because we're not God, and we shouldn't "play God" by passing laws defining what is moral and what isn't. It's not our place to do that. God had an opportunity to design and build a perfect world, and He built a world in which everyone is free to believe and act as they choose.

But then, does that mean that there shouldn't be any laws at all? Of course not. Any society has to that rules. And there should be punishments for breaking those rules, but the rules should be agreed upon by society, and not dictated by some religious folks trying to push their moral standards on others. If society as a whole decides to introduce or increase the penalties for committing sin, then they are free to do so, but I would still be wary about it. I think that God should be the one to set the rules and ascribe the punishments, not us.