Students at the Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy receive instructions in diverse subjects including apologetics, epistemology, worldview, and ethics. During our three-hour ethics dialogue, students were placed in groups and assigned questions to examine, and where possible, to solve. Their mission was to break down the issues presented by each question into their various component parts, identify the critical available facts, search for applicable biblical laws and principles, and attempt to determine a policy result which is consistent with Scripture.

The following question (paraphrased) presented at the Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy of 2005 requires the student to examine a host of foundational ethical issues, and the implications of their conclusions, including questions of the role of the state in defending the helpless, and its jurisdiction.

The year is 1870. Articles begin to appear in papers around the nation about the abusive use of children in factories and coal mines. The stories are horrific, including hundreds of accounts of children, ten and under, who are suffering as a result of the practices. As a member of the House of Representatives, you are asked to consider a bill entitled “The Child Labor Act,” which will prohibit children age sixteen and under from employment. How should you decide the issue and why?