Law's Ambition

Here is an excerpt from the article Rick posted yesterday by Bill Stuntz and David Skeel, Christianity and the (Modest) Rule of Law:

[T]he bodies of law that govern twenty-first-century America generally draw lines between good and bad, proper behavior and the improper kind. Such laws cannot possibly govern; there is simply too much bad conduct.  Good moral codes make for bad legal codes.  Laws that aspire to teach citizens how to live -- and at the same time seek to govern the imposition of tangible legal penalties -- are likely only to teach lessons in arbitrary government and the rule of discretion.  Perhaps God intended that His law should be the exclusive source of such teaching.  If they are to function as law and not as a cover for official discretion, the laws that govern men's and women's affairs need to pursue a more modest agenda.

Contrast it with an excerpt from Cardinal Francis George's 2003 lecture at Notre Dame:

The State and its law are for the perfection of human beings, families, and associations. . . . It is not paternalistic on the part of the State, but realistic, to recognize the fragility of persons in the face of certain powerful temptations of fallen human nature.  Sometimes it is unjust not to protect persons against these very sources.

These visions of law seem to me to be irreconcilable, and raise two questions: first, does Cardinal George's assertion that law's aim is no less than human perfection reflect a settled Catholic understanding of law?  Second, does the difference between the Stuntz/Skeel and Cardinal George conceptions of law's purpose emanate from a Protestant/Catholic difference in theology, or from something else?

Rob