Christian Law Research Articles

Periculum animarum: Bishops, Gender, and Scandal

Scandal was defined in the medieval church as the sin of causing another's fall by providing a bad example in word or deed. The theology of scandal was developed particularly by Peter the Chanter (d1197) and his early thirteenth-century followers Robert Courson, Stephen Langten, and Thomas of Chobham, and it was crystallized by Thomas Aquinas into the doctrine which survives in the Catholic Church today. Scandal was a sin against charity, since it endangered the souls of others, and most thirteenth-century writers on the subject agreed that it could be a mortal sin, depending on the kind of sin it provoked in another. It was so serious that it was to be avoided at all costs, except where the truths of life (the Christian way of living to attain eternal life), doctrine (Christian teaching), and justice (Christian law and order, and rectitude) were concerned.

Avoiding Charges of Legalism and Antinomianism in Jewish‐Christian Dialogue

This article sets forth a theological approach to Jewish‐Christian dialogue on the issue of law, which is often thought to be beyond the grasp of that dialogue because Judaism and Christianity are supposed to be in diametrical opposition here. Christians must recognize that for Jews, law is not in opposition to grace as a substitute for faith but, rather, law is the faithful response to grace in the covenant. Christians cannot be antinomians without simultaneously rejecting the very authority of God to command any faithful response. The issue between Judaism and Christianity is which law, Jewish or Christian, best enables a human being to be in the fullest possible relationship with God in the yet unredeemed world. On many points, though, Jewish and Christian law will overlap, thus reveal some essential commonalities.

Recht und Rechtsbegründung in christlicher Verantwortung

Abstract To answer the question about the Christian foundation of the law, we first have to look for the foundation of the law in general. The reason why we follow the law voluntarily is not the law and its legal sanctions, but our religion or philosophy of life. »Grundwerte« (basic values) or human rights offer no alternative foundation. Either they are part of the law - and not its foundation, or they are a particular philosophy of life beside others. The law of a pluralistic state that guarantees freedom of religion and belief, and, consequently, is religiously and ideologically neutral, cannot be based on a particular philosophy of life, religion, or denomination. Thus, this law has to be »right« in the eyes of every religious community living in this state. It is, therefore, not a Christian law with respect to its foundation, but the Christians have been leaving their mark on its contents.

Art, Freedom and the Christian Law of England

Art, Freedom and the Christian Law of England

The Concord of Law in the Stanza della Segnatura

While the divided south wall of the Stanza della Segnatura offers a balance of Civic Law that follows traditional practices in the classification of legal literature in medieval libraries its subjects, Justinian and Gregory IX, encouraged a view of the present in terms of its relation to the history of civilization. Thus could Roman law and Canon law be viewed, by an ambitious pontiff who saw his own situation as forged from the inheritance of both, as the greatest influences on-and explanations for-his own governmental ideas and actions. A Ciceronian interpretation of the Law as deriving from the supreme authority (above) would suggest that the three suavely articulated and interconnected female figures above represent the Three Graces or the legal sisters, daughters of Zeus who supervise the benefits of the Law. Thus is it tempting to imagine the possibility that through the (Greek) graces, the (Roman) Justinian, and the (Christian) Gregory, a grandiose concordance, or harmony, of Greek Law, Roman Law, and Christian Law is offered in the three interrelated scenes of this wall.

The Reasonableness of Locke, or the Questionableness of Christianity

Locke's apparent affirmation of the truth of Christianity in The Reasonableness of Christianity conceals a demonstration of reason's inability to vindicate this truth. Locke shows that one should strive to adhere to the Christian law of nature which he argues is the bedrock of Christianity only if sanctions for this law exist in an afterlife; reason, however, cannot prove the existence of an afterlife. Therefore, reason justifies obedience only to a law of nature the sanctions for which exist in this life, such as the law Locke elaborates in other writings. In the Reasonableness Locke refashions Christianity into a support for this rational morality, and he vindicates the practice of morality out of a concern for rewards and punishments by presenting Jesus as practicing a mercenary morality.

DE OPVATTING VAN HET HUWELIJK IN HET ONTWERP VOOR EEN NIEUW CANONIEK HUWELIJKSRECHT

SUMMARY The Pontifical Committee for the Revision of Canon Law presently reviews suggestions and amendments on their latest drafts of sacramental law, esp. marriage law. The main criticism concerns the very definition of marriage. The committee, so the critique goes, has mixed up the contractual view of marriage with the personalistic view. The former claims both ontological and theological validity, the latter has no such claims. The draft has allowed for only those personalistic elements which admit legal treatment, e.g. the bond of husband and wife, the unity of marital love and its procreative aim; yet other elements, e.g. personal surrender and love have been omitted. This author believes a personalistic type of marriage law should be developed. In fact, true Christian law originates where the opposition between law and love has been overcome. One frightful consequence of personalistic marriage laws is the breakdown of traditional distinctions, e.g. between valid and invalid marriages. Indissolubilit...

Personal Laws and the Rights of Women

There exist different personal laws in India. The Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs are governed by Hindu law. Muslim law applies to Muslims. The Christians are governed by Christian law and Parsi law applies to the Parsi. Jews have their own personal law. Women’s rights in relation to marriage and property are not adequately protected under these personal laws. This has resulted in gross violation of human rights of women guaranteed under the Indian Constitution and also under the International Conventions relating to protection of human rights. This paper makes an examination of the provisions
 of different personal laws which are discriminatory against women. It recommends the unification of personal laws in the form of a uniform civil code consisting of fair, just and non-discriminatory provisions. The formulation
 of a uniform civil code would go a long way in improving the status of women in India.

Is Capitalism Baptised?

Until recently the majority of Catholics would have instinctively felt that the Church was on the whole opposed to capitalism. They would not have made a conscious judgment about such a thing because the majority of Catholics was hard at work trying to keep the obvious day-today demands of the Christian law in the face of a mounting antagonism from the non-Christian environment. But they would have instinctively recoiled from associating the direct moral teaching of the Church with an approval of the possession and accruing of wealth without labour and without responsibilities. They knew their Gospels too well for that, and they had often heard the Franciscan message declaring the blessings on the poor in spirit.Non-Catholics on the other hand would as naturally have tended to associate the Catholic Church with capitalism in view of the apparent association between her ecclesiastical organisation and what had come to be regarded as traditional business methods. They had seldom heard of the social encyclicals that came from Rome and they had never read them. They thought they recognised the Church as most securely established in those countries where the peasants and artisans were most exploited for the benefit of the rich few. Today, with war between the Church and Communism at its height, there can be only a handful of non-Catholics who do not regard that conflict as implying an identification of the Church with capitalism or who, on the other hand, have read such books as Fanfani’s Catholicism, Protestantism and Capitalism which concludes an intelligent analysis of the question with the judgment that ‘Catholics, so long as they held closely to the social teachings of the Church, could never act in favour of capitalism’.

Crisis, History and the Image of Man

In his address at the 200th convocation of the University of Chicago, June 11, 1940, President Hutchins invited American youth to reexamine the principles which make life worth living.This enterprise is most urgently necessary in removing the intellectual unpreparedness of the nation. Far worse than the military and economic deficiencies in equipment and armament are the spiritual dissensions among the various groups of our time. In the universal conflict those nations will prevail whose unity results from spontaneous and free devotion to values which are recognized as worth living and dying for. We can reintegrate the nation, when we succeed in breaking the continuous secularization which, parallel to the rapid industrialization after the Civil War, is undermining the ethos of American life. The ethos which made this commonwealth great, was the fighting spirit of enlightenment. The backbone of the political principles of the Constitution, is the spirit of the Christian Law of Nature; that means political freedom as the fullfilment of the rules of the Almighty. This unity between the three spheres: nature, man and God was discarded by the process of secularization. The ethics of enlightenment shifted to the demand for universal comfort and for good living. The attitude of a boundless optimism prevailed which considered history an unending process of perfection. It was thought that this state of continuous improvement would result from the scientific organization of social and political institutions; their progress would eliminate eventually what the less scientific past had ascribed to the finiteness and sinfulness of man.

Welfare Problems in India

IMPENDING constitutional changes, which will affect welfare administration in India, add particular significance to two articles by Mr. Cedric Dover in the January issues of Mother and Child and the Quarterly Review. He discusses the organisation and condition of maternal and child welfare in India, and the needs and defects of welfare legislation. Maternal mortality rates are 4-20 times, and infant mortality rates 3-4 times as much as the averages obtaining in England, and are closely correlated with communal prosperity and housing conditions. An interesting biological correlation is that between climatic conditions and frequency of conceptions, the maximum number occurring in Bombay during the period of minimum humidity (January-April). Both articles emphasise the need for centralisation and greater co-ordination of welfare activities. A consolidated Public Health Act for all India is regarded as the primary essential of welfare legislation, and a commission on legal reform is suggested, which will recognise that “the main object of law is the prevention of dysgenic, and the encouragement and establishment of eugenic forces”, unimpeded by traditional beliefs. The operation of Hindu, Mohammedan and Christian laws under one administration is dismissed as “an anachronism that needs no emphasis”.

Tools and the Man: Property and Industry under Christian Law, by Washington Gladden

Tools and the Man: Property and Industry under Christian Law, <i>by Washington Gladden</i>