Jurisprudence divine and human.DAWID.pdf

The paper is to answer the question what jurisprudence is. Is it still “the science of things divine and human”, as it was wonderfully stated in the Code of Justinian in 534, following Roman law (Roman jurisprudence) and great Roman jurists like Ulpian? Is jurisprudence still “the science of the just and the unjust”, as we read in the Code? I propose to go to Justinian’s Compilation, Book I. Of Persons, I. Justice and Law: Justice is the constant and perpetual wish to render every one his due. Jurisprudence is the knowledge of things divine and human; the science of the just and the unjust. The paper will also examine the historical, theoretical, and axiological foundations of the European legal culture. To understand the present day law and legal profession, it is necessary to go back to the values, theories, and thinkers important for European law from ancient times to the 19th century. The paper not only presents the theoretical and historical issues of the European legal culture but also acquaints the audience with the true foundations of our contemporary legal institutions, and the methods of legal thinking in Europe. My thesis is that our contemporary Western jurisprudence is rotten: we lost metaphysics in law, especially after the time of the Salamanca school of natural law. The concept of virtue based on Thomistic Aristotelianism was essentially redefined by the Northern school of natural law (Grotius, Pufendorf, Wolff etc.). Now axiological consistency of Western law is full of … inconsistency. Something is broken in jurisprudence. Nowadays, in the beginning of the 21st century, for many legal scholars this is a shame or a lack of professionalism to combine law with theology or Christian moral philosophy. However, there are good exceptions (Finnis, Witte, Bankowski). There is an axiological struggle in this science indeed. What jurisprudence is seems a conceptual and academic problem. Say, it is a general theory of law and state. Its practical importance in legal education and political science is remarkable. I analyse relations between law and religion (and morality) in jurisprudence while talking about the condition of the today Western jurisprudence. Furthermore, while going back to the origins of law in Europe, I focus on three roots: Greek philosophy (Aristotle and Plato), Roman law (Ulpian, Cicero, Gaius etc.) and Medieval jurisprudence and theology (St. Thomas Aquinas, Medieval jurists like Accursius, Iacobus, Bartolus, Baldus, and the Salamanca school of natural law in the persons of Suarez, Molina, Lessius etc.). Western law conceptually was rooted in Christianity. Sadly, while answering the question from the paper sub-title, it seems to me that nowadays jurisprudence is more about human things, but almost not about divine things; God does not exist for the legislator and most of the legal scholars. God died, as Nietzsche said. Nowadays also the great idea Ius est ars boni et aequi (Ulpianus, D. 1, 1, 1) is a slogan, since moral philosophy as “a mother of law” (Baldus Commentaria to D. I.I.I.2) seems dubious. The necessity of going back to the three roots and the true origins of jurisprudence, i.e. to the heritage of Areopagus, Colosseum, and Golgotha, is becoming so obvious. This was and is Justinian’s heritage.

Law, Virtue and Justice, Amalia Amaya and Ho Hock Lai (eds), 2012

Pharos journal of theology, 2022

Relevance of Christian theological grounds of jurisprudence stems from the fact that a religion in general and Christianity in particular, remains one of the main regulators of social behavior, whereby the question of the connection between the law and religion as well as the question of the relationship between the Christian theology and jurisprudence arises. The purpose of this study is to reveal historical and contemporary aspects of the similarity, difference and interaction of Christian and legal spheres of the social reality. In particular, the interdisciplinary approach provided the combination of exegesis and hermeneutics, dialectics, dogmatic and historical methodological tools, and was used to retrace the evolution of the law and to disclose various connections between legal and religious prescriptions and the content. The main intersection points of the law and religion, particularly Christianity, such as sacredness, values, morality and axiomatic assertions are disclosed as well as the religious basis of the historical and contemporary law is proved in the article. The outcomes of the study are of practical value for implementating and affirming Open Rubric

The goal of this essay is to provide an account of the philosophy of law which establishes the moral and practical appeal of one legal theory, natural law theory, above another, legal positivism. It does not aim to definitively overturn legal positivism, to deny the value of that theory, or to establish natural law theory as the absolute paramount of legal theories. Its aim, rather, is to effectively argue that natural law theory provides a better means of achieving social happiness than legal positivism can. It is a systematic approach, rather than an historical one, although historical evidence is cited at various points. It locates the particular problems facing an account of the philosophy of law, and addresses those problems using practical reasoning. The essay consists of seven sections and a conclusion. Section one establishes the conceptual location of the philosophy of law, describes its methodology, and identifies the purpose and possible scope of that philosophy. Section two discusses the external parameters of law, focusing particularly upon the relation between law and morality as envisioned by legal positivism and natural law theory. Section three outlines the argument presented by Aristotle that natural law provides a concrete means of attaining happiness, thus providing a justification for participation in a political community as well as the adoption of natural law theory. Section four addresses the question of political obligation. Section five then provides an account of the necessary criteria of legal authority which makes that obligation binding. Section six proceeds to discuss the notion of human rights, while section seven considers the justification of punishment in the context of such rights. Finally, a conclusion is presented, which summarizes the main themes addressed and reaffirms why natural law theory is of greater moral and practical appeal.

The term "Law' denotes different kinds of rules and Principles. Law is an instrument which regulates human conduct/behavior. Law means Justice, Morality, Reason, Order, and Righteous from the view point of the society. Law means Statutes, Acts, Rules, Regulations, Orders, and Ordinances from point of view of legislature. Law means Rules of court, Decrees, Judgment, Orders of courts, and Injunctions from the point of view of Judges. Therefore, Law is a broader term which includes Acts,

There is no universal or uniform definition of Jurisprudence since people have different ideologies and notions throughout the world. It is a very vast subject. When an author talks about political conditions of his society, it reflects that condition of law prevailing at that time in that particular society. It is believed that Romans were the first who started to study what is law.

This article presents evolution and correlation of basic legal notions. Polysemy of the notion of justice (ius) is shown, including its concurrence with the notion of law (lex). Down to the Modern Age the notion ius was an expression of justness. As a freedom, and in addition a primary one with respect to law, ius is understood only starting from the 17th century. The start of differentiation of justice (law) and morals was made as early as in Aristotle’s writings. A minimum of morality becomes stable with secular law (jus) already in medieval philosophy.

Journal of Law and Religion, 2017

In this piece, I will argue for the fittingness of restoring in the era of secularization the dialogue between theology, the rational discourse about the divine, and the jurisprudence of the secular legal system. From a secular point of view, it is suitable for legal thinkers and legal philosophers to be familiar with theology, just as it is best for an architect to be familiar with the type of soil on which to build a structure. From a theological point of view, it is also appropriate for theologians to be familiar with the secular-legal, just as it is suitable for an environmental soil scientist to know the type of structures that can be built on a landscape. Interactions, synergies and communication between sciences play an important role in the development of a scientist's knowledge. It was once generally accepted by legal thinkers and theologians that jurisprudence is autonomous from theology and theology from jurisprudence, and that the distinction between the divine and secular orders shape Western legal culture. However, time has come to rediscover the place of theology in the genealogy of legal reasoning. Acknowledgment, not resolution, of the tensions and contradictions that define the relationship between theology and jurisprudence is the necessary starting point for the reconstruction of this culturally important relationship in order to seek an understanding of theology and law as part from human knowledge. Modern secular systems have been shaped and structured to be profoundly theological because jurisprudence, in some ways, is a distillation of religion. Ancient Roman law originally was made by priests—the so-called pontifical jurisprudence. 1 Litigants pleading in civil suits took the form of religious rituals, and there are extraordinary coincidences, analogies and correspondences between both legal and theological concepts. As Leibniz, a connoisseur of Roman law, rightly emphasized, " we have appropriately transferred the model of our division from theology to jurisprudence because the similarity of these two disciplines