The Foundation of Norms in Islamic Jurisprudence and Theology


Book Description

This book offers a new way of understanding classical Islamic theories, holding that divine revelation is necessary for the knowledge of norms and its reading of the issue of reason breaks new ground in Islamic theology, law and ethics. It will appeal to students and scholars of Islamic studies, Islamic ethics, law and post-colonial theory.







Jurisprudence and Theology


Book Description

The book provides in depth studies of two epistemological aspects of Jewish Law (Halakhah) as the ‘Word of God’ – the question of legal reasoning and the problem of knowing and remembering. - How different are the epistemological concerns of religious-law in comparison to other legal systems? - In what ways are jurisprudential attitudes prescribed and dependent on theological presumptions? - What specifies legal reasoning and legal knowledge in a religious framework? The author outlines the rabbinic jurisprudential thought rooted in Talmudic literature which underwent systemization and enhancement by the Babylonian Geonim and the Andalusian Rabbis up until the twelfth century. The book develops a synoptic view on the growth of rabbinic legal thought against the background of Christian theological motifs on the one hand and Karaite and Islamic systemized jurisprudence on the other hand. It advances a perspective of legal-theology that combines analysis of jurisprudential reflections and theological views within a broad historical and intellectual framework. The book advocates two approaches to the study of the legal history of the Halakhah: comparative jurisprudence and legal-theology, based on the understanding that jurisprudence and theology are indispensable and inseparable pillars of legal praxis.




Law as Religion, Religion as Law


Book Description

The conventional approach to law and religion assumes that these are competing domains, which raises questions about the freedom of, and from, religion; alternate commitments of religion and human rights; and respective jurisdictions of civil and religious courts. This volume moves beyond this competitive paradigm to consider law and religion as overlapping and interrelated frameworks that structure the social order, arguing that law and religion share similar properties and have a symbiotic relationship. Moreover, many legal systems exhibit religious characteristics, informing their notions of authority, precedent, rituals and canonical texts, and most religions invoke legal concepts or terminology. The contributors address this blurring of law and religion in the contexts of political theology, secularism, church-state conflicts, and the foundational idea of divine law. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.




Faith and Order


Book Description

This book argues that despite the tensions existing in all societies between religious faith and legal order, they inevitably interact. In the course of his discussion Berman traces the history of Western law, exposes the fallacies of law theories that fail to take religion into account, examines key theological, prophetic, and educational themes, and looks at the role of religion in the Soviet and post-Soviet state.







Concepts of Law in the Sciences, Legal Studies, and Theology


Book Description

This volume documents the results of an international, interdisciplinary exchange between legal scholars, theologians, scientists, and philosophers. During the course of several years, these thinkers explored analogies and differences between concepts of law in various academic disciplines, probing the sustainability of an interdisciplinary concept of law. While inspired by objectives of the natural law debate, the contributions nonetheless assume that a dialogue between theology and philosophy is not sufficient to forge both a critical and constructive association of "reason and religion." The contributors pursue a concept of law which is viable in multidisciplinary as well as international regard and, while drawing on the goals of the natural law debate, leaves its shortcomings behind. Contributors: Nicolaidis Agyris, Harold J. Berman, Rudiger Bittner, Gregor Etzelmuller, Niels Henrik Gregersen, Jorg Hufner, Wentzel van Huyssteen, Matthias Konradt, Wang Liuer, Patrick Miller, John Polkinghorne, Jeff Schloss, Konrad Schmid, Mathias Schmoeckel, Christoph Strohm, Christiane Tietz, Michael Welker, John Witte, Judy Wornat




Christianity and Natural Law


Book Description

This book compares historical and modern natural law ideas across global Christian traditions and explores their use in church law.




Biblical Natural Law


Book Description

An introduction to natural law theory and a challenge to re-think current biblical scholarship on the topic. Levering establishes the relevance of a biblical worldview to the contemporary pursuit of a moral life and locates his argument in the context of the philosophical development of natural law theory from Cicero to Nietzsche.




From Violence to Peace


Book Description

This book contributes to the literature on jurisprudence and theology by arguing for the role of a theoretically robust Christian theology in a legal community dominated by secular and liberal ideology. It is not a doctrinal or empirical analysis, but a theoretical exposition of the way in which modern law has contingently drifted from its theological origins. As a result, the legal system and the ideal of individual and communal relationship it envisages is characterised by antagonism and alienation, or more broadly, violence. The book contends that the way to restore a legal community of peace is to return to a Christian theology which is informed by Trinitarian thinking or the notion of unity in diversity, and reunites faith with reason. Returning reason to its ground in being allows peaceful persuasion by the revelation of God's perfect being through the Trinity and Incarnation, which models and enables the peaceful coexistence of difference through self-sacrificing love. This in turn produces the law of love – to love your neighbour as yourself. Since love does no wrong to a neighbour, a legal community operating by the law of love can fulfil the obligations of law by going beyond merely what is required by law and love individuals as part of a community.