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The Metalegal God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2014

Rafael Domingo
Rafael Domingo*
Affiliation:
Professor of Law and ICS Research Professor, University of Navarra School of Law, Pamplona Francisco de Vitoria Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University
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Abstract

This article deals with the relation between God and the secular legal systems of Western liberal democracies. It provides a normative argument for the compatibility of God and secular legal reasoning. In our age, in which believing in God is no longer socially axiomatic and the right to religious freedom protects all kinds of theistic and non-theistic religious beliefs, creeds and first philosophies, it seems contrary to religious neutrality for secular legal systems to single out God. This article instead argues that, although God and religion are inextricably intertwined, they affect the legal system in different ways because they are ontologically different. God cannot be reduced to a mere component of theistic religion. A proper understanding of secularisation might call for keeping God outside the legal system but not for driving God out of the public sphere of democratic societies. Secular legal systems are not atheist legal systems; they are legal systems ‘without religion’ but not ‘without God’. Secularisation implies some degree of minimal recognition of God as a metalegal concept. The specific degree of recognition of God appropriate for any given political community depends on its cultural and communitarian identity and should be subject to the rules of democratic procedures and majorities. This is the metalegal God.

Keywords

freedom of religionGodlegal systemmetalegal conceptneutralitytoleration
Type
Articles
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , May 2014 , pp. 147 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2014 

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References

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