Understanding the Western legal system and its formation is impossible without understanding Christianity’s role. One key point involves the doctrine of the atonement. Before you think this is the fabricated rambling of some guy sitting at a keyboard, which is all too common today, you must understand that this theological link is traced clearly in a classic work by Harvard Law professor Harold Berman called Law and Revolution. Written in the 1980s, Berman is a key source for understanding the formation of the Western legal system. Whether you agree or disagree, you must interact with him. So, what impact did the Cross of Christ play in our understanding of law?
The Western legal system, as we know it, began formation around 1050 A.D. Before that time in the West, there was no centralized institution of law. Feudalism and tribalism were the primary political structures of the land. Folklaw held sway with all its rituals, superstitions, and blood feuds. Around 1050, the Papal revolution took place and began to centralize the authority of the Catholic Church. The Abbot of Cluny begins to have authority over other monasteries, and as their authority spreads, they seek a better understanding of the law. They found a copy of the Justinian Code compiled by Roman Emperor Justinian half a century earlier and began to utilize it as their framework. Still, they also reinterpreted and reworked it more systematically, following the Scholastic method.
Around the same time, Anselm is writing and showing that the Christian faith is reasonable, and he uses logical arguments to make his point. He makes a rational argument to prove the biblical revelation that God must punish sin. In other words, a just God cannot simply let sin go. The penalty must be paid, which was the purpose of the cross. The argument flows as follows.
- To remit sin without satisfaction or adjustment is not to punish it.
- And if sin needs no adjustment or punishment, then the one who sins is no different before God than the one who does not sin.
- And if no adjustment needs to be made before God, then what must be forgiven?
- Following this logic, there is no reason for forgiveness because being unrighteous or righteous makes no difference before God.
- Therefore, it is unbecoming of God not to punish sin because it would make evil and good equal in His sight.
- Since this cannot be the case, then God must punish sin.
This idea of a just penalty for sin is foundational for understanding justice as we know it today. As the doctrine of penal substitution began to be clarified, the Church’s understanding of purgatory and penance as penalties for sin also influenced legal scholars in the same direction. It would be another 500 years before Martin Luther set out to reform the Church in those areas. Nevertheless, the understanding of the atonement was at the heart of it all. If sin demands punishment, then crime does as well. Our doctrines of justice and law should be based on divine truth.
This understanding of the atonement as God paying the penalty for sin is why we have a retributive justice system with a penal code attached to virtually every law. Many legal scholars, especially those who hold to critical legal theory, want to deconstruct these foundations of law. They would rather that the law be rehabilitative. As C.S. Lewis once pointed out, the problem is that the rehabilitative view destroys the idea of justice and makes mercy impossible. If penalties for crime are “cures,” then two men convicted of the same minor infraction could have radically different sentences. One may be “cured” quickly, while another may take years to be “healed.” On top of this, it would never be merciful to withhold a “cure” from the ill; therefore, it would never be merciful to offer mercy to the criminal. “The punishment should fit the crime” is founded on the idea that crimes have corresponding just penalties. We hope they will be rehabilitative, but rehabilitation is not the cornerstone of the penal code.
Another aspect worth mentioning of the atonement’s influence on the legal system is that forgiveness can be found by trusting Christ’s work on the Cross. Christ’s payment on the Cross is not to set us free from facing justice in this life, though it is the basis of mercy. The payment Christ made for us on the Cross is to make us right with God now and set us free eschatologically when we stand before Him in judgment for our sins. Jesus rose from the dead and our lives do not end at death either. At the judgment, those who trust in him will be co-heirs with Christ because he has paid their penalty, and those who reject him will go to hell to pay their own penalty. This possibility for redemption also impacts our laws.
Berman points out that we have laws in the books today that reflect the possibility of redemption. One example involves the death penalty. If a man committed a murder, was found to be of sane mind, was convicted, and sentenced to death, if that man went insane while in prison, the law states that the man must not be put to death until he regains his sanity. Why is this? What does it matter? Some may state that the man needs to understand why he is being put to death, and this is correct. He needs to understand because it is his last opportunity to find forgiveness in Jesus.
How did all of these ideas spread and become embedded in the legal system as we know it? The Church was the first to create universities, and law was the first area of study. As the political and secular realms needed to catch up to these advances in law, they all studied at law schools run by the Church.
There are countless other ways Christianity and its doctrines are foundational to the Western legal system, and these presuppositions are precisely what many from the critical legal theory school of thought are working to remove. The only problem is they are unclear on what they want to replace it with. This world has tried laws that deny Christian truth and deny that men are made in the image of God countless times, and the results were never good. The Western legal system has been chipping away at its foundation for years now, which is why Christians need to be able to articulate presuppositions such as these.
-D. Eaton
The Fight of Faith 