Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1989

Abstract

Not long ago, any question of the kind "How may theology serve as a resource in understanding law?" would have been hardly conceivable among lawyers. When Lon Fuller brought out his first book in 1940, The Law in Quest of Itself, he could think of no better way of tagging his adversary the legal positivist than to note a "parallel between theoretical theology and analytical jurisprudence." Two decades later, in the name of realism, Thurman Arnold dismissed Henry Hart's non-positivist jurisprudence in harsh terms. A master of the cutting phrase, he confidently entitled his attack "Professor Hart's Theology." Two decades after that, in the late 1970's, Grant Gilmore ended his summa The Ages of American Law with the strong claim, "In Heaven there will be no law. . .. In Hell there will be nothing but law." The disassociation of theology and law, or law truly understood, seemed complete, and the only question was what direction legal thinking should take now that it was free of its theological roots.

Download


Share

COinS