Religion, Politics, and Law

Catalog description

The rule of law is central to a free society, which requires, in the words of John Adams, “A government of laws, not of men.” But the rule of law also gives rise to many difficulties and questions. Justice has always taken the form of law, from the great religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to modern democratic republics. Yet, laws can be unjust, and many of the great figures of history, from Socrates and Jesus to the American Founders and Martin Luther King, have been condemned as lawbreakers. In this class we will investigate such questions as the following: Should the law always be obeyed or should it sometimes be disobeyed? What makes a law just? What should laws be based on, the consent of the governed or the word of God, reason or faith? What is the proper relation between human and divine law? We will introduce these questions with a discussion of Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”–his classic statement on civil disobedience. We will then explore these questions with a study of texts from classical antiquity on law–Sophocles’ Antigone; Plato’s Apology of Socrates and Crito; a few selections from Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War–then a few selections from the Bible, both Old and New Testament, to understand how the Bible transforms and complicates the question of law–and finally Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, where he lays the foundation for modern, secular, liberal politics. Satisfies Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.