God's Joust, God's Justice: Law and Religion in the Western Tradition.

Kelsay, John

God's Joust, God's Justice: Law and Religion in the Western Tradition. By John Witte, Jr. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2006. xiv + 498 pp. $30.00 paper.

According to John Witte, law and religion "are two great interlocking systems of ideas and institutions, values and beliefs" (461). Indeed, as a "Christian historian," Witte thinks of his study of the "dialectical interaction" between law and religion as a kind of search "within the wisdom of the ages for some indication of the eternal wisdom of God" (4, 5). It is this search that gives the sense of Witte's title; inspired by Martin Luther, Witte thinks of history as God's "joust," by means of which God reveals justice.

God's Joust, God's Justice brings together a number of papers written over the last eight or ten years. These present the dialectic of law and religion in terms of three images: a grand narrative of Western civilization; narrower denominational stories; and "discrete doctrinal pictures" (9). Witte's grand narrative focuses on four defining moments in the history of law and religion. The Christian conversion of the Roman Empire, the Papal Revolution of the late eleventh to thirteenth centuries, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment each receive attention. The last, in particular, sets in motion trends toward the secularization of the law with which we are still living. Even so, however, Witte argues that particular areas of the law continue to bear the imprint of religion. As well, he argues that attention to religion can illumine certain conundra of contemporary law and thereby help us to find the way forward. This is so, for example, in discussions of the relations between church and state: as Witte has it, these must take account of the historic concern of constitutional and other provisions to protect the free exercise of religion. The Enlightenment (and, more particularly, the mid-twentieth century) emphasis on avoiding the tyranny of religious establishment focused on protecting citizens from religion. The current challenge is to find ways of regulating public behavior that will simultaneously honor this legitimate concern while steering clear of a correlative tyranny, by which religious people are coerced in ways that limit their freedom. Similarly, the law governing family life has moved increasingly toward views of marriage as a contract, resting on consent of the parties; this development, which Witte sees as part of the Enlightenment trend toward secularization of the law, rightly addresses certain overly restrictive and even cruel aspects of historic religious practice--for example, the absolute prohibition on divorce. Nevertheless, the contractual and voluntary aspects of marriage may be overemphasized, says Witte; religious perspectives remind us that, in many instances, there is a third party affected by any dissolution of the marriage relation, namely, children. Witte thinks the way forward in this regard may involve renewed attention to religious notions of parental responsibility for children.

In developing his thesis of the dialectical interaction of law and religion in history, Witte cites Harold Berman, Otto van Gierke, and others as sources of inspiration. Witte's comments about historical study as the search for God's eternal wisdom are equally, if not more, reminiscent of Ernst Troeltsch, however. For Troeltsch, historical understanding requires appreciation of events in their "uniqueness." Without some connection to a larger narrative or set of purposes, however, such uniqueness disintegrates into a self-defeating form of relativism. I confess to some unclarity, with respect to what Witte's historical studies reveal regarding the knowledge of God. With respect to a more Troeltschian notion, by which such studies serve in the identification and evaluation of competing ways of ordering life, however, Witte's studies show us a great deal.

John Kelsay

Florida State University