The divine law and the modern project.(A SYMPOSIUM ON REMI BRAGUE'S THE LAW OF GOD)(Critical essay)

In his most recently translated book, Remi Brague displays his usual captivating breadth of erudition--from Egyptian papyrology and Icelandic ecclesiastical history, to the thought of Leo Strauss and Hans Urs von Balthasar, to The Code of the Woosters and Tintin in America. His scholarly style might well be described as refractory, to suggest both its kaleidoscopic character and its penchant for puncturing intellectual orthodoxies; or, using his own words, his perspective might be described as a "wag view of history." That tag would suit the present work particularly well, since one of its aims is to call into question the timeworn linear story of the "inexorable withdrawal of the sacred," to suggest that we "consider the inverse movement, from the profane to the sacred, as well."

The Law of God is Brague's second magisterial work of intellectual history. The first, The Wisdom of the World (2003), investigated the history of cosmology (or more precisely, to use Brague's neologism, cosmonomy) in the West. The two books form the prongs of a single endeavor, which is no less than "making the project underlying modernity more visible." The modern project is above all the attempt to realize human autonomy ever more completely, which requires breaking the two principal bonds of heteronomy at the heart of the various forms of the medieval synthesis: the divine law and the normative indications of man's place in the cosmos. With an uncommon degree of common sense, Brague observes that "if we are to understand modern attacks on divine law (and, by that same token, the essence of the modern project), we need to have a clear grasp of the medieval definition of divine law." By examining the diverse streams flowing into the medieval inheritance (classical, Biblical, and ancient Near Eastern more broadly), Brague clarifies the principal decisions and tensions within these various syntheses (Jewish, Christian, Islamic) so as to bring into higher relief both what the modern project rejects and "what is dubious in the modern project itself."

Brague contends at the outset that, for the purpose of understanding the notion of divine law, it is inadequate to restrict ourselves to the "theological-political problem." He identifies the broader and more adequate horizon as the "theio-practical": "theio" because the passage from the classical divine (to theion) to the Biblical God (ho theos) is "a highly revolutionary event not to be turned into something banal"; "practical" because the field of divine law comprises the whole genus of the practical, which, besides politics, includes also ethics and economics. So long as "the theio-practical problem remains unresolved, any statement of the theio-political problem remains unbalanced and resolved in a wobbly manner."

An initial discussion of Egyptian and Mesopotamian conceptions of the relationship between law and divinity serves to highlight what is shared and unusual in the Greek and Biblical traditions. In the ancient river civilizations, it is the ruler who is linked directly to divinity; the law is divine in a derivative sense, as issuing through his agency. For Greece and Israel, divine law issues directly from divinity, and can thus serve as an independent measure of the ruler's legitimacy. This triangular analysis (law, ruler, divinity) also places into perspective the modern alternative, in which law and ruling authority seek legitimation independently of divinity.

In their respective understandings of what the divine is, however, Greece and Israel part ways. For the Greeks, "[t]he divinity of the laws signifies the permanence of their manifestness ... In this perspective, the divine is in no way hidden, hence has no need to be revealed." It is rather the law of things, "the nature of what is," that requires revealing, but through the exercise of human reason. Thus, Plato's Laws, which uncharacteristically entertains the notion of a god as lawgiver, ends up affirming the divinity of good laws inasmuch as they take inspiration from nature, the divine art.

Israel, on the other hand, recognizes the divinity of law in its issuing from the Creator. Thus, while superficially similar to other Near Eastern civilizations in associating the anointed king with divinity, Israel acknowledges God alone as legitimate ruler; His law is above the king, and by giving it to Israel he constitutes the people, rather than the king, as the subject of history and the embodiment of wisdom. Brague sees certain seeds of democracy here, perhaps even radical democracy: Israel is distinctive for its scriptural texts critiquing kingship, as such, as a usurpation of God in his relationship to his people through law; but this critique of one species implicates the whole genus of the state. The law outlasts both the people's political existence and their sojourn in the land, defining the people ultimately by religion alone.

At this point, Brague offers a fascinating analysis of the significance of Deuteronomy's recapitulation of the law on the eve of entry into the Promised Land, comparing it to criteria of purity posted at temple doors: the laws to be observed must be stated and accepted before entry into sacred space. "The aim of the commandments," he observes, "is not to impose obedience, but to provide an entry into divine mores. Entry into the land of God is also, by that token, entering into the intimacy of the One who lives there." Thus the aim of the laws is "not to reduce men to ... slaves of God." On the contrary, before the Decalogue we are reminded that God is the liberator: "The law liberates, and at the same time it teaches." Brague thus complicates the opposition of Judaism and Islam together as religions of law to Christianity as a religion of doctrines. Judaism and Christianity share in one spirit of liturgy, which is a spirit of communion and liberty, and both generate challenges for overweening claims to political legitimacy.