International Peacemaking and the Anti-War Movement

Abstract

This paper contends that biblical law provides guidance about the proper configuration of moral goods and evils, which are often incommensurable, rather than offering a “vision of the good.” It argues that the “good” of creation itself comprises a moral order of goods to which there are many proper responses and investigates how such openness, when combined with a focus upon moral goods, intersects with three aspects of Burnside’s argument in God, Justice, and Society, namely, the role of wisdom, the importance of vocation and the significance of God’s grace.     

HENRY VAUGHAN,THE LIBERATION OF THE CREATURES,AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH CALVINISM

This article examines how Richard Bernard’s commentary on the Book of Ruth, Ruths Recompence (1628), was constructed so as to deliver its messages, specifically those reflecting Bernard’s concern with living well. Attention is drawn to certain parts of the exposition which exemplify Bernard’s views and one part, especially, which caused him perplexity. This last pertains to a central element of Ruth which challenges Bernard and his early modern predecessors, in particular, in expounding the book. This is Ruth’s approach in Chapter 3, following the advice of her mother-in-law, Naomi, to their kinsman, Boaz, on the threshing floor, alone by night to request marriage according to the levirate law. Such an approach is contrary to the voluminous literature in the early modern period setting out how women should conduct themselves. Regarding other parts of the exposition, the article shows how Bernard taught such lessons as desirable relations between masters and servants.     

Augustine on Justice: A Reconsideration of City of God,Book 19

I argue that Augustine’s message in City of God, Book 19, has been consistently misinterpreted and hence a vital part of his argument in City of God has been misunderstood. The received reading of Book 19, as found in the work of Mary Clark, Rowan Williams, John Milbank, Oliver O’Donovan and Robert Dodaro, is that in Book 19 Augustine rejected the possibility of finding social and political justice among pagans. I argue that Augustine reached no such conclusion in Book 19. On the contrary, I find that the only justice that Augustine denied to pagans in Book 19 was justice as righteousness, that is, the justice of worshipping and serving the true God. He found that pagans claimed justice as righteousness for themselves and on this basis claimed that Rome had been a republic. Augustine denied that pagans could ever possess justice as righteousness, and hence denied that pagan Rome had ever been a republic.     

Royalty,Robes and the Art of Biblical Narrative

A series of biblical narratives pertaining to the royal cloak (usually a ????) and its tearing will be examined. It will be observed that an individual’s status and fortunes depend upon the bestowal or loss of these special garments. The torn-robe motif appears in all stages of the Israelite monarchy, from Saul to the post-exilic anticipation of the renewal of kingship. These stories involve reigning kings, like Saul, potential successors, such as David and prophets among others. What makes these stories intriguing and worth considering are the unexpected plot twists that defy the standard convention.     

Leibniz,Locke, and the Early Modern Controversy over Legal Maxims

This article investigates the context of a side line in Leibniz's critique of Locke on maxims. In an enigmatic and little-explored remark, Leibniz objects that Locke has overlooked some legal maxims that fulfil the function of ‘constituting the law’. I propose to read this remark against the background of the divergence between conceptions of legal maxims in the common law tradition and conceptions of legal maxims in the Roman law tradition. In a few remarks, Locke seems to echo the common law emphasis on customs and conventions expressed by legal maxims. According to such a conception, reason would mainly fulfil the function of subsuming particular norms under more general conventional norms. By contrast, Leibniz uses the Roman law idea that some ‘rules of law’ express demands of natural reason and, thereby, express principles constitutive of natural law. This is why he proposes to reform vague and confused ‘brocards’ used by jurists in order to identify sound maxims that provide a natural-law foundation for legal institutions.     

Law,Principle, and the Theologico-Political History of Sovereignty

Abstract

This article takes it cue from the debate between Carl Schmitt and Erik Peterson regarding the possibility of political theology within Christianity, and in response, offers a conceptual-historical portrait of sovereignty and its juridical dimensions. Beginning with the introduction of Roman law into the medieval Church, the article traces the logic of “legal principle” as the basis of sovereign decision and how the form of legal distinctions adopted into canon law translate the Romanitas of law into the theory of papal sovereignty. By the Romanitas of law, that is to say the principle of sovereignty in law. The article then seeks to describe the conceptual translations of Roman politics and Stoic metaphysics into theological form and the logic of this translation into medieval natural law. The article concludes by evaluating how the civic theology of Rome is conceptually inherited by the politics and legal framework of sovereignty and returns to Peterson’s critique of Schmitt, arguing that political theology can be understood as a dynamic where politics is theologized, assuming that in the history of religion, theology and politics are never fully distinct to begin with.     

巫-玉-神泛论

本文通过对玉、巫、神的内涵分析,探索玉、巫、神的互动以推动史前社会的发展.巫为核心,玉为巫觋事神的神物,神是血缘与地缘的超自然力量.到了文明曙光期,巫觋地位下降,终于成为神职人员.通古斯语系萨满祭神与玉无关,因时代、族别不同,也不能用萨满对应巫觋.     

Common usage,presumption and verisimilitude in sixteenth-century theories of juridical interpretation

The question of how common usage could be constitutive for the meaning of linguistic expressions has been discussed by Renaissance philosophers such as Lorenzo Valla, and it also played an important role in Renaissance theories of juridical interpretation. An aspect of the analysis of common usage in Renaissance theories of juridical interpretation that concerns the role of presumption has not yet found much attention. Renaissance jurists such as Simone de Praetis, Nicolaus Everardus, and Aimone de Cravetta saw that both the usage of Latin by practitioners of law and the vernacular common usage of ordinary people often differed from the technical definition of legal concepts as laid down by ancient jurists or modern legislators. In some cases, they ascribed both to Latin and to vernacular common usage the power of changing the meaning of juridical terms. Still, they were aware of the fact that matters of common usage involve always a degree of uncertainty. The methodological notion of presumption is one of the concepts that figured most prominently in Renaissance approaches to the problem of uncertainty, and, in particular, it was applied in the analysis of meaning-change of legal concepts through common usage.     

The Moral Theologian,Oliver O'Donovan and International Law

Abstract

Oliver O'Donovan renders a singular contribution to the theory and history of international law by identifying the spiritual impoverishment of the discipline following the triumph of state-centred contractarianism in the theory of international relations, with Hobbes, Locke, Kant and, for the present, John Rawls. This contractarian approach to international society has an inherent tendency, which O'Donovan highlights, to ground international order in the hegemonic claim of one or two countries to represent the values of the whole of humanity. With a combination of rational moral theology and biblical interpretation (Revelation), O'Donovan reasserts an international order grounded in the autonomous identities of the nations, which God has recognized as equal. With a theory of political legitimacy which rests upon representation of national identity, O'Donovan points the way to an international order based upon mutual respect among nations under natural law, in the classical medieval sense finally represented by Grotius and Suarez. This article describes again what the natural law tradition meant in the hands of Aquinas and Vitoria, in order to highlight the fact that the ontological dimension of natural law theory provides a way to meet the intolerable insecurities which theories of nationalism appear to generate. Then the article goes on to offer one way to bring natural law thinking up to date for contemporary audiences by drawing upon Paul Ricoeur's phenomenological theory of mutual recognition and respect among the nations as a way of going beyond the contractarian tradition in contemporary international law and relations theory.     

Pilgrims Progress In Society Augustines Political Thought In The City Of God

Abstract

This essay attempts to study Augustines political thought in The City of God De Civitate Dei. It will demonstrate that the notion of pilgrimage is essential for understanding the political thought that Augustine develops in The City of God. To support the thesis, I will explore what role the theme of pilgrimage plays in Augustines formulation of anthropology, ecclesiology, and political thought in The City of God. Augustines ideas of pilgrimage stem from his pilgrim eschatology, which regulates the entire political aspect of the Christians life. Augustine does not lay any neutral realm between the city of God and the earthly city. The political work of pilgrims of the city of God for the citizens of the earthly city is associated with evangelism persuasion to love God, peace the mutual aim of the two cities, justice which starts from true worship, and prayer which is intending toward the final perfection.     

Forging Environmentalism: Justice,Livelihood and Contested Environments. Joanne Bauer,ed.

A senior Japanese authority on the Russian economy and its energy sector addresses the country's exposure to the so-called Dutch disease, suggesting that Russia did suffer from the potentially ruinous overdependence on oil and gas exports. The author argues, however, that the symptoms of the disease were actually not severe, attributing his interpretation to: (1) drastic decline of noncompetitive domestic manufacturing industries in the 1990s, which prompted a huge inflow of imports in the 2000s, but left competitive manufacturing enterprises in a position to survive; (2) extraordinary oil price increases in the 2000s, which significantly raised household and business incomes, creating augmented demand for products of domestic origin; (3) large differences between Russian and world prices of oil and gas, which functioned as subsidies for domestic manufacturing; and (4) massive intervention in foreign exchange markets by the Central Bank of Russia, which restricted the growth of imports and thus strengthened the surviving domestic manufacturing enterprises.     

China,Natural Resources,Sovereignty and International Law

Abstract

This article explores China’s attitudes towards the regulation of key natural resources by international law, domestically and at the trans-boundary and international levels. It considers the impact of international law on China’s own practices, and the contribution of China towards shaping international law. The article suggests that popular conceptions of a relatively isolated, sovereign absolutist China do not accord with contemporary legal realities, including in its dealings with natural resources. While China’s construction of strong sovereignty shapes its attitudes towards legal regulation, practice also suggests that China adopts a nuanced approach which includes legal compromise, and a commitment to multilateral regulation or bilateral diplomatic settlement of issues previously within the competence of national governments. China is often an active and constructive participant in contemporary law-making, even if – like all countries – it also seeks to instrumentally use international law.     

Care‐full Justice in the City

Feminist theorists in geography and beyond have long been calling for an ethic of care to be considered alongside justice as a normative ideal that can assist us in repairing our world. In urban theory this call has largely remained unheard as an ethic of care remains absent from theorisations of what comprises a just city. In this paper I argue for care to be considered alongside justice as an equally important ethic in our search for justice in the city. I develop the concept of care‐full justice, which assists us in negotiating the inherent tension between the normative and situated in the search for the ideals, and actually existing expressions, of justice and care in the city. I demonstrate the generative potential of this concept and argue that it enables us to re‐think what cities can be and to reveal times and places where this is the case.