Separation Of Church And State In The Modern Era

Separation of church and state has become the ideal sense of government in the Modern Era, specifically in America since the late 1700s. Secular governments seek to improve the nature and well being of the individual, in hopes to benefit the society as a whole. Secular law seeks to use moral guidelines to benefit the citizens of the nation, making crimes such as theft, murder, and physical harms highly punishable. However, where do these law codes get their structure? What, before the separation, influenced these legal structures and developed society? The answer is simple, religious law. Throughout time law and religion have parallel one another. Many secular law codes share the same moral values that religious law used to unify a society.

Religion, in polytheist nations, was a way to bring glory, peace, and blessings from the gods to a nation. Due to the lack of modern science and education in these times, people were left with only the explanations given to them by a ruler, unified through some moral ideals. The first, well documented, ruler to do this was Hammurabi in 1750 B.C.E., as stated previously; Hammurabi sought to establish control, unity, and power for himself. This law code instills fear within the community by forcing them to obey whatever Hammurabi decrees due to the extreme punishments of the physical world and afterlife. Within the epilogue the code states that those who do not adhere to the law codes or attempt to change these laws in the future will be subject to the loss of the kingdom. The law code seeks to benefit the society by creating structure through a written definition of right and wrong. The law code ensures to establish order and protect the rights of the people, so that the mighty do not overcome the weak. Throughout Laws of Hammurabi there is an evident structure of morals being justified by religion, unifying the body being governed. These law codes show the first glimpse of how pivotal religious law’s influence holds in a society. Religious laws help create a structure or set of guidelines that use negative law, organizing the city to behave in a uniform

Through the millennia of documented law, religious law shows an everlasting influence upon society and secular law. The influence in early civilizations such as Mesopotamia has great evidence on how a society is influenced through religious law. The later Salic laws show yet again a unifying religious belief that binds a society to the orders of that legislation. Even through the most secular governments of Classical Greece, the effects of an underlying religious factor of heresy are evident in Plato’s Apology. The reflection of human nature in this matter is once again shown in the Fourth Lateran Council where the use of heresy is used to establish order, fear, and an unquestioned legislation that rids itself of all who oppose what is decreed. Throughout the world religious law’s effects are evident, showing how the many millennia it was used as the true way to obtain power have shaped our world into the system it is today. Without the establishment of religious beliefs into law, the structures of our societies, our sense of humanity may be completely