ICFAI UNIVERSITY DEHRADUN

ASSIGNMENT ON

Law, Religion and Society

Submitted by – Jaya Vats

Enrollment – 23FLPCDDN01047
Batch – LLM (2023-24)
Submitted to – Dr. Vivek Kumar

Introduction
We regularly encounter the law in our daily lives in driving cars, in renting apartments, and
on the job. Anybody perusing the daily paper or viewing the news online as of late would see
articles discussing the legal debate over same-sex marriage 1, abortion, and legalization of
marijuana. Other articles would discuss the legality of adultery2, triple talaq3 etc.

This chapter provides the first step in the study of the interaction between law, religion and
society. Why are we interested in the influence of law, religion and society on each other?
Why bother to study the relationship between law, religion and society?

Law and religion have a long history of association and rivalry. Regardless of whether they
are two distinct arrangements of standards or are impacted by one another are as yet moot
questions. The guaranteed partition among religion and law affected by the Liberal
conceptual device of private and public spheres has not prevailing with regards to making an
unmistakable limit between the two regulating frameworks. While there is impressive lawful
grant scrutinizing the guaranteed partition of law and religion, there isn't sufficient
consideration given to conceptualizing the likelihood of the two supplementing each other as
standardizing frameworks. To a vast degree this is because of every one of them considering
its power to be the last and selective judge of human moral and social conduct. Constitutional
developments normally are occupied with interpreting and denoting the limits of religious
expert and legitimate control. The ascent of the socio-political intensity of religion in
contemporary occasions, be that as it may, requests a more creative goals to the contending
cases of law and religion.

It is generally acknowledged that the Liberal division of law and religion was a method for
dealing with policy regarding the diversity of religious belief systems co-existing in society.
The secular State, while never totally separated from religion, could in any event guarantee
that religion was a private issue. With regards to the globalization of present occasions and
the truth of multicultural social orders, most first-world States need to fight by with social
and religious pluralism. The Liberal technique of privatization of religion has not served
marginalised minorities well.

The concept of religion has existed much before the law and unlike law the religion is
completely based upon public morality of which the toll has to be paid by both law and

1
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/same-sex-marriage
2
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/relationships/love-sex/whats-there-to-rejoice-about-the-abolition-
of-the-adultery-law/articleshow/65994001.cms
3
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Triple-Talaq
society. The negative effects of religion on society are tremendous although often
unrecognized, religion causes fear amongst the people, religion is turning people against
themselves, religion is turning people against each other and finally religion is keeping
people in ignorance. All these sections would be dealt later in this paper4.

Defining Law Religion and Society

4
Law, Religion and Society
Before understanding the relation between law religion and society, we must understand each
concept independently for better understanding.

Understanding law

It is extremely difficult to find one conclusive definition of the current field of knowledge of
law. Even Austin Sarat, in his recent attempt to edit a canonical body of texts in this field,
admits:

“Today then while law and society research and scholarship is vibrant and
vital, the field is experiencing a period of pluralization and fragmentation.
There is no longer a clear centre of gravity nor a reasonably clear set of
boundaries. Important scholarship proliferates under the banner of law and
society even as that designation loses its distinctiveness.”

Hence, rather than attempting to provide an all-inclusive definition of the law, we must
focus on its basic crux, that cannot be altered.

According to Professor Hart - "law consists of rules which are of broad application and non-
optional character, but which are at the same time amenable to formalization, legislation and
adjudication."

So, for the purpose of this paper we must understand that laws are the decrees a state requires
its people to follow. Obeying a law is not voluntary. It's mandatory. To not do so invites
penalty and punishment.5

Understanding Religion

The Supreme Court has not defined “religion” under the Constitution. Religion is such a rich
subject that it makes sense to look outside legal reasoning for its definition.

According to SWEDENBORG, religion is the “mediate cause” that links the human race (for
whom God created the universe) and heaven (populated by the human race—the ultimate
purpose of creation). It follows that religion “is allotted the highest place in the human mind,
and sees below it the social matters which concern the world . . . just as someone on a tower
or a mountain has a view of the plains beneath.”6

5
https://thelawdictionary.org/law/
6
TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
Swedenborg’s definition of religion is the most suitable one for the purpose of this paper.
This definition does not conflict with current law. It is understandable to non-religious as
well as religious people. Most significantly, it explains that religion deserves constitutional
protection because it is a nomos that substantively limits the behaviour of its participants. 7

Understanding Society

According to black law dictionary the society is an association or company of persons

(generally not Incorporated) united together for any mutual or common purpose. In a wider
sense, the community or public; the people in general.8

A community or a group of persons, living in any region, who are united by some common
bond, is known as society. A society is a group of people related to each other through
persistent relations such as social status, roles and social networks. They also share the same
geographical territory and subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural
expectations. Common bond is some kind of uniformity of factors like nature of the people,
habit, custom, beliefs, culture, etc. This common bond helps the members of the society to
form the rules of social behaviour. The punishment of disobeying the social rules is come
from in the form of social disapproval. The punishments are generally excommunication or
ostracism.9

Law, Morality, and Society in Classic Modern Theory

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), in The Prince (1517), rejected the idea of the common
good as the essential thought process of the sovereign's legislative activity and supplanted it
with the parity and protection of intensity while practicing statecraft. Thomas Hobbes (1588–
1679), conveyed this vision forward by asserting that the objective of self-preservation was
the primary function of people who composed themselves into a legitimate state to
accomplish more prominent and enduring security. The right of nature, as per Hobbes, is the
straightforward freedom every human needs to utilize his or her own capacity, as wanted, for
the protection of his or her life and to do anything which, as indicated by his or her very own

7
https://thelawdictionary.org/religion/
8
https://thelawdictionary.org/society/
9
https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/educational-law/discuss-the-relationship-between-law-law-
essays.php
judgment and reason, he or she imagines to be the most proper intends to achieve that
objective. Hobbes' break with the medieval perspective can be seen here since the best useful
for every individual is his or her own regular conservation, not prospering as characterized by
a supernatural good or religious great.10

Hobbes argued in favour of self-preservation that the natural state of being for the human
kind is war against each other and the only surest possibility of self-preservation is to allow
an authority to establish laws, adjudicate disputes and create an environment for security of
each individual. Hobble was of an opinion that humans are not a social animal by pleasure
but they understand that it’s for their own promotion and interest to enter in a society. The
social contract is the mechanism whereby individuals mutually and equally lay down their
rights to every other citizen, forming a society which transfers their collective, natural liberty
over to the coercive power of the sovereign. This sovereign so created is responsible for force
of law.

John Locke's (1632– 1704) Second Treatise on Government (1690) melded a legitimate
rationality to help the English Revolution of 1688 and embraced maybe the most persuasive
hypothesis of modern liberal democracy. He contended, against Hobbes, that the sovereign
was bound by a criteria of transcendental justice known by natural reason. Locke showed the
production of common society in a way like Hobbes, basing its legitimacy in the state's role
of protecting property rights and serving as a fair, common arbitrator of disputes. In any case,
Locke declared that God selected the administration to limit the inclination and brutality of
people and to cure the bothers of the condition of nature. As per Locke, every individual
perceives by normal reason the basic law of nature: every human, being equivalent and
autonomous, ought not hurt some other in his or her life, freedom, wellbeing, or property.
Under the social get, the sovereign must administer toward the benefit of everyone of the
aggregate individuals. The main real end of state activity is the peace, wellbeing, and open
welfare of the general population. In the event that the administrator demonstrations against
the closures of security and protection of the general population, Locke battled that the
general population, utilizing common law as their guide, have the privilege to revolt and to
build up the legislature once more, since a low or subjective sovereign would be in a
condition of war against them.

In the German convention, Immanuel Kant (1724– 1804) contended that the common law is
made by sane, self-sufficient specialists, who intend to organize a purposeful structure to
10
https://www.nlnrac.org/critics/machiavelli https://www.nlnrac.org/critics/machiavelli
secure and direct their lives. Kant contended that the common law accomplishes moral
closures for all people, yet the state must concentrate legitimate cases and organizations from
specific religious and good cases. For Kant, the common condition organizations equity,
which he characterized as the widespread good end of making conceivable every individual's
self-assurance in a way that is reliable with the opportunity of each other person. The
common law is set by the regular sovereign who acts in a way reliable with widespread
reason, proclaiming law that every judicious subject could have consented to for themselves.
The main direct objective of the common state is the accomplishment of this concurrence of
outer free activities. The common law does not have as its objective the ethical improvement
of the social operators nor religious network building, yet just to give the conditions
whereupon free specialists could seek after these or different closures. Kant held that religion
can give imperative inspiration to seeking after an ethical life under the common law, yet this
implied religion must be lifted to its normal significance, and its emotional and enthusiastic
components must be subdued by reason.

Law, Religion, and Society in Modern Jurisprudence

William Blackstone (1723– 1780) unequivocally espoused natural-law theory in his

Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765– 1769). Human positive law must be subsumed
under the normal request, and "no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this." Alexis
de Tocqueville (1805– 1859), in the main volume of his Democracy in America (1835),
depicted how such a viable combination of religion, law, and profound quality was available
all through the early American settlements. The correctional laws of early America were over
all worried about duplicating moral request in the public eye. In this manner, laws regularly
tended to the area of soul and were pietistic in extension, for example, denying unmarried
people from keeping organization, restricting kissing, lethargy, or tipsiness; emphasis on
going to religious administrations; or forbidding sacrilege—other than more clear violations,
for example, assault and interbreeding. Tocqueville was most captivated by the way that
these laws frequently were not discretionarily forced but rather uninhibitedly embraced by the
citizenry who needed laws mirroring their religious mores.

It was John Austin (1790– 1859), a follower of Bentham, who expressly recognized positive
laws from other social components in his Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832). Such
"unessential materials" incorporate the awesome law, regular law, and specific good cases.
Austin holds that there are moral criteria that might be connected to the law, tests that can
decide whether a positive law is the thing that it should be. Be that as it may, positive laws
are adequate in their very own capacity, not being designed on the law of God but rather set
by utility. Austin broadly pronounced, as opposed to Blackstone, what has turned out to be
known as the "distinguishableness proposal," which holds that "the presence of law is a
certain something; its legitimacy or fault another." What law is by social assention, and what
it should accord good or religious goals, are unmistakable and not really related.

Law, Religion, and Society in Later Theory

H. L. A. Hart (1907– 1992) contended that a lawful proposition which ran counter to an
societal recommendation was as yet a legitimate law. However, for Hart, there was nothing to
keep societies from holding that a custom-rule is a legitimate law and that it ought to be
overturned, modified, or resisted. The procedures by which law exists permitted the change
and change of the law, and these procedures were driven by standards that originated from an
assortment of sources—moral, legitimate, financial, and utilitarian. While there is regularly a
fortuitous event among lawful and moral standards, a law is substantial when in doubt of law
on the basic condition that it is sanctioned by and reliable with the strategies given in the
general public. The insignificant certainty that the lead may struggle with an ethical standard
is deficient to negate the administer as a law.

Lawful structures would thus be able to be the aftereffect of both the rational reflection and
the headstrong goal of people who make social order through procedures of cooperation,
utilizing the majority of the limits that individuals can innovatively offer as a powerful
influence for the undertaking. While this rational intentionality can be utilitarian and
calculative, numerous scholars have indicated how the law is likewise imbued with moral
intentions situated in objective reflection, regular wants, emotional objectives, and religious
conviction. In reality, it could be contended that legitimate frameworks are not just
organizations that are obeyed through risk of intimidation, however depend for their smooth
task and prospering on people who, praised by their religious and good estimations,
effectively collaborate and take an interest in social request through law. Since lawful
structures shield people and networks from hurtful and ruinous powers, control connection
with the goal that opportunity is boosted, and make states of solidness and request which
enable people to thrive, the law accomplishes objectives critical for some people of good and
religious altruism. Subsequently, the quest for natural equity is adequately depicted by non-
moral criteria, which, for a few, can be in the meantime a religious and good errand. However
in the advanced state, support as an official or subject is to a great extent an errand driven by
lawful criteria and objectives.11

Influence of Religion on Law and Society.

The relationship between Law, religion and society is something we often talk about in
today's time. The discussion and the aspects of this topic is of enormous range and contains
several undiscovered sectors which need to be talked about. Such one sector is the violation
of religious freedom under laws that have been provided to us. Majority of The laws that we
follow in this contemporary age, are highly influenced by the religion that have been carrying
on ever since a man's evolution. Religion, without a doubt has played and extremely
important role in building up the laws back from stone age times to today's days. The texts of
all the holy books, be it 10 commandments of bible, or dharma and karma from Geeta, or
sacred lines from Qur'an and Hadees, or prayers of jews, all of them have taught us the
difference between the right and the wrong. They have lead us to decide as to why murder is
a hideous crime and as to why theft shall be stoned. But with all things good comes the bad as
well. We fail to understand the fact that with anything or everything having pros, comes the
cons as well. If we say that religion has has been the establishing step for both law and
society, we can also say that religion has corrupted the minds of the society and have affected
a part of laws as well.
Many deaths in the name of sacrifices or in the name of religion have been ignored by both,
the law and the society. We have put our faith so much in our religion, that sometimes it
blinds us from seeing as to what is right as a human being or as what is wrong as pursuing a
religion. Religion is something that was established several thousand years ago, whereas law
is a dynamic entity that changes with time. Being so many religions in the world to follow,
there were conflicts that rose with them, and as to curve these religious conflicts and holy
wars, laws were made. But before us realizing, the laws that were made were again
influenced by the religion we follow. Varying thoughts of Religions brought us to make
contradicting laws, for example homosexuality is considered to be a sin in christianity, but it

11
https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/law-and-religion-
law-religion-and-morality
was highly talked and appreciated about in Hindu Mythology and Religious subtexts. Yet
homosexuality pertained to be a crime when laws were made in India.
With time we might have had major changes that broke the stereotypes of religion and gave
laws a new virtue altogether, but there still are some sectors that are under the influence of
religion and are creating more of a hazard to society and law.
Such one thing is the violation of Religious freedom and other deeds done in the name of
religion and ignored by law.

Religious freedom:
Religious freedom, the term itself gives us the meaning of it, i.e the freedom of religion to
each and every person following it. The Society is established on the building steps of faith
and religion, making religion a basic fundamental right of every Human being.
The world is full of different religion, each country, each mass have their own religion that
they follow or preach. Religion may carry: Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Sikhism, Islam,
Buddhism and many more and somewhere what people preach becomes their religion. Being
free to practice all these religions or their holy texts is a right they attained ever since the
religion was made. Over 120 national constitution have given freedom to religion in their
respective republics and people have been exercising this freedom.When Gallup (2009) asked
representative samples in 143 countries whether religion is an important part of daily life,
100% (or close to 100%) answered “yes” in countries such as Egypt, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,
Indonesia, India and Congo. But even in more developed countries like Switzerland, South
Korea, Canada, Singapore and Austria, 40–55% answered in the affirmative. The median
share in the 27 developed countries included in the poll was 38%. The United States stands at
64% (with great variation between states: from 42% in Vermont to 85% in Mississippi). Then
there are rather irreligious countries as well, with shares around 20%: Estonia, Sweden,
Denmark, Norway and the Czech Republic top this list.12
But with time this freedom has become so violative of basic rights in several parts of the
world. It has become almost difficult to differentiate as to what is right or what religion is
doing to society altogether.

Religion is turning people against themselves

12
Research paper on: “Does religion make you sick?” by Niclas Berggren and Martin Ljunge, Research Institute
of Industrial Economics
The requests that religion puts on individuals are doubtful. Religion, from one perspective,
instructs that individuals are conceived miscreants. Sin is the thing that we are made of, and
whatever we people are doing will undoubtedly be undermined somehow. Then again, in any
case, religion is instructing individuals to act in the most ideal ways that are available — in a
couple of words, to be flawless, much the same as holy messengers. In any case, clearly
individuals are not holy messengers, so how might they act in such an unnatural way?

This has numerous genuine results. When you neglect to do what God has requested, you
begin loathing yourself. You start to acknowledge the possibility that you are in fact an awful
individual, adulterated, disgraceful. What's more, when you do as such, your brain winds up
loaded up with scorn, severity and disdain — a genuine terrible. Religion is turning people
against each other Others are only a projection of yourself, a mirror, on whom you can see
your very own appearance. That is the reason once you begin despising yourself, you will
undoubtedly begin abhorring others as well. When you acknowledge the possibility that you
are a heathen, you begin seeing everyone around you as miscreants. Accordingly, you expect
that those you meet need to hurt you — they are additionally underhanded, not well willed,
adversaries of yours. Furthermore, you won't endure religious belief systems that are not
quite the same as the one you hold. This is the motivation behind why religious gatherings
battling against one another. Additionally, religious gatherings are battling nonreligious ones.
To relate to a religious belief system and consider it the main truth and way, can just prompt
massively awful or negative impacts — bias, dogmatism, and a wide range of savagery
(simply consider what number of wars have been completed from the beginning of time for
the sake of God and religion).

Religion is keeping people in ignorance

To live intends to learn, and life is a continuous exercise. Whenever, in any case, you have
grown up molded to accept what is good and bad as per a religious authoritative opinion, and
you've been trained that to question the religion you were naturally introduced to intends to
take a hike, normally you wind up anxious of looking for learning. You quit seeking to
discover truth, and consequently to teach yourself and develop as an individual. Learning and
astuteness are contrary with one sided religious belief systems. Without a doubt, religion is
binding individuals' brains in the obscurity of numbness, and the individuals who are looking
for the light of truth are being denounced by religion. Along these lines, religion keeps
individuals blinded by a wide range of convictions that are not founded on any truthful or
experiential proof. As should be obvious, the negative impacts of religion on society are
colossal. To indiscriminately pursue a religious or some other belief system basically intends
to limit your discernment, smother your musings and feelings, and live in lip service — as it
were, to live in torment and hopelessness.

Numerous individuals pursue a religious authoritative opinion, despite the fact that they're
experiencing this decision, essentially in light of the fact that religion liberates them from
moral duty. To live unexpectedly one needs to assume liability for oneself, and this can be
very troublesome. The relationship between Law, Religion and Society mave have given us a
resourceful outcome, but these aspects that we rarely talk about are a matter of bigger issue in
this contemprory age.

CONCLUSION

Among religion and law, it has dependably been a close relationship, despite the fact that
they are two entirely different ideas. The connecting element is represented by the society.
Religion trains the general public to be great, to regard our associates and so does the Law as
a legal entity. Thus, it turns out normally that both religion and Law have just a single
objective: to arrange, to establish standards of decency, with a specific end goal that is to live
in a sinless society, yet this theoretical approach isn't the truth of the world. The connection
between law, religion and society concocts certain repercussions. religion causes fear
amongst the people, religion is turning people against themselves, religion is turning people
against each other and finally religion is keeping people in ignorance.

BIBLOGRAPHY
“TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION” Book by Emanuel Swedenborg

“DOES RELIGION MAKE YOU SICK?” by Niclas Berggren and Martin Ljunge, Research
Institute of Industrial Economics

“LAW AND RELIGION” The International Library of Essays in Law and Society Series
Editor: Austin Sarat