The Protestant View of Law

Abstract

Protestantism involved a new view of individual that came to transcend, through the secular asceticism, the pure religious experience, thus defining his own «Being-in-the-world». From the multiple Luther’s writings and his contradictory personality emerged a doctrine that, beyond its main guidelines, set up a worldview full of nuances. This has supposed that, even today, a wide variety of interpretations of the Reformation survives, something that has been transferred to the ambit of its influence on law. It seems undeniable that Reformation supposed a new conception of natural law that, to many authors, resulted in a severe understanding of law, authority and state. Whether consciously or not, Reformation contributed to the secularization of the legal system, by following a route that, departing from Luther, would lead —via Pufendorf or Hegel— to a legal positivism that even today has not been surpassed.