Open world or closed world? Every normative system is linked to what is deemed to be outside of it, provided the system retains ultimate control on each opening grant. Each system has its own terminology to describe this subsidiary mechanism for regulating normative flows. These include material and immaterial aspects, attenuated public order, and so on, but also fundamental values, natural law, divine law... While the registers of legitimacy vary, the function remains the same. A macro background reference (national identity, European values, revelation, etc.) is diffracted into various micro references depending on the case. The flexible nature and unpredictable content of these mechanisms are their defining characteristics. Ultimately, they refer to the power of a relevant authoritiy (judiciary) who specify them. However, can we conclude that civil and religious public orders function in exactly the same way? Religious specificities are discernible, at least in the eyes of secular normative systems.
Christians et al. (Wed,) studied this question.