Sacraments of the Law: Discovering Common Ground of Law and Religion

Abstract This article proposes to identify ritualization—as the differentiation between the profane and the sacred—as the basic act underlying the creation of norms. In this light, we can perceive ritualization as a common ground of law and religion. This is particularly evident in ‘sacraments’, a specific type of ritual that culminates in the realization of the sacred within the profane. As ‘norm-facts’, sacraments draw the sacred into our everyday world. This connection has been evident since Roman times when ‘sacraments’ denoted performative signs of a juridico-religious nature. If one acknowledges that both religion and law draw not merely on essential ritual processes of generating normative meaning, but also use sacramental action to realize sacred norms within profane contexts, speaking of ‘law and religion’ reaches deeper than identifying the common topics of two separate spheres of the social. We have then in fact discovered an elemental and common foundation of law and religion.