Law

Review: The Life of the Mind in America

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Cover image of "The Life of the Mind in America" by Perry Miller

The Life of the Mind in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War, Books One Through Three, Perry Miller. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (ISBN: 9780156519908) 1965.

Summary: The first three books of an intellectual history of the influences that shaped the American mind.

American intellectual historian Perry Miller is most famous for his work on New England intellectual history, particularly that of the Puritans. In the year of his death (1963), Miller proposed to his publisher an ambitious project under the title of this book. It was a proposal consisting of ten books including a Prologue:

  • Prologue: The Sublime in America
  • Book I: The Evangelical Basis
  • Book II The Legal Mentality
  • Book III: Tension: Technology and Science
  • Book IV: The Battlefield of Democracy: education
  • Book V: Freedom and Association: Political Economy and Association
  • Book VI: Philosophy
  • Book VII: Theology
  • Book VIII: Nature
  • Book IX: The Self

Tragically, Miller was an alcoholic, struggling to recover until the assassination of John F. Kennedy, after which he basically drank himself to death, passing on December 10 of that year. He had completed only the first two books, and an outlined plan for the third. The Prologue was never written, which would have been interesting. His wife Elizabeth published his work posthumously, in 1965. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1966. We are left thinking, “If only…”

Book I explore the influence of revivalism in America. Most significant in this section is Miller’s account of how revivalism undermined the sectarian character of early American Protestantism, contributing both to a common evangelical mind and to the separation of church and state. A corollary to the latter is the rise of the voluntary spirit in American Christianity. Finally he traces the movement of revivals from rural settings like Cane Ridge to the urban setting of New York City in 1858 on the eve of the Civil War.

Book II then traces the parallel development of law. In this case, Miller offers an account that moves from a common sense approach and a reliance upon English common law to an increasing codification of civil and criminal law. In addition, he traces that transformation of the profession from reading Blackstone under an attorney’s tutelage to the rise of legal education. The growth of the nation exposed the inadequacies and contradictions in the English traditions of common law, equity, and civil law. Ultimately, this led to codification efforts.

Finally, Miller only completed chapter one of Book III. Above all, in this section, Miller traces out the transition of science from a contemplative study of the handiwork of God to the technological advances of the time. But what happens to God? Advances in geology anticipate the Darwinian controversies to follow. However we also glimpse a shift of finding the sublime in heavenly glories to the experience of technological wonders.

Although the work is dense, one senses the breadth of Miller’s own intellectual reach. It would have been fascinating to see Miller parse out his understanding of the American quest for the sublime in the other projected books. However, I wonder if this might have underscored the contradictions inherent in the tensions with which our nation has struggled. In addition, Miller’s decision to lead with the significance of revivals is striking. He stands apart from the intellectual squeamishness to deal with the importance of religion in the American experience, from which many are only now awakening. Thus, it doesn’t surprise me to find the book still in print sixty years after publication.

Finally, thanks for visiting Bob on Books.  I appreciate that you spent time here. Feel to “look around” – see the tabs at the top of the website, and the right hand column. And use the buttons below to share this post. Blessings! [Adapted from Enough Light, a blog I follow.]

Review: The Old Testament Law for the Life of the Church

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The Old Testament Law for the Life of the Church, Richard E. Averbeck. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022.

Summary: A study of for what God intended the law in its original context, how it was fulfilled in Christ, and its continuing relevance for the church today.

Let’s face it. For many in the church, the Old Testament is more or less unknown territory, especially the parts of the Old Testament concerned with the law.

Richard Averbeck has spent much of his life studying the Old Testament as well as other ancient Near East writings and he is persuaded of the continuing relevance of the law to the church, understood through the ministry of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. He contends that this was the scripture Paul asserted to Timothy as being “God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” But how is this so for the church today?

Averbeck asserts three theses that he develops throughout the book:

  1. The law is good. It instructed Israel how to live holy lives under God’s covenant love and it may also instruct us in holiness, particularly how to live under the law of Christ, loving God and neighbor.
  2. The law is weak. It does not have the power to transform the heart; only the Holy Spirit can transform our sinful nature and write the law on our hearts.
  3. The law is one unified whole. Averbeck sees no biblical basis for dividing the law into categories of moral, civil, and ceremonial, and while every law is not simply brought over into the life of the church, there are ways under Christ in which the whole law continues to be relevant to the church’s life.

To develop these theses Averbeck begins with an extensive treatment of the context of Old Testament law. First of all, he charts the covenants, of Abraham, of Moses, and David, each under those that precede, and then their fulfillment in the New Covenant. He follows this with looking at the Mosaic law in context, delineating the law collections, discussing the place of the Sinai narrative and the Decalogue, the book of the covenant and the other parallel collections of law, offering a comparative study of debt slavery as a case study, showing transformations even between collections. He shows how holiness, ceremonial, and civil law together shape Israel as a kingdom of priests oriented around the presence of God in their midst. He discusses in detail the significance of the various offerings and sacrifices and how they sustained the holiness and purity of the people.

He turns to how Jesus fulfills the law in life and teaching, as demonstrated in the antitheses in the Sermon on the Mount. and in his treatment of questions of purity and sabbath. At the same time, he focuses attention on the law of love for God and neighbor in which the whole law is fulfilled. Then he considers the New Testament church and how this was handled, particularly in the incorporation of Gentiles in which Jewish believers continued to observe the law while Gentiles followed the council of Jerusalem, the moral instruction, and the transforming life of worship pointed to in the Old Testament law, made possible by the Spirit of truth. Averbeck then returns in two chapters to show how the law is good, how it is weak but empowered by the Holy Spirit, and remains a unified whole.

He also includes on Jewish Messianic believers and the Torah, offering one of the best defenses I’ve seen for such groups remaining observant Jews while staying gospel focused, citing the practice of the early church.

I appreciated the careful explanation of the contents of the law collections and the importance of these as well as showing how the law continued to be relevant in Christ. The discussion of the law’s weakness and the ministry of the Holy Spirit is much needed. He also shows the arc between offerings and sacrifices, and our calling as a “kingdom of priests” who are “living sacrifices.” Perhaps more needs to be said about the civil aspects of the law and the parallel being, not the secular state, but the church and how it governs itself. What may be gleaned from the law on how the church is ordered and governed under Christ? And to what degree ought the law shape our pursuit of just, though not theocratic, societies?

That said, this is one of the best studies I have seen of Old Testament law and its continuing relevance. His argument that all of the law continues to be relevant, albeit in altered form because of Christ, is a different approach worth considering that avoids explaining how we have dispensed with some aspects and not others. And his love for the Old Testament may encourage readers to explore what in fact were the scriptures for the early New Testament church.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: The Rule of Laws

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The Rule of Laws, Fernanda Pirie. New York: Basic Books, 2021.

Summary: A four thousand-year history of the ways different cultures have ordered their societies through various forms of law.

Every group of people develops rules to order their life together. And this has been true throughout history, whether through rulings of the city elders at the gate resolving various disputes through various legal codes. Fernanda Pirie set herself the task in this book of describing and making some sense of the four thousand year global history of laws in their various forms.

She identifies three major streams of law, the Mesopotamian that influenced the West, the Indian Brahmin, and that of China, influence much of east and southeast Asia. The book consists of three parts: the visions of order that accounted for the rise of these traditions from the Code of Hammurabi through to the European courts that arose in the wake of the fall of Rome; the development of these traditions in the Medieval period tracing the expansion upon religious law, imperial law in China and the courts and customs of Europe; and finally, law in the modern law and the development of the rule of law in western democracies and its import into colonial situations, the growth of Islamic Law, and the expansion of international law.

She traces a common thread through history: the use and development of law to order society–punishing murder, compensating injuries and damages, regulating marriage, family, and inheritance, protecting property and regulating commerce. She explores the various forms of laws from case laws to legal codes and common law, administrative structures to promulgate and implement legal codes from trade associations to royal courts, and the judicial structures to adjudicate disputes, determining guilt and innocence, and passing sentences. One of the most fascinating chapters traced the use of ordeal when the veracity of witnesses could not be readily discerned to the subsequent development of rules of evidence and trials by a jury of one’s peers. What is also striking is the fascinating array of ways in which all this was implemented from mediators to local to royal rulers and emperors, to our modern courts.

For me, the book alternated between fascinating discussions and hard slogs through an array of practices and their variations in various European royal courts, along with movement, often within chapters from European to Islamic to Chinese systems. The array of detail made it difficult at times to see the forest for all the individually interesting trees. I found it hard to discern a larger argument or structure with the mass of descriptive detail, apart from the overview and concluding discussions of the universal development of legal systems to organize social life.

Perhaps it is the task this author set herself, one for which she evidences obvious enthusiasm, to render a global history of law in under 460 pages of text. The tension between comprehensiveness and elegant structure must have been a challenge. The work has this in its favor, it is free of legal jargon and highly readable over all. And it raises the profound question of why so many and various cultures found it necessary to use laws to order their lives.