FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE IN LAW

Abstract

Traditionally, the quest for certainty has been regarded as a problem of knowledge. In order to cope with uncertainties, modern society has established various mechanisms that help to generate and proliferate knowledge. Recently this kind of solution has been called into question. Sociological analyses inform us that more knowledge will not automatically reduce uncertainties. Rather, it increases them. The more we know, the more we know what we don’t know. Accordingly, what we need is a new social technique that deals with uncertainty without attempting to overcome it by way of more or better knowledge. From a lawyer’s perspective, one can demonstrate that such techniques of “uncertainty absorption” are already at work in the law. Hence the next step in the quest for legal certainty is the endeavour to elaborate on these mechanisms. Legal knowledge management has to be complemented by rules and procedures which are supposed to manage adamant ignorance. Yet even in this broadened perspective one traditional way of absorbing uncertainty has not found much attention. The classic form of coping with uncertainty is not only authority. Rather, substituting the longing for certainty with faith and trust, the most effective candidate has been religion. The question is whether our modern secularised law has effectively discarded this kind of conception or if, by contrast, modern legal systems still need a modified functional equivalent to the theological legacy. This is what I claim: We have to supplement the idea of law’s autopoiesis with a parallel concept of legal autopistis.