Johansen, Tormod “Law Must Not End – the Threat of Secular Apocalypse”
In this article, I explore the transformation of legal and societal order from ancient and medieval cosmological paradigms to modern conceptions based on human decision-making. This shift towards relying solely on human artifice in politics signifies that law in modernity starts in man, rather than in nature or the divine. Man becomes the arche of law, rather than the recipient or creator of law aimed at an ideal such as perfection, virtue, or wisdom. I examine the philosophical evolution through the works of Rémi Brague, Leo Strauss, Thomas Hobbes, and Hannah Arendt, highlighting this movement from natural law to a human-centered legal system. I argue that this paradigm also implies that law must not end. The hypothesis is put forward that in modernity law’s essential role in preventing societal collapse means its perpetual maintenance is necessary to avoid a secular apocalypse.
