Q&A: Religion and Law
Religion and Law
Question
What is the difference between a religious act and a legal act?
Why does religion require that the religious act be accompanied by motivation of “acceptance of God,” whereas the law does not require a person to pay taxes out of any particular motivation? What is the root of this distinction?
Answer
The root of the distinction is that the law is teleological in nature (goal- and consequence-oriented), whereas Jewish law has a deontological aim (the willing and the doing themselves). That is why intention is also important in morality. I believe I explain this in the third book of the trilogy.
Discussion on Answer
From the Talmud. It is full of this idea that outcomes are not what determine things. Cases like an unintended act, and constructive labor on the Sabbath not needed for its own purpose, for example. And hundreds of other passages—go and study, it’s elementary.
Meaning, it’s not only the outcomes that determine things, but also not only the act and the intention. So if someone shoots at a person, and it turns out in the end that the target was wearing a ceramic vest and the bullet bounced off his chest, the shooter just goes on his way and that’s that. In my opinion, the only justification for such a scandalous result is technical.
Of course.
And where does this distinction itself come from? In other words, from where do we know that God wants the “action” and not the “result”?