Cultural-Religious Foundations of Normative Phenomena: Formulas, Values, and the Language of Law

Abstract

This article examines the cultural and religious foundations of State law, with particular emphasis on the historical role of religious ideas and imaginaries in shaping legal formulas, values, and specific areas of criminal law within Western constitutional systems. It contends that such legacies have not been displaced by secularization, but have instead been reconfigured and embedded within modern legal orders. The analysis focuses especially on the penal domain, where enduring conceptions of authority, punishment, and sovereignty continue to bear the imprint of cultural-religious matrices, raising critical questions for contemporary constitutionalism and the protection of human dignity.