A just society under God's law. Sharīʿah means "the pathway" — worship, honesty, charity, family; punishment is a small fraction of it, fenced by near-impossible standards of proof. Law belongs to the Creator, because human codes disagree everywhere.
A secular state: laws made by humans through democratic deliberation, defensible by public reasons any citizen can weigh, with no religion ruling and none persecuted. Church and state are separated to protect believers and nonbelievers alike.
It calls for no particular society and writes no laws; laws, for agnostics, can only come from human deliberation. Historically agnostics argued for the secular, religiously neutral state — since no contested revelation can be proven, none may be imposed on everyone.
The New Testament prescribes no form of state: Jesus separated the coin of Caesar from the things of God (Mark 12:17), and Augustine framed history as two cities — earthly and heavenly — never to be confused. Christians have accordingly lived under and built every arrangement, from Christendom's church-state fusion to modern democracy, whose ideas of conscience and human dignity many trace partly to Christian roots. Civil law is judged by God's moral law, but civil rule is not clergy rule.
Biblically, a covenant society under God's law with justice for the weak at its core; for two millennia halakha then governed self-ruling communities inside host states, under the Talmudic rule that 'the law of the land is law.' Today halakha binds the observant personally rather than any state, and Israel's balance between religious and civil law remains internally contested.
No political blueprint is given: the Vinaya governs monastic life, while lay society is guided by the precepts and by ideals like the righteous «wheel-turning monarch» who rules by Dhamma rather than force. Historically, sangha and kings lived in mutual support — kings protected the order, monks lent moral legitimacy — while law itself remained the ruler's affair.
The classical ideal is varnashrama-dharma: a society of four ranked classes — priests, warriors, producers, servants — first pictured in the Rig Veda's Purusha hymn and codified in law books like the Manusmriti, with the king enforcing a dharma he does not invent. Modern Hindus overwhelmingly live under secular civil law, and reformers treat the old order as history rather than blueprint; the Hindutva movement, by contrast, campaigns for a state defined by Hindu identity.
Historians debate how far the four-varna scheme ever matched social reality rather than a priestly ideal; many consider the Purusha hymn a late addition to the Rig Veda.
No divinely fixed law code: the scripture gives moral principles, not statutes. But since the sixth Guru the tradition has joined spiritual and worldly authority (miri-piri) — faith is expected to speak to public justice — and Guru Arjan's hymn holds up a 'rule of humility' in which no one inflicts pain on another.
A constitutional democracy whose laws come from elected legislatures and independent courts, justified by public reasons rather than any scripture. The models differ in method: America forbids establishment while freeing exercise, France removes religion from state space, and India keeps a principled distance that lets the state engage every religion even-handedly.
A secular, democratic society: laws come from citizens through open deliberation and elections, constrained by human rights, with state and religion kept separate. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is treated as the program’s charter.
A constitutional democracy under the rule of law. Laws come from the consent of the governed through elected legislatures, bounded by a constitution and equal rights that no majority may vote away; no law claims divine origin, and all remain open to repeal.
A democratic society of equal citizens. Its laws come from ordinary human legislation and international instruments — equal-suffrage acts, anti-discrimination law, and CEDAW (1979) — not from any sacred code.
A sovereign nation-state: a people governing itself, with laws made by its own institutions out of its own traditions and interests — never handed down by empire or foreign power. Historically it has coexisted with monarchy, democracy, and dictatorship, but its classic thinkers tied it to popular sovereignty: the nation itself is the source of law.
THE SAME WORDING, PUT TO EVERY WORLDVIEW — EACH ANSWERS IN ITS OWN TERMS, IN ITS STRONGEST FORM
Didn't He Say