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This introductory chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to discuss the ways in which antinomianism and legalism have impacted on canon law as the rule of law in the Roman Catholic Church. Focusing on contemporary canon law, it examines several specific topics, including the sexual abuse crisis, the ownership of church property, and the refusal of Holy Communion to Catholic public officials. The chapter then treats some concepts that are basic to the study as a whole. First, it defines antinomianism and legalism in canon law and offers some historical examples of each. Second, it describes the meaning of Anglo-American legal theory, and discusses it in relation to comparative law. Finally, it poses a question about canon law as the rule of law in the church from the comparative perspective.

This chapter offers a conclusive synthesis of the study. The first part identifies the natural and supernatural ends of canon law. The second part summarizes the examples of clergy sexual abuse, the ownership of church property, and the application of Canon 915. Based upon the three examples, it presents some general conclusions about antinomianism and legalism. The third part offers observations about canon law from the comparative perspective. It returns to the three basic questions posed in the Introduction about the nature of law, a legal system, and the rule of law. While primarily descriptive, the chapter also serves a prescriptive function. The comparison with Anglo-American legal theory not only clarifies the nature of canon law, but also suggests ways in which the system of canon law might more effectively fulfill the requirements of the rule of law.

This chapter focuses on H. L. A. Hart's views about Ronald Dworkin. In ‘The Nightmare and the Noble Dream’ lecture, published in the Georgia Law Review in 1977, Hart sketched a bold map of the American 20th-century jurisprudential scene. American legal theory was, he argued, focussed on adjudication because it was organized around the need to justify the power of judges to strike down democratically validated legislation on constitutional grounds. American legal theorists have reacted to this distinctive constitutional situation, he suggested, in one of two ways: the ‘nightmare’ of total indeterminacy and unconstrained judicial discretion and the ‘noble dream’ of complete legal determinacy. The ‘nightmare’, represented by the Realist jurisprudence of the early part of the 20th century indulges in scepticism about whether judges are bound by law at all in either complex constitutional cases or more generally. By contrast, the American ‘noble dream’ is particularistic and holistic: it finds reasons constraining judges' discretion within the resources of particular legal systems, and it sees law as consisting in more than merely rules, asserting that even when appearances are to the contrary, judges are in fact finding and declaring rather than making law.