THE SECULARISED STATE, Its Nature, Its Justification, and Its Problems in the 21st Century

In 1964, the German professor of law Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde articulated the famous proposition: The free, secularised state lives by conditions which it cannot itself guarantee. This proposition is referred to as Böckenförde’s dictum. It is the E = mc2 of the science of state and law. In it, he expresses an idea that has accompanied Europe’s search for its own identity over the past two centuries. Böckenförde differs from many others who have raised and continue to raise questions concerning the cultural preconditions for the formation and functioning of democratic institutions not only by the incisive formulation of the dictum, but above all by placing it at the centre of his reflections and constructing around it a substantial intellectual edifice. According to Böckenförde, the free secularised state in the 21st century faces several problems, connected above all with its character as a secularised and free state that guarantees fundamental rights and is founded on the principles of the rule of law. Böckenförde formulates the question of where the free secularised state derives the sustaining ethos indispensable for successful coexistence and for a social order based on the principle of freedom. He further asks to what extent such a state can persist in guaranteeing religious freedom, religious neutrality, and the equality of religious communities, which are of constitutive significance for it, particularly in view of growing religious and ideological pluralism and increasing migration, if it is at the same time dependent on a certain established culture, not infrequently shaped by religious traditions, as a common unifying foundation. Yes, Böckenförde offers answers to the questions posed; however, let us not anticipate them and instead allow the author himself to articulate them.
Author: Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde