Christian doctrine

Reviewed Book: Guthrie, Shirley C. (Shirley Caperton). Christian doctrine. Louisville, Ky: Westminster/John Knox Pr, 1994

The Public Trust Doctrine: What a Tall Tale They Tell

Despite continuing hostility towards the public trust doctrine because of its potential to defeat private property rights and the will of elected representatives, the doctrine refuses to die. It continues to assure public access to and protection of certain natural resources of communal value; in fact, the doctrine\u27s geographic reach and the activities it protects have expanded beyond its original conception. It is this doctrinal accretion that has drawn the attention of Professor James Huffman, who in a recent article criticizes the ambitions of public trust scholars who see in an expansive public trust doctrine . . . a powerful tool for the protection and preservation of natural resources and the environment because, among other failings, they rely on a mythological history of the doctrine. This essay is intended as a response to Professor Huffman\u27s critique. Professor Huffinan\u27s critical assessment of the alleged mythological history of the public trust doctrine is beside the point. Indeed, as he suggests, he is tilting at windmills in trying to set the story straight. The story he criticizes has become a fact in the minds of judges who use it to justify a particular application of the doctrine. Retelling the story to prevent future applications of the doctrine could destabilize property law, which has embraced the doctrine for centuries. Even if the doctrine is a myth invented by legal scholars and judges, the legal fiction doctrine, which Professor Huffman\u27s argument implicates, justifies it. Indeed, this essay argues that the public trust doctrine is a good legal fiction because it enables new uses of the doctrine to perform a gap-filling function in the absence of positive law and, therefore, that it deserves to continue unchallenged. Because much has been written on the topic of the public trust doctrine, part II of the essay very briefly describes the doctrine\u27s origins, its major features, and its most common uses. Part III sets out Professor Huffman\u27s critique of the doctrine\u27s origins and poses as a rejoinder the legal fiction doctrine, which justifies the use of fictions in similar situations. Part IV of the essay looks specifically at the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), where numbers of wild fish are in a free fall because there is no coherent, comprehensive program to regulate activities in the area. This part of the essay also discusses the phenomenon of a regulatory commons, which, according to Professor William Buzbee, arises when there is not a matching political-legal regime, leaving the underlying social ill unattended. The essay suggests that the public trust doctrine can fill the regulatory gap on the EEZ by offering an interim management regime with protective normative standards and other management tools, and thus end the stasis created by the regulatory commons that has left the EEZ\u27s resources unprotected. By highlighting the underlying social ill, application of the doctrine may actually encourage the enactment of positive law that can displace the stop gap common law regime and bring more regulatory certainty and uniformity to the area. The essay closes by asserting that, for these reasons, the public trust doctrine is a good legal fiction. Not only is the doctrine doing no harm, but its potential expansion could fill gaps in positive law and offer much needed protection for vulnerable resources of communal value. Therefore, Professor Huffman\u27s cavil against further expansion of the doctrine because of its mythic origins deserves no more attention than it has been given here

“A Cloud of Constitutional Illegitimacy”: Prospectivity and the De Facto Doctrine in the Gerrymandering Context

Courts have traditionally shielded the acts of malapportioned or otherwise illegally constituted legislatures from dissolution by employing the “de facto doctrine,” an ancient common law policy tool with medieval roots. In its most basic form, the de facto doctrine seeks to safeguard the acts of unlawful but well-intentioned public officials from collateral attack out of concern for third-party reliance and a bald recognition of necessity. However, the doctrine as traditionally articulated only serves to validate past official acts; once the official in question has lost the “color of authority,” the doctrine no longer affords his actions de facto validity. Although this has not prevented courts from extending the doctrine, or something like it, to cover prospective acts in certain scenarios, courts have generally avoided “taking a look under the hood” and wrestling with the policy concerns underlying the doctrine to see if they still apply prospectively. This Note examines the potential use of the de facto doctrine in the gerrymandering context. Both racial and partisan gerrymandering present distinct challenges for courts seeking to prospectively apply the de facto doctrine to acts of a state legislature: generally, gerrymanders are created intentionally, making it harder to apply any “good faith” exception; illegal gerrymandering by its nature trespasses on important constitutional guarantees; and the traditional motivations for the de facto doctrine—necessity and reliance—arguably do not apply to legislation crafted by an unconstitutional government body seeking to preserve its power. By examining the historical roots of the doctrine, tracing its modern development, and considering its underlying policy rationales, this Note seeks to answer two questions: (1) how have courts expanded the de facto doctrine and its animating principles prospectively?; and (2) how do those expansions shape the prospective application of the doctrine in the gerrymandering context

Substance and Person in Tertullian and Augustine

The doctrine of the Trinity has been a focal point of Christian thinking throughout Church history. While the term “Trinity” does not appear in the biblical text, it is still a vital Christian doctrine. The doctrine, however, has not come without controversy. Various understandings of the doctrine have been presented throughout Church history. Tertullian (ca. 160-220 AD) and Augustine (354-430 AD) represent two of the foremost theologians to discuss the issue. Tertullian was one of the first to thoroughly examine the doctrine. He coined the terms “substance” and “person” in his discussion of the doctrine. These terms would come to have a lasting impact on Christian theology. The council of Nicaea would show this commitment to Tertullian’s distinctions. Augustine also reflects his debt to Tertullian’s ingenuity yet makes significant moves to further develop the doctrine. Each of the theologians wrote in a particular context challenging the heretics of their day. They used biblical argumentation and their own philosophical commitments to present their understanding of the doctrine. This paper examines Tertullian’s use of the terms and then compares and contrasts them with Augustine’s use

The Specter of Pervasiveness: Pacifica, New Media, and Freedom of Speech

Under the legal doctrine of pervasiveness, media such as television and radio get much less protection from censorship than do print media. The Supreme Court should reject the pervasiveness doctrine as a dangerously broad and vague excuse for speech regulation. If the doctrine applies to any medium, it could arguably apply to all media. The pervasiveness doctrine thus threatens to curtail the First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech. The pervasiveness doctrine relies on a crabbed view of individual responsibility and property rights. We invite the broadcast media into our homes and alone bear the responsibility for controlling our children's access. The pervasiveness doctrine wrongly puts such choices in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats. Technological advances threaten to lead to wider applications of the pervasiveness doctrine. As the Internet expands into one-to-many voice or video communications, courts might decide to treat it as the legal equivalent of pervasive radio or TV broadcasts

A Critique of the Odious Debt Doctrine

Choi and Posner indicate that it is unclear whether the doctrine will improve the welfare of the population that might be subject to a dictatorship in terms of the odious debt doctrine. The traditional backward-looking defense of the odious debt doctrine, which suggests that the doctrine is costless because it releases a suffering population from an unjust debt, is seriously incomplete. Although in specific cases the benefits of loan sanctions may exceed the costs, the defenders of the doctrine have not made the empirical case that the net benefits are sufficiently high in the aggregate as to warrant routine application of loan sanctions to odious dictators. Therefore, in the absence of such a showing, there is no reason to think that the odious debt doctrine would be a desirable rule of international law

The Fairness Doctrine: Time for the Graveyard?

The comments examines the rationale for the fairness doctrine, the obligations arising under it, and the FCC\u27s administration of the doctrine. It further analyzes the judicial construction of the doctrine with emphasis on the doctrine\u27s functional role and Constitutional ramifications. The fairness doctrine is part of a basic broadcast philosophy that mandates viewpoints on any controversial issue of public importance be fairly presented. It is partially codified by the FCC. However, after litigation, it seems clear to the courts that the fairness doctrine and the first amendment cannot share a peaceful coexistence. It may well be that the Court is waiting for a propitious opportunity to declare that the first amendment must prevail. The Federal Communications Commission will soon be required to oversee a potential source of virtually unlimited information making this job nearly impossible