Natural Law

Thomas More on Conscience, Courage, & the Comedy of Politics

As the gulf between classical and postmodern notions of conscience and government grows ever wider and their clashes more explosive, it is high time for the jury to give renewed attention to the nuances of Thomas More’s understanding of the apparently competing, but ultimately harmonious, demands of divine, natural, and...

The Embodied Person as Gift

The body in its physical structure as such bears a vision of reality: it is an anticipatory sign, and already an expression, of the order of love or gift that most deeply characterizes the meaning of the person...

When Men Became Human: Christopher Dawson’s 500 BC

Though Christopher Dawson remained unsure why the Natural Law developed, he did not hesitate to celebrate it. He remained firmly convinced that the development of Natural Law did not randomly emerge from individual genius, but rather believed that individual genius arose out of the various traditions and...

“Meeting of Minds”: Cleopatra, Aquinas, Paine, & Teddy Roosevelt

Editor's Note: Join host Steve Allen as he welcomes Cleopatra, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Paine, and Theodore Roosevelt to a discussion of questions of enduring significance. Topics include the merits and evils of imperialism, the American Revolution, the possibility of nobility in war, certitude of religious doctrine, and...

Edmund Burke on Constitutions & Natural Law

The real goal of political society, Edmund Burke claimed in his arguments against the French Revolutionaries, is not to create new laws or new rules, but “to secure the religion, laws, and liberties, that had been long...

“Republican Government” According to John Adams

As elaborated thus far, natural law teaches that legitimate government is circumscribed by liberty in a dual sense: It derives from the consent of equally free individuals, and it aims at securing the natural rights which comprise...

What John Locke Really Said

By any reasonable standard of measurement, Willmoore Kendall would have to be included in a list of the most important political scientists of the post-World War II era. Moreover, as regards the American political...

The Role of Natural Law in the Constitution

Natural law seems an unlikely topic for extensive television coverage, nor would one expect United States senators to develop high anxiety over the subject. Yet the confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas brought both of those improbable events...

C.S. Lewis and the Hope of the Natural Law: A Brief Remembrance

During England’s darkest days of World War II, hope emerged from an unlikely source. An Oxford don–a professor of English literature, who would later be best known for a seven-part children’s fantasy series–gave frequent public...

America Divided: Positive vs. Natural Law

America is divided, with a line that is drawn between two ideological camps. Each of these two camps perceives America radically different from the other. On the one side, there are those who see America built...

Natural Law at the Dinner Table

Would that I had received the education of my children! Last night at dinner our family enjoyed an unusually rich conversation prompted by a question that had arisen during my wife’s homeschooling history lesson with our seventh-grade son. In...

The Road to Same-Sex Marriage was Paved by Rousseau

There is more to same-sex marriage than politics. It only becomes plausible if you accept certain assumptions about how to distinguish what is natural from what is unnatural and what is right from what is wrong. The intellectual...

The Importance of Marcus Tullius Cicero

How do I define the Natural Law? Taking my cue from Cicero—especially from On the Republic, On Duties, and

A Tale of Two Companies: HSBC, Hobby Lobby & Religious Freedom

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. It has the best of times for HSBC, the giant British bank caught using American personnel and facilities to launder money for Mexican drug cartels and...