The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in the Post-Christian World
Russell Hittinger, "The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in the Post-Christian World"
English | ISBN: 188292682X | 2002 | 300 pages | PDF | 990 KB
English | ISBN: 188292682X | 2002 | 300 pages | PDF | 990 KB
The last two decades or so have seen a marked resurgence of interest in natural law thought. Russell Hittinger has been a major figure in this movement. The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World reveals the power and subtlety of Hittingers philosophical work and cultural criticism. Hittinger first defines the natural law, considers its relationship to the positive law, and explains how and when judges are to be guided by natural law considerations. Then, in the books second section, he contends with a number of controversial legal and cultural issues from a natural law perspective. Among other things, he shows how the modern propensity to make all sorts of "rights claims" undermines the idea of limited government; how the liberal legal cultures idea of privacy elevates the individual to the status of a sovereign; and how the Supreme Court has come to see religion as a potentially dangerous phenomenon from which children must be protected. Throughout, Hittinger convincingly demonstrates that to oppose freedom and law is to misunderstand the nature of both.
Read more