The First Grace : Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World

Hittinger, Russell

ISBN 10: 188292682X / ISBN 13: 9781882926824

Published by ISI Books, Wilmington, DE, U.S.A., 2002

About this Item

003999; NATURAL LAW.

Seller Inventory # 3999

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The First Grace : Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World
• Publisher: ISI Books, Wilmington, DE, U.S.A.
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 188292682X
• ISBN 13: 9781882926824
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New
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About this title

Synopsis

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 Hittinger s 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 book s 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 culture s 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.

About the Author

Russell Hittinger has taught at Fordham, Princeton, and Catholic University, and is currently the Warren Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, where he is also Research Professor of Law. The author of A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory, Hittinger is on the editorial board of First Things and the advisory board of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. In 2001, he was elected to the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas in Rome.