First Grace

The last two decades or so have seen a marked resurgence of interest in natural law thought, a movement in which Russell Hittinger has been a major figure. 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. Whether discussing the nature of liberalism, the constitutional and moral problems posed by judicial usurpation, or the dangers of technology, Hittinger convincingly demonstrates that in our post-Christian world it is more crucial than ever that we recover older, wiser notions of the concepts of freedom and law - and that we see that to place these two concepts in opposition is to misunderstand both profoundly.

Russell Hittinger teaches in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Tulsa, where since 1996 he has held the William K. Warren Chair of Catholic Studies and an appointment as Research Professor of Law. Since 2001 he has been a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas. He is the author of A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory.