J. Daryl Charles argues that a traditional metaphysics of natural law lies at the heart of the present reconstructive project, and that a revival in natural-law thinking is of the highest priority for the Christian community as we contend in, rather than abdicate, the public square. Nowhere is this more on display than in the realm of bioethics, where the most basic moral questions--human personhood, human rights versus responsibilities, the reality of moral evil, the basis of civil society--are being debated. -- from publisher description.

Knowing the Natural Law traces the thought of Aquinas from an understanding of human nature to a knowledge of the human good, from there to an account of ought-statements, and finally to choice, which issues in human actions. The much discussed article on the precepts of the natural law (I-II, 94, 2) provides the framework for a natural law rooted in human nature and in speculative knowledge. Practical knowledge is itself threefold: potentially practical knowledge, virtually practical knowledge, and fully practical knowledge.

Is knowledge of right and wrong written on the human heart? Do people know God from the world around them? Does natural knowledge contribute to Christian doctrine? While these questions of natural theology and natural law have historically been part of theological reflection, the radical reliance of twentieth-century Protestant theologians on revelation has eclipsed this historic connection. Stephen Grabill attempts the treacherous task of reintegrating Reformed Protestant theology with natural law by appealing to Reformation-era theologians such as John Calvin, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Johannes Althusius, and Francis Turretin, who carried over and refined the traditional understanding of this key doctrine. Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics calls Christian ethicists, theologians, and laypersons to take another look at this vital element in the history of Christian ethical thought.

Every successive generation finds fresh reasons for the study of natural law. Current interest in the natural law may well be due to a pervasive moral pessimism in the Western cultural context and wider contemporary geopolitical challenges. Those geopolitical challenges result from two significant and worrisome global developments – unprecedented violent persecution of religious minorities on several continents and a growing climate of secular hostility toward religious faith in Western societies. Natural Law and Religious Freedom aims to address what is relatively absent from the literature by demonstrating the importance of natural law ethics in both establishing and preserving basic human rights, of which religious freedom has pride of place. Probing contemporary challenges to natural law thinking that are both internal and external to religious faith, and examining the character and constitution of natural law ethics, Natural Law and Religious Freedom will be of interest to theologians, ethicists and philosophers as well as policy analysts, politicians and activists who are concerned to anchor religious freedom and human rights policy considerations in an enduring way.

A defense of a contemporary natural law theory of practical rationality.

Addresses the questions philosophers have asked for centuries about the ground for man's actions. Why be moral? What is law? What are the limits of coercion within a just and free society? These and similar questions are ancient yet timely; and today, as always, they demand answers. Explicates the historical, theoretical, legislative and juridical aspects of natural law doctrine. The essayists reveal the comprehensiveness and, consequently, the usefulness of natural law theory in deriving human solutions to the problems confronting contemporary society.

Natural law has long been a cornerstone of Christian political thought, providing moral norms that ground law in a shareable account of human goods and obligations. Despite this history, twentieth and twenty-first-century evangelicals have proved quite reticent to embrace natural law, casting it as a relic of scholastic Roman Catholicism that underestimates the import of scripture and the division between Christians and non-Christians. As recent critics have noted, this reluctance has posed significant problems for the coherence and completeness of evangelical political reflections. Responding to evangelically-minded thinkers’ increasing calls for a re-engagement with natural law, this volume explores the problems and prospects attending evangelical rapprochement with natural law. Many of the chapters are optimistic about an evangelical re-appropriation of natural law, but note ways in which evangelical commitments might lend distinctive shape to this engagement.