Download or read book What s Divine about Divine Law written by Christine Hayes and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How ancient thinkers grappled with competing conceptions of divine law In the thousand years before the rise of Islam, two radically diverse conceptions of what it means to say that a law is divine confronted one another with a force that reverberates to the present. What's Divine about Divine Law? untangles the classical and biblical roots of the Western idea of divine law and shows how early adherents to biblical tradition—Hellenistic Jewish writers such as Philo, the community at Qumran, Paul, and the talmudic rabbis—struggled to make sense of this conflicting legacy. Christine Hayes shows that for the ancient Greeks, divine law was divine by virtue of its inherent qualities of intrinsic rationality, truth, universality, and immutability, while for the biblical authors, divine law was divine because it was grounded in revelation with no presumption of rationality, conformity to truth, universality, or immutability. Hayes describes the collision of these opposing conceptions in the Hellenistic period, and details competing attempts to resolve the resulting cognitive dissonance. She shows how Second Temple and Hellenistic Jewish writers, from the author of 1 Enoch to Philo of Alexandria, were engaged in a common project of bridging the gulf between classical and biblical notions of divine law, while Paul, in his letters to the early Christian church, sought to widen it. Hayes then delves into the literature of classical rabbinic Judaism to reveal how the talmudic rabbis took a third and scandalous path, insisting on a construction of divine law intentionally at odds with the Greco-Roman and Pauline conceptions that would come to dominate the Christianized West. A stunning achievement in intellectual history, What's Divine about Divine Law? sheds critical light on an ancient debate that would shape foundational Western thought, and that continues to inform contemporary views about the nature and purpose of law and the nature and authority of Scripture.
Download or read book An Essay on Divine Authority written by Mark C. Murphy and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first book wholly concerned with divine authority, Mark C. Murphy explores the extent of God's rule over created rational beings. The author challenges the view—widely supported by theists and nontheists alike—that if God exists, then humans must be bound by an obligation of obedience to this being. He demonstrates that this view, the "authority thesis," cannot be sustained by any of the arguments routinely advanced on its behalf, including those drawn from perfect being theology, metaethical theory, normative principles, and even Scripture and tradition. After exposing the inadequacies of the various arguments for the authority thesis, he develops his own solution to the problem of whether, and to what extent, God is authoritative. For Murphy, divine authority is a contingent matter: while created rational beings have decisive reason to subject themselves to the divine rule, they are under divine authority only insofar as they have chosen to allow God's decisions to take the place of their own in their practical reasoning. The author formulates and defends his arguments for this view, and notes its implications for understanding the distinctiveness of Christian ethics.
Download or read book By This Standard The Authority of God s Law Today written by Greg L. Bahnsen and published by American Vision. This book was released on 2015-11 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sovereign Authority and the Elaboration of Law in the Bible and the Ancient Near East written by Dylan R. Johnson and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Five Pentateuchal texts (Lev 24:10-23; Num 9:6-14; Num 15:32-36; Num 27:1-11; Num 36:1-12) offer unique visions of the elaboration of law in Israel's formative past. In response to individual legal cases, Yahweh enacts impersonal and general statutes reminiscent of biblical and ancient Near Eastern law collections. From the perspective of comparative law, Dylan R. Johnson proposes a new understanding of these texts as biblical rescripts: a legislative technique that enabled sovereigns to enact general laws on the basis of particular legal cases. Typological parallels drawn from cuneiform and Roman law illustrate the complex ideology informing the content and the form of these five cases. The author explores how latent conceptions of law, justice, and legislative sovereignty shaped these texts, and how the Priestly vision of law interacted with and transformed earlier legal traditions.
Download or read book Treatise on Law written by Saint Thomas (Aquinas) and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ministers of the Law written by Jean Porter and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2010-10-21 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Ministers of the Law Jean Porter articulates a theory of legal authority derived from the natural law tradition. As she points out, the legal authority of most traditions rests on their own internal structures, independent of extralegal considerations -- legal houses built on sand, as it were. Natural law tradition, on the other hand, offers a basis for legal authority that goes beyond mere arbitrary commands or social conventions, offering some extralegal authority without compromising the independence and integrity of the law. Yet Porter does more in this volume than simply discuss historical and theoretical realms of natural law. She carries the theory into application to contemporary legal issues, bringing objective normative structures to contemporary Western societies suspicious of such concepts.
Download or read book The Architecture of Law written by Brian M. McCall and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2018-05-30 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that classical natural law jurisprudence provides a superior answer to the questions “What is law?” and “How should law be made?” rather than those provided by legal positivism and “new” natural law theories. What is law? How should law be made? Using St. Thomas Aquinas’s analogy of God as an architect, Brian McCall argues that classical natural law jurisprudence provides an answer to these questions far superior to those provided by legal positivism or the “new” natural law theories. The Architecture of Law explores the metaphor of law as an architectural building project, with eternal law as the foundation, natural law as the frame, divine law as the guidance provided by the architect, and human law as the provider of the defining details and ornamentation. Classical jurisprudence is presented as a synthesis of the work of the greatest minds of antiquity and the medieval period, including Cicero, Aristotle, Gratian, Augustine, and Aquinas; the significant texts of each receive detailed exposition in these pages. Along with McCall’s development of the architectural image, he raises a question that becomes a running theme throughout the book: To what extent does one need to know God to accept and understand natural law jurisprudence, given its foundational premise that all authority comes from God? The separation of the study of law from knowledge of theology and morality, McCall argues, only results in the impoverishment of our understanding of law. He concludes that they must be reunited in order for jurisprudence to flourish. This book will appeal to academics, students in law, philosophy, and theology, and to all those interested in legal or political philosophy.
Download or read book The Law of God written by Rémi Brague and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-10-23 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The law of God: these words conjure an image of Moses breaking the tablets at Mount Sinai, but the history of the alliance between law and divinity is so much longer, and its scope so much broader, than a single Judeo-Christian scene can possibly suggest. In his stunningly ambitious new history, Rémi Brague goes back three thousand years to trace this idea of divine law in the West from prehistoric religions to modern times—giving new depth to today’s discussions about the role of God in worldly affairs. Brague masterfully describes the differing conceptions of divine law in Judaic, Islamic, and Christian traditions and illuminates these ideas with a wide range of philosophical, political, and religious sources. In conclusion, he addresses the recent break in the alliance between law and divinity—when modern societies, far from connecting the two, started to think of law simply as the rule human community gives itself. Exploring what this disconnection means for the contemporary world, Brague—powerfully expanding on the project he began with The Wisdom of the World—re-engages readers in a millennia-long intellectual tradition, ultimately arriving at a better comprehension of our own modernity. “Brague’s sense of intellectual adventure is what makes his work genuinely exciting to read. The Law of God offers a challenge that anyone concerned with today’s religious struggles ought to take up.”—Adam Kirsch, New YorkSun “Scholars and students of contemporary world events, to the extent that these may be viewed as a clash of rival fundamentalisms, will have much to gain from Brague’s study. Ideally, in that case, the book seems to be both an obvious primer and launching pad for further scholarship.”—Times Higher Education Supplement
Download or read book Divine Law and Political Philosophy in Plato s Laws written by Mark J. Lutz and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-15 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All over the world secular rationalist governments and judicial authorities have been challenged by increasingly forceful claims made on behalf of divine law. For those who believe that reason—not faith—should be the basis of politics and the law, proponents of divine law raise theoretical and practical concerns that must be addressed seriously and respectfully. As Mark J. Lutz makes plain in this illuminating book, they have an important ally in Plato, whose long neglected Laws provides an eye-opening analysis of the relation between political philosophy and religion and a powerful defense of political rationalism. Plato mounts his case, Lutz reveals, through a productive dialogue between his Athenian Stranger and various devout citizens that begins by exploring the common ground between them, but ultimately establishes the authority of rational political philosophy to guide the law. The result will fascinate not only political theorists but also scholars at all levels with an interest in the intersection of religion and politics or in the questions that surround ethics and civic education.
Download or read book Natural Law and Civil Sovereignty written by I. Hunter and published by Springer. This book was released on 2002-06-19 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Natural Law and Civil Sovereignty new research by leading international scholars is brought to bear on a single crucial issue: the role of early modern natural law doctrines in reconstructing the relations between moral right and civil authority in the face of profound religious and political conflict. In addition to providing fresh insights into the hard-fought struggle to legitimate a desacralised civil order, the book also shows the degree to which the legitimacy of the modern secular state remains dependent on this decisive set of developments.
Download or read book 7 Divine Laws to Awaken Your Best Self written by Swami Mukundananda and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2020-12-30 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Just as heat is inherent in fire, so is our desire to become better.' Why are personal growth and life transformation so difficult? Does Creation wish that we fail? Of course not! The purpose behind the Universe's grand design is to make us succeed. Our own unawareness of the laws of the Universe creates the impediment. Just as physical phenomena are regulated by laws, there are spiritual principles governing the journey of life as well. Knowledge of them helps us understand why success comes so easily to some but remains a struggle for others; why some are still putting on their shoes, while others have finished the race. The beauty is that, like the physical laws of nature, the divine principles governing happiness and fulfilment in life are also eternally valid. In this book, Swami Mukundananda explains the 7 divine laws in an easily graspable manner. With knowledge of the Vedic scriptures and witty anecdotes that everyone can relate to, this book will empower you to become the best version of yourself.
Download or read book Commentary on Thomas Aquinas s Treatise on Law written by J. Budziszewski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-22 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Natural moral law stands at the center of Western ethics and jurisprudence and plays a leading role in interreligious dialogue. Although the greatest source of the classical natural law tradition is Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Law, the Treatise is notoriously difficult, especially for nonspecialists. J. Budziszewski has made this formidable work luminous. This book - the first classically styled, line-by-line commentary on the Treatise in centuries - reaches out to philosophers, theologians, social scientists, students, and general readers alike. Budziszewski shows how the Treatise facilitates a dialogue between author and reader. Explaining and expanding upon the text in light of modern philosophical developments, he expounds this work of the great thinker not by diminishing his reasoning, but by amplifying it.
Download or read book The Search for God s Law written by Bernard G. Weiss and published by International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 3 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars praised the 1992 edition of this book as a groundbreaking intellectual treatment of Islamic jurisprudence. Bernard Weiss's revised edition brings to life Sayf al-Din al-Amidi's classic exposition of the methodologies through which Muslim scholars have constructed their understandings of the divine law. Weiss's new introduction provides an overview of Amidi's jurisprudence that facilitates deeper comprehension of the challenging dialect of the text. This edition includes an in-depth analysis of the nature of language and the ways in which it madeiates the law, while shaping it at the same time. An index has been added.
Download or read book Fictions Lies and the Authority of Law written by Steven D. Smith and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2021-09-15 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fictions, Lies, and the Authority of Law discusses legal, political, and cultural difficulties that arise from the crisis of authority in the modern world. Is there any connection linking some of the maladies of modern life—“cancel culture,” the climate of mendacity in public and academic life, fierce conflicts over the Constitution, disputes over presidential authority? Fictions, Lies, and the Authority of Law argues that these diverse problems are all a consequence of what Hannah Arendt described as the disappearance of authority in the modern world. In this perceptive study, Steven D. Smith offers a diagnosis explaining how authority today is based in pervasive fictions and how this situation can amount to, as Arendt put it, “the loss of the groundwork of the world.” Fictions, Lies, and the Authority of Law considers a variety of problems posed by the paradoxical ubiquity and absence of authority in the modern world. Some of these problems are jurisprudential or philosophical in character; others are more practical and lawyerly—problems of presidential powers and statutory and constitutional interpretation; still others might be called existential. Smith’s use of fictions as his purchase for thinking about authority has the potential to bring together the descriptive and the normative and to think about authority as a useful hypothesis that helps us to make sense of the empirical world. This strikingly original book shows that theoretical issues of authority have important practical implications for the kinds of everyday issues confronted by judges, lawyers, and other members of society. The book is aimed at scholars and students of law, political science, and philosophy, but many of the topics it addresses will be of interest to politically engaged citizens.
Download or read book Epistle to Yemen written by Moses Maimonides and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2021-04-10 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maimonedes was a Spanish Jew, born in Cordoba in the 12th century and dying in Egypt at the beginning of the 13th century. He was a significant figure who studied the Torah. He was also a physician and philosopher who worked in Morroco and Egypt. The epistle to Yemen was written to help the Jewish population there who had begun to be influenced by a false self-proclaimed Messiah who preached a Judaism combined with Islam.
Download or read book Catechism of the Catholic Church written by U.S. Catholic Church and published by Image. This book was released on 2012-11-28 with total page 849 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 3 million copies sold! Essential reading for Catholics of all walks of life. Here it is - the first new Catechism of the Catholic Church in more than 400 years, a complete summary of what Catholics around the world commonly believe. The Catechism draws on the Bible, the Mass, the Sacraments, Church tradition and teaching, and the lives of saints. It comes with a complete index, footnotes and cross-references for a fuller understanding of every subject. The word catechism means "instruction" - this book will serve as the standard for all future catechisms. Using the tradition of explaining what the Church believes (the Creed), what she celebrates (the Sacraments), what she lives (the Commandments), and what she prays (the Lord's Prayer), the Catechism of the Catholic Church offers challenges for believers and answers for all those interested in learning about the mystery of the Catholic faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a positive, coherent and contemporary map for our spiritual journey toward transformation.
Download or read book Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law written by Kody W. Cooper and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2018-03-30 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Has Hobbesian moral and political theory been fundamentally misinterpreted by most of his readers? Since the criticism of John Bramhall, Hobbes has generally been regarded as advancing a moral and political theory that is antithetical to classical natural law theory. Kody W. Cooper challenges this traditional interpretation of Hobbes in Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law. Hobbes affirms two essential theses of classical natural law theory: the capacity of practical reason to grasp intelligible goods or reasons for action and the legally binding character of the practical requirements essential to the pursuit of human flourishing. Hobbes’s novel contribution lies principally in his formulation of a thin theory of the good. This book seeks to prove that Hobbes has more in common with the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of natural law philosophy than has been recognized. According to Cooper, Hobbes affirms a realistic philosophy as well as biblical revelation as the ground of his philosophical-theological anthropology and his moral and civil science. In addition, Cooper contends that Hobbes's thought, although transformative in important ways, also has important structural continuities with the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of practical reason, theology, social ontology, and law. What emerges from this study is a nuanced assessment of Hobbes’s place in the natural law tradition as a formulator of natural law liberalism. This book will appeal to political theorists and philosophers and be of particular interest to Hobbes scholars and natural law theorists.
