Overview

The essays in Religion and Public Reasons seek to argue for, and illustrate, a central element of John Finnis's theory of natural law: that the main tenets of personal and political morality, and of a good legal order, are taught both by reason (arguments accessible to everyone) and by authentic divine revelation (teachings accessible to all who have a reasonable faith in its witnesses). The author's main books each include arguments for rejecting atheism and agnosticism; several papers here take up these arguments and indicate ways in which they open onto the reasonable grounds for accepting that more about God's nature, and about the meaning of Creation (including ongoing natural evolution), is disclosed by the revelation carried far forward among the Jewish people, and given definitive form by the Jews and Greeks who assembled in the universal Church, as witnesses of Christ, to carry forward that revelation into our present. Several papers argue that ""public reason"" properly includes such a religion, and that Humeian, Nietzschean, Deweyian, Rawlsian or other atheistical or deistic understandings of a reasonable secularism are badly mistaken. Many substantial papers record the author's position in controversies within Catholicism since the 1960s: on social justice, contraception and abortion; nuclear deterrence; Newman on conscience before pope; Maritain's hopes for a new Christendom and von Balthasar's for a hell empty of human persons; and on ""proportionalism"" and Lonerganian ""historical consciousness"" as moral-theological methods.Previously unpublished papers include several University and college sermons, and a substantial introduction.

Full Product Details

Author:   John Finnis (Professor of Law and Legal Philosophy Emeritus at Oxford University and Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 16.40cm , Height: 3.00cm , Length: 24.00cm
Weight:   0.802kg
ISBN:  

9780199580095

ISBN 10:   019958009
Pages:   440
Publication Date:   07 April 2011
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

"Introduction Religion in public reason and law 1: Darwin, Dewey, Religion, and the Public Domain 2: Talking about God in a Pluralist Society 3: Secularism's Practical Meaning 4: Religion and State 5: Political Neutrality and Religious Arguments 6: Catholic Positions in Liberal Debates Bases for accepting revelation 7: The Significance of Questioning 8: Ethics and Revelation: A Fragment 9: Historical Consciousness and Theological Foundations 10: Faith, Morals, and Thomas More 11: On Creation and Ethics 12: St Cuthbert's Faith and the Bishop of Durham's Unbelief 13: Philosophy and God's Nature: Second Thoughts 14: This World and the Next 15: Three and One Conscience & Faith 16: Conscience in Newman's Letter to the Duke of Norfolk 17: Grace and Humility Controversies 18: Christianity and World Order 19: Morality and the Second Vatican Council 20: Nuclear Deterrence and the End of Christendom 21: The ""Consistent Ethic of Life"" 22: Secularism and ""The Culture of Death"" 23: On Retranslating Humanae Vitae 24: Hell and Hope Biography of the Works of John Finnis"

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Author Information

John Finnis is Professor of Law and Legal Philosophy at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of University College. He is the Biolchini Family Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame.

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