“It is essential reading for any theologian engaging with Aquinas’s ethics and for any lawyer who wants to reflect on their calling after Aquinas.” (Studies in Christian Ethics, 1 November 2015)
“A “must” for the theological-college library, this is not a book that can be ignored by anyone interested in this fascinating and deeply influential Dominican.” (Church Times, 17 January 2014)
“This book will be particularly useful for graduate students in philosophy and theology. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and graduate students.” (Choice, 1 November 2013)
“In this fascinating new book, Eugene Rogers shows, in an unprecedented way, how Aquinas thinks that the law of nature is discerned differently according to specific historical position and cultural belonging. A singularly crucial contribution to the developing new debate about law and religion.”
―John Milbank, University of Nottingham
“In this well documented and lucidly argued book we discover that what might seem purely arcane medieval scholarship cuts decisively into matters of currently great human concern.”
―Fergus Kerr, University of Edinburgh
“Rogers’s detailed and erudite argument constitutes a radical challenge to the ‘new natural law theory’. Rooted deeply in Aquinas’s biblical commentaries, his book turns St. Thomas against those who would use him to defend a socially conservative agenda in American law. Rogers simply up-ends the culture wars. Anyone interested in the relationship of religion, morality, and American law should read this book.”
―M Cathleen Kaveny, University of Notre Dame
From the Inside Flap
Eight centuries after he lectured on the Bible, both advocates and critics agree that Aquinas remains the most influential “natural law” philosopher. Lawmakers, judges, pundits, and clergy deploy natural-law reasoning on all manner of public issues, from gender roles to just war; the US Supreme Court still cites Aquinas on abortion and homosexuality.
In this insightful new work, noted scholar Eugene Rogers critiques turn-of-the-21st century natural law theory by its founding text, using Aquinas’s own commentaries on the bible. Exploring newly translated, or untranslated commentaries, Rogers compares the passages where Aquinas’s systematic works quote the Bible with the biblical commentaries on the passages which are cited. A very different understanding of natural law emerges in which Aquinas embeds all law, even natural law, not in a particular logic, but in a particular story. The commentaries describe a nature that differs by ethnicity, varies over time, and changes sexuality by God’s decree. This challenges current understandings and uses of Aquinas’s natural law from both sides of the debate, both liberal and conservative. The result is a brilliant and genuinely ground-breaking book.
From the Back Cover
Eight centuries after he lectured on the Bible, both advocates and critics agree that Aquinas remains the most influential “natural law” philosopher. Lawmakers, judges, pundits, and clergy deploy natural-law reasoning on all manner of public issues, from gender roles to just war; the US Supreme Court still cites Aquinas on abortion and homosexuality.
In this insightful new work, noted scholar Eugene Rogers critiques turn-of-the-21st century natural law theory by its founding text, using Aquinas’s own commentaries on the bible. Exploring newly translated, or untranslated commentaries, Rogers compares the passages where Aquinas’s systematic works quote the Bible with the biblical commentaries on the passages which are cited. A very different understanding of natural law emerges in which Aquinas embeds all law, even natural law, not in a particular logic, but in a particular story. The commentaries describe a nature that differs by ethnicity, varies over time, and changes sexuality by God’s decree. This challenges current understandings and uses of Aquinas’s natural law from both sides of the debate, both liberal and conservative. The result is a brilliant and genuinely ground-breaking book.
About the Author
Eugene F. Rogers is Professor of Religious Studies and Faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has taught at Princeton, Yale, Shaw University Divinity School, among others, and has held numerous fellowships. He is author or editor of five books and many articles and translations. In 2010, Christian Century named his book Sexuality and the Christian Body among “essential reading” published in the past 25 years.
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