The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction

by J. Budziszewski

Overview

Why do we demand happiness on terms that make happiness impossible? And what can we do about it?

Acclaimed philosopher J. Budziszewski addresses these questions in the brilliantly persuasive book The Line Through the Heart, finding the answers in the natural law. The journey of exploration takes us through politics, religion, ethics, law, philosophy, and more, with Budziszewski as expert guide. While investigating the natural law and its implications, Budziszewski boldly confronts a wide range of contemporary issues, offering a newly integrated view of abortion, evolution, euthanasia, capital punishment, runaway courts, and the ersatz state religion built in the name of religious toleration.

Written in Budziszewski's usual crystalline style, The Line Through the Heart shows that natural law is a matter of concern not merely to scholars but to everyone, for it touches how each of us lives, and how all of us live together. His profound examination of this subject helps us make sense of why habits that run against our nature have become second nature, and why our world seems to be going mad.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610170031
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	05/15/2011
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 18 Years

About the Author

J. Budziszewski is a professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas. He is the author of nineteen books including What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide, On the Meaning of Sex, How and How Not to Be Happy, How to Stay Christian in College, and a series of line-by-line commentaries on pivotal sections of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, including the Treatise on Law.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Part I Moral Law

Chapter 1 Natural Law as Fact, as Theory, and as Sign of Contradiction 1

Chapter 2 The Second Tablet Project 23

Chapter 3 Nature Illuminated 41

Chapter 4 The Natural, the Connatural, and the Unnatural 61

Chapter 5 Accept No Imitations: Naturalism vs. Natural Law 79

Part II Political Law

Chapter 6 Thou Shalt Not Kill … Whom? The Meaning of the Person 97

Chapter 7 Capital Punishment: The Case for Justice 113

Chapter 8 Constitution vs. Constitutionalism 127

Chapter 9 Constitutional Metaphysics 145

Chapter 10 The Illiberal Liberal Religion 161

Afterword: The Architecture of Christian Citizenship: Two Stories with Basement and Mezzanine 187

Appendix: A Note on Natural Law Theories 199

Notes 203

Credits, Acknowledgments, Confessions 227

Index 231