The Light That Binds

“When the living scholar who knows best the works of Thomas Aquinas says that his own earlier thought in a certain regard has evolved, academics especially, but also others, must take notice. That scholar is Fr. Stephen Brock; this book is where he explains—with great clarity and subtlety—this development in his understanding of Aquinas’s teaching on the relationship between the natural law and God’s eternal law.”
—Kevin L. Flannery, SJ, Professor of the History of Ancient Philosophy, Pontifical Gregorian University

“This book is of the utmost importance for anyone interested in contemporary disputes over Aquinas’s understanding of the natural law and moral obligation. With his usual command of Aquinas’s texts, Stephen Brock gives a substantial and new argument for the thesis that the natural law is a law in the strictest sense.”
—Thomas M. Osborne Jr., Chair, Department of Philosophy, University of St. Thomas

“Stephen Brock has written a masterful study of what it means for the natural law to be both natural and a law. Scholars have struggled to understand Aquinas’s theory of the natural law, raising questions about the natural law’s binding force, its relationship to God and to our natural inclinations. Brock engages the best of the secondary literature concerning these questions, offering his own insightful and creative interpretation of them.”
—Michael Sherwin, OP, Professor of Moral Theology and Ethics, University of Freiburg

“A penetrating and lucid study of Aquinas’s metaphysics of natural law. From the outset, it is evident that the reader is under the direction of a master. Highly recommended as a first point of reference on the subject.”
—Russell Hittinger, Emeritus Professor of Religion, University of Tulsa