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

Front Cover
Simon and Schuster, May 15, 2011 - Law - 264 pages
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.
 

Contents

1
1
2
23
3
41
4
61
5
79
6
97
7
113
8
127
9
145
10
161
Afterword
187
Appendix
199
Notes
203
Credits Acknowledgments Confessions
227
Index
231
Copyright

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About the author (2011)

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.

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