Classical Christianity and the Political Order

by Fortin, Ernest L.; Benestad, J. Brian

• ISBN13: 9780847682768
• ISBN10: 0847682765
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-09-01
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc

Summary

In Volume Two of Ernest Fortin: Collected Essays, Fortin deals with the relationship between religion and civil society in a Christian context: that of an essentially nonpolitical but by no means entirely otherwordly religion, many of whose teachings were thought to be fundamentally at odds with the duties of citizenship. Sections focus upon Augustine and Aquinas, on Christianity and politics; natural law, natural rights, and social justice; and Leo Strauss and the revival of classical political philosophy. Fortin's treatment of these and related themes betrays a keen awareness of one of the significant intellectual events of our time: the recovery of political philosophy as a legitimate academic discipline.

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii	(4)
Acknowledgments	xi
I. AUGUSTINE AND AQUINAS ON CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS	1	(222)
1. The Political Thought of St. Augustine	1	(30)
2. Political Idealism and Christianity in the Thought of St. Augustine	31	(34)
3. The Political Implications of St. Augustine's Theory of Conscience	65	(20)
4. Augustine and Roman Civil Religion: Some Critical Reflections	85	(22)
5. Augustine, Spinoza, and the Hermeneutical Problem	107	(10)
6. Augustine's City of God and the Modern Historical Consciousness	117	(20)
7. Augustine and the Problem of Modernity	137	(14)
8. The Political Thought of St.Thomas Aquinas	151	(26)
9. Politics and Philosophy in the Middle Ages: The Aristotelian Revolution	177	(22)
10. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and the Problem of Natural Law	199	(24)
II. NATURAL LAW AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS	223	(64)
11. Natural Law and Social Justice	223	(20)
12. On the Presumed Medieval Origin of Individual Rights	243	(22)
13. The New Rights Theory and the Natural Law	265	(22)
III. LEO STRAUSS AND THE REVIVAL OF CLASSICAL POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY	287	(68)
14. Rational Theologians and Irrational Philosophers: A Straussian Perspective	287	(10)
15. Faith and Reason in Contemporary Perspective: Apropos of a Recent Book	297	(20)
16. Between the Lines: Was Leo Strauss a Secret Enemy of Morality?	317	(12)
17. Straussian Reflections on the Strauss-Voegelin Correspondence	329	(8)
18. Nietzsche and the Crisis of Nihilism	337	(18)
IV. SELECTED REVIEWS	355	(20)
F. D. Wilhelmsen, Christianity and Political Philosophy	355	(5)
R. Hitinger, A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory	360	(2)
F. Rousseau, La Croissance solidaire des droits de l'homme	362	(4)
G. Fessard, Chretiens marxistes et theologie de la liberation and Eglise de France, prends garde de perdre la foi	366	(3)
D. Vree, On Synthesizing Marxism and Christianity	369	(2)
H. A. Deane, The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine	371	(4)
Select Bibliography	375	(12)
Index	387	(14)
About the Author	401	(1)
About the Editor	402