Law without a Lawgiver? | Prof. Francis Beckwith

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Religion &Amp; Spirituality, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2021

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This lecture was given on October 29, 2020 to Texas A&M University.

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About the Speaker:

Francis J. Beckwith is Professor of Philosophy & Church-State Studies at Baylor University, where he also serves as Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Philosophy. Among his over one dozen books are Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge University Press, 2007), Politics For Christians: Statecraft As Soulcraft (IVP, 2010), and Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith (Cambridge University Press, 2015), winner of the American Academy of Religion's prestigious 2016 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Constructive-Reflective Studies. He is a graduate of the Washington University School of Law, St. Louis (MJS) as well as Fordham University (PhD, MA, philosophy).

Transcript

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0:00.0	Well, as I said, it's a delight to be here.
0:05.8	Anytime you have an opportunity to travel during the COVID-19 era that we're in,
0:11.4	you take the opportunity, and I'm glad that I was invited.
0:16.6	And I look forward to hearing from you in terms of your questions and comments.
0:22.1	The topic of this talk is a law without a lawgiver, question mark, why natural rights require a divine source.
0:34.6	Essentially, what I'm going to offer to you this evening is a kind of argument as to why
0:41.2	I think you ought to believe that the moral law, if there is a moral law, depends on God for
0:50.9	its authority and existence. So the subtitle is why natural rights require a divine source.
1:01.0	So let me say, let me just briefly define what natural rights are.
1:07.0	And then I'm going to move on to discuss how they're connected to the idea of natural law.
1:15.4	We're going to go over many concepts this evening, each of which, to a certain extent,
1:22.7	we can actually have independent lectures just on those concepts.
1:26.8	So I expect from you guys questions
1:30.2	perhaps about those concepts, clarifications, and so forth. So let's begin. Natural rights. What is a
1:37.2	natural right? What is a right, a right that one has by nature that a government is obligated to recognize but a right
1:55.0	so think about what what some of our we think of our fundamental rights in as
2:00.5	citizens of the United States we think of our fundamental rights as citizens of the United States.
2:02.5	We think of the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, the freedom of assembly and association, and so forth.
2:07.5	Those are legal rights. Those are what are sometimes called positive rights.
2:11.1	They're called positive rights because they are positive by human governments.
2:22.2	But we like to think that they are tightly tethered to something beyond those governments. So, for example, freedom of speech. Why would freedom of speech
2:28.6	be good? And you could think of several reasons, right? Well, speech is a way to communicate.
	...

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