But tonight I want to present an overview of one important component of the work of St. Thomas Aquinas,

one that has relevance to an array of contemporary questions in ethics, theology, government, and law.

The idea of natural law. Is this allowed to know if in the back? Okay, let me know if I were out.

I'll get quiet. I want to begin with an anecdote that points to a problem with the very term that names my subject.

A problem nicely illustrated by a story I once heard in graduate school from my professor David Solomon, who's at the bottom there.

A few years ago, Professor Solomon told me, I appeared on firing line.

That's an old television show.

Maybe nobody knows it anymore.

But once in a time, William Buckley would invite people on and have discussions.

Not the kind that we think of when we think of firing line today, but they're actually serious

discussion.

Anyway, it says a few years ago I appeared on the firing line with my Notre Dame colleagues,

Gerhard Niemeier and Ralph McEnanney, for a discussion in natural law.

My memory of that occasion is vivid.

Our attempt to discuss the possibilities for the theory of natural law and the contemporary

intellectual climate was frustrated throughout, by the way we seem to be talking about three

different subjects.

Father Niemeyer approached the topic of natural law as if it essentially concerned moral

objectivity, and from his point of view, Kant was as much a defender of the theory of natural law

as Suarez.

McInerney and I quibbled about how much of the specifically timeless project can still

be defended.

...