Natural Law: A Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Trialogue

Natural Law: A Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Trialogue
Anver M. Emon, Matthew Levering, and David Novak
Oxford University Press 2014 

• The three programmatic essays provide a sense for how natural law doctrine arises and functions in each tradition, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic.
• The volume, as a whole, reflects upon natural law doctrine and the religious other, giving a sense for why this topic is important.
• Each contributor responds to the other two contributors, revealing the particular points of tension/interest between the traditions (and between the three authors).

Each essay includes extensive interaction with and reliance upon classical sources from the particular tradition, explaining the key sources and terms for natural law doctrine in these three traditions.

Footnotes provide key bibliographic resources for going further in the study of natural law doctrine in each of these traditions.

This book is an examination of natural law doctrine, rooted in the classical writings of our respective three traditions: Jewish, Christian, and Islamic. Each of the authors provides an extensive essay reflecting on natural law doctrine in his tradition. Each of the authors also provides a thoughtful response to the essays of the other two authors. Readers will gain a sense for how natural law (or cognate terms) resonated with classical thinkers such as Maimonides, Origen, Augustine, al-Ghazali and numerous others. Readers will also be instructed in how the authors think that these sources can be mined for constructive reflection on natural law today. A key theme in each essay is how the particularity of the respective religious tradition is squared with the evident universality of natural law claims. The authors also explore how natural law doctrine functions in particular traditions for reflection upon the religious other.