“The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction”
Book review
Fnu Bashirullah
Prof. Jesse Chupp, Liberty University
PLCY 701-D01
April 4, 2021
2
A review of the literature A review of “The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as
Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction”
Reading the author: Jay Budziszewski is a professor in the department of government and
philosophy at the University of Texas in Austin. In First Things he started critiquing
conservatism, liberalism, and communitarianism. Budziszewski, supports moral political
thoughts and oppose the contemporary politics.
Like Aristotle, he connects ethics and politics in his political philosophy
(cf. Nichomachean Ethics X, 9). He is a theological ethician and believes that our common life,
public authority, and law should be regarded as branch of ethics, not a value-free social science.
He opposes contemporary legal and political theorists and seems less admired by the
contemporary progressive views of equality and freedom.
He in his books criticizes Aristotle’s view on moral psychology for speaking human
heart, says that is a biblical term not originated from Aristotle. In his books What We Can't
Know: A Guide (2003), The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man (1999), The
Resurrection of Nature: Political Theory and the Human Character (1986), True Tolerance:
Liberalism and the Necessity of Judgment (1992), The Nearest Coast of Darkness: A Vindication
of the Politics of Virtues (1988), and Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law (1997) he
stresses that Aristotle did not confront the issues of religious pluralism that leads to tolerance and
