 
What
We Can't Not Know: A Guide
 Book
by J. Budziszewski
Government and Philosophy
University of Texas, Austin
Review by Phillip Johnson
Emeritus Professor of Law
University of California, Berkeley
Although
relativists may scoff at the concept of natural law, in the end
even they have to rely on some moral principle that they claim to
be self-evident, even if it is only that “you have no right
to impose your beliefs on me.” Why not?
Jay Budziszewski,
professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas,
has written the best book on natural law since C.S. Lewis’s
classic “The Abolition of Man.” He explains in plain
language how there can be basic moral principles that we can’t
avoid knowing even if we are not always consciously aware of them
or have constructed elaborate mechanisms of evasion and denial to
avoid facing the enormity of our guilt.
An outstanding
feature of “What We Can’t Not Know” is that it
unites the natural law with the law revealed in Scripture. The Ten
Commandments and the two-part summary of the law revealed by Jesus
in both Matthew 22 and Luke 10 provide the intersection where the
natural and the revealed law meet.
At a deep level
we all know that we ought to love our creator unreservedly and our
neighbors as we do ourselves. This two-part summary is amplified
in the Ten Commandments.
The first three
or four of the commandments outline our duties to God, and the remainder
or “Second Tablet” points to the duties we owe to our
neighbors. Thus the basic elements of the revealed law reflect and
confirm what the apostle Paul described as the law written on the
hearts of believers and unbelievers alike.
Budziszewski
explains movingly how the law is known to us through the operation
of deep conscience and our observation of consequences, in the context
of the knowledge we have that we and our world are designed by a
creator who loves us and wishes to provide for our common good.
The bottom line
is that this is the book to read whether you love the natural law
or don’t believe it exists. I wish every college student could
take a course in this subject from this teacher.
Publisher: Spence
Pub; (March 2003)
ISBN: 189062649X
To order What We Can't Not Know: A Guide by J. Budziszewski
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