Brennan reviews Jean Porter's "Ministers of the Law"

Also in the April issue of First Things is our own Patrick Brennan's review of my colleague Jean Porter's new book, Ministers of the Law.  Patrick writes:

 . . . Drawing on the Catholic tradition’s understanding of what it is to be under the divine natural law and thus to be possessed of natural rights that merit specification and application through human lawmaking, Porter shows how lawmakers are engaged in the creative work of ensuring that the natural law—a real and obligating higher law—is given effect in our human living, both collectively and individually. This lawmaking work must be creative, yet it needn’t—and must not—be formless, for, as Porter argues, the form of what it is to be human is given. . . .