Ministers of the Law

"Ministers of the Law is an argument for the importance of the history of Western legal thought for the jurisprudence of political authority. Jean Porter demonstrates that European jurists before the age of legal positivism had placed clear and absolute boundaries on the authority and power of rulers and magistrates. These boundaries were defined by the rights of human beings that transcended the 'rule of law' and constitutions.-Kenneth Pennington Catholic University of America

This book is a theological account of a vital element of human flourishing: authority-natural, political, and legal. Porter argues that positive law, national and international, possesses an authority that may trump anti-terrorist expedients and even general humanitarian considerations.-Nigel Biggar University of Oxford

The author presents an original account of natural law as a 'basis of legitimization' that can validate a variety of political systems and structures of positive law."-Brian Tierney Cornell University