As readers of our weekly Scholarship Roundup know, natural law is making a comeback in certain quarters of the American legal academy–a comeback that reflects concerns about the positivism that underlies prevailing theories like originalism and textualism. For most American law professors, natural law means Aquinas. But medieval jurisprudence isn’t the only natural-law game in town. A new book from Georgetown University Press discusses the work of a leading figure of the so-called “second scholasticism” at the time of the Counter Reformation, the Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suarez. The book is Law from Below: How the Thought of Francisco Suarez, S.J., Can Renew Contemporary Legal Engagement, by scholar Elizabeth Rain Kincaid (Loyola University New Orleans). Here’s the description from the Georgetown website:

The current political atmosphere would suggest that law is imposed only from above, specifically by the chief executive acting upon some sort of perceived populist mandate.

In Law from Below, Elisabeth Rain Kincaid argues that the theology of the early modern legal theorist and theologian, Francisco Suárez, SJ may be successfully retrieved to provide a constructive model of legal engagement for Christians today. Suárez’s theology was developed to combat an authoritarian view of law, suggesting that communities may work to change law from the ground up as they function within the legal system, not just outside it. Law from Below suggests that Suárez’s theory of law provides a theologically robust way to mount a counter-narrative to contemporary authoritarian theories of law, while still acknowledging the good in the rule of law and its imposition by a legislative authority. Suárez acknowledges the crucial contribution of citizens to improving law’s moral content, without removing the importance of law’s own authority or the role of the lawgiver.

Law from Below argues that the dialogue between legislators and the community provides Christian activists with a range of options for constructively engaging with law in order to have a positive impact on society.