History informs us that challenges lie ahead. While Americans have always had challenges and have always overcome them, now it is our turn. The future of our civilization depends on us maintaining the same successful track record. Are we equal to the task? Do we have what it takes to secure the future of our grandchildren?
Do we have local, county, and state leadership in place to successfully navigate what lies ahead? Do we have an educated citizenry who know how to follow sound ideas and disinterested leaders?
If you can’t answer these questions in the affirmative, now is the time to take your leadership training to the next level with our new online Masters in Natural Law from Monticello College. One of the first books you will study in this program is The Natural Law, by Heinrich Rommen.
Rommen became one of the foremost authorities of the 20th century in the application of natural law in the fields of law, philosophy, history, and theology. His book was written in Nazi Germany partially while he served a prison sentence for his writings against the Third Reich.
Not long after fleeing to America in 1938 to avoid the looming storm of Hitler and the Nazi party he wrote, “Our modern dictators are masters of legality. Hitler aims not at a revolution, but at a legal grasp of power according to the formal democratic processes.”
This approach is neither new nor has it seen its last use.
Only a citizenry (like the early Americans) who are trained in the relationship between natural law and philosophy, history, economics, governance, theology, and positive law can triumph in the face of the new “modern dictators.”
Rommen begins his book discussing how the value of natural law seems to resurface about every hundred years, coinciding with an increase of positive law and alternatives to a divinity culture. He summaries the ancient natural law debates, then moves to discuss the resurgence of natural law during the era of Royal Absolutism of the 1500’s, then the resurgence of natural law and rights during the late 1600’s and early 1700’s leading to the American Revolution, then again during the second founding of America—the American Civil War, then once more during the WWI and WWII eras.
Based on this cyclical pattern, there is every reason to believe that a discussion of natural law is beginning to resurface even now. But who will be its champions?
A concept that is little understood but that is required for competent leadership to be effective, is the need for an enlightened citizenry (citizens who understand enough to know whether their leaders are on the right track).
Heraclitus the “Obscure Philosopher” writing 500 years before Christ suggested the need “to stress the value of the laws and their binding force against the fickleness of the uncritical masses who are prone to novelties of all kinds and who being woefully lacking in powers of discrimination, were subject to capricious fluctuations of opinion.”
He could just as well have been writing of America in the 21st century.
I personally invite you to enroll in this three-year Masters degree of Natural Law, the only one of its kind in America. The application deadline is February 1, 2016 and classes begin in April. Go to our website www.monticellocollege.org and click on Academics. Fill-out and submit the Graduate Studies application.
I encourage application and enrollment soon so you can begin pre-study as soon as possible. Remember the deep tuition discount being offered for 2016 enrollment only. Classes will be held online Thursdays 7-9pm MT.
ENROLL HERE
Masters in Natural Law Degree Course Schedule
Year One
Tuition – $2,000 (normally $6,000)
10 months of the year – weekly online classes
On campus – one 3-day on campus event
Year Two
Tuition – $3,000 for 2016 enrollees only (normally $6,000)
10 months of the year – weekly online classes
On campus – two 3-day on campus events
Year Three
Tuition – $4,000 for 2016 enrollees only (normally $6,000)
10 months of the year – weekly online classes
On campus – two 3-day on campus events
Final Oral Examination on campus (end of second on campus event)
If you have any questions please call me at (435) 590-1661. Again the sooner you apply and enroll the sooner you can get started on the readings.
ENROLL HERE
YEAR ONE READINGS – MASTERS OF NATURAL LAW
Year One Readings
Semester One
Introduction to Natural Law Concepts
DeMille: We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident
Rommen: The Natural Law
Bastiat: Selected Essays on Political Economy
Strauss: Natural Right and History
Natural Law in the Greek Tradition
Sophocles: Antigone
Aeschylus: Seven Against Thebes
Euripedes: Phoenician Maidens
Plato: Seventh Letter, Crito, Apology
Aristotle: Politics, Ethics
Natural Law in the Hebrew Tradition I
Psalms 36-37, 118-119
Proverbs 8
Romans 2
Genesis 9, 17, 26
Exodus 12-13, 20-31, 34-35, 40
Deuteronomy 1, 4-27, 30
Joshua 1, 8, 22
Natural Law in the Hebrew Tradition II
Matthew 5-7, 16, 18, 22
Luke 6, 10, 22
John 3, 6, 13-17
Romans 3-13
1 Corinthians 11-34
Galatians 3-6
Hebrews 7-10
Semester Two
Natural Law in Roman Institutions
Cicero: Republic, Laws
Aurelius: Meditations (translated by Hutcheson and Moor)
Augustine: City of God, Confessions
Historical Contexts of Natural Law: Plutarch
Plutarch: Lives
Natural Law in the Medieval Tradition
Aquinas: Summa Theologica, Parts I-II, questions 79, 58, 63, 90, 19, 51, 91, 92, 99, 94-97
Dante: Divine Comedy
Luther: A Treatise on Christian Liberty
Natural Law in European Traditions
Cervantes: Don Quixote
-Milton: Paradise Lost
-Suarez: Selections from Three Works of Francisco Suarez (by Liberty Fund)
–Millar: The Origin and Distinction of Ranks
ENROLL HERE