Nietzsche and Neo-Scholasticism

My new essay, "Nietzsche and Neo-Scholasticism: The Dangers and Promise of Natural Law," has been published on Anamnesis Journal's site. An excerpt:

To conceive of a natura pura (i.e., a human nature devoid of reference to the supernatural and transparent to reason) we would need to rid our traditions of thought of the vestiges of Christian revelation—and our model, at least in this respect, would be Nietzsche. Nietzsche recognized the degree to which Christianity had shaped the world, its refusal to stay within designated boundaries, the sheer saturation of God (at least the idea of God) into our thought, institutions, practices, laws, language, art, and so on. (Nietzsche even went so far as to declare, “We cannot get rid of God because we still believe in grammar.”) ...

A “pure nature,” a limpid sphere of human existence enclosed within the confines of created finitude, is therefore not simply given. In neither theory nor practice is a secular humanity given at the start and a religious dimension later added. But a pure nature can perhaps be achieved by a labor of thought that clips the wings of the human spirit.

Read the whole thing here.