Often considered a secularizing force in the rise of the nation state, natural law was also invoked in defence of confessional states. The fourteen chapters in this volume show how religious and secularizing approaches to natural and biblical law interacted and combined as early modern states navigated the fallout from the Reformation. From this new perspective, the volume revisits questions of political legitimacy, civic and ecclesiastical authority, societal stability, conceptions of the common good, liberalism’s value pluralism (and its pretence), toleration and the lingering humanist project of determining “who are we” – issues that were as important then as they are now.

Contributors are: Dominique Bauer, Thomas Behme, Hans Blom, Jiří Chotaš, Alberto Clerici, Stefanie Ertz, Arthur Eyffinger, Heikki Haara, Mads Langballe Jensen, Adriana Luna-Fabritius, Denis Ramelet, József Simon, and Markus M. Totzeck.