The Shortcomings of Natural Law in the Renaissance

Due to the lack of a record on the subjects related to the principles of natural law in the works of Muslim thinkers and in order to establish a theory and develop a scientific study which identifies the principles of natural law in Islam, it is necessary to scrutinize the doctrine of natural law in the West especially in the Christian period because great attention was paid to religious criteria in the West in that period. The thinkers of the Renaissance (from the 14th to the 16th centuries A.D.) revived the humanistic thought of ancient Greek sophists in all fields of knowledge by abandoning the theocentric thought of the Mediaeval Ages. Although the doctrine of natural law began to decline in the first half of the Renaissance, it was not completely forgotten. Late scholastic thinkers and early Protestants did their best to revive the idea of natural law. This research elaborates at the outset on the view of the late scholastic thinkers concerning natural law. Then it sheds light on the two mentioned explanations of this doctrine.