ABSTRACT
In rejecting natural law theory, Montaigne was rejecting the dominant European understanding of universal morality. In 1594 the Protestant Richard Hooker produced a magnificent restatement of Thomistic natural law doctrine in order to justify, against Catholics and Calvinists, his claim that the English government could rightly determine what its churches taught and how they were to be organized. The natural law has binding force for all people. And because it carries over into the next world, setting, in part, the terms for salvation, it requires not merely outer obedience but also proper motivation. Suarez discusses inner compliance when he considers what "manner of performance" of action is required by natural law. Natural law "as it were coerces" the will by showing those who can grasp it that they have no justifiable alternative to doing what it requires.
