Conclusion
The concept of natural law plays a decisive role in criticising traditional religious concepts by Palaeologus as well as by Francken. However, neither Palaeologus nor Francken was satisfied with subsuming of positive religion under natural law.
Of course, their uses of the idea of natural law differed from each other significantly, following their own objectives. Palaeologus's syncretic vision of a common narrative and of a shared salvation regarding the three monotheistic religions has the idea of natural desire for salvation as anthropological point of departure. This very natural feature of mankind culÂminates somehow in the supranatural determination of man who is able to acquire cognition of salvation and to purchase it. But this universal salvation proves to be supranatural at the end, even if theJews' notion of salvation is natural in some sense. The natural desire as an anthropological standard fades away in the light of the common universalism of revelation. There is a universal perspective of mankind for salvation, but it cannot be reduced to man's natural constitution. Revelation shines through natural laws of pagan antiquity, and Greek patriotism was stimulated by the general desire for salvaÂtion, but it was only an insufficient sign of the real salvation revealed by God supranaturally. Telephus, the Indian from the new world, who is introduced as a dialogue partner in Palaeologus's Catechesis Christiana (1574), walking through the streets of Cluj and getting into dialogue with its citizens has this basic affinity for God's promise (his soul is anima naturaliter Christiana),[407] but his natural condition of existence seems to be very weak in the eyes of his interlocutors.On the other hand, Francken's discontent with natural law has deep philÂosophical grounds. His extravagant undertaking of refuting theism doesn't even allow for a natural concept of theism.
In Francken's case, the criticism of theism cannot stop at naturalising the claims for supranatural evidence of belief. The deduction of moral values from God's revealed commands are unsatisfactory not only because of their incompatibility with a solid order of natural values, but also because of the relativity of natural law. Francken's argumentation tends to remove the common metaphysical setting of reliÂgious and political orientations. While treating the conclusions of his holisÂtic criticism in another manuscript^[408] he draws some conclusions from this collapse of metaphysics. Contrary to Palaeologus's colourful syncretic imagination, the German thinker denies any possibility for the harmony of religions. Instead, Francken's ultimate vision depicts an annihilation of political values. The systems of values in the world are expressed in respecÂtively incommensurable political and religious usages of speech which cannot be intermediated. This was Francken's radical answer to Grotius's later formulated famous thought experiment De iure belli ac pacis concernÂing natural values and laws which were true even if there was no God.[409] Francken refuses God not only as the upholder of the normativity of divine commands from a voluntarist point of view, but as the highest instance of the intellectual order of natural values and laws as well. According to Francken's radical view, Grotius's claim is theoretically false: denying the existence of God eliminates any voluntarist as well as intellectual normaÂtivity of laws at once.For Palaeologus and Francken, natural law functioned as a critical tool against claims for certainty of revealed religions. They also shared the general radical Protestant attitude towards eliminating confessional differences. But at the same time, the latent universal tendency hiding in the idea of natural law meant a challenge for their conceptions. This implied that decisive features of their achievements concerning natural law were divergent from the secularisÂing developments in Grotius and his followers.
Palaeologus based his removal of the exclusivity of revealed religions on a universal enfolding of supranatural divine grace - even the elementary human struggle for salvation described as natural law proves to be dependent upon God's unique grace. On the other hand, Francken regards the universalistic approach of radical reformation as a failed project. The philosophical reason for this failure lies in the very fact that even humanity as such, i.e. without the support of God's grace, cannot assure us a solid basis for natural law. From the point of view of later natural law theÂorists, Palaeologus remained too indebted to supranatural motifs of universalÂism, while Francken was not able to set aside the relativism of natural values. For Palaeologus, the natural state of humanity was not natural enough, while for Francken, the natural state of humanity was philosophically impossible. Although they cannot be regarded as forerunners of natural law theories, they perceived with comparable sensitivity the problems of universal natural law which natural law theorists had to face in the seventeenth century. As a result of their awareness of the challenge of universalism, theoretical treatment of natural law was no longer a denominational issue; natural law appeared on the universal scene of interconfessional relations among monotheistic religions in both Palaeologus's and Francken's cases. This expansion of perspective makes up their modernity.[410]