Conclusion
We started our discussion of Pufendorf's entia moralia with an overview of the dominant interpretation of this new theory as a case of voluntarism. It turned out, however, that upon more careful consideration, the imposition of natuÂral law by God depends on human nature and the conditions of human life.
This might suggest that Pufendorf sides - at least partially - with those who try to deduce natural law from the nature of man. We argue that this element in Pufendorf's argumentation might be best understood as a conditional or hypothetical necessity, following from the kind of nature and conditions of men as created by God. In the last section, we considered different proposÂals as to the underlying motivation that Pufendorf might have had to make this concept of entia moralia so central to his Dejure naturae et gentium: a cosmological motivation to answer the challenge of the modern conception of a purposeless nature, a theological motivation to exalt divine freedom or a methodological motivation to side-line the distinction between voluntarism and naturalism, by showing the underlying teleological motivation and the distinction between form and content.