Hugo Grotius, 1583–1645

Hugo Grotius was a Dutch legal theorist, Bible scholar, historian, philologist, and poet who at one time was called “the miracle of Holland.”  He is best known today as one of the pioneering figures in the field of modern international law.  He may be classified as a “theonomist” in that he espoused the “natural law” established by God, but at the same time he tried to separate natural law from its conventional medieval association with Christian claims of revelation by formulating a more universal theory of “rational natural law” on the naturalistic side of religion.