A divine right?Suárez’s ideas were controversial, since monarchs across northern Europe claimed divine and absolute authority—the so-called “divine right” of kings. Suárez’s conclusions challenged the notion that the ruler was accountable only to God, and not to the Church or to his or her subjects. By distinguishing between different sources of laws—natural, divine, and human—Suárez rejected the mixing of the secular and the sacred, and separated the realms of power. He also introduced the notion of the social contract, proposing that the ruler governs by the consent of the people, who can also legitimately withdraw their consent if the ruler does not respect the demands of natural law.