In the Quodlibetal VIII, Godfrey argues against the Franciscan Christian order and lays an early groundwork of political philosophy where he discusses the ideas of natural rights. Godfrey believed that natural law was dependent on individual self-preservation rather than a religious obligation; he says, “because by natural law each person is obliged to maintain his life…each person has dominion and a certain right in the common exterior goods of this world, a right that he cannot licitly renounce”, says author Jussi Varkemma as noted in Conrad Summenhart’s Theory of Individual Rights. He objects that the fundamental Franciscan approach to rights is illicit to human activity and natural rights. He says later that everyone has a right to subsistence - a right that people can never renounce. This applies to the mendicant orders because it applies to all members of society.