According to D. H. Lawrence, “The Apocalypse of John is, as it stands, the work of a second-rate mind. It appeals intensely to second-rate minds in every country and every century” (12). Apparently, many Christians agree. Finding the book strange and disturbing, most Christian communities rarely read the final book of the Christian canon. Christians who are serious about changing this world find escapist interpretations of Revelation irrelevant. The book is left to fanatics waiting for the world to erupt, while real Christians go about the ministry of Jesus.
Yet, according to the first words of Revelation, Jesus is both the subject and the mediator of the book: “[The] Revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:1). During the mid-1980s Allan Boesak, a Christian preacher and critic of South Africa’s apartheid, was allowed one book, the Bible, during months of solitary confinement. Boesak later wrote, “Somehow, I don’t know why, I turned to the words of John of Patmos, and for the first time I began to understand. The power of his testimony forever changed my life” (13). For him, the book is precisely for Christians who are serious about the ministry of Jesus to change this world. But how are we to read this work? The present article discusses the book’s genre, the book’s social setting, and the use of the book in ethics.
A Liturgical Apocalypse:
Revelation’s Unique Genre
Although the book of Revelation starts with the Greek word apokalypsis (“apocalypse”), its genre is not easy to distinguish. The work refers to itself as a “prophecy” (1:3; 22:7, 10, 18, 19). Yet seven letters are tucked into the first part, and it begins and ends like a first-century epistle (1:4-7; 22:21). Between chapters 4 and 19, sixteen hymns burst through the narrative (Aune 314-17; Harris 4-16). Consequently, most scholars see the book as a hybrid of some sort. For Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, the apocalyptic and liturgical elements serve the book’s prophetic goals (164-70). Other scholars emphasize the overarching epistolary format or the characteristics that it shares with other apocalypses.
This generic complexity provides an important key to the interpretation of the book and its ethical implications. If a genre is not merely a mold into which content is poured but rather is inseparable from meaning, then these forms carry various theological perspectives and show the complex nature of the book (Bakhtin; Morson and Emerson 271-305). For example, apocalyptic literature emphasizes a view of God far removed from human experience and in control of the entire cosmos. Typically, the apocalyptic seer must stand far off and watch the mighty actions of God taking place throughout the universe and into the future. In contrast, Christian liturgy embraces a God-with-us who is present in earthly worship experiences. John shows these views of God as they continually collide and collaborate. Using the book to shut down such a “surplus” of theological meaning is fundamentally opposed to the book’s very nature (Haloviak 21-108).
Revelation’s Social Setting:
Ordinary People Resisting Rome
Studies in the book of Revelation still wrestle with many disputed issues, including date of authorship, the author’s identity, the work’s intended audience(s), and the overall social situations of people living in the province of Asia during the first century CE of the Roman Empire.
Recent studies on provincial imperial cults and life in the major cities of the province of Asia provide a helpful corrective to the assumption, no longer held by most scholars, that Christians underwent harsh persecution during the reign of Domitian (81-96 CE). However, the provincial imperial cult did permeate every aspect of life in the major cities of the Roman provinces (Friesen 23-131). Purchasing food in the marketplace, eating meals in a trade guild banquet, and participating in the regular festivals, games, and intercity competitions all held major implications for one’s social status. Although it might be rare for a Christian to be dragged before a Roman provincial leader for refusing to worship at a local shrine, the degree to which a follower of Jesus could participate in city life required daily decisions (Thompson 37). The author of Revelation takes a firm stand against assimilating into Roman culture.
The reality of the provincial imperial cult, along with internal controversies (2:6, 14, 15, 20) and tensions with the local Jewish communities in the cities (2:9; 3:9), posed difficult choices for the first recipients of John’s Apocalypse. The book is a call to resist Rome (the “beast” [13:1-18]; the “harlot” [17:1-18]) and all who blur the lines between Rome and the Lamb (like “Jezebel” [2:18-29]). Members of local congregations who chose to join in the songs of Revelation became witnesses who were willing to lay down their lives rather
than compromise with the culture in which they found themselves (11:4-13).
Apocalypse Now and Then:
The Book of Revelation’s Moral Vision
The Apocalypse, this work of generic (theological) complexity that was originally situated in liturgical experiences calling worshipers to resist the dominant culture, invites readers today to consider its resources for the moral life. The book weaves together worship and ethics. The liturgical moments surround the unfolding drama. After Christians worship, additional action is required: contemporary beasts must be confronted (13:1-18), the collaboration of church and state must be denounced (13:11-17), and the seduction of wealth must be resisted (17:1-18:18). Human lives may not be labeled a commodity to be traded (18:11-13), but rather must be deeply valued in the worshiping community’s ongoing commitment to the “healing of the nations” (22:2).
Typically, ethicists considering the use of Scripture in the moral enterprise focus on moral obligations, societal values, or personal virtues. However, the category of moral vision must also be considered. Although last in the NT canon, the book of Revelation should be first in terms of ethical discourse. “Before the message there must be the vision, before the sermon the hymn, before the prose the poem” (Wilder 1). The book of Revelation provides a moral vision that “is a revolution in the imagination. It entails a challenge to view the world in a way that is radically different from the common perception” (Collins 283). The book’s future vision—an earth made new (21:1-5)—shapes moral vision, compelling its readers to transform the world.
See also Eschatology and Ethics; Liturgy and Ethics; New Testament Ethics
Bibliography
Aune, D. Revelation 1—5. WBC 52A. Word, 1997; Bakhtin, M. “The Problem of Speech Genres.” Pages 60102 in Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, ed. C. Emerson and M. Holquist. University of Texas Press, 1986; Bauckham, R. The Theology of the Book of Revelation. NTT. Cambridge University Press, 1993; Boesak, A. Comfort and Protest: The Apocalypse from a South African Perspective. Westminster, 1987; Collins, J. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. 2nd ed. Eerdmans, 1998; Friesen, S. Imperial
Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins. Oxford University Press, 2001; Haloviak, K. “Worlds at War, Nations in Song: Dialogic and Moral Vision in the Hymns of the Book of Revelation.” PhD diss., Graduate Theological Union, 2002; Harris, M. “The Literary Function of Hymns in the Apocalypse of John.” PhD diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1989; Lawrence, D. H. Apocalypse. Heinemann, 1931; Morson, G., and C. Emerson. Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics. Stanford University Press, 1990; Schussler Fiorenza, E. The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment. 2nd ed. Fortress, 1998; Thompson, L. “Ordinary Lives: John and His First Readers.” Pages 25-47 in Reading the Book of Revelation: A Resource for Students, ed. D. Barr. RBS 44. Society of Biblical Literature, 2003; Wilder, A. Theopoetic: Theology and the Religious Imagination. Fortress, 1976.
Kendra Jo Haloviak
The Bible treats revenge as both an appropriate desire and a threat to communal stability. In the
ancient world, revenge was motivated primarily
by family honor. Thus, Jacob’s sons slaughter the men of a neighboring city in retaliation for the rape of Dinah, appealing to their family’s honor (Gen. 34:25-27). At the same time, biblical narratives realistically show how acts of revenge initiate cycles of increasing violence. After God decrees sevenfold vengeance against anyone who kills Cain—ironi-cally, to prevent someone from taking revenge for Abel—Cain’s descendant Lamech threatens seventy-sevenfold vengeance for wrongs done to him (Gen. 4:23-24). Absalom’s murder of Amnon, in retaliation for the rape of his sister Tamar, begins a series of events that nearly destroys the house of David (2 Sam. 13-20). By contrast, the refusal to seek revenge is portrayed as exemplary in the cases of Joseph and his brothers (Gen. 50:15-21) and David and Saul (1 Sam. 24; 26).
Vengeance is identified as a divine attribute in the OT (Ps. 94:1; Nah. 1:2). God takes revenge against Israel’s enemies, who are also God’s enemies (Deut. 32:35-36; Ps. 8:3; Isa. 47:3; Jer. 51:36). God also seeks revenge against his own people for covenant violations that offend divine honor (Lev. 26:25; Ps. 99:8; Jer. 5:9, 29; Ezek. 24:8). The NT likewise portrays God as taking vengeance on those who reject Christ (2 Thess. 1:8; Heb. 10:30). In some texts, God authorizes humans to act as agents of divine vengeance, often through military action (Num. 31:2; Josh. 10:13; 2 Kgs. 9:7), and Exod. 21:20 describes the legal penalty for murdering a slave as a divinely sanctioned act of vengeance (Heb. naqam, “avenged”; NRSV: “punished”).
The tendency in biblical texts, however, is to curtail and discourage revenge. The lex talionis in Exod. 21:22-27 limits actions of revenge by a standard of proportionality (cf. Jer. 50:15). Numbers 35:16-28 commands the establishment of cities of refuge, where persons who have unintentionally killed someone may escape “the avenger [go’el, redeemer] of blood,” who is otherwise authorized to execute murderers. Renunciation of revenge against other Israelites is joined with love of neighbor in Lev. 19:18, which Jesus quotes in the Synoptic Gospels as the second greatest commandment (Matt. 22:39; Mark 12:31; cf. Luke 10:27). Jesus also expands the lex talionis in the Sermon on the Mount to dismiss revenge as inappropriate for his followers (Matt. 5:38-39). Appealing to Deut. 32:35, Paul suggests that human acts of revenge encroach on the divine prerogative for vengeance (Rom. 12:19).
This last verse helpfully bridges some competing claims without completely resolving their complexity. It honors the desire for revenge, which at best results from a longing for justice, but also recognizes that human actions are necessarily inadequate and often have unintended outcomes; consequently, the resolution of wrongs is deferred to God, upon whom all hopes for justice ultimately rest. Appropriate models for this attitude are individuals in the OT who pray for God to exercise vengeance for them (Ps. 79:10; Jer. 11:20) and criticize God for failing to do so (Ps. 44:13-16).
See also Violence
J. Blake Couey
Biblical teaching on reward and retribution is grounded in the basic conviction that human deeds carry inescapable moral consequences. Sometimes these consequences are experienced as the automatic outcome of the deeds themselves: “Can fire be carried in the bosom without burning one’s clothes? Or can one walk on hot coals without scorching the feet?” (Prov. 6:27-28). At other times the consequences are imposed from outside as secondary rewards or punishments, whether directly by God (e.g., Isa. 40:10; 59:12-19; 62:11; Rom. 12:19) or by human agents (e.g., Rom. 13:3-4). Both cases attest to the existence of an underlying law of recompense in the universe according to which good deeds deserve and bring reward, and evil deeds deserve and bring retribution. “Misfortune pursues sinners, but prosperity rewards the righteous” (Prov. 13:21).
It is on the basis of this retributive principle that Paul, in Rom. 1:18-32, is able to diagnose the moral, social, and physical evils that afflict the human condition as an outworking of divine wrath on human sin and rebellion. In rejecting dependence on God and surrendering to the lie of idolatry, humankind has fallen victim to degenerative processes that, in reality, are visible expressions of God’s “handing over” of people (1:24, 26, 28) to “receive back in their own persons” (1:27) the consequences of their actions. The thought here is not so much one of God meting out personally tailored punishments in payment for every individual transgression but rather of God withdrawing his protective hand so that humanity reaps the deleterious consequences of its chosen way of life (cf. Rom. 5:12-21).
Of course, as the biblical writers often recognize, the operation of this law of just recompense is not always evident in human experience. “Why do the wicked live on, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?” Job protests (Job 21:7). “How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? How often does calamity come upon them? How often does God distribute pains in his anger?” and “Who repays them for what they have done?” (Job 21:17, 31 [cf. Jer. 12:1-2]). The problem of theodicy—the justification of God’s goodness, faithfulness, and power in the face of evil—arises precisely from the fact that the law of recompense does not always work out in practice. The wicked prosper and the righteous suffer, and neither can be simplistically construed as their just deserts (cf. Luke 13:1-5; John 9:2-3).
Sometimes the biblical authors anticipate an imminent historical reversal to rectify the problem of such injustice. But Israel’s own experience of defeat, exile, and continuing subjection to foreign powers stubbornly defied this hope, and so attention increasingly shifted to a final, definitive revelation of divine justice at the end of the age where God would visit retribution on evildoers and confer rewards on the righteous. This expectation permeates NT literature from start to finish. The final day of reckoning will be “the time for judging the dead, for rewarding your servants . . . and for destroying those who destroy the earth” (Rev. 11:18). On that day “there will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil . . . but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good” (Rom. 2:9-10).
There is no uniform conception of final judgment and its consequences in the NT, but a common scenario emerges. At the end of the age all people, both “the righteous and the unrighteous” (Acts 24:15; John 5:28-29), will appear before the judgment seat of God or Christ, where each will receive a verdict “according to what has been done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor. 5:10; cf.
Matt. 25:31-46; Rom. 2:6-11; 14:10; Rev. 20:1115; 21:5-8). A separation will occur. The righteous will depart into eternal life. For them there will be “rewards” or “prizes” or “treasure in heaven” (Matt. 5:12, 46; 6:1-6, 16-21; 10:41; 19:28-29; 20:1-16; 24:46-47; 25:21, 23; Mark 9:41; 10:21, 28-30; Luke 6:23, 38; 12:33-34; 14:12, 14-15; 18:28-30; cf. 1 Cor. 3:5-15; 4:4-5; 2 Cor. 5:10; Phil. 3:12-16; Eph. 6:8-9; Col. 3:24-25; Heb. 10:35; 2 John 8). The wicked, however, “will go away into eternal punishment” (Matt. 25:46; cf. 10:28; 13:30; Mark 12:9; Luke 13:9, 22-30; John 3:36; 5:28-29). In the Gospels Jesus speaks frequently of Gehenna or a place of outer darkness and unquenchable fire where there will be “weeping” and “gnashing of teeth” among those excluded from salvation (Matt. 5:22, 29-30; 8:11-12; 10:28; 13:41-42, 50; 18:8-9; 22:13; 23:15, 33; 24:51; 25:30; Mark 9:42-48; Luke 12:4-5; 13:28-29). He also indicates that judgment will fall not just on individuals but on cities and nations as well (Matt. 10:15; 11:21-24; 21:43-44; 23:35-38). Many other NT texts speak of the terrible loss that the wicked will face, described variously as an experience of “wrath,” “vengeance,” “repayment,” “tribulation and distress,” “fire,” and, most often, of “destruction,” “death,” or “disintegration.” Final judgment, then, is depicted as a matter of God assessing and recompensing human works, sometimes with the hint of varying degrees of reward (Mark 10:29-30; 1 Cor. 3:10-15; Eph. 6:8; cf. Luke 12:47-48).
It is important, of course, to recognize the figurative and connotative nature of such language. The basic thought is that earthly actions have transcendent significance and will receive appropriate recognition from God. But a wide range of images and metaphors from the world of human relations is used to express the process of assessment and its outcome. God has a treasury, keeps books, hires and fires, pays wages, harvests crops, herds animals, hands down sentences, scourges slaves, gives rewards, refines metal, confers prizes in athletic contests, holds feasts, bestows inheritances, and so on. Notions of reward or repayment are commercial metaphors for the intensification of relationship with God granted to the redeemed. (What greater reward could there be?) To envisage some kind of quantifiable material benefits is to imply that something can be added to the bliss of knowing God. Conversely, the metaphors of judicially imposed punishments and torments for the condemned are metaphors intended to capture the horror involved in being excluded from relationship with God. (What greater punishment could there be?) To imagine some corner of the
cosmos where the lost suffer endless or prolonged retribution is to miss the figurative nature of these utterances as well as to create profound theological and moral problems.
Theologically, the imagery of God evaluating human deeds and dispensing appropriate rewards and punishments underscores the reality and importance of human freedom and moral responsibility. The battle between good and evil is deadly serious, and to casually or deliberately dally with evil in this life is fraught with eschatological danger. The imagery also safeguards God’s personal involvement in dealing with evil and the inherent justness and integrity of his judgment, “for God shows no partiality” (Rom. 2:11). At the same time, it must be remembered that the revelation of God’s saving righteousness in Christ shows that God is not somehow controlled by the impersonal norm of strict retributive justice. On the one hand, salvation comes by “grace as a gift” (Rom. 3:23-24; Eph. 2:8-10); it is never merited or deserved as a reward for good behavior. It is wholly gratuitous, an act of restorative rather than retributive justice. On the other hand, the lost typically are treated as a single category who suffer the same fate. There is little hint of varying severities of punishment according to individual merit. This perhaps suggests that final judgment should be understood not as God suspending his mercy to give sinners what they finally deserve but rather as respecting the choices they have made to forgo participation in the kingdom of God. The loss they experience is self-inflicted, not retributively imposed.
See also Crime and Criminal Justice; Eschatology and Ethics; Free Will and Determinism; Judgment; Justice, Restorative; Justice, Retributive; Punishment; Theodicy
Bibliography
Blomberg, C. “Degrees of Reward in the Kingdom of Heaven?” JETS 35 (1992): 159-72; Charette, B. The Theme of Recompense in Matthew’s Gospel. JSNTSup 79. JSOT Press, 1992; Marshall, C. Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime and Punishment. Eerdmans, 2001; Reiser, M. Jesus and Judgment: The Eschatological Proclamation in Its Jewish Context. Fortress, 1997; Snodgrass, K. “Justification by Grace—to the Doers: An Analysis of the Place of Romans 2 in the Theology of Paul.” NTS 32 (1986): 72-93; Travis, S. Christ and the Judgment of God: Divine Retribution in the New Testament. Marshall & Pickering, 1986; Van Landingham, C. Judgment and Justification in Early Judaism and the Apostle Paul. Hendrickson, 2006.
Christopher Marshall
The first moral statement made in the Bible is the voice of God declaring his creation “good.” The culmination of creation is the forming of Adam (and Eve), crafted in God’s image, capable of refleeting his goodness, prohibited from and yet free to taste fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The categories of good and evil, with their accompanying terms righteousness and wickedness, become the preferred and most frequently used ethical categories of the biblical writers after humanity exercises its freedom in rebellion. Right and wrong are introduced presupposing a moral universe, constituted and upheld by a God whose essential nature is both just and good. For an individual, ruler, or nation to align with God’s righteousness, heed his commands, and walk in his ways is to do right. To ignore his way and succumb to the deceptions of the evil one, to self-betrayals, or to harming others is to do wrong. Because God is free from moral evil (see Oden), and because evil is a distortion of good and not a dual force in the universe, God alone serves as judge in the affairs of humanity, vindicating the innocent and serving justice on the abuser.
An early illustration of this moral ordering for fallen humanity is found in the story of Adam and Eve’s offspring. The Lord has regard for Abel’s offering but not for Cain’s. Seeing the angry and downcast face of Cain, the Lord extends, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it” (Gen. 4:7 NIV). Cain will not fare well at this task and, symptomatic of the rest of fallen humanity, consequentially will live in fearful wandering outside of Eden, with the only hope for continued life resting in that which God provides.
The summons to do right is given legislative expression in the OT moral code. Following the decisive triumph over Pharaoh’s army at the Red Sea, and after providing sustenance for their wilderness journey, God promises Israel exemption from the plagues Egypt suffered if they will heed his commands and “do what is right in his sight” (Exod. 15:26). This warning and promise, embedded in the events of exodus and deliverance, serves as prologue to the Ten Commandments—com-mandments that structure relational life for the emerging nation. Right and wrong, emanating from the essence of God’s character and manifested in his laws, further ground the teachings of wisdom literature (e.g., to heed wisdom is to be led in the pathway of right [Prov. 4:11]) and originate the declarations of the prophets (e.g., the Lord “declares what is right” [Isa. 45:19]).
Readers of the OT will note the recurrence of the phrase “do what is right in the sight of the
Lord.” God’s sight is equivalent to his being— both expressions of the immanence of God (Tozer 59). The converse of doing right in the eyes of the Lord is not simply doing wrong, but doing what is right in one’s own eyes. The summative statement of the book of Judges, “all the people did what was right in their own eyes” (21:25), is coupled with the reality that there was no king in Israel, the presumption being that when God as the source of moral authority is removed, a nation decays into self-referential indulgence. Hence, biblical theologians may find suspect contemporary theories of right and wrong that attribute morality solely to parental socialization, peer interaction, legal instruction, empathic concern, or evolutionary biology and/or those derived from philosophical proposition or rationalistic principle. These may enhance and inform the moral image in whose likeness humans are created, but all of them are limited in themselves and are likely to err detached from transcendent moorings.
Yahweh, the all-seeing, omniscient God of moral rectitude is thus often summoned when one is accusing or being accused; “May the Lord judge between us” is invoked to ensure vindication. Such is the case when Sarah contends with Abram over the contempt she senses from the impregnated concubine Hagar (Gen. 16:5). In like manner, Jep-thah pleads his case against an Ammonite king (Judg. 11:27), as does David when he is uncertain about the loyalty of the Benjamites and Judahites (1 Chr. 12:16-17). The plea for God to witness a wrong suffered and to uphold a right cause is echoed in Jeremiah’s lament (Lam. 3:59) and in the cry of the psalmist before his enemies (Ps. 9:4). In the NT, Paul encourages slaves, confident that their masters will receive just recompense (Col. 3:25).
During the era in which Israel establishes a monarchy, the biblical writers evaluate every king historically on the criterion of whether they did evil in the sight of the Lord or walked in his ways. These judgments anticipate that when the true king comes, not only will he do right in God’s sight and fulfill God’s word but also he will in fact be the very word of God made flesh.
Although the NT writers seldom make use of the terms right and wrong, the revelation, teachings, passion, and resurrection of Jesus establish NT ethics. Two passages are illustrative. First, Peter and John are arrested for proclaiming Jesus’ resurrection and salvation and are ordered to stop. Their defense, “Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge” (Acts 4:19), suggests that right action under God’s reign may be distinct from conventional legality.
Second, as recipients of the exemplary suffering of Christ, followers are called on to suffer wrong, endure hardship, do right, and trust God for the final vindication of all justice (1 Pet. 4:12-19).
See also Conscience; Good, The; Moral Development; Moral Formation
Bibliography
Oden, T. Life in the Spirit. Vol. 3 of Systematic Theology. HarperSanFrancisco, 1994; Tozer, A. W. The Pursuit of God. WingSpread, 1993.
Chris A. Kiesling
The basic biblical meaning of the term righteousness (Heb. sdq; Gk. dik-) is multivalent, describing appropriate actions and attitude in the context of relationships. Difficulty arises, however, when the term is translated into English by two words, justice and righteousness, which connote fairness and retribution, on the one hand, and virtuous living, on the other. The word justice has a legal ring to it, suggesting the pursuit of rights and equity before the law rather than the concept of restorative justice, which is an apt summation of the goal of OT justice (Heb. mispat). Discussion is further complicated by extensive scholarly debate over the meaning of the “righteousness of God.” While the biblical perspective is that all human righteousness ultimately stems from God, righteousness as a foundation for ethics has to do with how humans live in relationship, whether it is with God or the created order.
In the OT “righteousness” is also paralleled with “blameless” (Heb. tamim; Gk. teleios [see Gen. 6:9; Ps. 7:9]). Blameless living is living according to the purpose of the Creator, in harmony with fellow creatures and with integrity, openness, and obedience toward God. The concept of tamiml teleios connotes blamelessness, not flawlessness, so that human righteousness is not to be understood as a performance target. For instance, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God” (Gen. 6:9). Thus, the defining characteristic of the righteous in the OT is their relationship to God and obedience to his commands, making righteousness essentially a relational concept that issues in behavior according to the standards of God. Conversely, disobedience breaches relationship beyond human repair.
Justice (mispat) and righteousness (sedaqa) often are paired in the prophets’ stinging critique of Israel’s unfaithfulness. Isaiah laments that the city “that was full of justice, righteousness lodged in her” is full of murderers (Isa. 1:21);
God “expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!” (Isa. 5:7). When judgment is executed, God “will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummet” (Isa. 28:17). But Israel is to be just and holy because God is “exalted by justice, and the Holy God shows himself holy by righteousness” (Isa. 5:16). The call for Israel to amend its ways is similarly described: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). This brings peace (shalom), the direction of God’s good purposes for his entire created order.
Degrees of righteousness may also be noted. Jacob acknowledges that Tamar has acted more righteously than he (Gen. 38:26). Wickedness, its opposite, is variously called “sin” (Heb. hattat; Gk. hamartia) or “unrighteousness” (Gk. adikia, asebeia [in the LXX adikia also translates Heb. hamas, “violence”]). All of this supports the view that righteousness with respect to humans describes appropriate behavior and attitude toward others. Essentially, righteous acts build covenant community, and unrighteous actions destroy it.
The holy people of God usually are designated as “the righteous” in the wisdom tradition and frequently as a synonym for Israel as God’s chosen people. The contrast between the righteous and the wicked is pronounced; Psalms and Proverbs particularly juxtapose the two ways of wickedness and righteousness (see especially Prov. 10). Wickedness often is associated with the oppression of God’s people.
The NT also frequently speaks of righteous people. The birth narratives in both Matthew and Luke demonstrate late Second Temple piety at its best. Joseph is “a righteous man” (Matt. 1:19); Zechariah and Elizabeth are “righteous before God, living blamelessly” (Luke 1:6); the ministry of their son John was to turn the people “to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:17), and he will be described later as “a righteous and holy man” (Mark 6:20). Zechariah prophesies that the coming of Jesus would enable God’s people to “serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness” (Luke 1:74-75); Simeon is a “righteous and devout” worshiper of God (Luke 2:25).
In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus is baptized by John in order to “fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15), signifying Jesus’ full identification with his people in their need. He blesses those who “hunger and thirst after righteousness” because they will be filled (Matt. 5:6). The disciples’ righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees (Matt. 5:20). On the surface, this demand seems performance-driven, but its context shows that the greater righteousness is that which emulates God: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). It penetrates beneath rules and commands, getting to the heart of Christian ethics, which is single-minded devotion to God and undifferentiated love of neighbor (Matt. 5:45-47). Those who seek first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness (Matt. 6:33; cf. Rom. 14:17) have their priorities correct.
Even with these statements, however, there is no sense of righteousness being attained independently of a right relationship with God. The whole basis of these demands is the renewal of the covenant relationship in which the law is written on the heart. That is why Jesus explicitly indicates that he has come to call not the righteous but rather sinners (Mark 2:17). Although irony may play a part in this statement, the implication is that there are righteous people before God; the purposes of God in Christ are to bring back those who have strayed from the path of righteousness, the sinners.
One of Paul’s major concerns is to explain how the righteousness of God displayed in his covenant faithfulness first to Israel and then to the entire created order is being worked out in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. Paul also shows how the dire condition of humanity, alienated from God and helpless to rescue itself, is remedied only through the righteousness of God personified in the faithful obedience of Jesus. In that sense, God’s righteousness is more than covenant faithfulness. In fact, “the righteousness of God, God’s saving activity, is none other than Christ himself” (Southall 205), as Paul himself explicitly states in 1 Cor. 1:30. Only through participating in Christ’s righteous obedience and through his atoning death are people brought into the sphere of God’s righteousness, in contrast to the enslavement to sin and unrighteousness that is their current condition (Rom. 6:13-19). Human performance cannot restore this marred relationship with God; rather, the initiative and the action are God’s, and the restoration is received as a free gift (Rom. 3:24). The unrighteous are brought into this new relationship through faith in the faithfulness of Christ and his atoning sacrifice. Human boasting therefore is excluded (Rom. 3:27; cf. Phil. 3:9): “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8).
Paul is equally adamant that righteous living is essential to the holy people of God. Paul sees his apostolic purpose as engendering “the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name” (Rom. 1:5), and he offers thanks for what “Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed” (Rom. 15:18). Believers are chosen in Christ “before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love” (Eph. 1:4) and are “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be [their] way of life” (Eph. 2:10).
This theme runs through the remaining NT Letters as well. In 1 John readers get a particularly pointed reminder that the test of identity is observable righteousness: “If you know that [Christ] is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who does right has been born of him” (1 John 2:29 [cf. 1 John 3:10]). James links good works inextricably with faith. Some see a tension here between Paul and James, but the “faith versus works” debate is based on a false dichotomy. God justifies the ungodly—that is, puts them into a right relationship with himself (Rom. 3:21—26)—but the consequence of this is that believers are “to present [themselves] to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present [their] members to God as instruments of righteousness” (Rom. 6:13).
See also Covenant; Holiness; Justice, Restorative; Legalism
Bibliography
Campbell, D. The Quest for Paul’s Gospel: A Suggested Strategy. JSNTSup 274. T&T Clark, 2005; idem. The Rhetoric of Righteousness in Romans 3.21—26. JSNTSup 65. JSOT Press, 1992; Carson, D., P. O’Brien, and M. Sei-frid, eds. The Paradoxes of Paul. Vol. 2 of Justification and Variegated Nomism. WUNT 2/181. Mohr Siebeck, 2004; Hill, D. Greek Words and Hebrew Meanings: Studies in the Semantics of Soteriological Terms. SNTSMS 5. Cambridge University Press, 1967; Przybylski, B. Righteousness in Matthew and His World of Thought. SNTSMS 41. Cambridge University Press, 1980; Seifrid, M. Christ, Our Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of Justification. NSBT 9. Apollos, 2000; Southall, D. Rediscovering Righteousness in Romans: Personified dikaiosyne within Metaphoric and Narratorial Settings. WUNT 2/240. Mohr Siebeck, 2008; Wright, N. T. Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision. SPCK, 2009; Ziesler, J. The Meaning of Righteousness in Paul: A Linguistic and Theological Enquiry. SNTSMS 20. Cambridge University Press, 1972.
Kent Brower
In contemporary international life the idea of rights has become a dominant way of speaking of justice. This is so in spite of ambiguities in the history of the idea and the variety of its definitions, warrants, and applications. The most significant reason for the impact of this idea is that in 1948 the newly formed United Nations issued the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was written in reaction to the dehumanizing policies of the Nazi and fascist governments during World War II. This declaration begins its preamble by stating that the “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.” It goes on to list the major rights that each person has in principle, such as the right to life, liberty, and security; to freedom from slavery, cruel punishment, and arbitrary arrest; to freedom of religion, thought, and association; and to marry, work, and have access to education.
This declaration was followed by two international “covenants” and several “conventions,” and many of the principles were written into the constitutions of the many states emerging from colonial rule. The covenants were on civil and political rights and on social and economic rights. The former, advocated especially by the democratic West, had to do with the liberties that should be guaranteed to each citizen. The latter, advocated especially by the socialist East, had to do with guarantees that the state should provide for all citizens. After long and disputatious negotiations, both were finally approved in 1966 and were followed by various conventions, such as those against torture and genocide. In addition, postcolonial countries included versions of these rights in their new constitutions. Although these civil rights are unevenly enforced, they serve as standards that hover over the actual legal codes, governmental policies, and judicial practices around the world.
Simply recalling these events of the last century invites us to inquire into the roots of the idea of rights and their social implications. The claim that every person is endowed with an “inherent dignity” has not been obvious to all. Clearly, it is a normative claim about what ought to be. People ought to be treated with dignity, even if an equal and inalienable dignity is not based on empirical evidence. After all, people are not equal in stature, maturity, strength, ability, looks, intelligence, character, health, emotional stability, social contribution, and so on. Some have argued that the idea of rights can be rooted in basic concepts of natural law, and for many centuries the idea of nature was connected with a sense of a perceivable right order and normative purpose known by unaided reason. However, the modern Darwinian view of natural law does not attest to some inherent dignity in humans any more than the bloody record of exploitation and conflict in every culture reveals a natural moral logic of history. Thus, post-Darwinians argue that the idea of rights points to higher moral principles rooted in a worldview that includes transempirical, usually theistically given, norms of justice.
No known culture, to be sure, is without some definition of “rights”; those of the head of the family, of the firstborn son, of the slave owner, of the king, or of members of a tribe or caste have been variously honored in many societies since time immemorial, and these have been seen as “natural.” Such “rights” have to do with the privileges of “status” in a particular culture. Further, in those societies where social differentiation is advanced, certain rights are office-related: police have the right to arrest perpetrators of crime, judges have the right to consign convicted criminals to imprisonment, doctors can be granted the right to perform surgery on patients, political authorities can be given the right to tax the public, and certain stakeholders have a right to make claims on a corporation. Beyond these rights of status or function, only some cultures and societies are guided by worldviews that affirm principles of justice and demand recognition of universal, equal, and inalienable rights that regulate, restrict, or guide rights of status or office.
Categories of rights can be further refined. Already mentioned are “civil” rights, which are those rights found in a system of traditional practices or established in codes of a particular civil order, and “human” rights, which are those ethical principles of justice understood to stand over every cultural, social, or governmental institution. In both civil and human rights, some are entitlements; they indicate the propriety of a claim to a privilege, good, or service that someone must deliver, such as a right to a fair wage. Some are freedoms; they indicate a liberty that cannot be forbidden or compelled by others, such as a right to convert to another religion. Still others are pleas for the recognition and rectification of discriminations against a distinct group, such as the rights of women, ethnic minorities, and homosexuals. There are also rights that can be withheld under certain conditions in contrast to those that are inalienable, such as the right of a nonregistered citizen to vote in contrast to the right of free speech. Another use of the term rights requires that we distinguish between those things that are never justifiably right to do, such as genocide, and those things that generally are wrong but arguably right to do in certain circumstances, such as tyrannicide.
We must also note debates about whether rights can be assigned to nonpersons, such as animals or the environment generally.
How did such clusters of rights develop, what are their roots, and what are their warrants? We must address these questions in view of the fact that some (MacIntyre; Strauss) argue that the idea of rights is false in the first place. Some see the origin of rights in the Enlightenment’s attempt to develop a cosmopolitan ethic on the basis of a humanist ideal of reason (Henkin; Rawls). However, the historical evidence is quite clear, if not universally acknowledged, that the modern ideas of rights evolved in those cultures most deeply rooted in the biblical traditions, even if parts of these traditions have also at times ignored or violated human and civil rights. It is also quite clear that the influence of the biblical tradition is indirect; that is, theologians and jurists selectively drew from classical philosophical and jurisprudential concepts of rights and adopted, adapted, modulated, and reinforced some of their insights on the basis of themes drawn from scriptural sources (Jellinek; Wolterstorff). Many who hold this view also recognize that the principles of human rights based in these fused foundations have been widely adopted by people from other traditions once the principles were discovered and articulated.
New studies have shown the influence of the French Catholic moral philosopher J acques Mari-tain and the Lebanese Protestant political leader Charles Malik on the drafting of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Glendon), and others have documented the influence of Protestant and Orthodox leadership working with Jewish rabbis and Catholic bishops both in forging the declaration and in mobilizing religious communities in support of it (Nurser). Further, comparative studies reveal that the social and legal infrastructure for the support of human and civil rights is strongest in those countries where reform-oriented Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism have had the greatest social impact (Stackhouse; Witte). And recently, intellectual historians have documented the long and deep Christian traditions that generated the idea of human rights (Tierney; Hass), while older social historians have stressed the political and legal impact of minority, sectarian, independent, and free church groups in advocating them (Troeltsch; Woodhouse).
Although some Christian thinkers question the embrace of human rights, since such an expression does not appear in the Bible, most see motifs in the biblical texts that support the affirmation of human rights and the inclusion of civil rights in all legal codes (Harrelson; Smylie). The references are many, but the most important themes can be briefly summarized. Humanity (males and females of all races equally) is created in the image and likeness of God. Thus, each person has a bestowed dignity and, with it, a mandate and right to participate in the creation of culture and society. This requires for most a capacity for reason, will, and affection. These are not always rightly used, and their misuse inexorably leads to violence, disaster, and slavery. Yet, covenantal promises of providential care and salvation are given by God along with universally valid moral laws governing personal and social behavior. Further, covenanted communities of faith and specific people—prophets, priests, political leaders—are called to instruct the soul and ethically guide the common life. Moreover, Christians believe that in Jesus the covenantal promises are fulfilled, and that true prophecy, faithful ministry, and the Prince of Peace, who regulates all enduring political possibilities, invite all who seek the relative justice attainable in history to embrace and actualize human rights in every sphere of life.
See also Civil Rights; Comparative Religious Ethics; Government; Humanity; Human Rights; Image of God; Natural Law; Natural Rights
Bibliography
Bucar, E., and B. Barnett, eds. Does Human Rights Need God? Eerdmans, 2005; Glendon, M. The World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Random House, 2001; Gustafson, C., and P. Juviler, eds. Religion and Human Rights: Competing Claims? M. E. Sharp, 1999; Harrelson, W. The Ten Commandments and Human Rights. Rev. ed. Mercer University Press, 1997; Hass, G. The Concept of Equity in Calvin’s Ethic. Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1997; Henkin, L. The Age of Rights. Columbia University Press, 1990; Jellinek, G. Die Erkldrung der Menschen- und Burger-rechte: Ein Beitrag zur modernen Verfassungsgeschichte. Duncker & Humblot, 1895; Nurser, J. For All Peoples and All Nations: The Ecumenical Church and Human Rights. Georgetown University Press, 2005; Smylie, R. Life in All Its Fullness: The Word of God and Human Rights. American Bible Society, 1992; Stackhouse, M. Creeds, Society, and Human Rights: A Study in Three Cultures. Eerdmans, 1984; Strauss, L. Natural Right and History. University of Chicago Press, 1950; Tierney, B. The Idea of Natural Rights: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law, and Church Law, 1150-1625. EUSLR 5. Scholars Press, 1997; Troeltsch, E. The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches. Trans. O. Wyon. Harper & Row, 1932; Witte, J., Jr., and J. van der Vyver, eds. Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective. 2 vols. Martinus Nijhoff, 1996; Wolterstorff, N. Justice: Rights and Wrongs. Princeton University Press, 2007; Woodhouse, A., ed. Puritanism and Liberty. University of Chicago Press, 1932.
Max L. Stackhouse
Rights, Animal See Animals Rights, Human See Human Rights
Although many different definitions have been given over time, Roman Catholic moral theology corresponds to “Christian ethics” in the Protestant tradition and essentially is the sustained reflection in conscience on the part of both the individual and the Christian community on how best to understand and live out their new identity in light of God’s definitive revelation of God’s own self and the true nature of humanity that is found in Jesus Christ. In short, moral theology should be nothing more, nor less, than the individual’s and the community’s best efforts to understand and live out Paul’s articulation of the gospel message in 2 Cor. 5:16-21:
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become
new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Theological anthropology is the first task of moral theology. In other words, how do we answer the question, who am I, and what sort of person should I strive to become in the light of who we consider God to be? Building on these foundational reflections, moral theology is the discipline that further aids the individual and the community in discerning the most appropriate virtues and actions that will best live out Christian identity.
In early church history there was a very close connection between the disciplines of moral theology and Christian spirituality, but unfortunately for both a split eventually occurred, and spirituality tended to move more in the direction of asceticism and withdrawal from the secular world, while moral theology became increasingly preoccupied with sin, especially as seen in terms of individual actions. During the early Middle Ages, academic moral theology increasingly focused on helping priests counsel penitents in the sacrament of penance. A case-method approach was widely adopted that developed into the practice of casuistry that would list typical scenarios of a particular “sin,” then list the relevant moral principles involved and the relative culpability of the penitent, and finally propose an adequate penance to be given. Regrettably, several related stresses came to dominate both the discipline of moral theology and its practice.
The first of these was conceiving of morality as somehow separable from the character of the moral agent. This led in turn to delineation of the so-called fontes moralitatis (fonts of morality), which were the action in itself, the intention of the agent in performing the action, and the circumstances in which the act was performed. Since the last two elements (intention and circumstances) were both highly unique and subjective, in effect the focus of moral analysis devolved to an excessive degree onto the finis operis (end of the action) of the so-called objective nature of the act. Certain types of these acts were then further described as being an intrinsece malum in se (intrinsically evil) and thus always wrong, regardless of intention and/or circumstances. Other actions were considered always to have “grave matter” and therefore potentially resulting in mortal sin if committed with sufficient awareness and freedom by the individual. Many of these actions were connected with sex, and the corresponding moral principle was that there was never parvitas materiae in Sexto (no “light” matter in the sixth commandment of the Decalogue [the seventh in Orthodox and Protestant Christian traditions]), and so each and every action involving sexuality, from heavy kissing to full intercourse, ran the serious risk of being classified a mortal sin—that is, the definitive breaking of the relationship with God, which would send the individual to hell unless he or she were reconciled and forgiven in the sacrament of penance. Moral theology for several centuries then became largely caught up with sin and less and less with the positive thrust of living out the gospel message.
Connected with this preoccupation with sin and moral acts in the sixth commandment was a theology of marriage that looked rather askance at sexuality and its expression between a husband and wife. Dating back to Augustine, there was a definite uneasiness about sexual pleasure unless it could be “justified” by the good of conception of offspring (bonum prolis) (see Coniug. adult. 2.12 [Gen. 38:8-10]). Augustine and many of his successors thought that sexual intercourse between husband and wife done without directly willing to have a child conceived of the specific sexual encounter was at least venially sinful, though he did allow that one of the ends of marriage was a remedium concupiscientiae (remedy for sexual desire).
The growth of the discipline of canon law in the Middle Ages became so linked to moral theology, especially in the administration of the sacraments of penance and marriage, that often the two disciplines were treated as if they were indistinct, and an ethos of legalism increasingly infused the teaching of moral theology in the seminaries. The classic textbook model of this era, which persisted almost up to the Second Vatican Council (196265), was the so-called moral manual, usually written in Latin and used in most seminaries around the world. A theological method grounded primarily in Neo-Thomism, coupled with the moral reasoning of simple probabilism (a weighing of a spectrum of likely or “probable” opinions about the morality of an act), characterized most of these manuals. Although the list of authors is long, the actual differences were slight among the works of some better-known manuals of Fathers Sca-vini, Gury, Ballerini-Palmieri, Genicot, Lehmkuhl, Noldin, Tanquerey, Goepfert, Jone, Vermeersch, Arregui, Healy, and Zalba. Arregui’s well-known moral compendium serves as a good example of the popularity of this sort of moral manual: it went through fourteen editions by the time of his death in 1942, and a further ten posthumously (revised by Zalba). Although the manuals listed Scripture, along with tradition and the magiste-rium (official teaching of the pope and bishops), as one of the primary sources for moral theology, the Bible was used sparingly and largely in a proof-texting mode to buttress arguments drawn from a Neo-Thomistic natural-law analysis. The usual manualist approach was intentionally regressive in that it started with the current teaching of the magisterium at that particular time on a given issue and then worked back to Scripture and the tradition to demonstrate how this teaching was harmonious and constant through the ages.
In the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, moral theology, though still dominated by the manualist tradition, began to face some of the modern problems posed by the rise of totalitarianism, two world wars, rapid growth in technology, and dramatic advances in medicine. The magisterium, especially in the numerous writings and discourses of Pius XI (1922-39) and Pius XII (1939-58), addressed many of these issues, and several Roman-based moralists, such as Francis Hurth at the Pontifical Gregorian University, were called on to aid the pope in the drafting of these writings, while elsewhere other moral theologians, such as John Ford and Gerald Kelly in the United States and Marcelino Zalba in Europe, sought to integrate this new magisterium in their treatment of contemporary moral theology.
Genuine adaptation and innovation marked much of the work in social ethics, and for over a century now, papal encyclicals have often been seen to be more in the vanguard for social theory grappling with the most troubling and contentious economic and political issues of the day, ranging from the publication of Leo XIII’s landmark 1891 encyclical on labor, Rerum novarum, followed in turn by Pius XI’s 1931 social encyclical, Quadrag-esimo anno, and his attack on Nazism in 1937 (Mit brennender sorge); John XXIII’s Mater et mag-istra (1961) and Pacem in terris (1963); Paul VI’s Populorum progressio (1967); and John Paul II’s Laborem exercens (1981), Sollicitudo rei socialis (1987), and Centesimus annus (1991). The latter two in particular sought to raise concerns about free-market capitalism following the decline and fall of the communist bloc.
In the area of sexual ethics, though, the tack often taken was viewed as a retrenchment and has occasioned perhaps the most acrimonious debates among moral theologians. Casti connubii, Pius XI’s 1930 encyclical on Christian marriage, severely condemned as “shameful and intrinsically vicious” (§54) any use of artificial contraception by married couples. This encyclical was partially a response to the more benign toleration of artificial contraception given by Anglicans in their Lambeth Conference earlier that same year. The next pope, Pius XII, in his famous “Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession” (1951), recognized as morally licit the practice of periodic continence by married couples, the so-called rhythm method, in order to avoid conception. His successor, John XXIII (1958-63), created a special pontifical commission to study the issue of regulation of births in light of changes in world population and the invention of nonbarrier methods of contraception that seemed less morally problematic than the traditional condom or diaphragm. The special pontifical commission, using the moral principle of totality, overwhelmingly voted in 1965 to recommend a change in the official teaching. However, when Paul VI finally published his encyclical Humanae vitae (1968), he reiterated the traditional rejection of contraception, stating that each and every marital act must be open to the possibility of procreation (§14).
In other areas, the period marked by the Second Vatican Council was a major watershed in nearly every area of the church’s life and theology, and the impact on moral theology was considerable. The traditional moral manual largely disappeared, and the texts that replaced these tried more earnestly to respect the council’s mandate that Scripture truly become the “soul of theology,” and that the discipline of moral theology, “nourished more on the teaching of the Bible, should shed light on the loftiness of the calling of the faithful in Christ and the obligation that is theirs of bearing fruit in charity for the life of the world” (Optatam totius §16). The theology of Karl Rahner had a tremendous bearing not only on the council but also in virtually every theological field. Rahner’s theological anthropology highlighted the distinctively “personal” characteristics of human nature of each individual. Within each person, Rahner argued, are two distinct levels of freedom operative: a core, or “transcendental,” freedom in which each person expresses his or her fundamental orientation toward or away from God, and another level, which he termed the “categorical,” related to those existential acts and choices that constitute the bulk of human daily moral life. The ramifications of this notion of the human person and different levels of freedom helped redefine an understanding of “mortal sin” in terms of a “fundamental option” toward God that would change less often or easily as had once been thought. Although misunderstood and criticized by some, the fundamental option theory actually tried to take more seriously the reality of personal sin and its effect on a person’s life.
Another important development in post-Vatican II moral theology concerns the “knowability” of universal moral norms and their application in concrete situations. A related concept, still debated, concerns the precise nature of “intrinsically evil acts”—that is, human actions that are in each and every instance always objectively sinful and therefore may never be countenanced regardless of any extenuating circumstances. Richard McCormick proposed using the concept of a “virtually exceptionless norm” to replace the notion of intrinsic evil, since it would be largely impossible to foresee for all time and situations whether a particular action (e.g., “abortion” or removal of an ectopic fetus) would always have the exact same moral meaning.
These twin issues of moral norms and intrinsically evil acts came to the fore principally in the fields of sexual and biomedical ethics, with such thorny problems of the moral liceity of artificial contraception, artificial insemination, and in-vitro fertilization. Relative to this ongoing debate on the precise nature of concrete fundamental moral norms and intrinsically evil acts in value-conflict situations is the development of a moral theory usually called “proportionalism,” which argued that especially in double-effect actions in which there are both good and bad consequences, the moral rightness or wrongness of causing or permitting of evils depends on the presence or absence of “proportionate” reason. If such proportionate reason is present in the act, then the human intention bears on it, not on the evil caused. The theory of proportionalism is still a matter of much lively debate, with a large number of theologians taking positions pro or con.
Another change in post-Vatican II moral theology involves the shift from a “classical” worldview to a more nuanced historical consciousness. A classicist view of nature is largely deductive and stresses the eternal, the universal, the immutable aspects of human nature and natural moral law. In contrast to this classicist paradigm, a worldview that is more conscious of the historical and cultural aspects of human nature is more inductive and therefore accents more the concrete and particular, the individual and personal, cultural and historically conditioned elements that may change and that may not be as universalizable. This attention to the “how” and “where” of moral theology necessarily involves greater attention to inculturation and contextualization, ecumenical ethics, and cross-cultural ethics in a global arena. No doubt the discipline of moral theology will continue to develop in meeting these challenges.
Bibliography
Bretzke, J. A Morally Complex World: Engaging Contemporary Moral Theology. Liturgical Press, 2004; Curran, C., et al., eds. Readings in Moral Theology. 15 vols. Paulist Press, 1979-2009; Davis, H. Moral and Pastoral Theology. 8th ed. 4 vols. sheed & Ward, 1959; Fuchs, J. Christian Morality: The Word Became Flesh. Georgetown University Press, 1987; Gallagher, J. Time Past, Time Future: An Historical Study of Catholic Moral Theology. Paulist Press, 1990; Gula, R. Reason Informed by Faith: Foundations of Catholic Morality. Paulist Press, 1989; Haring, B. Free and Faithful in Christ: Moral Theology for Priests and Laity. 3 vols. St. Paul Publications, 1978; Hogan, L. Confronting the Truth: Conscience in the Catholic Tradition. Paulist Press, 2001; Mahoney, J. The Making of Moral Theology: A Study of the Roman Catholic Tradition. Clarendon, 1987; McCormick, R., and P. Ramsey, eds. Doing Evil to Achieve Good: Moral Choice in Conflict Situations. Loyola University Press, 1978; Noonan, J., Jr. A Church That Can and Cannot Change: The Development of Catholic Moral Teaching. University of Notre Dame Press, 2005.
James T. Bretzke, SJ
This letter, addressed to a church that Paul had not founded, was dispatched from Corinth shortly before the apostle headed east with an offering from his gentile congregations for the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem (15:25-27, 30-31). His aims were to gain support for a projected mission to Spain (1:8-15; 15:23-24, 28-29, 32) and to address the problem of reported tensions between Jewish and gentile Christians in the imperial capital (14:1-15:6). These objectives account for Romans being the most deliberately and comprehensively theological of Paul’s Letters. The apostle has laid out with special care the principal affirmations of his preaching and emphasized that the gospel is good news for gentiles as well as for Jews. As a result, the letter’s argument also anticipated his impending trip to Jerusalem, where his gentile mission was being seriously questioned.
In the body of Romans Paul deals, in turn, with humanity’s plight (1:18-3:20), contending that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23), God’s saving grace (3:21-8:39), God’s faithfulness (chaps. 9-11), and God’s claim (12:1-15:6). His premise, stated in 1:16-17, is that the gospel (God’s power for salvation) reveals God’s justice (“righteousness”) “through faith for faith,” not only to Jews but also to gentiles. Concluding (15:7-13), he reiterates this universal scope of God’s saving power, identifying Christ as “a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God in order that he might confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy” (15:8-9).
In accord with his belief in the universality of both humanity’s sin and God’s mercy, Paul identifies Christ’s death for the “ungodly” and “sinners” as proof of God’s unconditional love, an eschatological event of saving power (5:1-11). Baptism into Christ’s death marks the crucifixion of one’s “old self,” deliverance from sin, and a transformed life under the dominion of grace (6:1-14). The first and most fundamental imperatives of the letter appear in this context, joined with a reference to the believers’ new, eschatological existence: “No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness” (6:13). Subsequently, Paul describes this new life as indwelt and guided by the Spirit (8:1-27).
The summons for believers to present themselves to God is reiterated in 12:1-2, where Paul introduces the ethical appeals that follow as grounded in the gospel that he has been expounding. Those who have been brought “from death to life” and granted a renewed mind are called to “discern” (dokimazo) what God regards as “good and acceptable and perfect.” Paul’s verb points to a process of inquiry, critical reflection, analysis, and testing that seeks to determine what God’s will requires. It is clear from both the general appeals in chaps. 12-13 and the specific counsels in 14:1-15:6 that he regards the “norming norm” of moral discernment to be not God’s law as conveyed in the Torah but rather God’s love revealed in Christ (12:9-10; 14:15). Viewed through the lens of faith, all of the commandments of the law are perceived as summed up in the single commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself (13:8-10; cf. Gal. 5:13-14).
The appeals in 12:3-13, focused on conduct within the believing community, echo the apostle’s comments in 1 Cor. 12-14 about membership in the body of Christ and its upbuilding in love. Most, if not all, of the counsels in 12:14-21 deal with the conduct of believers in relation to nonbelievers, including the church’s opponents. Here again, love appears as the “norming norm”: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (12:21).
One of the most difficult and debated passages in Romans is 13:1-7, which concerns the responsibility of Christians toward the governing authorities. Although some interpreters argue that Paul urges complete and unquestioning obedience to the state, there is better evidence for the view that he calls for compliance with its laws only in some limited sense. This passage may be seen as extending his appeal to live peaceably with all people (12:18); now he includes the governing authorities. He urges respect for these officials and the laws that they administer because he believes that God has authorized them for the specific purpose of rewarding those who do good and punishing those who do evil. He does not consider how believers should respond if the authorities prove unfaithful, unwise, or unjust in fulfilling this task. It is especially important that, like all of the counsels in these chapters, his call to good citizenship is fundamentally qualified by the introductory appeals: believers are to present their transformed lives unconditionally to God and not be conformed to this present age.
Only in 14:1-15:6 does Paul address an issue specific to the Roman church. The (“strong”) gentile Christian majority despised the (“weak”) Jewish Christian minority for abstaining from meat and observing special holy days, while the latter passed judgment on the former because they did not do so (cf. 1 Cor. 8:1-11:1). The apostle charges each group to “welcome” the other because both have been welcomed by God, and God alone will be their judge (14:2-4, 10-13). He believes, nonetheless, that the “strong” bear a special responsibility for the “weak”: “If your brother or sister is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died” (14:15 [cf. 15:1-4]).
See also Government; New Testament Ethics; Righteousness
Bibliography
Betz, H. “The Foundations of Christian Ethics according to Romans 12:1-2.” Pages 55-72 in Witness and Existence: Essays in Honor of Schubert M. Ogden, ed. P. Devenish and G. Goodwin. University of Chicago Press, 1989; du Toit, A. “Shaping a Christian Lifestyle in the Roman Capital.” Pages 167-97 in Identity, Ethics, and Ethos in the New Testament, ed. J. van der Watt. De Gruyter, 2006; Keck, L. Romans. ANTC. Abingdon, 2005.
Victor Paul Furnish
Ruth
The book of Ruth tells the story of Naomi, an Israelite woman living in Moab whose husband and two sons have died, and of her faithful daughter-in-law Ruth, who forsakes her Moabite homeland and religious traditions for the uncertainties of life in Judah. Through a series of events, both fortuitous and orchestrated, Ruth ends up marrying Naomi’s kinsman Boaz and bearing a son. At the end of the story both Naomi and Ruth are restored to the fullness of family and community life, with Naomi cradling the child considered her grandson.
Like most stories, the book of Ruth does not engage ethics explicitly; rather, the ethics espoused and affirmed must be discerned within the narrative itself. Engaging the book of Ruth by means of narrative ethics allows one to perceive that this short story is surprisingly rich in its ethical vision.
Unlike much of the rest of the Bible, God’s role in the story is muted—only Ruth’s conception of a son at the end is directly attributed to God’s action (4:13); the story focuses instead on the actions of human beings. Nonetheless, the characters consistently invoke God’s blessing on others in prayer, and these prayers are crucial for understanding the connection between life with God and life lived in community. Most of the characters lead God-centered lives, and the richness of that fundamental relationship empowers them to enact blessings for others through their own works of loving-kindness. The health of the community depends quite directly on the health of the people’s relationship with God.
The story begins with famine and death and ends in the bounty of the harvest and the birth of a child who represents the hope of the future. Boaz and Ruth’s acts of loving-kindness redeem Naomi; taking initiative to enact God’s blessings, they weave her back into a full life, surrounded by a community marked by care and joy for all generations.
The story connects intertextually with OT legal material. Boaz keeps the laws that allow the poor to glean after the harvesters (Lev. 19:9-10; 23:22; Deut. 24:19-22) and keeps the spirit of the laws of levirate marriage and land redemption (see Saken-feld 57-61). Many commentators posit a postexilic date for the book and have observed that the inclusion of a Moabite woman in the ancestral line of David flies in the face of postexilic laws against intermarriage (Ezra 10; Neh. 13), thus creating an intertextual conversation about the role of foreign women in Israel.
In the OT, the book immediately follows Judges, and the contrast in ethos is startling. Whereas Judges ends with a vision of the devastation effected when the community of faith is disconnected from God, Ruth offers a vision of the redemption possible when the community centers its prayers on God and its acts of loving faithfulness on those in need of restoration.
Bibliography
Lapsley, J. Whispering the Word: Hearing Women’s Stories in the Old Testament. Westminster, 2005, 89—108; Saken-feld, K. D. Ruth. Interpretation. Westminster, 1999.
Jacqueline E. Lapsley