Calling See Vocation
“Canon law” refers to that body of ecclesiastical rules that focus on the church’s structure, order, and discipline rather than on theological matters of doctrine, dogma, and belief. The word canon derives from the Greek kanon, translated as “rod” or “ruler,” a “standard by which things are measured,” or, more broadly, a “rule of conduct.” As such, canon law is best construed in dynamic terms; the precedents for church structure and discipline date from the first century of Christian thought and practice, but canon law has evolved significantly over time.
During its first three centuries, the Christian church drew fundamental rules for common worship and structure from the writings of the NT (e.g., Matt. 18:15; 28:19; Acts 2:38; Eph. 5:21-23; 1-2 Timothy; Titus; Jas. 3:5; 1 Pet. 5:1-3). Handbooks with guidelines for worship, order, and discipline were also circulated within particular Christian communities. The Didache (c. 100), written for the Syrian Christian community, contains directives concerning baptism, practices of fasting and prayer, Sabbath obligations, and the consecration of bishops and deacons. Similar collections include the Traditio apostolica (c. 218), the Didascalia apostolorum (c. 250), and the Ca-nones ecclesiastici apostolorum (c. 300). The authority of these early sources derived mainly from their apparent apostolic pedigree rather than from particular claims of centralized juridical authority.
By the early third century, local ecclesiastical councils in Spain, France, Italy, and North Africa were convened to formulate norms for all of Christendom. Beginning with the Council of Nicea in 325, ecumenical or “universal” councils were convened to formulate fundamental doctrines, especially on matters of Christology. In addition, these councils adopted canons that were now deemed binding for all episcopal jurisdictions. After Constantine’s conversion and the recognition of
Christianity in the Roman Empire, canons adopted by subsequent councils reflected the confluence of NT precedents with Roman legal processes and perspectives. By the mid-fifth century, the church in the West emphasized the primacy of Rome, and so-called papal decretals on disputed questions were viewed as dispositive.
By the turn of the fifth century, canonical norms were being circulated in a confusing variety of sources and languages. In response, Dionysius Exiguus, a Greek scholar working in Rome, provided a uniform translation and comprehensive collection. The Collectio Dionysiana included fresh translations of conciliar canons, organized chronologically, as well as a compilation of papal decretals. During the papacy of Hadrian I in the Carolingian period, that collection was amplified in an influential subsequent version, the Collection Dionysiana-Hadriana. At nearly the same time in the Eastern church, the Nomokanon, with a prologue written by Patriarch Photios in 882, provided an extended and updated collection of earlier versions. Because Orthodox churches remained autocephalous, their versions of the canons seldom included the papal decretals central to Western canon law.
With the Great Schism of 1054, the traditions of canon law in the West and East diverged radically. During the medieval period, two thinkers were especially influential for the ongoing tradition of canon law in the West. John Gratian of Bologna, in a work later called the Decretum (c. 1140), offered a comprehensive collection of nearly four thousand canons. Gratian also interspersed his own commentary and critique on disputed questions. By introducing this spirit of dialogue with traditional sources, Gratian inaugurated the pedagogical model for subsequent canon law jurisprudence in law schools at the newly founded universities. The second important text was St. Bernard’s Bre-viarium (c. 1190), which provided a comprehensive collection of extant papal decretals. The Breviar-ium was organized into five broad subject areas: judge, court, clergy, marriage, and crime. Virtually all subsequent revisions of canon law in the West until the twentieth century retained Bernard’s five-part structure of organization.
The scandals of the later medieval church, with major abuses in the selling of church offices for both financial and political motives, were key background features to the Reformation. In his initial protest at Wittenberg in 1520, Martin Luther burned books of canon law to indicate his rejection of human laws not based on Scripture. Over time, however, most Reformers recognized the need for church order and discipline and in effect devised their own canons in service to those objectives. By contrast, Henry VIII maintained the corpus of canon law as a framework for Anglican polity, but he argued that the tradition derived not from papal authority but from well-settled patterns of English custom and practice.
The Catholic Counter-Reformation found its fullest expression in the declarations of the Council of Trent, which ended in 1563. Trent clarified and restated fundamental dogmas and identified heresies, but it also adopted major decrees that led to the reform of ecclesial structures, especially regarding qualifications for ordination and pastoral responsibilities of bishops. In the wake of Trent, canon law was further extended and applied to issues that arose in the missionary outreach of various religious orders to the colonies.
The modern period has included two major efforts at revising canon law, which had last occurred under official papal jurisdiction in the early fourteenth century. Unlike the earlier versions surveyed here, which were largely collections of extant laws, the 1917 revision was promulgated as the first actual code of canon law. Rather than simply assembling prior collections, the new code rewrote the laws in systematic and streamlined fashion. By doing so, it served as the standard for seminary teaching until the time of the Second Vatican Council. During the papacy of Paul VI, work on updating the 1917 code began anew, with the revised code that remains in current use finalized in 1983. Its fourteen chapters outline the general norms of church governance, the rights and responsibilities of various vocations and offices, guidelines for the administration of the sacraments, and specific standards for adjudicating conflicts when they arise.
See also Didache; Ecclesiology and Ethics; Roman Catholic Moral Theology
Bibliography
Beal, J., J. Coriden, and T. Green. New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law. Paulist Press, 2002; Catholic Church. Code of Canon Law. Canon Law Society of America, 1983;
Coriden, J. An Introduction to Canon Law. Rev. ed. Pau-list Press, 2004; Van de Wiel, C. History of Canon Law. Eerdmans, 1992.
B. Andrew Lustig
Capitalism is the dominant form of economic organization in the modern world. It involves the private ownership of the means of producing wealth and the exchange of goods and services, land, labor, and capital via markets. In the last two hundred years capitalism has spread throughout the world, so that we can now speak of global capitalism. Despite the ubiquity of capitalism, however, its definition remains highly contentious. A major reason for this is the tendency, in the discussion of capitalism, to conflate descriptive definitions of the market with politically motivated ideologies of capitalism generated for a prescriptive purpose. This tendency has hampered the ethical debate about capitalism and influenced the various ways that Christians have used Scripture to reflect ethically upon it.
The Emergence of Capitalism Although capitalism often is contrasted with socialism, in which the state owns the means of production and regulates distribution of that production, historically it first emerged in Britain in the eighteenth century following a long transition from the feudal order generally associated with the Middle Ages. Under feudalism, laborers typically were “tied” to the land, itself owned inalienably by the nobility and managed within a complex web of obligation and duty. A series of legal changes and cultural shifts broke these relationships such that land and labor could be subject to private sale, contract, ownership, and control. Capitalism is therefore often regarded as synonymous with “free markets” because it requires that both land and labor (the primary means of production, which together generate capital goods) be freely bought and sold in a market, as well as goods and services.
In addition to these structural changes, capitalism required and encouraged a new kind of motivation in economic activity, oriented toward growth. German sociologist Max Weber famously explained the origin of this new motivation in terms of the impact of Protestantism, especially in its Calvinist form. Economic activity had long been understood as an aspect of human social interaction and therefore the proper object of moral and ethical inquiry. Since the early church, the pursuit of wealth had been regarded with suspicion and the distribution of wealth as a matter of justice (Gonzalez). Ordinary workers tended to respond to an increase in income by reducing the amount of time spent at work rather than by accumulating large surpluses. By treating business success as a sign of divine favor and acceptance of the fruit of work, Calvinism legitimated the deliberate pursuit of wealth by the ordinary believer and the accumulation of surplus needed to finance capitalist development. This “spirit” of capitalism soon lost touch with its religious root, however, leaving behind a secularized “work ethic,” rationally oriented toward growth but without any grounding in Christian ethics.
The economic theoretical defense of capitalism began with the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations in 1776. Observing the dramatic changes in economic behavior occurring in Britain, Smith sought to explain them systematically. He did so within the academic framework of moral philosophy (and in this sense was in continuity with Christian tradition) but shifted the context of economic inquiry from justice to prudence (or practical wisdom). Like many of his contemporaries, Smith saw scarcity as the primary economic problem. His analysis sought to show how conflict over resources between self-interested parties could be harnessed by the price system in a free market to generate a harmonious result. In other words, liberty (the free market) would secure justice (a harmonious result) because selfinterested parties would be free to act prudently (i.e., rationally, in their own interest). His theology therefore is not Christian but Deist or Stoic. This did not prevent some nineteenth-century Anglican and United States Baptist theologians from proclaiming the emergent laissez-faire capitalism as evidence of divine providence acting via Smith’s “invisible hand” to bring good out of evil. Catholic and other Protestant theologians protested this collapse of economic justice into the operations of deregulated markets, but to no avail.
The secularization of economic thought continued throughout the nineteenth century. Academic study of economic behavior moved from being a branch of theology and moral philosophy to being an aspect of political economy and, finally, with the publication of Alfred Marshall’s Principles of Economics in 1890, to being an autonomous social science, self-consciously modeled on the natural sciences. Based on the characteristically modern distinction between “facts” and “values,” a theoretical and methodological difference was established between “positive economics,” which described, evaluated, and established economic “laws” and “normative economics,” which was concerned with issues of public policy arising from the result of the operation of those laws. A version of John Stuart Mill’s “utilitarianism” became the ethical theory underpinning this new science of choice in which economic agents are understood and modeled as rational individuals in the sense that they arrange means to meet their preferred ends. Economics claims to be “ethically neutral” because agents can choose any end that they wish. Agents then act to maximize utility (the benefits of pursuing their chosen ends, less the costs). The aggregate of this behavior is coordinated by the price system and (with certain heroic but frequently made assumptions) can be measured in proxy form by the sum value of market transactions as gross domestic product (GDP). The growth of GDP has thus become a policy goal because GDP functions as a proxy for growth in overall utility or happiness.
Mainstream economic theory (sometimes referred to as the “neoclassical synthesis”) has become the primary defender of capitalism in the twentieth century, arguing that it alone provides the conditions that meet economic theoretical requirements for maximum economic efficiency and therefore achieve maximum social utility or welfare. This powerful economic theoretical defense has reinforced the definitional confusion about “capitalism” and the tendency to conflate discussion such that “capitalism,” “market economy,” and “economics” are treated as near synonyms. Since the middle of the twentieth century, these terms have gradually been pried apart, and this has made the ethical task of engagement with capitalism easier.
Scripture and Ethical Engagement with Capitalism
For much of the twentieth century, ethical engagement with capitalism by Protestants capitulated to the fact/value distinction embedded in modernity. Protestant use of Scripture, whether in support or in critique of capitalism, was essentially willing to offer ethical principles derived from Scripture as more or less corrective directions to normative economic policy while leaving the positivist analytical framework unchallenged. A “minimal” or “indirect” role for Scripture became the norm in ethical reflection (see Smith). Scripture might inform economics at the most general level, such that “love of neighbor” functions to influence policy, or possibly in a little more detailed form via “middle axioms,” principles about economic life derived thematically from Scripture and then applied to questions of public policy by economic specialists. In this way, even the division of labor between theologians and economists reflected the acceptance of a fact/value distinction in ethical reasoning about the economy.
The locus of scriptural reflection on the economy also tended to shift in these Protestant readings from the early church and medieval Catholic reflection on the bans on interest and the requirements to lend to the poor (derived mainly from reflection on the law and the Gospels) toward the creation mandate for humanity to work and be fruitful as stewards of the earth. Liberation theology insisted instead that Scripture be read from the sociopolitical perspective of the poor and, especially in its Catholic form, tended to identify salvation with socioeconomic liberation.
Toward the middle of the twentieth century, critiques of the neoclassical economic defense of capitalism began to emerge from within the economics profession itself. Joseph Schumpeter, for example, pointed out that markets actually exhibit a process of monopolistic “creative destruction” rather than the more benign perfect competition assumed by mainstream theory. More recently, Joseph Stiglitz has shown that the need for “perfect information” if a market exchange is to fulfill the theoretical requirements of mainstream analysis will never be achieved in practice. Such critiques have undermined the theoretical basis for deregulated markets as generators of maximum social welfare. Along with the crumbling of its neoclassical economic defenses, support for capitalism has been eroded by growing evidence of its social and environmental costs.
The typical response to these challenges by defenders of capitalism has been a renewed insistence that capitalism works, that there is no real alternative, and that a deregulated market system is the only way to preserve a free society. In this way, the true character of capitalism has begun to be unmasked. Rather than being a scientific description of the way things are, capitalism is increasingly understood as a liberal political ideology of the market. Increasingly, commentators have observed the influence of this ideology on market behavior (Nelson), ethical discourse about the relationship between Scripture and economics (Gay), and the corporate and individual behavior of the Christian church (Cavanaugh). Capitalism, like socialism, is increasingly seen as a Christian heresy (Milbank).
In parallel with these critiques, evangelical and reformed Protestants have developed renewed critiques of capitalism and of the mainstream economic theory supporting it. The claim to obtain certain knowledge through application of a rigorous method is false (Wolterstorff). Therefore, the fact/value distinction in economics is false, and Christian beliefs must enter into all aspects of economic theorizing. This methodological critique and a strong ethical critique of the utilitarian foundations of mainstream economics have led many Christian economists to develop alternative models that typically have focused on the strengthening of mediating institutions between the individual and the state, and alternative motivations for economic action beyond the maximization of profit or utility (Tiemstra).
This rather belated Protestant critique of modernity has paved the way for a far more formative and direct role for Scripture to play in ethical reasoning about the economy. For example, close readings of Lev. 25 and related texts concerned with the socioeconomic structure of ancient Israel have enabled distinctions to be drawn between a general biblical endorsement of enterprise and markets for goods and services, restrictions on the operation of labor markets, and more extensive limitations on the scope of land and capital markets (see Wright).
An enterprise economy with a wide (and more or less inalienable) distribution of wealth-creating assets and a narrowed degree of inequality in order to ensure social inclusion and community participation has been described as a “relational market economy” (Schluter). This vision coheres well with Catholic visions of “distributism,” and in both cases this emerging Christian consensus contrasts the societal objective and anthropology of capitalism with that of Scripture and Christian tradition without needing to reject markets as the primary arenas for economic exchange. Rather than pursuing utility maximization through wealth generation, economic activity must be inhabited by and oriented toward the goal of friendship with God and one another through relational justice and peace (shalom). The challenge facing Christians in the twenty-first century is to put these scriptural and ethical reflections on capitalism into practice in the life of the church and to advocate them for society as a whole.
See also Business Ethics; Collection for the Saints; Common Good; Consumerism; Cost-Benefit Analysis; Debt; Economic Ethics; Globalization; Greed; Koino-nia; Loans; Markets; Property and Possessions; Trade; Wealth
Bibliography
Cavanaugh, W. Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire. Eerdmans, 2008; Gay, C. With Liberty and Justice for Whom? The Recent Evangelical Debate over Capitalism. Eerdmans, 1991; Gonzalez, J. Faith and Wealth: A History of Early Christian Ideas on the Origin, Significance, and Use of Money. Harper & Row, 1990; Hay, D. Economics Today: A Christian Critique. Eerdmans, 1991; Long, D. S. Divine Economy: Theology and the Market. Routledge, 2000; Milbank, J. Theology and Social Theory: Beyond
Secular Reason. Blackwell, 2006; Nelson, R. Economics as Religion: From Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003; Schluter, M., and J. Ashcroft. Jubilee Manifesto: A Framework, Agenda and Strategy for Christian Social Reform. Inter-Varsity, 2005; Smith, I. “God and Economics.” Pages 162-79 in God and Culture: Essays in Honor of Carl F. H. Henry, ed. D. Carson and J. Woodbridge. Eerdmans, 1993; Tiem-stra, J. “Christianity and Economics: A Review of the Recent Literature.” CSR 22 (1993): 227-47; Waterman, A. “Economists on the Relation between Political Economy and Christian Theology: A Preliminary Survey.” IJSE 14, no. 6 (1987): 46-68; Wolterstorff, N. Reason within the Bounds of Religion. Eerdmans, 1984; Wright, C. Living as the People of God: The Relevance of Old Testament Ethics. Inter-Varsity, 1983.
Paul Spencer Williams
Capital punishment has been a feature of every major civilization since the dawn of history, and usually it has been afforded religious sanction. Biblical Israel is no exception. The death penalty is entrenched in OT law and narrative, and it is attested, though not necessarily endorsed, in NT teaching as well. Given the diversity and complexity of biblical material on the subject, it is unsurprising that Christian opinion on capital punishment is divided. On the one hand, the support of churches for the elimination of the death penalty often has been a critical factor in those countries that have abolished it. On the other hand, strong approval for capital punishment among conservative religious voters is a significant factor in explaining why the United States stands alone among Western democracies in retaining its use.
In assessing the implications of the biblical material for Christian ethics, several considerations need to be carefully weighed. There is the exegetical question of what certain passages mean, especially Gen. 9; John 8; Rom. 13. There is the hermeneutical question of whether NT teaching ratifies or fundamentally revises OT practice. There is the theological question of whether a picture of God as judge or God as redeemer should serve as the controlling paradigm. There is also the philosophical question of what we mean by “justice” and how the retributive or restorative dimensions of justice should be balanced. Finally, there is the pragmatic question of whether capital punishment is harmful or beneficial to society.
Basically at issue for Christian ethics is whether Scripture prescribes capital punishment as a timeless principle of social life or whether its sanction in biblical times should be understood as historically contingent and radically subverted by the logic of the gospel. Different conclusions on this question stem mainly from varying interpretations of three main features of biblical teaching: (1) the institution of the death penalty in Gen. 9; (2) the endorsement of capital punishment in Mosaic law; (3) the moral, judicial, and political implications of NT teaching on forgiveness, reconciliation, nonviolence, and love of enemy. We will examine each of these in order.
(1) Genesis 9:6 is often viewed as a clear-cut authorization for the taking of human life as an act of retributive justice: “Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person’s blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind.” Three reasons often are given for the eternal validity of this injunction: as part of the covenant with Noah, it is intended for the whole human race, not just for the people of Israel; its rationale of respecting the imago Dei in human beings grounds the punishment in the very order of creation (Gen. 9:6; cf. 1:27); and its refusal to envisage alternative penalties, such as monetary restitution, indicates that life-for-life is intended to be an unalterable criterion of justice (see Exod. 21:12, 23-25; Lev. 24:21; Deut. 19:19-21).
It is debatable, however, whether the text should be construed primarily as an abstract judicial principle. It is perhaps better seen as a statement of God’s personal prerogative (“I will require”) to act against those who refuse to show reverence for human life. Viewed against the backdrop of unrestrained vengeance before the flood (Gen. 4:23-24; 6:11-13), the injunction places a strict limitation on the legitimate grounds for extinguishing human life. Putting someone to death is appropriate only for culpable acts of homicide, and the penalty should fall on the guilty party alone, not on the family or clan. The Noahide context need not be taken as a sign of immutability. If the early Christians concluded that the food restrictions in Gen. 9:4 were no longer obligatory in the Christian era, at least for Gentiles (Acts 15:29; cf. Mark 7:19; Rom. 14:14; 1 Cor. 8:8-9; 10:25), the same could be true of the death penalty in Gen. 9:5-6.
(2) Mosaic law, in its final form, stipulates the death sentence for up to three dozen offenses. In addition to murder and certain types of manslaughter (Exod. 21:12-14; Num. 35:9-28; Deut. 19:11-13), it is prescribed for a wide range of interpersonal, religious, and sexual crimes, including kidnapping (Exod. 21:16; Deut. 24:7), rebellion against parents (Exod. 21:17; Lev. 20:9; Deut. 21:18-21), idolatry (Exod. 20:3-5; Deut. 13:1-16), perjury in capital cases (Deut. 19:1619), blasphemy (Lev. 24:10-23), breach of the
Sabbath (Exod. 31:14; Num. 15:32-36), adultery (Lev. 20:10-16; Num. 5:11-30; Deut. 22:22-24), homosexual intercourse (Lev. 20:13), bestiality (Exod. 22:19; Lev. 20:15-16), and rape of a married woman (Deut. 22:25-29). Offenders were most commonly executed by stoning (Lev. 24:14, 16; Num. 15:35; Deut. 22:24; Josh. 7:25), although burning, beheading, impalement, and shooting with arrows are also recorded in the OT.
That such a variety of offenses were punishable by death does not necessarily mean that executions were excessively commonplace in ancient Israel. (Nor does it validate subsequent Christian practice of similarly prescribing death for matters such as witchcraft, adultery, blasphemy, sodomy, and bestiality, as was the case in, e.g., Puritan colonies in America.) It is important to understand that biblical law is not legislation in the modern sense. We are not dealing with hard-and-fast regulations that had to be rigidly applied in every situation. The various stipulations of the Torah are better seen as representative examples of legal reasoning, built up steadily over time and in a variety of circumstances, from which key values and principles could be drawn for application to other, different situations.
Biblical law had a more pronounced pedagogical or educational function than does modern law. It was addressed primarily not to the legal establishment but rather to the whole community (cf. Deut. 29:10-12), spelling out in direct and memorable terms what life in covenant relationship with God required. The purpose of attaching the ultimate penalty of death to certain behaviors was to mark them out as especially serious. It served to get people’s attention, to issue a solemn warning against the destructive consequences of particular misdeeds, especially those that breached the central covenantal principles articulated in the Decalogue (violations of seven of the Ten Commandments carry the death penalty in biblical legislation). But this does not mean that death was invariably, or even typically, exacted for actual offending. The many narrative episodes in the Bible where people guilty of capital offenses are not executed disabuse us of the notion that the penalties were applied inflexibly. Substitute penalties often were acceptable, although not for such grave wrongs as premeditated murder (Num. 35:31; Deut. 19:13), enticement to idolatry (Deut. 13:8; cf. 19:13), and perjury in capital cases (Deut. 19:19-21). Moreover, when the death penalty was inflicted, it carried a religious and atoning significance, not merely a judicial one. It signified the community’s action to purge the ritual pollution of sin from its midst lest it spread like a deadly contagion (e.g., Deut. 13:5; 17:7, 12; 19:19).
It is noteworthy that over time, pentateuchal law elaborated a variety of processes and procedures to prevent the accidental or deliberate miscarriage of justice in capital cases. The very high standard of proof demanded a very thorough investigation of the evidence (Deut. 17:4). Stringent efforts were made to root out false witnesses, and the deliberate falsification of evidence itself was punishable by death (Deut. 19:16-19). Multiple witnesses usually were required in capital cases (Num. 35:30; Deut. 17:6; 19:15), and the prohibition on substitute penalties prevented the wealthy from purchasing immunity (Lev. 27:29; Num. 35:31; Deut. 19:13). A distinction also was drawn between deliberate murder and accidental manslaughter, with cities of refuge being created where those guilty of accidental homicide could seek asylum from avenging kin (Exod. 21:12-13; Num. 35:9-34; cf. Deut. 4:41-43; 19:1-10; Josh. 20:1-9).
In later Jewish jurisprudence, as reflected in the Mishnah tractate Sanhedrin, procedural rules and evidential requirements in capital cases became so stringent that, were they followed strictly, it would have been virtually impossible to impose the death penalty. Since the institution is inscribed in Scripture, it could not be explicitly repudiated. But there was a pronounced tendency in early Judaism to oppose it in practice, if not in principle. Executions still occurred, but as the NT itself attests, the trend over time was to view the death penalty in the Bible as an indication of the seriousness of sin rather than as an obligatory or literal requirement.
(3) New Testament references to capital punishment are limited in number. Some texts are simply descriptions of, or allusions to, current practice (e.g., Luke 19:27; 23:40-43; John 19:11; Acts 25:11). Interpreters sometimes have construed these scattered narrative allusions and proverbial sayings (e.g., Matt. 26:52; Rom. 1:32) as signals ing implicit acceptance of the death penalty in principle. But this is highly contestable, not least because capital power in the NT is more often than not directed against the righteous, including Jesus himself, rather than the wicked. The striking down of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11) also tells us nothing about attitudes toward state-administered capital punishment.
Even Paul’s celebrated statement that the governing authority “does not bear the sword in vain” and is “the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom. 13:3-5) does not necessarily validate capital punishment. Here “sword” probably is a symbol or metaphor for the coercive authority of the state in general, not a specific reference to judicial execution. Certainly in Rome’s case the governing authorities made profuse use of the literal sword in asserting the state’s authority, as Paul knew well and simply presumes as a historical fact. But it is not the state’s power to kill that Paul underwrites with divine sanction; rather, it is the state’s normative role in restraining evil and rewarding the good (Rom. 13:3-4). This function may include, but certainly does not require, use of the death penalty.
Two other NT passages have a significant bearing. One is Matt. 5:38-48, where Jesus repudiates the lex talionis, or “law of retaliation,” as the governing norm of conduct for his followers. In biblical law the lex talionis encapsulates the important principle of equivalence: any redress claimed for a harm done must not exceed the level of harm suffered by the victim (Exod. 21:20-25; Lev. 24:19-22; Deut. 19:18-21). The death penalty functioned under this principle (a life for a life), where it served to “purge the evil one from your midst” (Deut. 19:19). But Jesus apparently renounces the death-dealing application of this principle, summoning his hearers not to resist the evil one violently but instead to act with love toward even their enemies.
The other passage is John 7:53-8:11. This is the only place where Jesus is expressly asked to adjudicate on a capital crime (cf. Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:23-24), and it is surely significant that he does so negatively. Evidently, all the legal prerequisites for a “just” execution of the adulterous woman were in place (otherwise, his opponents would scarcely have used the episode to test his fidelity to the law [John 8:6]). But Jesus refuses to condone the woman’s execution, not simply on legal grounds but rather on moral and religious grounds. “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). Stoning was the legally prescribed mode of execution for the crime of adultery (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22-24), yet Jesus urges that it is only those without sin who are properly qualified to discharge it. Although a variety of other arguments can be mounted against the death penalty (e.g., the dangers of wrongful conviction, its discriminatory impact on minority communities, its failure as a deterrent, and its brutalizing impact on those who carry it out), arguably it is this moral argument that remains the most potent. Ultimate jurisdiction over human life belongs only to Christ, the sinless one.
See also Crime and Criminal Justice; Enemy, Enemy Love; Forgiveness; Image of God; Justice, Restorative; Justice, Retributive; Punishment
Bibliography
Ballard, B. “The Death Penalty: God’s Timeless Standard for the Nations?” JETS 47 (2000): 471—87; Bohm, R. Death-quest HI: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Capital Punishment in the United States. 3rd ed. Lexis Nexis, 2007; Charles, J. “Crime, the Christian and Capital Justice,” JETS 38 (1995): 429-41; idem. “Outrageous Atrocity or Moral Imperative? The Ethics of Capital Punishment.” SCE 6 (1993): 1-14; House, H., and J. Yoder. The Death Penalty Debate. Word, 1991; Marshall, C. Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime and Punishment. Eerdmans, 2001; Megivern, J. The Death Penalty: An Historical and Theological Survey. Paulist Press, 1997; Wright, C. Walking in the Ways of the Lord: The Ethical Authority of the Old Testament. Apollos, 1995; Yoder, J. The Christian and Capital Punishment. Faith and Life Press, 1961.
Christopher Marshall
The four cardinal (Lat. cardo means “hinge, pivot”) virtues are prudence (practical wisdom), justice, temperance (or self-control), and fortitude (or courage). These natural virtues are distinguished from the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love (1 Cor. 13:13).
The cardinal virtues originate in classical antiquity rather than biblical context. Nowhere in Scripture are these virtues discussed as a group, although each one is commended repeatedly, especially in OT wisdom literature. The cluster is found in OT apocryphal books. Wisdom 8:7 states, “If one loves justice, the fruits of her works are virtues; for she teaches moderation and prudence, justice and fortitude, and nothing in life is more useful for men than these” (NAB). Also, 4 Macc. 1:18 states, “Now the kinds of wisdom are rational judgment, justice, courage, and selfcontrol.” These four dimensions of moral virtue were developed in Plato’s Republic and became a central feature in Stoic moral thought. In the classical context, these virtues were applied primarily to the political and military aspects of public life. Many Christian writers have adapted this moral vocabulary primarily as a way to guide lay people in their civic responsibilities.
The first theological treatment of them is found in Ambrose, who coined the term cardinal virtues. Ambrose recasts them as animating principles for the active Christian life by arguing from episodes in the lives of major OT fathers. For instance, Ambrose claims that all four virtues were displayed by Noah in building the ark (Gen. 6) and by Abraham in the story of his testing at Mount Moriah (Gen. 22). Ambrose proceeds to provide a detailed exposition of each cardinal virtue as consonant with explicit biblical teaching. Augustine continues the transformation of pagan virtues by reframing true virtue as “nothing else than perfect love of God” with heart, mind, soul, and strength. He considers the four cardinal virtues as four forms of love: “Temperance is love keeping itself entire and incorrupt for God; fortitude is love bearing everything readily for the sake of God; justice is love serving God only, and therefore ruling well all else, as subject to man; prudence is love making a right distinction between what helps it toward God and what might hinder it” (Mor. eccl. 15.25). Thomas Aquinas develops a sophisticated account in which the four virtues are cardinal because they properly regulate human intellect, will, and passions, which must be well ordered to make possible right moral action. Roman Catholic tradition has emphasized the importance of the cardinal virtues considerably more than has Protestantism, which often has highlighted the question of the relation of divine grace to natural moral virtues acquired by human effort.
See also Character; Courage; Habit; Justice; Prudence; Temperance; Vices and Virtues, Lists of; Virtue(s)
Bibliography
Ambrose. On the Duties of the Clergy, book 1; Augustine. The Way of Life of the Catholic Church; Barton, J. Understanding Old Testament Ethics: Approaches and Explorations. Westminster John Knox, 2003, 65—74; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1803—11; Cessario, R. The Virtues, or, The Examined Life. Continuum, 2002; Keenan, J. “Proposing Cardinal Virtues.” TS 56 (1995): 709-29; Pieper, J. The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance. University of Notre Dame Press, 1966; Plato. Republic, Book 4, 427-34; Thomas Aquinas. Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 61.
Jeffrey P. Greenman
Care is relational, epistemological, theological, and constitutive of our behavior, selves, and communities. People care, and they act in ways that are caring. Caring confers meaning on persons, ideas, and things, shaping knowledge and action along lines of moral understanding and ethical comportment. What shows up as care varies from culture to culture, though care is understood across cultures as having to do with sustaining life and world. Care is central to Christian belief and life.
The word care is not an explicitly or restrictively religious one. It bears meaning beyond biblical and theological contexts, connoting orientation toward what matters, respectful attention to the nature of the cared for, reaching out to something other than the self, and a disposition toward benevolent action for the cared for. There is a moral weight to caring that involves concern and responsibility for whom or what is cared for, as when we speak of being burdened by “the cares of the world.” (This weight lends a double edge to care, one captured well by the German word Sorge, which can be translated “care” or “anxiety.”) Caring has to do with being engaged attentively and responsively and entails disposition as well as practice.
Within moral theory, the ethics of care (denoted as such since the middle of the twentieth century) contrasts with moral systems that accord primacy to reason, justice, and virtue and often is conceptualized, in origin and essence, as private and contextual rather than public and abstract. “To be a morally good person requires, among other things, that a person strives to meet the demands of caring that present themselves in his or her life”—this represents the imperative affirmed by care ethicists. Furthermore, “for a society to be judged as a morally adequate society, it must, among other things, adequately provide for care of its members and its territory” (Tronto 126). While invoking this universal standard of morality for persons and societies, the ethical theory itself is one of contextualized care for and of those entities that are cared about.
The ethics of care has been associated with and advanced by feminist ethicists (see, e.g., the writings of Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings, Patricia Benner, Sara Ruddick, Joan Tronto, and Virginia Held), although some moral philosophers outside the field of feminist ethics have considered questions of care (e.g., Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Charles Taylor, and Lawrence Blum).
Christianity (at its best) traverses the boundaries of ethical systems, presenting a radical ethic in which care is central to social and political life as well as to personal relationships for men and women. Scripture claims that justice and mercy meet in the One who is love and truth (as seen throughout Scripture—e.g., Ps. 85; Isa. 42; 1 John). An article of Christian faith is that humanity depends on a caring God in whose image we are created. Institutions of caregiving have flourished in the Christian era—hospitals, schools, orphan-ages—in response to the expanding recognition of God’s image in others. On individual and social levels, however, the stance and action of care are prone to perversion. Modern philosophical and political questions concerning care have drawn attention to manipulative, disempowering, and contemptuous relations that masquerade as care. Psychological concerns have been raised about codependent, parasitic, or authoritarian interpersonal relations that purport to be caring. Counterfeits of caring relationships invite scriptural, ecclesial, and ethical examination.
Regarding Scripture
Scripture opens with the story of creation by God, about whom the first mention has to do with relating to the world in which we live. God is not described in terms of personality or attributes but rather is shown in caring activity. In the beginning God hovered over creation as a hen broods on her nest. God then spoke the world into contrasting elements that God deemed good, culminating in humankind, made male and female. As creator, God enacts one of the paradigmatic roles of care, that of the parent. We learn in Gen. 1 that God made people in God’s image, blessed them, and then commissioned them with care for the earth and all that it entails. God so loved the world that the Word was made flesh, dwelt among people, and then suffered death so that we might have abundant life. Christian Scripture ends in the book of Revelation with Jesus’ invitation to his children to come into new and eternal life with him. God will dwell with mortals, will wipe every tear from their eyes, and will give water as a gift to the thirsty (Rev. 21:3-6). All of Scripture reverberates with God’s care for humankind and asserts that we have no understanding of God apart from this relationship. Our understanding of ourselves rests on God’s creation and communication, and our orientation toward others is shaped by the image in which we and they are formed.
God cares. A distinguishing attribute of the God of Scripture is loving-kindness, hesed in Hebrew (this word is core to Hasidism and is a key concept in Kabbalah, the mystical branch of Judaism). The crux of care, as well as the complexity of the concept, is captured by this ancient word. Generous, active loving-kindness is a fundamental quality of God’s nature and of God’s relationship with people. It is indicative of the imago Dei in human beings, and Scripture draws attention to those, such as Naomi’s daughter-in-law Ruth, who exhibit it. Loving-kindness is not prescribed or obligatory; it is surprising, responsive, creative, remarkable, generous, good but not required, inspiring of covenant but not determined by covenant, risky, and sometimes in conflict with other loves and commitments (see Andersen).
In Christian Scripture, the connection between care and sacrificial service fuses in the person of Jesus Christ, who is God’s self-donation for the world God so loves and the exemplar for our lives of Christian discipleship and care. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us so that we might know God and know how we should then live. Through encounter with this ultimate expression of God, we are invited to follow Christ, imitating him in loving care for our neighbor and world (imitatio Christi). The mark of the Christian is love—love received and then extended. “ ‘Care’ is God’s gift to human beings, and within this gift is embodied both the call and capacity to be the community of care” (Green 165). It is this flow of grace that is essential for care and guards against its perversions as dryly dutiful action or self-aggrandizing exploitation.
The Gospels show that Jesus gives sacrificially, and he also receives. He prays for strength, retreats for refreshment of his soul, and accepts the love that others give him. J esus seeks care and receives it from God. He also seeks and receives from people. As God is relational throughout Scripture, so is Jesus. He has friends, family, and community. He responds to others in the contexts of their relational lives, weeping for those who are bereft, restoring the healed to their communities, and leaving his own restorative solitude, for example, for the sake of a desperate mother (Mark 7:24-30). In modern times and cultures that applaud seeming independence and self-determination, practices of receiving care are devalued to a greater extent than those of caregiving and self-care, though those too do not receive the regard or reward given to entrepreneurial, commercial, and political endeavor. Even so, the church’s avowal that God is love rings true and steady despite clamorous claims of prosperity, certitude, popularity, and dominance.
Jesus’ teaching is never detached from his person. We are invited, first and foremost, to follow a person, not a rule or methodology Central to Jesus is his caring stance and action in the world. Sharing the Passover meal with his friends on the eve of his death, Jesus contrasts the ways of power in the world with the way he has come to show and encourage. He says, “But I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27). From him, who came among us as a servant, we are to learn how to serve. Jesus lived in a competitive society marked by status divisions related to birthright, gender, lineage, accomplishment, and purity (moral, physical, and social). Yet he stepped over those divisions, not only through association but also in caring for the marginalized and ostracized—the poor, widowed, young, ill, foreign, shamed, demented, disabled, and hopeless. Moreover, stepping into a task assigned only to Gentile male slaves, women, and children, Jesus washed the feet of his closest followers (John 13:1-17) (see Green 149-67).
God and Jesus are called “shepherd,” the one who tends the flock, seeks the lost sheep, guides the sheep to the fold, protects, feeds, plays music for, and gathers the flock together by the sound of his voice. The shepherd watches over the sheep, attends to them, and knows each one’s particular needs. The scriptural exemplars of care are ones of serving, shepherding loving-kindness.
Deus caritas est
“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4:16 [in Latin Bibles this “love” is caritas]). Love is central to Christian faith. Faith is relational, and from that love relationship arises the Christian’s ethical commitment to love of neighbor. The NT Greek word agape generally was translated as caritas in Latin (and “charity” or “love” in English). Thomas Aquinas developed the doctrine of caritas in the thirteenth century, understanding this love as both a gift of grace by Christ, who calls us “friends” through the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, and as a transforming virtue that perfects our natural love as our heart is stretched increasingly by God’s great love for all. The “all-embracing friendship with God . . . is intimate, transforming, and includes all our neighbors” (Carmichael 128). As one writer on Christian spirituality claims in loud italics, “Love describes the manner of our life. Care defines the mandate of our life” (Howard 338).
Today the word charity is associated with impersonal and/or hierarchical giving to another. In our postmodern, psychotherapeutic age detached, principled, or ideal motivated care is suspect. Such caring action, often seen as the Christian ideal, may rely on the goads of guilt and shame that “do not inspire people to care in the same way as being moved by the other does, and they are dangerous” (Taylor 183). Belittlement of the one cared for coupled with self-aggrandizement of the one caring, skewed attachments associated with codependency, and various forms of anxious striving may infect charity and render it harmful. Because of these and other considerations, contemporary moral discourse has distinguished charity from care, despite the words’ shared etymological and religious roots, and dismissed the former in favor of the latter. As one philosopher says, “Some people suggest that caring is close to the Christian virtue of caritas, but caritas is equivalent to charity. Care, however, is not the same as charity—when we take care of our children we are not being charitable—and being caring is not the same as being charitable. Valuing care is entirely independent of any religious foundation, and is the stronger for this” (Held 44).
This contemporary criticism of impartial charity contrasts with early twentieth-century (modern era) theological criticism. The modern view was critical of selfish and desiring eros, as distinguished from the preferable altruistic agape or caritas. In this earlier view, forcefully articulated by the Swedish Lutheran theologian Anders Nygren, preferential loves, such as eros and philia (friendship), are tainted by self-interest, whereas charity is dispassionately revealed and divinely granted (Carmichael 4, 174-76). Benedict XVI, in his first papal encyclical, God Is Love—Deus Caritas Est (2006), reconciles these contrasting loves (preferential eros and divinely just agape) within God’s redeeming love through Jesus Christ. He says that charity extended by Christians must rest in “an encounter with God in Christ which awakens their love and opens their spirits to others” (Benedict XVI 41). Personal love is elicited by an encounter with the God who is love.
Soul Care
The words care and cure share origins in the Latin word curare, meaning “to cure, take care of, take trouble for, be solicitous.” The early church employed the expression cura animarum (“cure of souls”) to include the tasks involved in the care of persons as well as the stance of caring or solicitude toward a subject. The church offered the gospel, which healed broken and sick souls, and, in keeping with the church’s commission to cure souls, clergy in several Christian traditions are given the appellation “curate.” Over time and reflecting a broader Enlightenment shift, spiritual ministrations have been referred to less as the cure of souls and more and more as care of souls. With the development of scientific and therapeutically effective techniques that effected cures of diseases and disorders, the words cure and care became increasingly separate in meaning, with the former denoting objective skills and the repairs they effect, and the latter having to do with subjective concern and compassion.
The care of souls has a long history, secular as well as sacred. Ancient Greek philosophy grew in a religious environment that lacked dogmatic cohesion and theological rigor. Philosophy assumed the moral direction of daily life, and the philosophers were the curatores animarum, tending the divine element in human nature that, for Socrates and
Plato (and their successors in Greece and Rome), was immortal and superior to the body (see McNeill). The care of souls entailed right teaching, holding a mirror for the self-examining soul, direction in right living, and the formation of the soul toward good and away from evil. Western psychotherapies that developed in the mid-twentieth century can be seen as heirs of a care of souls separate from religious doctrine, practice, and community.
Most religions, including Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, manifest ways of caring for souls that transmit the truth of the religion as well as ethical understandings of how to live within that truth. In some cases the care assumes the form of authoritative guidance, and in others the care focuses on compassion, accompaniment, and drawing out the experiences and values of the recipient of caring attention.
In contemporary Christian parlance, soul care, under the overarching umbrella of Christian spirituality, is claimed as the province of pastoral care and counseling and also of spiritual direction. Pastoral care is the ministry of care and counseling offered by pastors, chaplains, and church leaders to those in their congregations and communities. This care can range from home visitation to formal counseling sessions. Pastoral care is a broad domain of compassionate concern enfolding a wide range of possible tasks. Pastoral caregiving may be expressed in the choice of sermon topics and the crafting of worship as a pastor attends to the deepest needs of the congregation. It may be expressed through the cultivation of lay leaders, educational opportunities, or hands-on caregiving. Pastoral care can extend to the community beyond the church, as Jesus called us to care for the “least of these,” and it may involve inspiring the congregation to “repair the world.” Pastoral care concerns the well-being, salvation, education, and spiritual formation of the congregation as well as the presence of the church as light and salt in the world at large.
Pastoral counseling is an occasional ministry of pastors and also a formal practice of specialized professionals trained in the field and customarily offering pastoral counseling as their primary vocation. Spiritual direction is an ancient art of helping another person attend to God’s word and address and then live in response to that. These Christian listening arts rest on practical theology, that branch of theology that attends to how we order our everyday lives—in all their aspects, such as work, family, relationships, and citizenship—according to the moral meanings derived from Scripture and Christian theology. Rooted in the Christian faith, pastoral care concentrates on the comfort, thriving, and sanctification of those being served.
Social Care and Flourishing
Christians, like all humankind, have been
implicated in social evils—slavery, poverty, discrimination, and oppression. People are prone to selfishness, and when Christianity is the established religion of a society, it may preferentially opt for the privileged majority. However, the Christian gospel stands in critical relation to established institutions, holds a realistic view of human sinfulness, calls us to spiritual integrity of belief and action, and requires hope from us for the salvation of people and the transformation of the world, by God’s grace. One political scientist states, “The Christian record in the annals of reform, it must be granted, is not impressive. . . . Nevertheless, Christianity in essence is not conservative” (Tinder 153). We are called to transform the world and practice care as we participate in God’s history.
Individuals rely on the flow of grace from God through us in caring action to others. Christians communally—the body of Christ—are to work with God’s Spirit in discerning that movement toward grace expressed in care. In the hope for environmental and social reform, as in the desire to care for one in need of care, Christians are to pray, listen, and, following Christ, take action in loving-kindness. Christianity requires hope and humility. In bowing before God, creator and redeemer of the world, the follower of Christ is to bend ear, eye, and helping hand toward the receiver of care. We are called to care.
Critics of care accuse would-be caregivers of contempt for the one in need, of presuming to know best what the receiver ought to receive. This is not the kind of caring that Jesus exhibited. In Jericho Jesus responded to a man calling to him from the sidelines as J esus and his followers walked en masse down the dusty main street. In the midst of the bustle and roar of the crowd, Jesus stopped. He turned toward the blind man and asked, “What would you have me do for you?” Care requires these movements: stopping, turning, attending, and listening. This is true in one-on-one caregiving as well as in our care for broader social concerns. We listen for God and listen to the other. This attitude of social care and transformation rooted in love of God and neighbor has been identified as a prophetic stance. Hope in God’s loving sovereignty sustains our disposition of care and undergirds our caring action.
As persons, we are formed, informed, and transformed by care, that which we receive as well as that which we extend. As contemporary psychology has turned its attention toward health and flourishing, more and more studies indicate the health and life satisfaction benefits of “prosocial” behavior, constituted of acts that demonstrate empathy, caring, and morality. In our social climate, in which flourishing is regarded as good and as a state worth striving for, caring action and love are subjected to less critical scrutiny and contempt. To the Christian, it comes as no surprise that we flourish when living in accord with the image and example of our caring God, to whose Spirit, word, and body we turn for guidance and correction in our own efforts to love and care.
See also Agape; Altruism; Charity, Works of; Compassion; Feminist Ethics; Imitation of Jesus; Love, Love Command; Neighbor, Neighbor Love
Bibliography
Andersen, F. “Yahweh, the Kind and Sensitive God.” Pages 41-88 in God Who Is Rich in Mercy: Essays Presented to Dr. D. B. Knox, ed. P. O’Brien and D. Peterson. Lancer Books, 1986; Benedict XVI. God Is Love—Deus Caritas Est: Encyclical Letter. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2006; Browning, D. The Moral Context of Pastoral Care. Westminster, 1976; Carmichael, L. Friendship: Interpreting Christian Love. T&T Clark International, 2004; Green, J. “Caring as Gift and Goal: Biblical and Theological Reflections.” Pages 149-67 in The Crisis of Care: Affirming and Restoring Caring Practices in the Helping Professions, ed. S. Phillips and P. Benner. Georgetown University Press, 1994; Held, V The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global. Oxford University Press, 2006; Howard, E. The Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality. Brazos, 2008, 337-69; McNeill, J. A History of the Cure of Souls. Harper, 1951; Taylor, C. “Philosophical Reflections on Caring Practices.” Pages 174-87 in The Crisis of Care: Affirming and Restoring Caring Practices in the Helping Professions, ed. S. Phillips and P. Benner. Georgetown University Press, 1994; Tinder, G. The Political Meaning of Christianity: The Prophetic Stance—An Interpretation. HarperSanFrancisco, 1991; Tronto, J. Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. Routledge, 1993.
Susan S. Phillips
At first glance, the inclusion of “casuistry” may seem perplexing in a reference work on Scripture and ethics. Many would argue that the moral methodology associated with casuistry is the antithesis of a biblically nourished Christian ethics. Yet even the biblical bumper sticker “WWJD?” (“What Would Jesus Do?”) is a form of casuistry. However, one has to approach any casuistry, biblical or otherwise, carefully. “WWJD?” has often been justifiably critiqued as presenting an impossible moral guide to imitate, for who could respond as Jesus did to a wine shortage at a wedding reception or to a storm at sea threatening a boatload of disciples? But seen in the light of casuistry, this practical question might take on a more helpful cast, since countless examples from Jesus’ earthly ministry, the life of the young church, as well as evidence from the OT, give ample testimony to the long Jewish and Christian traditions of grappling with complex moral situations through casuistry. Casuistry is simply the application of moral principles, values, precedents, and/or models to cases.
The term comes from the Latin word casus (“case”) and dates back to the seminary manuals of moral theology for training of priests in the hearing of confessions used from the late Middle Ages to the mid-twentieth century. An illustrative case, called a casus conscientiae (“case of conscience”), was outlined and then answered in light of the morally relevant principles, giving also appropriate counsel and a fitting penance to aid the penitent in countering sin and in living a more upright life. Pedagogically, this case method approach still is widely used in a variety of practical and professional contexts, from business to medicine to the legal profession.
For centuries, traditional Roman Catholic casuistry was grounded in an overly static understanding of the natural law, which in turn led to a rather impersonal, inflexible, and deductive mode of moral analysis that treated ethics as if it were a branch of mathematics. The deductive approach held that one could easily isolate a few morally relevant principles and then simply read the individual features of a concrete case in light of these principles. This resulted in neat and uniform applications, but it often failed to take into account crucial distinctive features of the individual cases. Many of the illustrative cases seemed improbable at best (e.g., the fictitious couple Titius and Bertha) and bizarre at the worst (e.g., what to do if a particle of the consecrated host should become trapped in one’s false teeth). Such casuistry was tied to a view of moral theology that focused on fulfilling laws, often canon law, which were seen as the foundation of the Christian moral life, at least for Roman Catholics.
After the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), Catholic moral theology tried to become more explicitly biblical, and this new approach was accompanied by a turn to a more personalist model of ethics that privileged an inductive and existential approach to moral analysis. On the Protestant side, work such as Joseph Fletcher’s “situation ethics” proposed that doing the most loving thing was the key moral norm. Such works simultaneously condemned casuistry and exemplified a casuistry that applied the principle of “the greatest good for the greatest number” to cases. In the wake of these developments, traditional casuistry declined, but it did not entirely vanish. Vestiges can still be found in the acrimonious debates over the moral legitimacy of contraception, just war, or terminating a pregnancy to save the life of the mother. More recently, a number of moral theologians, both Catholic and Protestant, have argued for a rehabilitation of casuistry, employing a more nu-anced inductive approach to moral reasoning that would better account for the individual’s concrete situation. Even the old casus conscientiae (“case of conscience”) recognized that in the final analysis, the ultimate criterion for judging moral decisions is the individual acting within the sanctuary of his or her own conscience. In this search for trying to do one’s best to act on and promote the good while avoiding or minimizing evil, some form of casuistry seems inescapable. A casuistry informed somehow by the biblical materials may and should contribute to that search.
See also Canon Law; Roman Catholic Moral Theology Bibliography
Bretzke, J. “Navigating in a Morally Complex World: Casuistry with a Human Face.” Pages 169-90 in A Morally Complex World: Engaging Contemporary Moral Theology. Liturgical Press, 2004; Jonsen, A., and S. Toulmin. The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning. University of California Press, 1988; Keenan, J., and T. Shannon, eds. The Context of Casuistry. MTMA. Georgetown University Press, 1995; Spohn, W. Go and Do Likewise: Jesus and Ethics. Continuum, 1999.
James T. Bretzke, SJ
Continence is abstinence from genital sexual activity. Continence may be practiced within and apart from marriage. Celibacy is a commitment to refrain from marriage and, accordingly, sexual relations. Celibacy therefore has moral dimensions that distinguish it from involuntary sexual inactivity and from periodic or even permanent abstinence within marriage. The celibate renounces the vocation of marriage to embrace another, as when Jesus says that there are “eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:12).
Ethical issues surrounding celibacy include whether it is “unnatural” and will contribute to psychosexual dysfunction; whether it is morally or spiritually superior to married life; and whether it is essentially related to or incumbent upon Christians who are ordained or consecrated in service to the church.
Scripture and Tradition
In many places Scripture commends marriage and procreation (e.g., Gen. 1:28; 2:18-24; Matt. 19:5-6). Christian approval of celibacy departs from the norms of Jewish culture and Roman law. Celibacy challenges social hierarchies grounded on marriage and kinship. It permits more egalitarian and inclusive access to religious distinction and leadership. Celibacy points to the transfiguration of human relations in the kingdom of God (Matt. 22:30 pars.).
The most extensive scriptural treatment of continence and celibacy is 1 Cor. 7. Paul approves of temporary marital continence for devotional reasons but says that regular conjugal relations can prevent sexual immorality (1 Cor. 7:5, 8-9, 36). Paul’s preference—not God’s command—is that others be celibate as he is (1 Cor. 7:10). In light of his apocalyptic expectations, he encourages Corinthians to remain as they are (1 Cor. 7:26-31). Then Paul says that married people are anxious to please their spouses, whereas unmarried persons are anxious to please the Lord (1 Cor. 7:32-35). Will Deming argues that these verses do not support sexual asceticism. Rather, 1 Cor. 7 figures in debates between Stoics and Cynics regarding avoidance of civil institutions such as marriage. Only later in Christian tradition does sexual asceticism become the primary aim of celibacy.
Another Pauline passage figures in arguments about the more specific question of clerical celibacy. The principle unius uxoris vir (1 Tim. 3:12) acknowledges the presence of married clergy in early Christian communities, a fact that some use to challenge mandatory clerical celibacy. However, Christian Cochini and others posit apostolic origins for clerical celibacy in this very principle, interpreting it and patristic sources as requiring permanent continence for married priests. That continence, they argue, expresses a felt obligation to leave everything and follow the Lord (Luke 18:28-30), which only later became expressed in ecclesiastical law regarding celibacy.
These laws began to appear around the fourth century. The Council of Elvira (c. 306) required continence for priests, deacons, and bishops. Yet the Council of Nicea (325) refused to restrict priesthood to celibates, and the Synod of Gangra (c. 358) denounced the view that celibacy is superior to marriage. Aided by growing monasticism, Lateran Council II (1139) made clerical celibacy mandatory.
Protestant reformers argued that clerical celibacy is neither required nor superior to marriage, citing 1 Tim. 4:1-5 and Heb. 13:4, which affirm the goodness of marriage against its detractors. The Council of Trent (1545-63) reasserted mandatory clerical celibacy but characterized it as a church discipline rather than divine law, meaning that the requirement can be relaxed. Vatican Council II (1962-65) affirmed mandatory celibacy. Pope Paul VI subsequently celebrated celibacy as an unreserved response to Christ that manifests Christ’s love for the church.
Contemporary Debate about Clerical Celibacy
Declining vocations to the priesthood and clergy sex abuse scandals prompt some to argue against mandatory clerical celibacy. Heinz-Jurgen Vogels enlists Matt. 19:11 and argues that celibacy is a gift, a distinct call that may or may not accompany a priestly vocation. Catholic priests in Eastern churches can marry, and married (male) Protestant clergy who convert to Catholicism may be ordained as Catholic priests. If in such instances married priests can serve effectively, why require celibacy for priests originally ordained in Western churches?
At its best, celibacy can direct sexual energy toward more inclusive interpersonal bonds, free the celibate for greater devotion to God in prayer and service, and facilitate the celibate’s psychic healing and integration. Although it is easily undervalued or used comparatively to denigrate marriage, celibacy remains a valuable witness in the church.
See also Continence; Marriage and Divorce; Sexual Ethics; Singleness; Virginity
Bibliography
Cochini, C. Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy. Ignatius Press, 1990; Deming, W Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: The Hellenistic Background of 1 Corinthians 7. Eerdmans, 2004; Pope Paul VI. Encyclical Letter on Priestly Celibacy: Sacerdotalis Caelibatus. United States Catholic Conference, 1967; Vogels, H.-J. Celibacy: Gift or Law? A Critical Investigation. Sheed & Ward, 1993.
Darlene Fozard Weaver
Character denotes the particular set of qualities, both natural and acquired, that serves to identify a person or community. These qualities are relatively stable and will be manifest as a consistency of action that can be termed “integrity.” Accordingly, in the context of Christian ethics, character names an established disposition (or set of dispositions) with respect to the particular conception of the human good exemplified by Christ. Such character is developed over time and, as such, can be formed either toward or away from virtues, understood as those intellectual and affective habits that enable the pursuit of excellence. Conceptually, then, attention to the notion of character accents the dynamic and intentional process of formation that shapes the predispositions of an individual’s moral and intellectual terrain.
Character in the Old Testament
The first source of Christian thought on character is the OT, with its rich vocabulary of related terms (e.g., ’emuna, “integrity” [1 Sam. 26:23]; ’orah, “way of living” [Job 34:11; Ps. 119:9]; tam, “integrity” [Ps. 26:1]; ’astir, “step” [Ps. 44:18; Prov. 14:15]; ‘emet, “faithfulness, reliability” [Neh. 7:2]; derek, “way” [Ps. 50:23; 2 Kgs. 22:2; cf. Deut. 5:33]; ’sem, “name” [Ps. 41:5; Prov. 22:1]). The OT narratives are of particular importance because they, in providing the historical, communal, and theological context for the scriptural conception of character, are inextricably bound with biblical modes of characterization. In other words, the correlation of narrative and character highlights the ways the character of biblical persons and communities is displayed through narrative and, in so doing, situates narrative as the fundamental category for a biblical concept of character. This correlation has prescriptive implications for contemporary believers because the kind of character esteemed by the biblical authors, and therefore enjoined upon the community that recognizes the scriptural text as authoritative, takes its bearings from the sweep of the narrative. For example, antebellum slave preachers frequently read themselves and their congregations into the exodus narrative. By situating themselves inside the story, these antebellum preachers challenged their hearers to cultivate character appropriate to the controlling narrative. Thus, in telling and retelling the story of the exodus, they not only nurtured a powerful social memory but also fostered in themselves and their communities an image of salvation that included the call first to trust patiently in the deliverance of God their liberator and then to receive from God formation into a distinctive way of life. In such cases, the narrative scripts the lives of those who read the biblical world as their own, thereby determining the kind of character that will be formed in them. In sum, biblical narratives are both descriptive and determinative of character.
The formative power of these stories underscores the fact that biblical narratives were written in and for the community of God’s people. The result is a notion of peoplehood (Jer. 7:23; 1 Pet. 2:9-10) in which a particular community is bound together in a particular time and place by a sense of its distinctive identity, shared memory, and unique vocation in the world. More than the aggregation of discrete stories about individuals in relationship with God, the biblical narrative is the story of a covenant people into which individual stories are variously nested within the stories of others and that of the community. As a result, members of the community, whose individual stories are embedded within the communal narrative, derive their sense of meaning and coherence from the larger narrative. Accordingly, character in the OT is frequently a quality of the community in which the individual participates. The people are in covenant relationship with God, and the particular character that God expects of Israel—one marked by traits such as justice, mercy, and humility (Mic. 6:8), and ideally instantiated by the king—is defined with reference to that communal relationship. The biblical story of God’s dealings with his people, therefore, is both logically prior to and determinative of the individual’s story. Correlatively, there is no individual story apart from the narrative of God’s people, since to join God’s people means being swept up by grace into this larger drama, receiving eyes to see the world through this narrative and to live accordingly in the world depicted in the Bible.
Finally, the OT wisdom literature (represented by Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, as well as the apocryphal books Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon) also constitutes an important locus for reflection on character. This literature contends that the abundant human life is found by walking in the “path of life,” guided by the wisdom that begins with the fear of the Lord (Prov. 9:10). The aim of such wisdom goes beyond simple rule-following to embrace the formation of responsible moral character, by which one is conformed to the underlying order of the world, itself a reflection of the wisdom by which God created the world (Prov. 3:19).
Classical Account of Character
The classical account of the acquisition of character through human activity is that of Aristotle (fourth century BCE), whose influence helped shape the linguistic world in which the NT emerged. Distinguishing between virtues of intellect and virtues of character, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics explains that the latter are acquired through habit, a relationship that explains the similarity of the two words in Greek: ethos (“character”) and ethos (“habit”) (Aristotle, Eth. nic. 1103a15-18). Since character results from the repetition of particular activities, Aristotle concludes that we are responsible for our character. Accordingly, the pursuit of virtuous character constitutes a way of life in which the whole of an individual’s life is transformed. That is, the self is the subject of a process of formation that is both the means to and the goal of that formation. There is an undeniable degree of circularity in Aristotle’s account of character: one can be a virtuous person only by acting as a virtuous person would act (which includes right intention and desire); at the same time, one can become a virtuous person only by having regularly acted virtuously (Hauerwas, Community of Character, 139). Nonetheless, given the reciprocal relationship between our actions and our character, such circularity may be unavoidable: our actions shape our character, even as our character constrains the set of available alternatives that we are able to see and to enact.
Character in the New Testament Although ethos, the technical Aristotelian term for character, occurs only once in the NT (“Bad company corrupts good character” [1 Cor. 15:33 TNIV]), the NT is suffused with the concept (though often reflecting the greater influence of the Jewish, rather than Greek, tradition of thought), which recurs through a variety of related terms (e.g., dokime, “character” [Rom. 5:4; Phil. 2:22]; tropos, “way of life” [Heb. 13:5]; katastema, “behavior” [Titus 2:3]; semnos, “honorable, of good character” [Phil. 4:8; 1 Tim. 3:8, 11; Titus 2:2]). More important, even where such terms are absent, the notion of character is present through the closely related NT concept of discipleship. In other words, character formation is at the heart of the numerous NT passages dealing with discipleship (and the related notions of training, obedience, and sanctification), which is understood as a training process by which the character of Jesus comes to be formed in the lives of his followers. Thus, Jesus says that the disciple who has been fully trained becomes like the teacher (Matt. 10:24-25 // Luke 6:40). Such mimesis goes far beyond slavish imitation, consisting instead of the cultivation of the skill to make a host of subtle judgments and to attend to the world in a particular way. The result of this process of formation is a new way of life that entails the embodiment of Jesus’ character in one’s own time and place, a way of life that is partly constitutive of salvation itself, since “salvation” refers to more than a change in juridical status, embracing also an increasing participation in the abundant new life of the body of Christ. As John Howard Yoder says, “When God lets down from heaven the new Jerusalem prepared for us, we want to be the kind of persons and the kind of community that will not feel strange there” (Yoder 207). Discipleship entails the transformation of the self, effected through the repetition of particular practices—for example, the Eucharist, prayer, evangelism, hospitality, care for the poor, confession, forgiveness, worship—which, when properly undertaken, help to fashion the Christian’s character in the likeness of Jesus.
A strong indication of the concern for character in the NT is found in Jesus’ discussion of a tree and its fruit (Matt. 7:16-20 // Luke 6:43-44; cf. Matt. 12:33). Teaching his disciples that a tree is known by its fruit, Jesus closely identifies a person’s (or community’s) character with the fruit of his or her (or the community’s) actions while maintaining that a tree can be made good. In other words, character can be properly formed (just as it can be deformed) so as to produce good fruit. Contrary to much popular understanding, then, character cannot be reduced to interior, private values, since, being intrinsic to the person, character cannot be lightly or easily chosen or changed. This observation suggests the paradoxical nature of character, which is not only deeply individual but also social and is at once both retrospective and prospective. Retrospectively and socially, Jesus’ teaching suggests that character can be read off the history of past actions that a person trails behind: “You will know them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:16). Prospectively and individually, the character that one has developed significantly determines and delimits the available actions that one sees, desires, and even is able to perform: “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit”
(Matt. 7:18).
Furthermore, by linking character and actions, Jesus’ teaching challenges any divorce between the individualistic and social components of disciple-ship, and together with it a host of related dichotomies, including those sometimes thought to exist between belief and practice, doctrine and ethics, and spirituality and morality. To overcome such false dichotomies is to realize that one’s thinking about beliefs and doctrine is bound with one’s character, such that deficiencies in the latter will inevitably cripple the former. Holy thinking demands holy living, and vice versa. This truth was recognized by the early church fathers, as witnessed by Athanasius, who wrote the following in the fourth century: “For the searching and the right understanding of the Scriptures there is need of a good life and pure soul, and for Christian virtue to guide the mind to grasp, so far as human nature can, the truth concerning God the Word. One cannot possibly understand the teaching of the saints unless one has a pure mind and is trying to imitate their life” (Athanasius, Inc. 57).
Perhaps the most systematic treatment of character belongs to the thirteenth-century theologian Thomas Aquinas, who adapted the newly rediscovered Aristotelian account of the acquisition of character, radically and fundamentally transforming it according to the Christian gospel. Whereas the content of Aristotelian virtue had been defined according to the natural end, or telos, of the flourishing Greek city-state, resulting in a set of virtues disposed to the maintenance of the status quo, Thomas held that the true end of human life is supernatural and eschatological— that is, eternal life with God (ST I-II, q. 2, a. 8). As a result, the content of Thomistic virtue differs markedly from that of Aristotle, as epitomized by Thomas’s choice of martyrdom as the paradigm of courage (as opposed to Aristotle’s paradigm, the soldier) and of charity as the heart of all the virtues. Moreover, Thomas maintained that perfect virtue—that is, virtue proportionate to the supernatural end—cannot be acquired through merely human action but rather must continually be received as a gift of God’s grace.
Although the church fathers and many medieval theologians acknowledged the strong connection, implied by Jesus, between character and actions, thereby rejecting any bifurcation between the inner and the outer, this insight sometimes was abandoned or repudiated altogether by later thinkers. For example, Martin Luther’s reaction against the Roman Catholic Church led him initially to emphasize punctilious acts of obedience over the habitual formation of character—a view that he reconsidered at the end of his life (Gaebler). Moreover, his suggestion that Christians are simultaneously righteous and sinful (simul jus et peccator), though intended to give assurance in the face of ongoing struggles with sin, has, in practice, sometimes eviscerated the motivation for holiness, since one can rest content in the present reality of forensic justification. Thus, the possibility of a disjunction between the inner and the outer, anticipated by the voluntarism of the thirteenth-century nominalists (e.g., John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham [see Oberman]), increased during the early modern era, only to be radicalized by later philosophers, especially Descartes and Kant.
Conclusion
The biblical concept of character sketched above strongly indicates that character formation is a necessary precondition for growth in theological knowledge. That is, formation precedes knowledge, just as doing often precedes comprehension. This pattern is not surprising, since in the Gospels the call for the disciples to follow Jesus precedes their understanding of his ministry. (That Jesus’ progressive healing of the blind man in Mark 8:22-26 is bookended by explicit references to the disciples’ lack of understanding [Mark 8:17-21; 9:31-32] may suggest that spiritual vision too is attained progressively.) In the same way, 2 Pet. 1:5 exhorts its hearers to support their faith with “virtue” (arete), and their already developing virtue with increasing knowledge (cf. Col. 1:10). In this light, Scripture ought not be taken as a mere repository of principles and rules whose truths are uniformly accessible to all regardless of character. On the contrary, Jesus says that those whose hearts are dull and whose ears are hard of hearing cannot understand his message (Matt. 13:15). Instead, Scripture offers an alternative vision of the world that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, gives those who follow Jesus eyes to see and so to live differently. Thus, Heb. 5:14 differentiates between Christian novices and the mature, “whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.” By grace and practice, the character and vision of these mature Christians have been formed, and they can now see how to live truthfully in the world because they see the world and themselves as they really are. In short, since knowledge cannot be separated from character, proper understanding of oneself and the world requires conversion, by which one comes to see the world anew through the lens of God’s revelation in Jesus.
Finally, the role of Scripture with respect to character is manifold. First, Scripture presents the grand narrative that governs and norms Christian formation. Second, Scripture relates the stories of Christianity’s exemplary characters and, most important, the story of the exemplary character in the drama, Jesus, the dramatis persona in whom the Author himself is present and who therefore reveals the fullness of the divine dramatic intention. Third, the dynamic interplay between Scripture and character occurs most properly in the context of the believing community. Since an understanding of Scripture cannot be divorced from questions of character and individual stories are always woven into a wider communal tapestry, any individual act of exegesis is always implicated in a much larger context than the discrete encounter between the text and the isolated reader. On the contrary, the reading of Scripture is bound up with the communal life of the interpreters, the character of which will, to a large extent, determine one’s ability to read Scripture (whether well or poorly). Finally, any account of biblical character must underscore the centrality of God’s grace. Thus, the sort of communal formation of Christie character requisite for the right reading of God’s word is itself both a task and a gift of God’s grace. In other words, the transformation of believers into a people of character can happen only by the power of the Spirit, who, as Eph. 2:22 shows, fills not only individual believers but also the community as a whole (thus early theologians such as Augustine and Cyprian insisted that there is no salvation outside the community of God’s people [ad extra ecclesiam nulla salus]). Accordingly, 2 Cor. 3:18 notes that believers are being transformed into the image of Jesus by the work of the Spirit. Similarly, Col. 2:19 asserts that the growth experienced by the body of Christ (as a whole) as it comes to maturity under its head is from God. Character, then, is not something that Christians achieve on their own; it is bound up with the transforming mercies of God.
See also Conversion; Moral Formation; Narrative Ethics, Biblical; Practices; Sanctification; Virtue Ethics
Bibliography
Brawley, R., ed. Character Ethics and the New Testament: Moral Dimensions of Scripture: Westminster John Knox, 2007; Brown, W. Character in Crisis: A Fresh Approach to the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament. Eerdmans, 1996; idem, ed., Character and Scripture: Moral Formation, Community, and Biblical Interpretation. Eerdmans, 2002; Frei, H. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative. Yale University Press, 1974; Gaebler, M. “Luther on the Self.” JSCE 22, no. 2 (2002): 115—32; Hadot, P. Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault. Blackwell, 1995; Hauerwas, S. A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic. University of Notre Dame Press, 1981; idem. Vision and Virtue: Essays in Christian Ethical Reflection. University of Notre Dame Press, 1974; Murphy, N., B. Kallenberg, and M. Thies-sen Nation, eds. Virtues and Practices in the Christian Tradition: Christian Ethics after MacIntyre. Trinity Press International, 1997; Oberman, H. “Luther and the Via Moderna: The Philosophical Backdrop of the Reformation Breakthrough.” Pages 21—43 in The Two Reformations: The Journey from the Last Days to the New World, ed. D. Weinstein. Yale University Press, 2003. Yoder, J. The Royal Priesthood: Essays Ecclesiological and Ecumenical. Eerdmans, 1994.
D. Michael Cox and Brad J. Kallenberg Character Ethics See Virtue Ethics Charity, Works of
The phrase “works of charity” is commonly used to speak of works demonstrating faith, hope, and love for God through love of neighbor. This article uses the phrase “works of love” instead of “works of charity” because it avoids the popular stereotype in which “charity” is limited to mean aid to the poor.
The love that Christians practice is love centered on the other. In practice, the Christian works to ensure that the neighbor secures justice in the Aristotelian sense, whereby the other receives what is rightly due. Agape includes mercy to the neighbor, specifically compassion to the other in times of suffering and need, to the point of helping the neighbor bear the burdens of suffering and overcome its causes. All this helps the neighbor to flourish as a human being made in the image of God. Christian love is an engaged relationship to the other that is transformative to all involved. It is not a detached Stoicism whereby everyone is treated according to a high ethical standard with a clinical and dispassionate sense of equality.
Since the patristic period, Christianity has possessed a rich and unbroken tradition in which works of love are understood to be the practice of the greatest of the theological virtues. The reason for this lies with the human intellectual and volitional motivation to love one’s neighbor precisely because that person is made in the image and likeness of God and in so doing to directly imitate God’s love for that person. Eastern Orthodox theology describes love of neighbor as an icon of the love that unites the one, triune God, reproducing in an analogous way the perichoretic bonds of love shared by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The biblical warrants used to identify love as the greatest of theological virtues begin with the unbreakable link that the Gospels make between love of God and love of neighbor. The Synoptic Gospels present the two great commandments of Jesus (Matt. 22:34-40; Mark 12:29-31; Luke 10:25-28), which are traditionally understood to be the fount of this virtue because Jesus commanded that his followers link the love of God with love of neighbor. Leviticus 19:18 adds love of neighbor to the Decalogue, which is evidence for Jewish antecedents for Jesus’ message, but the NT makes clear that “neighbor” includes all people, even one’s enemies, as Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37) illustrates. Elsewhere in the NT, love of neighbor is elevated to the status of the single best thing a Christian can do for God. In his letters, Paul identifies love of neighbor as the fulfillment of God’s commandments (Rom. 13:9-10; Gal. 5:14); he holds it up as the sole means by which Christians can test the genuineness of their love (2 Cor. 8:8); he celebrates it as the most excellent act that a Christian can do (1 Cor. 13:13). Beyond Paul, 1 John 4:7-21 declares that God’s love for us must be reciprocated through love of neighbor as a prerequisite for one who hopes to perfect this love through a life lived with God.
Conversely, the author baldly declares that those who do not love do not know God. James 1:27 privileges love as a requirement for the practice of religion that is worthy before God through the example of caring for widows and orphans.
Patristic theology used these and other like-minded biblical warrants to support two arguments for love as the primary theological virtue. First, to practice the theological virtue of love requires that one already possesses the other two theological virtues: faith and hope. In other words, acts of love toward one’s neighbor and God concretely demonstrate faith or one’s trust in God by depending on God for grace to help overcome barriers of sin that attenuate practicing the virtues. Acts of love confess the hope or expectation of God’s fulfillment of promises made in revelation by cooperating with God’s vision. The repeated practice of love for neighbor deepens and refines the Christian’s love for God, and that in turn deepens and refines the practice of faith and hope. Consequently, faith and hope find perfection, understood to mean completeness, in the practice of love. Second, the theological virtue of love is primary because it is the only theological virtue to possess an eschatological dimension. Patristic thought argues that faith and hope are theological virtues necessary only in this life to open one to trust and hope in God. On the one hand, with the afterlife and the glorified state in which the Christian is in the direct presence of God, these virtues are no longer needed. On the other hand, love remains perfected because the bond of love between God and the Christian is unmediated in this glorified state.
The eschatological dimension of the works of love contains ethical demands for Christian living in the present. Patristic theology identified Matt. 25:31-46, Jesus’ judgment of the nations, as the source of these demands, which Roman Catholics know as the corporal works of mercy. Debate exists as to their origins as well as the identity of “the least of these” with whom Jesus sided. Lactantius demonstrated that the pagan Stoics knew these works of mercy. Biblical scholars have argued either for an independent development of the corporal works of mercy in Jewish thinking, given the numerous exhortations to practice mercy in the OT, or that these Stoic ideas entered Matthew’s Gospel by means of a Hellenized Jewish cultural context. Regardless of its origins, and despite the fact that many patristic thinkers were influenced by Stoicism, that philosophy’s dispassionate, detached approach to the works of mercy was ultimately rejected by most Christians. Jesus’ example of engaged love for the people whom he encountered and ministered to decided the issue. And despite the existence of a tradition in which “the least of these” is understood to be fellow Christians, patristic theologians established the majority consensus: the judgment of the nations should be interpreted to mean that Jesus expects all Christians to serve their neighbor, Christian or not, especially the poor, as a requirement for salvation.
Medieval theology built upon this patristic legacy. Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa theologiae, closed his treatise on the theological virtues with a discussion on love (he is explicit that charity and love are synonymous terms) and its works. His argument for love as the greatest theological virtue, using 1 Cor. 13:13 as his starting point, is threefold. First, love is closer to its proper object, God, than are faith and hope. God does not need to have faith or hope in God’s self. Those are virtues that only humans need to possess to have a loving relationship with God. Second, faith and hope could exist as virtues without love, but they could never become perfected virtues because without acts of love, faith and hope have no means by which they can be practiced. Third, Thomas agrees with patristic thought that love possesses the eschatological dimension by which it continues to exist in the afterlife in the state of God’s glory. All things move toward their proper object, and love’s proper object is the apprehension of the good. The good that is sought is not just moral perfection; it is the completeness of being that lacks nothing. Only God satisfies this understanding of the good. Therefore, in the glorified state God being perfectly known can be perfectly loved.
Roman Catholic and Orthodox theology continues to build on the patristic and medieval understanding of the works of love. Love is still understood to be the chief theological virtue, wherein love of neighbor translates to love of God, perfects faith and hope, and is the sole theological virtue that remains in the kingdom of God. Catholics continue to hold the corporal works of mercy of Matthew’s Gospel as a core ethical teaching, a spearhead of Roman Catholic evangelization in that converts usually encounter the church not primarily through its preaching, but through its myriad works in education and social welfare. Works of love continue to serve as a motivator for vowed religious life; examples of orders that focus on the works of love as core to their spiritual charism include the Franciscans, the Vincentians, the Sisters of Charity, and the Sisters of Mercy.
Protestants feature the works of love as an integral part of their theology but often disagree with Catholics and Orthodox as to its proper place. Protestant understandings of the works of love are bound up with the doctrine of justification. Following Martin Luther, many Protestants reorder the theological virtues by placing faith as the primary virtue, through which hope and love find justification before God. Contrary to patristic and medieval theology, Luther thought it presumptuous to think that works of love presuppose faith. Given the pervasiveness of sin, it is difficult for humans to know if a work of love could be done out of love for God. Luther observed that believers and unbelievers alike can perform acts of love for any reason. Therefore, only God is capable of identifying a good work. Luther concluded that the only thing that a person can do is turn to God in faith and then, being justified, enlightened, and fortified by grace, receive the assurance that any and all works of love are good works in the service of God. John Calvin agreed. He acknowledged the virtues in his Institutes, but he saw them as worthless without the preeminence of faith to ensure that they led a person to God. He maintained that virtues are, at best, an aid to faith. John Wesley understood the works of love in Christian life by melding ideas from patristic thought and Reformed pietism. Therefore, he is misunderstood as having departed from the priority of faith argued by Luther and Calvin. He did not. Works of love, which Wesley identified as works of mercy, he understood to be the Christian’s demonstration of gratitude to God’s justification, which only God can initiate as a free gift and the person cannot merit alone. But his theology took a turn toward Arminian thought when he argued that works of love also demonstrate a free and open response by the believer to God’s prevenient grace prior to conversion and a willingness to grow in God’s grace after.
Christians disagree about the correct place of works of love in Christian theology and life, but all hold that such works are essential in the practice of faith. The variety of ministries that Christian churches have sponsored through the centuries stands as concrete expression of their shared faith, hope, and love for God.
See also Agape; Altruism; Cardinal Virtues; Enemy, Enemy Love; Good Works; Imitation of Jesus; Love, Love Command; Neighbor, Neighbor Love; Self-Love
Bibliography
Augustine. Faith, Hope, and Charity, 117—22; idem. On the Trinity, 8.10; idem. Second Discourse on Psalm 31; Bayer, O. Martin Luther’s Theology: A Contemporary
Interpretation. Eerdmans, 2008; Chrysostom, J. Homilies on the First Letter to the Corinthians, Homily 34; idem. Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homilies 61, 79; Collins, K. The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace. Abingdon, 2007; Jerome. Commentary on Matthew, 4.25.40; Keenan, J. The Works of Mercy: The Heart of Catholicism. Sheed & Ward, 2005; Lactan-tius. Divine Institutes, 6.10, 12; Leo the Great. Sermons, 45, 3; 91, 2; Luther, M. “Sermon: Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Trinity.” Pages 379-95 in vol. 14 of Standard Edition of Luther’s Works, ed. J. Lenker. Lutherans in All Lands, 1905; Partee, C. The Theology of John Calvin. Westminster John Knox, 2008; Thomas Aquinas. St. Matthew. Vol. 1, part 3 of Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels Collected Out of the Works of the Fathers. John Henry Parker, 1842, 763-64, 865-68; idem. Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 62, a. 1-4; q. 64, a. 4; q. 65, a. 35; q. 66, a. 6. Ware; K. The Orthodox Way. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990.
Ramon Luzarraga
Chastity See Sexual Ethics