Recent Moral Theology: Servais Pinckaers and Benedict Ashley

The Thomist 62 (1998): 117-31 RECENT MORAL THEOLOGY: SERVAIS PINCKAERS AND BENEDICT ASHLEY WILLIAM E. MAY John Paul II Institute Washington, D.C. TWO RECENT STIJDIES by Dominican theologians, one a Belgian (Pinckaers), the other an American (Ashley), are among the most significant in the field of moral theology in the postconciliar period, Pinckaers in particular.1 Although quite different in structure, content, and purpose, a central theme is common to both: the Christian moral life is emphatically not, as too many people mistakenly and unfortunately believe, basically a question of meeting obligations and obeying laws that inhibit human freedom. It is, rather, a matter of striving to become fully the beings God wants us to be, that is, persons who share forever his own divine life and happiness, an end attainable, with the help of God's never-failing grace, by living a life of excellence, shaped by virtues, rooted in faith and hope, and animated by love. I. PINCKAERS A) Overview Pinckaers divides his study into two introductory chapters and three major parts. The introductory chapters provide a definition 1 Servais Pinckaers, O.P. Sources of Christian Ethics. Translated from the third edition (1993) by Sr. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P.; foreword by Romanus Cessario, O.P. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995. Pp. xxi + 489. $44.95 (cloth), $24.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8132-0834-3 (cloth), 0-8132-0818-1 (paper). Benedict Ashley, O.P. Living the Truth in Love: A Biblical Introduction to Moral Theology. Staten Island, N.Y.: Alba House, 1996. Pp. xiv+ 558. $24.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8189-0756-8. 117 118 WILLIAM E. MAY of Christian ethics and an overview of the basic questions of concern to it. Part 1, "Ethics, Human and Christian," embraces five chapters. The first of these (chap. 3) treats deftly the profound differences between the kind of knowledge of human acts proper to the empirical behavioral sciences and that proper to moral thought, and the way in which these disciplines can fruitfully collaborate provided that these differences are respected and that their practitioners do not attempt to pontificate on issues beyond their competence. Chapter 4 introduces the question of the distinctive character of Christian ethics. Pinckaers, noting that the terms of the contemporary debate over this issue have been framed by an ethics of obligation, shows that this has led to a search, one bearing little fruit, for obligatory precepts unique to Christians. The result has been the widespread acceptance of the view proposed by Joseph Fuchs, S.J. This position, sharply distinguishing between the "categorical" level of morality (concerned with specific behavioral norms) and the "transcendent" level (focusing on internal dispositions and attitudes), contends that nothing distinguishes Christian ethics at the categorical level but that it is quite unique at the transcendent level. Pinckaers judges that this approach, dictated by the ethics of obligation, is not only wrongheaded but also leads to the separation of the categorical and transcendent levels, seriously underestimating the impact of specific kinds of behavior (categorical) on moral character (transcendent). Thus in subsequent chapters of part 1 Pinckaers turns to the sources of Christian ethics for an answer to the question of its distinctive character. He begins with the teaching of St. Paul (chap. 5), who clearly expressed the uniqueness of Christian ethics in confronting the Jewish view of morality as justification through the works ofthe Law and the Greek understanding ofthe moral life as the work of purely human wisdom and virtueapproaches that inevitably give rise to legalistic hypocrisy on the one hand and pagan vice and pride on the other. For Paul the unique foundation of the Christian moral life is faith in Jesus Christ and union with him, the living source of an entirely new RECENT MORAL THEOLOGY 119 kind of life and power. Given this foundation, Paul can then integrate into a moral life the human virtues extolled by the Greeks, for these virtues have been purged of pride and find a new source and center: Christ crucified and risen and living now in his members. Chapter 6 turns to another great source of Christian ethics: St. Augustine, who saw in the...