The Situation Ethics Debate ed. by Harvey Cox (review)

556 BOOK REVIEWS revitalization. For the renewal of moral theology has long since begun, and immense work has been done by men like Haring, Carpentier, Gillemann , Pinckaers, etc. In spite of the work accomplished by these men the work of renewal must continue, for the message of the Gospel whilst being ever ancient must also ever be made fresh and new and life-giving. And that is the essential work of true moral theologians. The donne revel£ moral, the Christian moral message, ever calls for rethinking in every age and in every clime, so that it may ever be a message of life to the people of God. However, unless this work of rethinking the moral message of the New Testament is absolutely faithful to the moral ideal found in Sacred Scripture, unless it is carried through loyally under the guidance of the Church's moral teaching and inspired by the Church's interpretation and application of that ideal, then, far from being a renewal of moral theology, it is destined to become its corruption and its travesty, imprisoned within the limits of the theological convictions of the thinkers. In moral theology we have to do with the way of the Cross, with the following of Christ, with the image of God being brought to consummation along the narrow and hard road that alone leads to eternal life. That is the message that Christ gave the world of his time. That is the message we find in the apostolic catechesis of Christ's vicar on earth. But, sad to say, that is the message nowhere to be found in this book. 895 Kaufbeuren Germany CoRNELIUs WILLIAMs, 0. P. The Situation Ethics Debate. Edited by HARVEY Cox. Philadelphia, Pa.: The Westminster Press, 1968. Pp. f.!85. $1.95. My approach to this book will arise out of some preambulatory observations . It seems to me that contemporary culture can be characterized in four ways: (1) by a sense of historical evolution; (f.!) by an awareness of subjectivity growing out of developments in contemporary psychology; (8) by a scientific attitude which is suspicious of any position that is not empirically verifiable; (4) by an appreciation of the human situation as described in existential theology and existential phenomenology. In April, at Princeton, one theologian at the Fourth Edward F. Gallahue Conference on Theology Today put it this way: " It is true that theology is no longer happy with the earlier Christian belief that man lives in an unchanging cosmos, possesses an immutable nature and is subject to fixed moral laws. . . . Theology is now caught up in the alluring possibility that history and the future are" open," that moral demands can he understood situatWnally, BOOK REVIEWS 557 that God and reality may both be in process, that man and God may be together co-responsible for the future of man and nature, that truth is to be created more than discovered by man, that self-fulfillment rather than self-denial should be the mark of the Christian's relationship to his body and his world." A third way of characterizing contemporary culture is by the twin deflation-(!) the deflation of doctrinal absolutes and (2) the deflation of moral absolutes. Contemporary situational morality has brought these points to the forefront--especially the fact that there is a deflation of strict moral absolutes, that is, in the sense of a specific act as intrinsically evil, always wrong. This is taking place even within the Roman Church, and I find this most healthy. Let me develop this briefly. Max Weber in "Politics As a Vocation" discriminates between two ethics: (1) an Ethic of Conviction is that ethic whose ultimate concern is principle, with more or less indifference to empirical verifiable personal consequences; (2) an Ethic of Responsibility is that ethic whose ultimate concern is empirical, verifiable personal consequences that result from an act. It seems to me that to absolutize or to polarize the first, or the thrust towards absolutizing or polarizing the first, leads to juridicism, legalism and moralism. This is found in religious traditions, and the Roman tradition is certainly involved in the indictment. It seems to me that to absolutize or to polarize the second...