The Renewal of Moral Theology: The New Law

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORS: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JosEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington, D. C. 20017 VoL. XXXIV JANUARY, 1970 No.1 THE RENEWAL OF MORAL THEOLOGY: THE NEW LAW IN THE RENEWAL of moral theology, in its pedagogy, but more profoundly in its epistemological aspect and the inspiration deriving from it, the relationship between law and grace is without doubt the heart of the problem. Moreover , this is no longer a matter of one-sided controversy with Lutheran theology but, beyond the necessary reaction of the defense of orthodoxy, of agreement on a radical investigation of the internal dialectic between law and grace, which Lutheran intuition has already grasped. My qualifications in this area are not those of a moral theologian but rather of a historian of theology, or, more precisely, in a sociological history, of an historian of the Gospel among the People of God, at that precise point where the Gospel is the leaven in the Church, the extent of the mystery and the place of the Spirit. I do not, therefore, offer a labora1 M.D. CHENU tory-type scientific analysis of the theoretical relationship between law and grace but, in its effect on concrete behavior (is this not where the impact of moral theology, a practical science, lies?) , the relationship of law and grace as it actually exists in the community life of the Church structured by the Spirit. My profession as historian has led me to look favorably upon these experiences, whether authentic or deviate, and thus has made me ultra-sensitive to the present problem, not so much in its theoretical articulations, urgent as they may be, but in its community contexts. It is commonly agreed that the Council directed neither its attention nor its decisions explicitly to the field of moral theology. Certainly, many of its documents, in particular the Constitution Gaudium et s-pes, furnish copious material; but today we have to elaborate upon it, drawing inferences from the many pregnant ideas beneath the texts. Having been witness to many of them, I would like to note the evangelical aspiration which impregnates them: how the freedom of the Gospel, amidst the powers of the world, emanates from the complex, sometimes turbulent, play of charisms exercised in the awakenings and movements of poverty in the heart of the People of God urged forward by its messianic hope: the poor in the Church are of themselves contesters of the structures, the moral precepts, the established order, briefly, of the Law itself. Another example with reference to current controversies: an accurate knowledge of the concrete relationships between law and grace will allow us to go beyond the contrasted positions of " situation ethics." Right at the beginning I must remark that the category "moral theology," as distinguished from "dogmatic theology ," cannot be employed without reservation. Not that it is false, but in its pedagogical formalism it separates the elements of a global perception outside of which truth remains fragmented . It is well-known that this distinction is ill-suited to the ordo disciplinae of Saint Thomas. It is likewise known that in the Council where the category of pastoral, by way of distinction and often by way of opposition, was placed ahead RENEWAL OF MORAL THEOLOGY of that of doctrinal, the impact of the truth of the Gospel on Christian life--except for the abstract doctrine of apostolic pragmatism-has not been sufficiently determined. The conditions for a "pastoral" magisterium, as it is called today, that is, of an authentic teaching in which the "law of liberty" (a term used by Saint Thomas in referring to the New Law) dominates and transforms the precepts, cannot be established except through an integral theology of grace and law. Thus there is an urgent need to supplant ihe entire theology of the Counter-Reformation, using constraint when opportune, both mental and pedagogical. A wonderful hope, of which moral theologians can be both witnesses and doers. What then is my approach as an historian, observing the performance of the "new law," the Gospel in history? For it is in history, a sacred history, that the New Law...