SCRIPTURAL GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE

MORAL NORMS

Benedict Ashley, O.P.

1. Is Moral Theology Really Theology?

TO BE CHRISTIAN theology moral theology ought to be firmly grounded in the Bible as understood in the living tradition of the Church. Yet the moralist who asks help from the biblicist today is likel y to be met with a host of objections.1 I will mention eight I have encountered: 1)Attempts to develop a biblical theology unified by some central concept such as covenant, promise and fulfillment, salvation history, or liberation have all broken down. The Bible contains many diverse, even contradictory, or at least dialectically opposed theologies and ethical perspectives. To harmonize them is to distort them.2

1 See Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick, S.J., eds., The Use of Scriptures in Moral Theology (Readings in Moral Theology No. 4. New

York:Paulist, 1984) for a representative selection of essays, and Robert J. Daly, S.J. in cooperation with J. A. Fischer, C.M., T. J. Keegan, O.P., A. J. Tambasco, L. J. Topel, S.J., and F. E. Schuele, Christian Biblical Ethics From Biblical Revelation to Contemporary Christian Praxis, Method and Content (New York: Paulist, 1984) for a more systematic argument. In these notes these will be referred to as US and CBE. See also William C. Spohn, S.J., What Are They Saying About Scripture and Ethics? (New York:

Paulist, 1983) ; David Kelsey, Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975) and Bruce C. Birch and Larry Rasmussen, Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1976). Valuable hermeneutical suggestions will be found in Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Moral Teaching of the New Testament (New York: Seahury, 1973) and the two works of Pierre Grelot, Sens Chrétien de l'Ancien Testament 2nd ed. (Paris:

Desclee, 1962) and Problemes de Morale Fondamen tale: Un éclairage biblique (Paris: cerf, 1982) and the essays in M. Gilbert, J. L'Hour and J. Scharbet, Morale et Ancien Testament, (Université Catholique du Louvain, 1976).

2 See H. G. Reventlow, Problems of Old Testament Theology in the Twentieth Century (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983, pp. 44-65; 125-133, and

1

2 BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

2)The predominant literary form of the Bible which holds it together is narrative. How then can we draw moral principles from such narratives? To treat them as cautionary tales with an obvious moral does great injustice to their psychological richness and moral ambiguity.3

3)The Bible primarily uses not a literal but a symbolic type of language appropriate to the mysteries it reveals. These symbols or images can mold ethical attitudes and affections but they cannot be reduced to literal concrete moral norms without danger of distortion.4

4)Granted that both Testaments contain many prescriptive statements, they are so embedded in their historical contexts and so related to situations that are now obsolete, that it is impossible to believe they oblige us today. Can we really believe that women must be veiled (I Cor 11: 10) or that slaves should obey their masters (Ti 2: 9)?

5)The early Church, and perhaps Jesus himself, expected the eschaton within a lifetime. Consequently, the New Testament provides only an "interim ethics" which is useless as a guide in a continuing sinful world.6

6)We read in Ephesians 2: 15 that Jesus "in his own flesh

John H. Hayes and Frederick Prussner, Old Testament Theology: Its Nature and Development (Atlanta: John Knox, 1985), especially pp. 254-279 for a discussion of the search for a unifying concept for the Bible and its present status.

3 James A. Fischer, C.M., "Story and Image ", CBE, pp. 156-169.

CBE, pp. 289-295.

5 Thus James M. Gustafson, in an influential article, "The Place of Scripture in Christian Ethics: A Methodological Study" (US, pp. 151-177) distinguishes the uses of Scripture as moral law, as moral ideal, as moral analogy, and finally what he calls its "loose" use to inspire reflection on current problems. He is especially critical of the first method and gives preference to the last.

6 "To put the matter most sharply, Jesus does not provide a valid ethics for today. His ethical teaching is interwoven with his imminent eschatology to such a degree that every attempt to separate the two and to draw out only the ethical thread invariably and inevitably pulls loose strands of the eschatology, so that both yarns are ruined." Jack T. Sanders, US, p. 62. See also his hook, Ethics in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975).

SCRIPTURAL GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE MORAL NORMS3

abolished (katargesas) the Law with its commands and precepts, to create in himself one new man." Is it not the whole tenor of St. Paul's teaching that the Gospel frees us not only from the Old Law but from every ethical system in order that we may follow Christ in spontaneous gratitude for what he has done for us?

7)Liberation theology, feminist theology, and deconstructionism are all making us aware the Bible must be read with a "hermeneutic of suspicion" which exposes the political and social biases of the biblical writers and of the church officials who canonized their works. Consequently, we must look for a "canon within the canon" which expresses the essence of the original Gospel as Jesus taught and lived it and frees it from many of the precepts which reflect institutionalizing distortions of that Gospel.8

8)Are we not making a mistake if we read the Scriptures as prescriptive rather than as parenetic? Are they not really intended to motivate us sincerely to follow our own consciences? If so, then does it not seem that the scriptural precepts only represent the common ethics of New Testament times, and today must be replaced by the equivalent ethics of our own times?

7 See James M. Gustafson, Protestant and Roman- Catholic Ethics: Prospects for Rapprochment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp.

1-29.

8 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, "Toward a Feminist Biblical Interpretation ", US, pp. 354-382 and Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretations (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985). On deconstructionism see Hugh J. Silverman and Don Ihde, eds. Hermeneu tics Deconstruction. (Albany: State University of New York, 1985) and Mark C. Taylor, Deconstructing Theology (Chicago: Crossroads, CA: Scholars Press, 1982). On liberation theology hermeneutics see José Miranda, Marx and the Bible (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1974) and José Severino Croatto, Exodus: A Hermeneutics of Freedom (same, 1981).

9 See article of Bruno Schüller, S.J., in DCE, pp. 207-233, followed by the criticism of James Gaffney, "On Parenesis and Fundamental Moral Theology ", Journal of Religious Ethics, 11 (1983): 23-24, and discussion of Richard A.

McCormick, S.J., "Notes on Moral Theology ", Theological Studies, 45 (1984) 80ff.

4 BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

If these objections are sustained, what becomes of traditional moral theology, which aimed to provide concrete moral norms for the assistance of preachers and confessors in guiding the consciences of Christians?

2. Jesus and the Torah

What is odd about the objections I have listed is that, while today we constantly emphasize the historicity of the Scriptures, we so often neglect to ask ourselves whence Jesus and Paul historically derived their own moral teaching. Did they present is as simply new or as the culmination of a long tradition?

Most moralists concerned with the revision of moral theology are in agreement today that the fundamental principle of Christian ethics must be Jesus himself--his teachings and his exemplification of his own teachings.10 Christian ethics is an imitatio Christi in the fullest and deepest sense because Christian life is an incorporation in Christ, a participation by grace in his life and the life of his Body, the Church. St. Paul urges us to live in Christo, and to imitate Paul as Paul imitates our Lord (2 Cor 17; 2 Th 3:7-9; Gal 6: 14-17). Thus the fundamental norm of Christian ethics is not an abstract ideal, but an existential, historical person.

How then did Jesus live? If the imitatio is to be truly practical, something more than pious jargon, it must be based on a concrete pattern, a way of life which excludes certain kinds of action and promotes others. Of course the Christian today cannot copy the life of Jesus in a absolutely literal manner (although saints like Francis of Assisi came pretty close) . Nevertheless, in adapting themselves to the conditions of modern life Christians must still walk the same road that Jesus walked, a "straight and narrow way" (Mt 7: 13-14). In fact the early Christians were first identified as those who were "living according to the new way" (Acts 9: 1).

10 See Louis B. Gillon, O.P., Christ and Moral Theology (Staten Island:

NY:Alba House, 1967) and the theses of Heinz Schürmann, in the report "The Actual Import of the Moral Norms of the New Testament ", US, pp.

78-104.

SCRIPTURAL GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE MORAL NORMS5

The picture given us in the Gospel of this "new way" of Jesus is, of course, incomplete. But one thing is certain: Jesus was a faithful Jew whose life was shaped by the observance of the Torah, as well as by the rest of the Old Testament.1' Hence in trying to place before us the figure of the Incarnate Word as the goal, the model, and the source of Christian life we must began with the fundamental fact that Jesus is the summation of the Old Testament, the realization of all the values of the Law, the prophets, and the writings. He is the New Adam--the True Human, Ecce Homo!

Of course the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the canonical Scriptures do not provide us with a detailed system of ethics. Even the Sermon on the Mount in its Matthaean version does not claim to be a complete moral code. Nor do the other New Testament writings supply such a code. Instead they interpret the "Scriptures ", which for them meant the Old Testament centering in the Torah, which comprises a complete, detailed code of life in which the rabbis came to discern no less that 613 precepts, 365 negative, 248 positive.12

For the Jews this Torah (" instruction "rather than "law ") was and is the heart of the canonical Scriptures. The prophets and writings, including the wisdom literature, serve as a kind of context and commentary for the Torah which has only to be completed by what is thought to be the oral tradition recorded in the Talmud. Thus from a Jewish point of view the unity of the Scriptures is to be found in the Torah.'3 Of course the Torah itself contains many varied strands of tradition but its

11 On the Jewishness of Jesus see Samuel Sandmel, We Jews and Jesus (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967); also B. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985).

12 See Moses Maimonides, The Commandments (Sefer Ha-Mitzvoth) 2 vols. trans. by C. B. Chavel (London/New York: Soncinco Press, 1967); and The Guide of the Perplexed, trans by Shlomo Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963) III, 25-50, pp. 502-617, for the medieval systematization of the Torah.

13 On the role of the Pentateuch in the Hebrew canon, see the dissertation of Daniel Patte, Early Jewish Hermeneu tic in Palestine, (Missoula, Montana:

Society of Biblical Literature and Scholars Press, 1975, pp. 19-30.

6BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

editors intended these to be taken synthetically and this process of synthesis has been continued in the oral tradition of interpretation.

Jesus was a Jew preaching to Jews and so in large measure were the other New Testament writers. Thus the New Testament confirms the permanent validity of the ethical system of the Torah as interpreted by Jesus. Jesus's criticism of the Pharisees was not aimed at their fidelity to the Torah. He says, "The scribes and Pharisees occupy the chair of Moses. You must therefore do what they tell you and listen to what they say." (Mt 23:3) 14 He criticized them for hypocrisy, for scrupulosity about the lighter matters of the Law while neglecting its weightier commandments or distorting them by legalistic interpretations, and for their contempt for the common people iguorant of the Law; but not for defending the Law.

Since there were various schools of interpretation, Jesus could give his own interpretation of the Law from within the Law. Moreover, attentive examination of the occasions on which Jesus is accused of breaking the Law reveals that according to his own interpretation, not necessarily discordant with that of some other rabbis, he was always careful to observe it even to the letter.'5

What was special to Jesus' interpretation of the Law, as is clear from the sayings on divorce (Mk 10: 2-12; Mt 5:31-32; 19:3-12)) is that he regarded the Law of Moses as an imperfect law given by God "because of your stubbornness" (Mt 19:8) and declared that with the coming of the Messianic age which he was announcing the original law of God given in

14 See B. Lindars, "Jesus and the Pharisees" in Donum Gentilicium: New Testament Studies in Honor of David Daube, ed. by E. Bammel, C. K. Barrett and W. D. Davies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), pp. 51-63.

15 See the massive work of J. D. M. Derrett, Law in the New Testament (London: Darton, Longman and Todd: 1970), especially the Preface, pp. ix-xlvi. Recently Malcolm Lowe and David Flusser, "A Modified Proto-Matthean Synoptic Theory ", New Testament Studies, 29 (1983): 25-47 have pointed out how carefully Jesus avoided breaking the Sabbath when he asked the cripple to stretch out his hand but did not stretch out his own to touch him!

SCRIPTURAL GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE MORAL NORMS7

creation was to be restored. It was this mode of Torah interpretation that warranted St. Paul's later contention that the Gentiles were not bound by the particularities of the Mosaic Law, while at the same time Paul continued to instruct Christians in a more universal and perfect morality.16

Thus the first, second, and sixth difficulties respectively concerning the unity of biblical moral teaching, its narrative form, and its abolition of the Gospel can be resolved by taking the Torah, interpreted and perfected by Jesus, as a divinely approved system of concrete ethical prescriptions which is permanently valid because it reflects the original intentions of God which are now once again binding on those who would enter His Kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven" (Mt 6: 10).

This suggested solution, however, makes all the more acute the third and fourth difficulties about the historicity and eschatological context of this New Testament ethics. The Torah itself is a product of historical development and has been subject to constant reinterpretation. Nevertheless, this necessity of reinterpretation does not invalidate its prescriptive force or the genuine continuity of its ethical truth. Valid interpretations, like those of Jesus and Paul, demand that such precepts be taken with complete seriousness, although not with blind literalism. Rather, the interpreter should try to uncover the true purpose of God (as Jesus did with the divorce law and St. Paul with the circumcision law (Rom 4: 11), freeing this from its conditioning by particular historical circumstances so as to give it a more universal formulation.17

For example, the correct way to deal with those directives of

16 See W. D. Davies, Jewish and Pauline Studies (Philadelphia: Fortress,

1984) c. 6, "Paul and the Law: Reflections on Pitfalls in Interpretation ", pp. 9 1-122 gives a very balanced discussion (cf. also pp. 278-288 on "The Moral Teaching of the Early Church").

17 Cf. W. D. Davies, Torah in the Messianic Age and/or the World to Come (Philadelphia: Society of Biblical Literature, 1952). Davies shows that some of the Jews believed the Law would be perfect and universalized in the Messianic Age. See also E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) and Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (same, 1983).

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St. Paul that seems to derogate from the equal dignity of women is not to dismiss them as obsolete or as a mere reflection of sexist patriarchal culture, but rather to seek in them the perennial ethical principles to which Paul gave a particular application which may no longer be appropriate in our times.'8

Thus in St. Paul's Epistle to Philemon sending a runaway slave back to his master, an action which today would be rightly considered unjust, we discover Paul's permanently valid teaching on human brotherhood: "that you might possess him forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother" (Phlm 16)

The sixth and seventh difficulties concern a similar hermeneutic issue. To the question about the need for a "hermeneutic of suspicion" I concede that it is important in reading the Scriptures for moral instruction, as in reading any text, to consider the biases of the author and to read between the lines, because what is not said is sometimes as important as what is said. But the Scriptures are not only the work of human authors, they are the work of God as principal author. The notion of a "canon within the canon" cannot be received except in the very qualified sense that some portions of Scripture are especially clear and provide clues to interpret the more obscure.20

What must be especially avoided in studying the ethical

18 If we accept the restricted view of the corpus of authentic letters of Paul, his supposed anti-feminism is largely eliminated except for I Cor 14:34-45 and this may be an interpolation; see Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, O.P., "Interpolations in I Corinthians ", in Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 48 (Jan., 1986): 81-94. Nevertheless, such interpolations and the rest of the Pauline letters are canonical and authoritative.

19 For a recent discussion of the Epistle to Philemon in its sociological setting see Norman R. Petersen, Rediscovering Paul: Philemon and the Sociology of Paul's Narrative World (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985, who in his conclusion suggests that behind Paul's rhetoric is also a threat of excommunication (p. 302).

20 Bevard S. Childs, The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), pp. 3-47, discusses current views on the theological significance of the canon.

SCRIPTURAL GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE MORAL NORMS9

teaching of the Scriptures is to refuse to subject the pre-understandings we necessarily bring to reading them, including our political and ideological commitments, to correction by the Scriptures. Unfortunately some writers today seem to begin with a conviction that they are on the side of the oppressed so that anyone who disagrees with them, even St. Paul, is an oppressor. Rather, it is necessary to listen to God's judgments through the Scriptures. The God of justice and mercy alone has the wisdom to define justice.

The third objection that scriptural language is symbolic, metaphorical, parabolic and therefore loses its rich meaning if reduced to literal norms neglects the plain fact that the Bible contains both metaphorical and literal modes of language which complement each other. In the law codes of the Pentateuch there are scores of concrete, literal prescriptions, yet in these same codes it is obvious that many of the liturgical precepts as well as curious taboos such as the thrice repeated "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk" (Ex 23:19; 34:26; Dt 14: 21) must also be interpreted metaphorically.

Jesus of course expressed much of his teaching in parables for the sake of the crowds, but we are told that he interpreted these parables quite literally to the Twelve (Mik 4: 1-20). Moreover, very plainly some of the parables illustrate concrete moral norms, such as the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Mt 25:31-46) which clearly enforces the commands to care for the poor, the stranger, and the prisoner, or of the Rich Farmer (Lk 12: 16-21) which condemns avarice, or of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Lk 18: 9-14) which inculcates humility.21

Finally, the thesis that the Scriptures are not prescriptive but parenetic empties them of any prophetic power to correct the accepted morality of our or any other culture. Surely the wisdom literature teaches us that discernment of the true way of life is a divine gift not a merely human ethics.22 Recently

21 See Pheme Perkins, Hearing the Parables of Jesus (New York: Paulist,

1981) on their ethical role.

22 On meanings of "Wisdom" see Roland E. Murphy, O.Carm., Wisdom Literature and Psalms (Nashville: Abingdon, 1983), pp. 29-36.

10BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

there has been much controversy among moralists as to whether there can be a specifically Christian ethics.23 It is argued that the biblical precepts can be duplicated in other religions and philosophies. But ethics as a practical discipline is not spedfled by its concrete precepts which concern the means to the end of action, but by the end itself. The biblical goal of life is eternal life with the Father through the Son by the gift of the Spirit (Rom 8:16-17), a goal unique to Christian ethics.

3. The Virtues

The precepts of Scripture, however, do not of themselves constitute a complete ethics without considering the virtues or character which they form and express, because as Jesus teaches, "A good tree brings forth good fruit" (Mt 7: 17) .24

In the Old Testament we find emphasis on such key virtues as righteousness (sedeq), mercy (hesed), and fidelity ('emet); but it is clear from Jesus' teaching on the Great Commandment (Mk 12: 28-84) and from Paul's discourse in 1 Cor 18 that love (aqape equivalent to hesed) is the supreme Christian virtue extending to both God and neighbor, and even to enemies (Mt : 44). Directly related to it are faith and hope. These three, traditionally called the theological virtues, have always been regarded in the history of moral theology as providing the specifying form of Christian ethics and with full biblical warrant 25

23 For a selection of essays on this questions see Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick, S. J., eds., The Distinctiveness of Christian Ethics (Readings in Moral Theology, No. 2), (New York: Paulist, 1980) which will be referred to as DCE. See also Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), vol. 1, pp. 606-609 and the bibliography in his notes pp. 624 f.

24 Stanley Hauerwas in Vision and Virtue (Notre Dame: Fides, 1974) and Character and Christian Life (same, 1975) criticized the tendency to reduce Christian ethics to the decision-making process and since then American moralists are giving more attention to the topic of the virtues. The best treatment of them remains C. Spicq, OP., Theologie Morale du Nouveau Testament, 2 vols (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1965) which, however, has never been translated into English.

25 Ibid I, 29-380; II, 481-566.

SCRIPTURAL GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE MORAL NORMS 11

More problematic are the traditional four cardinal virtues:

temperance, fortitude, justice, and prudence derived from Plato, reinterpreted by Aristotle, and transmitted by the Stoics.26 They are referred to in the Bible only in one verse of Wisdom (8: 7) in which it is said that Wisdom "teaches temperance and prudence, justice and fortitude, and nothing in life is more useful than these."; but this one reference in a very late work marked by Greek influence is hardly enough to give them capital importance in biblical tradition.

Nevertheless, the traditional use of the four cardinal virtues as organizing principles for ethics can be justified, I believe, by the following considerations. Prudence is the equivalent of the "wisdom" constantly praised in the Old Testament as a gift of God without which a righteous life is impossible. Jesus and Paul add that in the Messianic age such wisdom is given even to "the little ones" by the indwelling Holy Spirit. "On one occasion Jesus spoke thus:' Father, Lord of heaven and earth, to you I offer praise, for what you have hidden from the learned and clever you have revealed to the merest children" (Mt. 11:25). St. Paul writes to the Corinthians (1 Cor 1:26-27), "Not many of you are wise, as men account wisdom, not many are influential; and surely not many are well-born. God chose those whom the world considers absurd to shame the wise and goes on to say (2: 15) "the spiritual man . . . can appraise everything, though he himself can be appraised by no one.

Justice is, of course, a central theme of both the Old and the New Testament and is necessarily included in the very notion of "love of neighbor ", especially as this is formulated in the Golden Rule, "Treat others the way you would have them treat you: this sums up the law and the prophets" (Mt 7: 12). Thus the Bible constantly exhorts and guides us to respect the

26 In Plato and the Stoics they are general qualities of a virtuous person which qualify all his acts. For Aristotle they are specific virtues facilitating those acts which deal with the major difficulties of human life. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q.61, aa.3 and 4.

12BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

rights of others and to do so with a practical wisdom (prudence) which exceeds mere legalism.

The mystery of the Cross illumines the central place among the Christian virtues of martyrdom and the patient endurance of suffering for the sake of Jesus, that is, of fortitude, and with it of non-violence rather than the aggressiveness which predominated in the Greek notion of the virtue. Finally, the celibacy of Jesus, his teaching on marriage and divorce, as well as St. Paul's celibacy and his pastoral instructions (e.g. 1 Cor 6: 12-7: 40) make clear that temperance in the form of chastity, whether married, virginal, or celibate, has a special Christian character.

Still more problematic is the traditional view originating with St. Augustine that the theological and cardinal virtues are completed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the beatitudes, and the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5: 22-23). According to Aquinas 27 the fruits are acts of the virtues and the beatitudes are perfect fruits that proceed from the virtues operating under the influence of the gifts. The gifts, which are to be distinguished from the special gifts of ministry (gratiae gratis datae) mentioned by Paul in I Cor 12, are prophesied in Isaiah 11:2-3 (cf. Rev 5: 6) as proper to the Messiah. They are, again according to Aquinas,28 shared by all Christians through baptism so as to facilitate the other virtues by rendering the Christian docile to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in order that he or she may act in a divine, rather than a merely human mode, since only a divine way of acting can lead surely to the divinization of eternal life with God.

This theory of the gifts is of considerable importance in the history of spiritual theology.29 To neglect it would be to reinforce the disastrous separation of moral from ascetic and mysti

27 Summa Theologiae, I-II, qq.69 and 70.

28 Ibid. q.68.

29 Article "Dons du Saint-Esprit" by G. Bardy, F. Vandenbroucke, A. Rayez, M. Labourdette and C. Bernard, Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, iii, cols. 1579-1639 gives the history of the theological role of the Gifts and is of the opinion this should not be exaggerated.

SCRIPTURAL GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE MORAL NORMS 13

cal theology which took place in the post-Tridentine period. The biblical foundations of the theory, however, appear weak, especially as to the number seven of the gifts which is not found in the Hebrew text where only six are enumerated.

Nevertheless, this difficulty is not insuperable. There can be no doubt that in promising the Paraclete (Jn 16:4-16) Jesus also promised that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit which had been prophesied as a feature of the Messianic Age (Is 2:2; 44:3; Jl 3: 1-5; Acts 2:14-36) was about to begin. The early Church experienced the distinction between the observance of the commandments in the human mode of dutiful obedience and the Spirit-inspired and facilitated fulfillment of them with profound insight and joy. St. Paul constantly urges his flock to grow to Christian maturity and docility to the Spirit (Rom 8-17; Gal. 3:2-5, etc.) Thus the numbering and classification of the gifts is less siguificant than the fact they are given in the plenitude symbolized by the number seven. Actual reference to the various qualities of action and insight assigned to the traditional seven names of the gifts can be found scattered through both Testaments.

These virtues which the scholastics classified, but which are already present in less systematic form in the New Testament (with a grounding in the Old), are of course existentialized in Jesus as the New Adam. The imitatio Christi should not be conceived as a mere Pelagian effort to copy a model, but consists in a participation through the Spirit in the very life of Christ as Head of the body, the Church (I Cor 12; Jn 15:1-17). The New Law, as Aquinas says, is nothing other than the Holy Spirit moving the Christian from within to live in Christo.30

4. The Natural Law

How then is this pneumatic Christian ethics to be related to a philosophical ethics? Protestant theologians usually make no attempt to develop this relation, although Luther and Calvin

30 Summa Theologiae, I-II, q.106, a.l.

14BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

thought that the Scriptures acknowledge such a law.31 Catholic moral theology, however, has put great reliance on natural law, not only in order to dialogue with non-believers on moral questions, but also to complete its system of concrete moral norms in the face of new moral problems that arise in every age, and especially in our rapidly changing technological society.

The question here does not concern the role of grace either in the subjective recognition of God's wisdom in visible nature or in accepting it as a guide to one's life, but whether or not God's wisdom and will are objectively accessible to human reason from the observation of creation, as well as from the revealed Law and the Gospel.

The Scriptural foundation for the concept of such an objective natural law is not really obscure. In the two halves of Psalm 19 a comparison is made between the glory of God manifested in the visible creation and the Torah, and this theme is found throughout the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. Sirach (42: 15-50: 23) compares the wisdom of God manifested in creation with the history of the great Hebrew saints who have kept God's commandments; and Baruch (3:9-4:4) mingles his thanksgiving for the gift of the Torah with the praise of God's works in creation.

St. Paul in Romans 1, basing himself on this Old Testament teaching, declares that both Jews and pagans are answerable for their conduct to God, because the Jews have the Torah and the pagans "who do have the law keep it as by instinct, these men although without the law serve as a law for themselves. They show that the demands of the law are written in their hearts" (2: 14-15) 32

31 See Paul Althaus, The Ethics of Martin Luther (Philadelphia: Fortress,

1972) and Ronald S. Wallace, Calvin's Doctrine of the Christian Life (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1959) pp. 141-147 for many references to texts.

32 Ernst Kasemann, Commentary on Romans (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 61-68 gives a detailed discussion on the distinction of Paul's teaching from Hellenistic concepts. See also A. Viard, O.P., Saint Paul:

Epitre aux Romans (Sources Biblique) (Paris: Gabalda, 1975) pp. 77-81.

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Granted there is such a natural law comparable to the revealed Law, what is their relation? For the Bible they seem to be largely identical, as the quotation from Paul seems to indicate. Thus he declares that the pagans are inexcusable for their practice of idolatry and homosexuality (Rm 1: 18-32) which, of course, he knew were also condemned by the Torah (Dt 12:2-3; 23:18). On the other hand Paul saw no reason to oblige Christian Gentiles to obey the Law as regards circumcision or diet (Gl 1:12) , yet he exhorts them to obey those moral norms which were common both to Jews and Gentiles (1 Cor 5: 1); "Circumcision counts for nothing, and its lack makes no difference either. What matters is keeping God's commandments" (I Cor. 19).

Therefore, the distinction, made so clearly by the great Jewish student of the Torah Moses Maimonides and taken over by Aquinas, between the moral, judicial, and ceremonial precepts of the Law seems entirely justified by the Scriptures themselves.33 But does this mean that all the revealed moral norms are accessible to reason and that reciprocally all the content of the natural law has been revealed? The Scriptures do not seem to make any such claim. What is clear is that there is a very considerable overlapping so that much of what sages in all the cultures of the world have proposed as norms accessible to human reason and experience can be found more or less explicitly in the Torah.34

Why, then, not proceed directly to philosophical, natural law arguments in developing a Christian ethics rather than struggle with the rabbinic complexities of the Torah? The answer, of course, is that a theology of Christian life must be

33 Sum ma Theologiae, I-II, q.99, aa.l-4. For Maimonides see references to Guide in note 12 above. Maimonides distinguishes 14 classes of commandments, but these group easily into Aquinas's three.

34 This is the empirical reason that many deny the specificity of Biblical ethics, cf. the article of Charles E. curran "Is There a catholic and/or christian Ethic? ", DCE pp. 60-89; but the theoretical reason seems to be the influence of Karl Rahner's theory of the universality of grace, see the article of Joseph Fuchs, S.J., DCE, pp. 3-19.

16BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

grounded not in human reason but in revelation. The Torah is the product of the historical experience and ethical reflection of the Jewish people just as the Nicomachean Ethics is the product of Greek experience and reflection culminating in the genius of Aristotle. Yet the difference between the Torah and the Nicomacbean Ethics is that the wisdom of the Old Testament is guaranteed by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and confirmed by Jesus Christ himself and then by his Church under the guidance of that Spirit. Although the material content of the ethical teaching of the Scriptures may be largely identical with the natural law, it is known by us under a different formality--that of faith.

Moreover, since the natural law is known through human experience, and since the Jewish-Christian experience culminating in the encounter with Jesus Christ is the historically unique, integral, and ultimate self-revelation of God, the insight which this experience has given into what it is to be truly human surely must also be uniquely complete. The natural law is based on an understanding of human nature, but in a world of sin human nature is nowhere perfectly exemplified except in Jesus and his holy Mother.

The Magisterium, therefore, has not been mistaken in using natural law arguments in arriving at certain concrete ethical norms.35 While magisterial authority directly extends only to conserving and developing revealed truth, yet indirectly it can sometimes discern that revealed ethical truth is also accessible to reason: for example the Old Testament command against incest (Lev. 18: 10, etc.) can also be supported by natural law arguments. Hence it can use such arguments to defend teachings more firmly founded in revelation.

The Magisterium also has the authority to specify revealed principles of morality so as to meet new ethical problems by the use of accumulating historical experience and natural law

35 See Josef Fuchs, S.J., Natural Law: A Theological Investigation (New

York:Sheed and Ward, 1965) pp. 155-162) and Grisez, The Way (note 23 above) p. 198 f.

SCRIPTURAL GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE MORAL NORMS 17

analysis. For example, magisterial documents since the last century have condemned human slavery, although in the New Testament frequently slaves are urged to be obedient to their masters (Phl; 1 Tm 6;1-4; Col 4:22-24; Ti 2:9-10).

It would seem that such cases of development in Christian moral teaching should be explained according to the same principles used in explaining dogmatic development. I would opt for the view that in these cases the Magisterium is not deducing a new norm through a syllogism in which one premise is known only by reasson, but rather is using new human experience and reasoning as a help in expressing explicitly what was already formally and implicitly contained in explicitly revealed principles.36

Thus through historical experience and theological dialogue Christians gradually came to see that if they were bound by St. Paul's teaching to treat their slaves as brothers (Phl 15-16) they could no longer enslave them. Although this reflective process can be expressed syllogistically, its theological force comes not from this process of human reason but from faith seeking to explicitate the full meaning of God's transmitted Word.

5. New Knowledge from History and the Sciences

Most recent writers on the revision of moral theology stress the need to take into account the great current progress m the historical and scientific disciplines.37 For some this progress

36 I here follow the view that doctrinal development takes place by explicitation of what is formally, although implicitly, contained in Scripture and Tradition. For opinions on nature of doctrinal development see Jan H. Walgrave, Unfolding Revelation (Theological Resources) (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971) pp. 162-178.

37 For an autobiographical statement of concern for such an expansion of resources for moral theology see Charles E. Curran, "On-Going Revision:

Personal and Theological Reflections" in On-Going Revision (Notre Dame,

Ind.:Fides Press, 1975) pp. 260-294. For examples of my own concern see my essay "A Theological Overview on Recent Research on Sex and Gender" in Mark F. Schwartz, Albert S. Moraczewski, and James A. Monteleone, ed, Sex and Gender: A Theological Scientific Inquiry (St. Louis: Pope John

18BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

has rendered the notion of natural law obsolete and requires a new approach. They argue that natural law theory is based on the notion of a static, fixed, substantial, metaphysical, universal human nature known by deduction from a simplistic definition of what it is to be human, while the modern disciplines emphasize the processive, dynamic, evolutionary, historical, personal, and self-determining character of human existence known from one perspective by the objective, behavioristic methods of science and from the other by phenomenology centered in the subject in relation to his or her perceived world.38 How, then, are we to integrate this vast fund of knowledge, so different in form from either Biblical thought or classical natural law philosophy?

But are the Biblical, the classical, and the modern understanding of what it is to be human really so heterogeneous? The Bible provides us with an inspired understanding of humanity as created in God's image, disciplined by God's Law, and perfectly realized in the New Adam, yet it does not present this understanding as a timeless Platonic idea, but through historical narratives, codes of law repeatedly rewritten, and a fund of practical wisdom accumulated through a long dialectical process.

A philosophical conception of natural law need not, as we have seen, neglect the historical development of our understanding of that law and its application to new problems under the guidance of the teachings of Jesus and the Magisterium of his Church in the light of his Spirit. Why, then, need we assume that new knowledge about human origins, the human body and psyche, the diversification of cultures, and the interaction of social forces must stand in opposition to past knowledge? If the Holy Spirit guided God's people in the past to profit from their historical experience, why can we not trust in his guidance now to make use of new truth wisely?

Center, 1984) pp. 1-47 and my book Theologies of the Body: Humanist and Christian (Braintree, Mass.: same publisher, 1985).

38 The survey of Richard M. Gula, What Are They Saying About Moral Norms? (New York: Paulist, 1982) seems to be based on this polarization.

SCRIPTURAL GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE MORAL NORMS 19

Moral theology must be built on a faith which guarantees that Jesus understood, with a wisdom that cannot be surpassed, God's intentions for humanity. This understanding confirms the Old Testament and is transmitted to us without essential distortion in the New Testament. So grounded, moral theology can be open to all that the modern disciplines offer as ways of explicitating and deepening our understanding of Jesus' teaching and applying it practically to current problems. But the moral theologian must also subject this new knowledge to a critical analysis both in terms of its own methodology and assumptions and in terms of its consistency with revelation.

What can we hope from this critical employment of modern scientific knowledge in moral theology? I hope for manifold gains, but I would like to indicate one kind of help which may at first seem (and in fact be) risky, but which could bear much fruit. Moral theology, if it is to free itself from voluntarism, must constantly seek to found its norms teleologically (but not by the methodology of consequentialism or proportionalism 39) in sound arguments based on what really helps or harms mtegral human fulfillment.40

Yet if we look at the classical arguments for many moral norms we find that they are based on what to the modern mind appears to be mere impressions or loose generalizations from common experience that has never been verified. For example, we forbid masturbation, but give little evidence to prove that it does anybody any harm. We prescribe fasting but give no evidence that it does most people any spiritual good. Today when such assertions are made people rightly look for objective, scientifically controlled evidence to verify them, because we are well aware how such assertions can be rooted only in prejudice, old wives' tales, ideology, or manipulative propaganda.

39 On proportionalism see Benedict M. Ashley, O.P. and Kevin D. O'Rourke, OP., Ethics of Health Care (St. Louis: catholic Health Association, 1986) pp. 81-85 and Grisez, The Way (note 23 above) I, pp. 141-172 with references to literature.

40 Ibid I, pp. 184-189.

20BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

Why then do we moralists not cooperate with scientists to subject our practical norms to objective tests? If we were to do so our teaching would certainly be more credible to the modern public. Thus more women have been convinced that contraception is wrong by the evidence of the dangers of antiovulant drugs than by abstract arguments.

The risk of subjecting our traditional moral norms to empirical verification of course is high. It will be valid only if such studies are well planned through cooperation between theologians and scientists, if the limitations of the scientific method are well understood, and if the publication of the results is free of unwarranted claims.

To take the example already given: it is common to read today that masturbation is physically and psychology harmless. When one inquires of medical and psychological experts, however, one discovers that they have not asked themselves the questions which are theologically relevant. A moralist wants to know what effect the practice of masturbation has (1) on the freedom of the agent; (2) on the dispositions of the masturbator toward the use of sex in marriage as the expression of unselfish love. It is such questions that must be subjected to empirical research (insofar as this is technically possible), before we can answer the question as to whether masturbation is truly harmful in a way convincing to our contemporaries.41

Of course some will say that moral values are of a totally different order of reality from those which are subject to scientific observation. They wish to found ethics on an ontology or phenomenology which completely abstracts from outward experience or the pragmatic consequences of moral action. Such an attitude, however, is difficult to reconcile with the down-toearth, practical attitude of the Bible, or even with the better versions of classical natural law theory. St. Thomas Aquinas gives as his sole reason for considering fornication morally

41 See my essay, "A Theological Overview ", note 37 above.

SCRIPTURAL GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE MORAL NORMS 21

wrong the simple fact that it runs the risk of begetting children deprived of the protections of marriage.42

6. Conclusion

I have argued that if moral theology is to take as its first principle the faith that Jesus Christ is the supreme norm of Christian morality, then we must turn to the Scriptures as authentically interpreted in the living tradition of the Church for an account of him and his way. Although the Bible contains a great variety of literary forms and of historically conditioned theological perspectives, some of which are in dialectical rather than synthetic relations to each other, as canonical, inspired Scripture the Bible finds its unity in Christ. The moralist, therefore, must take into account all of the voices of Scripture, none of which are to be neglected as irrelevant to our times. Hence the foundation of Christian morality in Jewish morality should be gratefully acknowledged and fully utilized. This means a much more serious study of the Torah than has been usual.

Jesus, and after him Paul, accepted and presupposed the Jewish way of life as the framework for Christian life, although they saw no reason that its liturgical, governmental, and dietary customs should be imposed on non-Jews. Hence Christian moral theology if it is to have a concrete normative character and not be reduced merely to exhortation to follow one's personal conscience or to a philosophical ethics, must begin with the system of moral norms of the Old and New Testament, universalized, interpreted, and exemplified by Jesus and the apostles.

Moral theologians in their work of universalizing and systematically analyzing this Biblical ethics and applying it to new problems rightly make use of natural law arguments because the Bible itself acknowledges and confirms their validity as rooted in the order of creation and the gift of human reason

42 Summa Theologiae II-II, q.154, a.1 c.

22BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P.

and free will. To have theological force, however, such natural law reasoning must always be subjected to theological criticism in the light of revealed principles and norms. Today it is important that this natural law argumentation should not rest merely on common experience but should be verified by the objective and controlled methods of the secular disciplines (within the limits of these methods) both in order to further its intrinsic development, and also to make it more understandable and credible to the modem public.

BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, OP.

Aquinas Institute of Theology

St. Louis, Missouri