Narrative Theology and Moral Theology

242 Pages·2007·1.11 MB·English

by  Alexander Lucie-smith

NARRATIVE THEOLOGY AND
MORAL THEOLOGY
Moral thinking today finds itself stranded between the particular and the universal.
Alasdair MacIntyre’s work on narrative, discussed here along with that of Stanley
Hauerwas and H.T. Engelhardt, aims to undo the perceived damage done by the
Enlightenment by returning to narrative and abandoning the illusion of a disembodied
reason that claims to be able to give a coherent explanation for everything. It is
precisely this – a theory that holds good for all cases – that John Rawls proposed,
drawing on the heritage of Emmanuel Kant. Who is right? Must universality be
abandoned? Must we only think about morality in terms that are relative, bound by
space and time?
Alexander Lucie-Smith attempts to answer these questions by examining the nature
of narrative itself as well as the particular narratives of Rawls and St Augustine.
Bound and rooted as they are in history and personal experience, narratives
nevertheless strain at the limits imposed on them. It is Lucie-Smith’s contention
that each narrative that points to a lived morality exists against the background of
an infinite horizon, and thus it is that the particular and the rooted can also make us
aware of the universal and unchanging.
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The Politics of Praise
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Nietzsche and Theology
Nietzschean Thought in Christological Anthropology
David Deane
Narrative Theology and
Moral Theology
The Infinite Horizon
ALEXANDER LUCIE-SMITH
Tangaza College, Nairobi, Kenya
© Alexander Lucie-Smith 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Alexander Lucie-Smith has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Lucie-Smith, Alexander
Narrative theology and moral theology : the infinite
horizon. – (Ashgate new critical thinking in religion,
theology and biblical studies)
1. Narrative theology 2. Christian ethics
I. Title
230’.046

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lucie-Smith, Alexander, 1963–
Narrative theology and moral theology : the infinite horizon / Alexander Lucie-Smith.
p. cm. – (Ashgate new critical thinking in religion, theology and biblical studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-5680-7 (hardcover: alk. paper)
1. Christian ethics–Catholic authors. 2. Narrative theology. 3. MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 4.
Hauerwas, Stanley, 1940– 5. Engelhardt, H. Tristram (Hugo Tristram), 1941– I. Title.
BJ1249.L83 2007
241’.042–dc22
2006018846
ISBN 978-0-7546-5680-7
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall.
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
1 Narrative Theology as a New Approach to Theology 1
2 Alasdair MacIntyre 13
3 Stanley Hauerwas 33
4 H.T. Engelhardt 47
5 The Rawlsian Alternative 73
6 Beyond Rawls 109
7 The Augustinian Approach 123
8 Three Models of Narrative Theology 165
9 A Narrative Moral Theology in Practice 199
Bibliography 221
Index 231
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Acknowledgements
This book began life as a thesis written for the doctoral examination in theology at
the Gregorian University, Rome, under the rather ponderous title of ‘Narrative as
a means of establishing moral method and creating ethical language: contrasting
approaches to narrative, community and tradition.’ The thesis tried to examine how
narrative can provide the basis for moral reasoning and ethical language, and at
the same time, the implications and presuppositions of the question, namely: how
does narrative relate to the allied ideas of community and tradition? The thesis was
supervised by Fr Philipp Schmitz SJ, to whose patience and kindness I am greatly
indebted. The second reader for the examination was Fr Michael Paul Gallagher SJ.
To him my thanks.
Three people read the thesis in its final stages and made useful suggestions:
Mgr Charles Drennan, Brendan Walsh and Salley Vickers. For their help and
encouragement I am most grateful. Finally, in revising the text and preparing it for
publication, I had the invaluable assistance of Fr Tim Redmond, Principal of Tangaza
College, who with the greatest dedication looked at the entire text in detail, bringing
to bear his expertise as a theologian, a scriptural scholar, an expert in computer
formatting, and, perhaps most importantly of all, a lover of good English expression.
For all his hard work I am deeply grateful. Naturally, all the remaining mistakes are
mine alone.
In addition, I must thank all those kind and dear friends whose support was so
valuable during the long, sometimes overlong, period that this book took to write.
They know who they are.
My thanks go to the New City Press, New York, for their kind permission to
reproduce passages from their translation of the works of St Augustine.
Finally, this book is dedicated to the memory of three wise women: Dorothy
Bednarowska, who taught me as an undergraduate to love English literature; Anna
Haycraft (Alice Thomas Ellis), my one time editor, who taught me how to write, in
so far as I am able; and Elizabeth Heskett, my mother, who taught me my first and
best lessons in morality.
Alexander Lucie-Smith,
Ngong Hills,
Kenya
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Chapter 1
Narrative Theology as a New Approach
to Theology
What do we mean by the words ‘narrative theology’? It will be useful, right at the
beginning, to attempt an answer. A narrative theology is one that starts not with abstract
first principles, but with a particular story; it is inductive rather than deductive. The
story it examines is found, or ‘embodied’, in a community’s tradition, and is usually
taken to sum up or encapsulate the community’s beliefs about itself, the world and
God. Moreover, the story is rooted in the community’s particular experience of itself,
the world and God. This is in contrast to the approach that begins with abstract
first principles that are assumed to hold good for all times and places. Such first
principles, taken to be self-evident, either divinely revealed, such as the precepts of
the decalogue, or philosophically based, such as Kant’s categorical imperative, will
tend towards universal truths and exceptionless norms; however, narrative theology,
anchored in a particular community and its tradition, may be more modest in scope
and may well imply that universalism is a mirage.
Neither of these approaches is new: in fact the deductive and inductive approaches
are as old as theology itself, and St Thomas Aquinas was aware of this when he wrote
his manual for beginners, the Summa Theologiae, which provides a useful illustration
of the distinction between the two paradigms outlined above. In the first question of
the Summa, he asks if Christian theology be a science.1 Indeed it is not, he tells us,
because it deals with individual persons and events such as Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, whereas a science does not deal with individual cases but with general and
universal principles.2 However, this view is advanced only to be disproved by the
rest of the quaestio. Sacred doctrine, Thomas concludes, is not principally concerned
with individual cases, but rather bases itself on divine revelation. Individual cases
have value only as illustrations.3
From this it seems clear that at the start of the Summa Thomas chooses a deductive
course and not an inductive one. Yet we can but notice the two contrasting approaches:
on the one hand, theology is about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a history lived out by
individuals, recorded in a story that is considered normative by future generations;
but on the other hand, theology is based on a timeless divine revelation; this latter
is the foundation that Thomas chooses. But there is a third possibility that Thomas
does not consider, and which might be considered the nub of narrative theology:
it can be argued that divine revelation, rather than being seen as a set of abstract
1 St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, quaestio 1, art. 2.
2 Summa Theologiae, I, 1, 2, ad 2.
3 Summa Theologiae, I, 1, resp 2.