The acting person and Christian moral life

226 Pages·2011·1.46 MB·English

by  Weaver, Darlene Fozard

The Acting Person and
Christian Moral Life
Selected titles
from the
Moral Traditions Series
James F. Keenan, SJ, series editor
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Aquinas on the Emotions: A Religious Ethical Inquiry
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Catholic Moral Theology in the United States: A History
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The Church and Secularity: Two Stories of Liberal Society
Robert Gascoigne
The Critical Calling: Reflections on Moral Dilemmas since Vatican II
Richard A. McCormick
Defending Probabilism: The Moral Theology of Juan Caramuel
Julia Fleming
Family Ethics: Practices for Christians
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The Global Face of Public Faith: Politics, Human Rights, and Christian Ethics
David Hollenbach
Heroes, Saints, and Ordinary Morality
Andrew Michael Flescher
Introduction to Jewish and Catholic Bioethics: A Comparative Analysis
Aaron L. Mackler
John Cuthbert Ford, SJ: Moral Theologian at the End of the Manualist Era
Eric Marcelo O. Genilo
Living the Truth: A Theory of Action
Klaus Demmer
Loyal Dissent: Memoir of a Catholic Theologian
Charles E. Curran
Overcoming Our Evil: Human Nature and Spiritual Exercises in Xunzi and Augustine
Aaron Stalnaker
Prophetic and Public: The Social Witness of U.S. Catholicism
Kristin E. Heyer
The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology
Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler
The Social Mission of the U.S. Catholic Church: A Theological Perspective
Charles E. Curran
Theological Bioethics: Participation, Justice, and Change
Lisa Sowle Cahill
United States Welfare Policy: A Catholic Response
Thomas J. Massaro
The
acting person
and christian
moral life
Darlene Fozard Weaver
georgetown university press
Washington, DC
’ 2011 Georgetown University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weaver, Darlene Fozard.
The acting person and Christian moral life / Darlene Fozard Weaver.
p. cm. — (Moral traditions series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-58901-772-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Christian ethics—Catholic authors. 2. Act (Philosophy) I. Title.
BJ1249.W327 2011
241'.042—dc22
2011003843
Excerpts from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. Copyright ’ 2009 by Marilynne Robinson.
Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Excerpts from Silence by Shusaku Endo. Copyright ’ 1969 by Monumenta Nipponica.
Reprinted by permission of Taplinger Publishing Co., Inc., Peter Owen Ltd., and
Chinomoku ’ 1966, The Heirs of Shusaku Endo.
This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the
American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
15 14 13 12 11 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 First printing
Printed in the United States of America
For
Joseph Daniel Weaver
and
Mary Ann Fozard
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Persons and Actions in Christian Ethics 5
2 Disruption of Proper Relation with God and Others: Sin and Sins 31
3 Intimacy with God and Self-Relation 65
4 Fidelity to God and Moral Acting 93
5 Truthfulness before God and Naming Moral Actions 131
6 Reconciliation in God and Christian Life 161
Bibliography 199
Index 211
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acknowledgments
As is often the case in academic life, my work on this book was helped and enriched
by so many, even as it was interrupted and delayed by much else. The Louisville
Institute awarded me a 2001 summer grant that supported my research and writ-
ing on sin; fellow summer-grant recipients provided helpful feedback and a col-
legial environment for reflection. That work evolved into a paper for the Society
of Christian Ethics and an article in the Journal of Religious Ethics, “Taking Sin
Seriously.” I am grateful to the JRE for allowing me to draw on that material here in
chapter 2. The Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion
also awarded me a 2003 summer grant that supported early work on chapter 4. I
thank the Wabash Center and my workshop cohort for their wisdom, hospitality,
and humor. I am grateful to remain in contact with a number of colleagues from
our group.
The Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, NJ, welcomed me as a
member-in-residence during a sabbatical leave from 2004 to 2005. Here, too, I
found an intellectually rigorous and warm group of fellow members. The financial
and collegial assistance I received allowed me to revise chapters already in progress
and to research and draft chapter 5. I am grateful to have found several enduring
conversation partners there. The New Wine, New Wineskins group of young moral
theologians invited me to write a paper for their inaugural conference years ago,
which was subsequently published with other conference papers; I gratefully ac-
knowledge that chapter 3 is a revised and expanded version of that paper, “Intimacy
with God and Self-Relation in the World.” I thank my fellow moral theologians for
their insight and encouragement. I presented portions of chapter 6 at a meeting of
the Society of Christian Ethics, where I received valuable feedback and stimulating
discussion of the work. I am grateful for the sabbatical leave that Villanova Univer-
sity granted me and for various formal opportunities Villanova afforded to share
work in progress. In all these settings and more, so many colleagues—Catholic,
Protestant, and Jewish, theologians and philosophers—have offered feedback on
work in progress. I give thanks for all their help.
I thank Jim Keenan and Richard Brown for their interest in and support for my
project. I appreciate the feedback two anonymous reviewers offered. I have tried to
heed their advice. My graduate assistant Siobhan Riley helped with the editing and
indexing of the manuscript. I am grateful for the friends whose companionship
and conversation enrich my life. Jill Rollet and Brett Wilmot have shared many
ix