Thesis advisor: Daniel Daly / Thesis advisor: James Keenan / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Thesis advisor: James F. Keenan / I have titled this thesis “A hermeneutical approach to natural law,” and I want to investigate the making of moral theology in accounting for the contributions of the natural sciences. Thinking in terms of the theological and scientific discourses, one realizes that both render distinct interpretations of nature, and natural law arguments emerge from these interpretations in the sphere of ethics. Thus, a hermeneutics of the scientific activity and of moral reasoning delineates a major field of the dialogue between faith and reason. / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

This thesis contributes to the recent scholarly re-evaluation of Karl Barth’s moral theology through an examination of the theme of human responsibility in his thought. The language of responsibility recurs throughout Barth’s ethical writings, and its frequency and strategic significance in his articulation of the nature of the active human agent in Christian ethics means it is worthy of scholarly consideration. To date, no extended study of this topic in Barth’s thought exists, and, apart from critical summaries of his use of responsibility language in select parts of the Church Dogmatics in corners of the secondary literature, responsibility-ethicists have tended to ignore Barth’s work on this topic. My intention, through exegetical reading of several key texts, is to provide explication, clarification, and analysis of his understanding of human responsibility. On the basis of this exegetical work I shall argue that the idea of responsibility is in fact a key component of Barth’s theological ethics and significantly informs his presentation of human agency. Following the introductory chapter, the central chapters of the thesis are exegetical readings of human responsibility in three major texts from the Barth corpus: the Ethics lectures; the ethics of CD II/2; and the special ethics of CD III/4. The fifth and final chapter is a synopsis of the development of Barth’s understanding and his articulation of human responsibility across these texts. My constructive proposal as to how we may understand Barth’s overall account is based on the preceding exegetical work. I argue that the ethics of the Church Dogmatics ought to be read together, and that in doing so we see that the mature Barth offers: 1) a theological description of human responsibility, which I argue is a kind of moral ontology in which the human agent is called to inhabit a particular space in relation to God; and 2) concrete indications of the kind of responsible actions that represent and enable the embedding of that description in human life. He develops what I term “indicative practices” which give shape to human lives, enabling human agents to navigate the moral space into which they have been placed. These two elements taken together are, I suggest, the sum of Barth’s account of human responsibility.

Thesis advisor: James F. Keenan / Kevin T. Kelly takes to heart the pastoral approach to moral theology. A Roman Catholic priest of the Liverpool Archdiocese in England, Kelly has distinguished his long career by being both a moral theologian and a pastor at the same time. Through his moral theology, he strives to proclaim the good news of salvation not only to but also out of the experience of those who ordinarily are dismissed as sinners and hence excluded from the moral conversation. In more than forty years of ministry in seminaries and in parishes, he has devoted himself to such issues as those concerning the divorced and remarried, gays and lesbians, the unmarried but cohabiting, and those infected with HIV/AIDS. Throughout his writing, the question he unwaveringly puts before himself and his readers is: What is the Spirit saying in the lives of these people? Is it condemnation? Is it edification? Is it a cry for healing? Is it a call for justice? And what does this mean for the way we understand and practice moral theology? This study articulates Kelly's distinctively pastoral method of moral theology. Through an investigation primarily of his writings, it shows that his method, in responding to the demands of scripture and tradition, is infused with compassion and characterized by the interplay of experience and dialogue, with a keen interest in the perspective of those in the margins of the moral theological discourse. In the process, this research arrives at insights into the value of the pastoral character of moral theology and outlines some specific contours it takes as it engages the various moral issues that people face in their lives. There are four chapters to this dissertation. Chapter 1 presents what the pastoral character of moral theology means and what Kelly himself envisions as the role that moral theology plays in the church. To be pastoral is to be mindful of the needs of the community, particularly of people in distress. For moral theologians, this is a call to attend to the reciprocal relationship between moral principles and human experience. It therefore summons them to attend to the movement of the Spirit in the "messy and dirty" reality of everyday life and to teach in the church in a way that honors the never-ending process of learning from the Spirit through one another, a process which admits of and profits from disagreement even with the hierarchy. The next two chapters present the pastoral approach of Kelly at work. Chapter 2 offers a detailed treatment of his position on divorce and remarriage, an issue to which he devoted many of his earlier writings. Drawing from the personalist understanding of marriage enshrined in Vatican II and supported by contemporary scholarship on relevant scripture texts, Kelly argues that the church's ministry to the divorced and remarried cannot go forward and be truly pastoral unless the church modifies its stance with regard to the indissolubility of marriage and communion for the divorced and remarried. Chapter 3 follows Kelly as he grapples with human and ecclesial experiences through which the Spirit speaks. Responding to the diversity of teachings from the various Christian churches on such issues as contraception and in vitro fertilization, he explores the dignity of the human person as a common ground which these teachings uphold and on which moral theology can and should be constructed. Impelled to address in his capacity as a moral theologian the tragic phenomenon of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, particularly the structures of oppression that intensify the spread of this disease, he outlines basic features that Christian sexual ethics must have if it is to avoid collusion with such destructive and sinful structures. From Kelly's frameworks and foundations for the renewal of moral theology and sexual ethics, three themes stand out: the changing character of morality, the broader vision of wrongness beyond discrete self-contained acts by self-contained agents, and the re-thinking and re-configuring of sexual relationships. The study culminates with Chapter 4 in which I identify Kelly's pastoral method of moral theology as it emerges from all of the above. I portray it as being inspired by scripture and tradition, driven by compassion, and performed in the interlocking spheres of experience and dialogue. Furthermore, I elaborate on the three dimensions--communal, critical, and personal--of both experience and dialogue. Apart from providing a structure for the analysis of Kelly's legacy to moral theology, this articulation of his method offers a template for the pastoral practice of moral theology in the church. / Thesis (STD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

While not exactly back room political bargaining, the traditional use of cooperation has been by moral theologians attempting to define the level of cooperation for a particular situation. This chosen definition, in turn, may help focus the range of appropriate actions in response to the situation's circumstances. In this customary usage, an organization's associates (employees) may assist the implementation of relevant responses to a cooperation analysis, whether the issue is clinical or organizational in nature. They have not been integral to the decision-making process - until now. <br>Cooperation has been the proverbial candle under the bushel (Matthew 5:15). This paper proposes the involvement of organizations' associates not only for decision-making and discernment, but for their own moral development. The foundation of this thesis is not only that organizations are moral agents, but also that organizations are reflective of the moral development of their associates when they exercise their agency. Using this model, this theory advances a use of the principle of cooperation by interpreting cooperation as a function of moral development for advancing associates. Advancement, in this case, means that, optimally, the process will expose participants to individuals in various stages of moral development, challenge them in appropriate ways, and enhance their moral development as characterized by Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Gilligan. Even if participants do not advance in their moral development, the model proposed here will form participants in moral decision-making within the Catholic moral tradition. To a lesser degree, it is also a useful ministry discernment tool if appointed to discriminate responses to some of the individual and organizational issues (topics) mentioned above. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts / Health Care Ethics / PhD / Dissertation

Thesis advisor: Cathleen Kaveny / This dissertation examines current legal and moral debates about religious liberty and the sanctity of conscience in light of the Christian tradition’s understanding of both. It is important for strong respect for a pluralistic array of consciences to be grounded internally within the Christian tradition, not just based in secular public reason. This dissertation thus develops a Christian understanding of the conscience that can provide this justification, referred to as the “open communitarian conscience.” Specifically, the dissertation analyzes various understandings of the person within the Christian tradition, explores how these have affected political discussions about religious liberty, including sometimes giving support to an excessive individualism, and shows how there are contrasting understandings in the tradition which can be drawn on to better theorize the person’s relationship to her or his communities. It also develops a pneumatological understanding of the conscience to provide theological support for this personalist anthropology and explains how the conscience can be reconceived to better describe the relationship between a person and their moral actions. The dissertation includes a discussion of six key U.S. Supreme Court cases which address issues pertaining to religious liberty and the religious conscience, as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and suggests how an understanding of the open communitarian conscience might shift Christians’ understanding of how best to protect everyone’s rights of conscience while maintaining the First Amendment’s specific protection for rights of free exercise also. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Even the most casual contemporary observer of Christianity must recognise that the notion of Christian community being identifiable through the mutual love of its members (John 13:35) is difficult to reconcile with the schismatic reality of current ecclesial life, dominated in the public sphere by divisive debates on matters such as gender or sexuality. Given the constant presence of disagreement throughout the church’s history, it remains an ethical subject neglected by scholars. This study examines how New Testament texts might inform Christian approaches to disagreement. It is the first systematic consideration of disagreement as a New Testament theme; it follows, and critiques, the methodological approach of Richard Hays in The Moral Vision of the New Testament. The context is public disagreement among Christians: how the church speaks in public when facing its inevitable disagreements, and what theological and ethical concerns might inform how this speech proceeds. The thesis is in three parts. Part One is an examination of the New Testament in relation to disagreement, following Hays' 'descriptive task'. In Part Two, the 'synthetic' and 'hermeneutical' tasks of Hays' methodology are critiqued and some modifications are proposed; a theology of disagreement that emerges from the New Testament is outlined. Part Three considers some ecclesiological implications of this theology of disagreement. Following Hays' 'pragmatic task', it examines how moral theological insights from the New Testament interact with the life of the contemporary church. Illustrative examples consider the church's public theological witness, its pneumatology, and its liturgy, to demonstrate the need for a Christian ethic to engage with extra-Biblical authority with greater enthusiasm than Hays. The thesis concludes by affirming the particular value of reading the New Testament in pursuit of ethical wisdom, but without excluding insights from tradition, reason and experience. The challenge for the church is identified as a move Towards Loving Disagreement; an integral part of its mission is to disagree Christianly.

1 Aim of this Thesis. The aim of this thesis is to critically examine the understanding of the relationship between fundamental option and virtue ethics in the work of Karl Rahner. This is done in the light of: both the classical heritage of virtue ethics and its contemporary recovery in post modernity: both the pre-history of the fundamental option and the contemporary issues of post modernity surrounding it. The work of Karl Rahner has been chosen as the subject of this thesis because, first, as the pre-eminent post-conciliar Catholic theologian, he developed the leading theory of fundamental option based on fundamental freedom, and second, as a self confessed Thomist, he also included virtue theory within his theology. These two traditions in moral theology, of virtue theory and fundamental option theory, have not only developed in relative mutual isolation (the former largely confined to the English speaking world, the latter a product of continental moral theology) but they have also been seen in some quarters as irreconcilable. This thesis uses the example of Karl Rahner to provide a bridgehead between these two distanced ethical theories. The example of the reconciliation of these two traditions in the work of Karl Rahner will be pursued in the setting of postmodernity. This provides the opportunity to assess the continuing significance of the theology of Karl Rahner. 2 The Scope of the Thesis. The thesis begins by stating the problem under examination, that is, that there has been no sustained analysis of the link between virtue ethics and fundamental option in the work of Karl Rahner (or any other contemporary moral theologian). The setting for this thesis topic is briefly considered. First, the setting of postmodernity is examined and then second, the profound impact of the Second Vatican Council on contemporary moral theology is examined, in particular with regard to the development of the perspective of moral agency. In order to establish the link between virtue ethics and fundamental option, an understanding of these two approaches per se is developed, beginning with the precursors of fundamental option (in particular, the approach of Aquinas) and then the recovery of virtue and its classical antecedents, (in particular, Aristotle and Aquinas). Both these concerns have been influenced by the shift in moral theory from moral act to moral agency, with a concern for the moral dimension of the psychology and communitarian perspective of the human person. Attention is also given to the role of passions and the hexis/habitus controversy in virtue theory insofar as they impinge on the understanding of freedom in fundamental option. This general setting of the history of Christian ethics is then given a narrower focus with the work of Karl Rahner. Various aspects of his thought are examined, in particular his intellectual heritage, his transcendental anthropology, and his perspectives on moral theology. The focus is narrowed further to particular components of his theology, viz. his understanding of fundamental option, fundamental freedom, Ignatian mysticism, supernatural existential, virtue ethics, theology of grace and metaphysics of knowledge. The Rahnerian understanding of virtue ethics and fundamental option is considered further with regard to the issues raised in the contemporary debate on these subjects. His metaphysics of knowledge is also considered in relation to the contemporary concern of virtue epistemology and the rediscovery of metaphysics. The link between fundamental option and virtue ethics in the work of Karl Rahner is examined with reference to antecedents in Aquinas et alii and contemporary minimalist approaches. 3 Conclusions. Despite the fact that there is no systematic treatment of either fundamental option or virtue ethics in the Foundations of Christian Faith (Rahner's most systematic work) and further, that Rahner seemed unaware of the recovery of virtue ethics, it has been possible to establish in Rahner's work a link between fundamental option and virtue. The link is explicitly embedded in an an obscure way in diverse works but it is more importantly and implicitly preeminently dependent on the theological virtues. For example, faith is the exercise of a fundamental option for or against God, not a process of categorical choice or habit, but a state of fundamental freedom. What stands behind the exercise of faith, and the other theological virtues of hope and love are all the components of his transcendental anthropology, viz. fundamental freedom, supernatural existential, grace and metaphysic of knowledge. They all have as their terminus the virtue of faith, that is belief with absolute assent. Rahner also gives centrality to the virtues of hope and love. The three theological virtues are the three basic perfections of Christian existence which abide and last. They are interrelated, distinguishable yet possess a unity and condition one another. The theological virtues vis-a-vis the fundamental option are pre-eminent, have unity in diversity and are linked intimately with both the supernatural existential and fundamental option in grace and freedom. They are at the centre of Rahner's anthropology even if they are heavily camouflaged. They reflect Rahner's Thomist heritage, they lend themselves, via Rahner's metaphysic of knowledge, to a virtue epistemology, to a recovery of metaphysics and they contribute to a contemporary philosophical psychology in the setting of postmodernity and engagement with the leading concerns of postmodernism.

Starting from fifty citations from primary sources, this article tries to summarize a recent doctoral thesis on the transformation of traditional ius commune contract law in moral theological treatises from the early modern Catholic world. Firstly, it will be shown how theologians borrowed from the Romano-canon legal tradition to  develop  moral  doctrine.  Secondly, this contribution will try to demonstrate that the traditional conception of contract was fundamentally changed in the works of the theologians. The conclusion will be that theologians developed a doctrine of contracts which redefined contract on the basis of the autonomy of the will, without remaining insensitive to the political, moral and spiritual context in which the homo viator tried to live a God-pleasing life. / Este artículo pretende ofrecer, empleando medio centenar de fuentes primarias, un resumen de mi tesis doctoral sobre la transformación del derecho de los contratos del ius commune en tratados de teología moral en los albores del mundo católico moderno. Se trata, en principio, de mostrar cómo los teólogos recurrieron a la tradición legal romano-canónica para desarrollar sus doctrinas morales. Luego, esta contribución detallará cómo los teólogos cambiaron sustancialmente la concepción tradicional del contrato, al redefinir el ius commune a partir de la moral cristiana y el derecho natural. La conclusión es que los teólogos elaboraron una doctrina de los contratos que los redefinió sobre la base de la autonomía de la voluntad, sin olvidar el contexto político, moral y espiritual en el que el hombre peregrino trató de vivir una vida consagrada al Señor.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:27:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Claudio Teles de Toledo Bernardes.pdf: 911777 bytes, checksum: f55ae0994d99875ba1689d3f683f54c5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-11-21 / The 20th century was pointed out by great impact events on the world scene such as the World Wars tragedies, the totalitarianism outbreak and the worsening of unfairness conditions and social inequality among other barbarisms. To these happenings can be added the global requirements at the present time, translated into a clamor for genuine relations ethical and solidary. At this scene, the Christian theology acknowledges the requirement of a renewal in the presentation of Christian Moral bases according to the Magisterium teachings. The dialog between Emmanuel Levinas philosophy and Theology comes forward as a way to answer this demand. At Levinas writings, the features of the Old Testament s wisdom - shown through philosophical language - allow one to take several themes directly connected to both biblical and jewish universes to the present days ethical reflection field. Theology also offers to Levinas unedited way of thinking the possibility of increasing the horizons of what is called ethics of alterity . Given these facts, this research aims to introduce the bases of Levinas ethical thinking by researching how the question over the other falls on the Moral Theology / O século XX foi marcado por acontecimentos de grande impacto no cenário mundial, tais como as tragédias das Grandes Guerras, o surgimento dos totalitarismos e o acirramento das condições de injustiça e desigualdade social, dentre outras barbáries. À estes acontecimentos somam-se as necessidades globais do momento atual em um clamor por relações genuinamente éticas e solidárias. Neste cenário, a teologia cristã reconhece a necessidade de uma renovação na apresentação dos fundamentos da moral cristã, sempre em continuidade com os ensinamentos do Magistério. O diálogo entre a filosofia de Emmanuel Levinas e a teologia se apresenta como um dos caminhos para se atender a esta demanda. Na obra levinasiana, os traços da sabedoria veterotestamentária, apresentados em linguagem filosófica, permitem levar ao campo da reflexão ética hodierna, temas relacionados diretamente ao universo bíblico-judaico. A teologia também oferece ao ineditismo do pensamento levinasiano as possibilidades de uma ampliação dos horizontes da chamada ética da alteridade. Diante disso, o objetivo da presente dissertação é apresentar as bases do pensamento ético de Levinas, investigando o modo como a questão do outro incide sobre a teologia moral