Moral Theology Research Articles

AI as Person, Paradigm, and Structure: Notes toward an Ethics of AI

The unique capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) have forced theologians to develop analytical categories beyond the instrumentalist model of technology. Recent work examines AI in terms of whether it has the qualities of a person, its effects on character, and its embedding in structures of sin. Constructive responses have focused on principles, communities, and virtues. None of these responses fully addresses concerns raised by critical analyses, suggesting that moral theology is still searching for a replacement for the instrumentalist model of technology.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Protestant Theology

Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s thinking is part of the Sattelzeit, in which the foundation for the modern use of important concepts is laid. The stages of Fichte’s philosophy and his various theories of religion and Christianity reflect attempts to determine the function of religion in a modern society. Important is the philosophical foundation of religion, which is transformed from a moral theology based on Kant to a unified theory of the philosophy of mind. Fichte thus offers an alternative to Hegel and Schelling. This alternative has only been taken up in Protestant theology at a small number of points, but all the more intensively.

Ecology and Justice: From Environmental Justice to Integral Ecology of «Laudato si’»

Until recently, in the social teaching of the Church, the principle of social justice has been primarily related to issues of poverty, social inequalities, wealth distribution, and goods. Pope Francis extends this understanding to environmental issues. While diagnosing and describing the contemporary ecological crisis (our inability to resolve it in particular), he identifies the same mindset and mechanisms underlying both the social and ecological crises. Pope Francis's encyclical Laudato si’ is, therefore, a revolutionary text, which, based on integral ecology, reintroduces justice (similarly to Rerum Novarum over 130 years ago) as the key to addressing a new social issue – the contemporary ecological crisis. The comprehensive perspective on the contemporary global crisis as a socio-ecological crisis, in Laudato si’ finds its reference in the developed concept of Environmental Justice – an ecological justice as a new type of social justice. The viewpoint of a moral theologian allows us to perceive the duties associated with it not only as a legal obligation (debitum iuridicum) but also more deeply as a moral obligation (debitum morale).

Moral Theology

“Moral Theology” is theology in this narrower sense. It proceeds in the light of faith, with constant reference to Scripture and other authoritative expressions of the Church’s faith. “Interpretation” refers to systematic efforts to facilitate communication and overcome misunderstandings. This is where theology as we commonly understand it begins. The theological interpreter tries to find and state the true and full meaning of texts of Scripture and other authoritative expressions of the Church’s faith. This is the task of the part of theology called “positive theology”.

Review of D. Stephen Long, The Art of Cycling, Living, and Dying: Moral Theology from Everyday Life

Review of D. Stephen Long, The Art of Cycling, Living, and Dying: Moral Theology from Everyday Life

Ad (Synodalem) Theologiam (Moralem) Promovendam

Editorial introduction for the volume 13, number 1, January 2024 issue of the Journal of Moral Theology. M. Therese Lysaught revisits the Journal of Moral Theology’s initial rationale as articulated by founding editor David Matzko McCarthy. While that vision has developed over the intervening decade, many of his inaugural insights continue to shape our work. She then turns to documents produced by Pope Francis and the Synod on Synodality in Fall 2023, distilling five key themes and highlighting points of alignment with the Journal of Moral Theology. She closes with an overview of the current issue, suggesting how a dozen years later, the Journal of Moral Theology’s vision has matured and expanded, advancing what we might now call a synodal moral theology.

Credibility, Certainty, and Belief in Legal Thought and Moral Theology, or On the Afterlife of Augustine's Credulitas

Examining the intellectual, cultural, and social implications of reading visual and bodily manifestations as signs of guilt and innocence means grappling with the relationship between what is true and what is credible, and consequently with the problem of how to make judgments when lacking absolute certainty. This essay explores this problem by focusing on the afterlife of Augustine's notion of credulitas, or “belief,” in two parallel but intertwined areas: moral theology and legal thought. In both cases, absolute certainty was the gold standard against which moral actions and legal judgments were traditionally held. Yet moral theologians and legal scholars knew that sometimes absolute certainty was impossible to reach, so how could they form decisions that were both epistemologically correct and morally safe? The answers that theologians and jurists gave were different, and yet they were linked with and responded to each other in complex and interesting ways.

Is My Tailor a Sinner? Fashion, Economics, and Moral Theology in Early Modern France

Is My Tailor a Sinner? Fashion, Economics, and Moral Theology in Early Modern France

The Law of Reason and Beyond

Lady Damaris Cudworth Masham, an English philosopher and theologian, holds a distinctive place in the intellectual discourse of late seventeenth century England. As the daughter of Ralph Cudworth, a prominent Cambridge Platonist, and a close friend and student of John Locke, Damaris Masham participated in a number of discussions at once, related in one way or another to the basic tenets of Christian theology and moral philosophy. The first of these is a dispute with the English Malebranchians, primarily John Norris and his intellectual companion Mary Astell, regarding the concept of the love of God. The second important debate concerned the defence of John Locke's rational Christianity against attacks from deists and enthusiasts. In addition to the defence of moderate conformist theology against radical non-conformism, Masham's writings also offer a special vision of Christian moral life, in which there is room for pleasures, the precepts of natural law and the commandments of Christian Revelation. Natural law occupies an important, but underexplored place in Masham's moral philosophy and theology. This paper is intended to fill said gap and is devoted to the reconstruction of Masham's approach to natural law and its connection with other crucial concepts of her moral theology: pleasures, sociability, reason, Revelation. In order to accomplish this goal, we interpret Masham's writings in light of relevant contexts and consider them as polemical arguments in which natural law plays an important, but limited role.

Modest building blocks

Summary This article seeks to contribute to the growing current of legal historical literature on early modern commercial law. It examines the topic of monopolies and their prohibition in the Codex of Justinian (C. 4,59,2). Its purpose is to explore one aspect of the renewed interest in the topic among lawyers and theologians in the early 16th century, when trading corporations and authorities worldly and ecclesial caused a proliferation of monopolies. The aspect in question is the source material from the legal and theological tradition that early modern authors had at their disposal. Through analysing the printed editions of medieval works from Roman and canon law and from theology, this contribution sketches an image of scattered attention and a strong focus on guilds until the very last years of the Middle Ages. Only after 1450 do the roots of the notions that would dominate later debates come to the fore, and near exclusively in the works of moral theologians such as Konrad Summenhart.

The Prophetic Character of Christian-Oriented Sexual Freedom in the Conjugal Relationship in the Thinking of Moral Theologians

In 2023, people on the European continent find themselves recovering after several social upheavals caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as several military conflicts, especially the war in Ukraine. At the same time, however, there is a significant wave of migration to the so-called safe (socially secure) countries of Western Europe. Despite the significant problems that this migration causes for a politically polarized Europe, Western European, but also other countries are experiencing an astoundingly strong demand for labor (e.g. Germany openly talks about the economic need for up to 400,000 jobs per year). This year marks the 55th anniversary of the publication of the long-awaited encyclical of Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, which rejected all methods of artificial contraception. In this contribution, the author attempts to look at the problems of the culture of life in European space through the lens of several ethical and philosophical thoughts. This contribution, therefore, seeks to reflect both upon the rejection of Humanae vitae by modern Western society, as well as consider the propositions of future steps that will help stabilize European society, including the concepts of economics, family, and values according to the said encyclical.

Just Good Enough to Eat? Animals in Theological Ethics Approaches

The way humans treat animals is ambivalent: we bury our pets in animal cemeteries, and we slaughter and eat others. Even though the use of animals and coexistence with them has shaped people’s lives since time immemorial, Theology has long misjudged the importance of a theological reflection on animals. This has also led to blind spots in theological ethics. In the meantime, there are not only important approaches to a theology that takes animals into account but also a range of approaches within Catholic moral theology has been developed that seek to do justice to the intrinsic value of animals. They require a profound change in the human-animal relationship in the light of the Christian faith and call for more humane treatment of animals. This article presents the most important of those approaches from the German-speaking region and attempts to show common concerns but also different figures of argumentation.

Кенотическая экклесиология М. М. Тареева: Опыт реконструкции

The article attempts to reconstruct and comprehensively analyze the ecclesiological conception of Mikhail Mikhailovich Tareev (1867-1934), Professor of Moral Theology at the Moscow Theological Academy at the beginning of the 20th century. The study consistently outlines the characteristic features of Tareev's theological approach, examines the features of his ecclesiology, proves the author's definition of his ecclesiology as kenotic. The specifics of the Tareev’s method is the division of the elements of the problem being analyzed into categories of absolute (internal) and relative (external). In other words, this problem appears in his extensive legacy as a problem of the correlation of content and form. Russian theologian understands the Church as a form of Christianity. Christianity as an inner, mystical, spiritual life has the life of the Church as its vestment. Christianity is possible only in the Church, and produces it. Being the realization of spiritual life in the world (“mir”), the Church must be holy and free from the world. At the same time, it is through the Church that the Christian spirit, or the spirit of Christ, influences the world, transforms it by Christ’s grace. According to Tareev, Christians represent a golden chain, on the one hand, connected with Christ and the saints, on the other hand, uniting all the living faithful. The Church is defined by the Russian theologian as a Society, a Kingdom, an Organism, a Union etc.; it is founded by Christ during His sufferings. Church’s purpose is to serve as an intermediary between the mystical life of the individual and the historical life of society. Due to the symmetry of Tareev's Christology and ecclesiology, the latter is defined as kenotic. The article ends with the designation of possible reasons for Tareev's formulation of his idea of the Church

Moral Theology and Guns in the United States: Staging an Encounter

Guns hold a vexingly unique place in US American life. The United States has, by far, the highest prevalence of private firearm ownership and firearm-caused death among high-income nations in the world. Yet, there exist few sustained treatments of guns in the United States by moral theologians and Christian ethicists. This essay introduces the Journal of Moral Theology special issue on guns in US American life, which aims to stimulate theological reflection on this timely and pressing issue. It provides a brief overview of existing scholarship on the sociology of guns and moral theological treatments of guns and gun violence, and introduces the volume’s essays.

Firearms and Moral Theology: A Response

In this article the author, who has experienced gun violence professionally, while working in law enforcement, and personally, when his daughter was in a school shooting, responds to the articles published within this special issue. Throughout, the author offers his own reflections, drawn from these experiences and from his own scholarly work, sometimes reinforcing points made by these authors, as well as at times raising questions, suggesting further considerations, or offering constructive criticisms. In the end, he encourages, inspired by James F. Keenan, SJ’s plenary address at the 2009 convention of the CTSA, the authors and other theological ethicists “to expand our circle of readers” by writing for “more public, less academic audiences.”

Natural Law’s Return: Uncovering the Roots of Intractability on Guns as Prelude to New Growth

This essay offers an overview of the recent legal history and politics which have contributed to current intractability on gun issues in the United States. Highlighted in this account is scholarship discussing the relationship between the natural law and common law in U.S. legal history, and the essay overall functions as a primer on the jurisprudence of guns addressed to those moral theologians interested in engaging the legal tradition pertaining to guns on a natural-law basis. The essay proposes that the contemporary natural-law tradition provides a valuable source of moral reflection for judges and legal scholars, as an alternative to the positivism and originalism which have been dominant in twentieth-century approaches to law.

The Role of the Virtue of Religiosity in the Experience of Engagement

For believers, a decision to enter sacramental marriage is one of the most important steps in their lives. They prepare for it over the engagement period. This is a time of personal formation open to further improvement, in which religion plays an important role. Religiosity is the moral virtue by which man honours God. The bride and groom-to-be bring the experience of their own religiosity to the relationship, which allows for mutual enrichment and positive confrontation. The aim of this research is to show the influence of religiosity on the building of the engagement bond and its subsequent impact on the nuptial community. The paper is of a theoretical and empirical nature and belongs to the area of moral theology. This research includes the conclusions of empirical studies conducted in Poland. The method of source material analysis applied in this paper allows for a synthesis that shows the complexity of the phenomenon, with special attention paid to the aretology of the analysed issue. The synthesis offers concrete solutions for future brides and grooms, as well as those responsible for preparing for the sacrament of marriage. It reaffirms the need to form a mature religiosity during the engagement period. It encourages certain religious forms that serve to build a relationship with God and enable the bride and groom to better relate to each other. An important dimension of properly experienced religiosity is its formative character that enables one to make appropriate moral choices.

In Search of Common Ground: How Can Eastern Orthodox Theology Develop a Natural Law Theory?

While natural law theory plays an important role for Catholic moral theology, it is true that Orthodox ethics has not endeavoured to develop its own theory of natural law. This article demonstrates the existence of the concept of natural law in Eastern Orthodox theology and argues that the main reason for this neglect is Eastern Christianity's traditional focus on faith rather than reason. In addition, the author, based on biblical and patristic grounds, highlights the necessity for a balance between the two to be found and provides a way in which Orthodox moral theology could develop a natural law theory, should it ever feel the need to do so, by first redefining its relationship with the science of philosophy, after so many years of disregard.

Kevlar for the Soul: Moral Theology and Force Protection

ABSTRACT This article is an examination of killing in war in its moral and normative dimension – with attention given to how killing affects the acting agent. The author argues against the commonplace belief – often tacitly held if not consciously asserted – among academics, the general public, and even – if surprisingly – military professionals, that killing, including in a justified war, is always morally wrong – even when legally sanctioned and necessary to avert a greater moral wrong. This critique of the “killing is wrong but in war it is necessary” trope is motivated in part by the large numbers of psychiatric battle casualties (specifically moral injury) suffered during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and which have attended military activity throughout history. The article approaches the issue through the field of Christian ethical reflection on just war. In building a moral framework for killing in combat, the article explores a typology of homicide, intention, double effect, love, and whether the attitudinal expectations of just warriors in the Christian tradition is realistic in combat. With this moral framework for killing in hand, this article concludes by drawing a critical distinction between moral injury and moral bruising.

The Abuse of Conscience: A Century of Catholic Moral Theology by Matthew Levering (review)

The Abuse of Conscience: A Century of Catholic Moral Theology by Matthew Levering (review)