The Church and the World: Are There Theological Resources for a Common Conversation?

Abstract

Abortion is an especially salient issue for considering the general problematic of religiously based conversation in the public square. It remains deeply divisive, fully thirty-four years after Roe v. Wade. Such divisiveness cannot be interpreted as merely an expression of profound differences between “secular” and “religious” voices, because differences also emerge among Christian denominations, reflecting different sources of moral authority, different accounts of moral discernment, and different judgments about the appropriate relations between law and morality in the context of pluralism. As this paper explores, however, despite those differences, a generally identifiable “Christian” position concerning the moral status of abortion can be distinguished from secular philosophical judgments on the issue, which is important for Christian engagement with public policy debate.

Keywords:

• abortion
• public policy
• Roe v. Wade

I. INTRODUCTION

The editors of Christian Bioethics regularly describe the dominant cultural ethos as pluralistic, postmodern, and post-Christian. In light of that cultural snapshot, tolerance is apparently a cardinal virtue of political and civil life. However, the implications of tolerance remain unclear. ¹ The editors, therefore, have tasked contributors to this issue of the journal to examine the duties incumbent on Christians when they offer religiously based arguments on controversial issues such as abortion in the public square. In what follows, I first offer a broad comparative overview of characteristically Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christian resources for the possibilities of “common conversation” between particular ecclesial communities and other religious and secular speakers. Next, in light of that overview, I contrast my own review of Orthodox Christian resources for the possibilities of a common conversation with the distinctively sectarian presentation of Orthodoxy offered by H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. in numerous contributions to this journal since its inception. I suggest that Engelhardt's own account of Orthodoxy accurately reflects one strand of Orthodox interpretation but ignores other Orthodox perspectives that provide a theological basis for Orthodox Christians to engage the world in shared, albeit limited, conversation and cooperation. I then turn briefly to the issue of abortion itself. Abortion is an especially salient issue for considering the general problematic of religiously based conversation in the public square. It remains deeply divisive, fully thirty-four years after the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing it. And that divisiveness cannot be interpreted as merely an expression of profound differences between “secular” and “religious” voices, because differences also emerge among Christian denominations, reflecting different sources of moral authority, different accounts of moral discernment, and different judgments about the appropriate relations between law and morality in the context of pluralism. However, I will argue that despite those differences, a generally identifiable “Christian” position concerning the moral status of abortion can be distinguished from secular philosophical judgments on the issue.

II. THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD: ROMAN CATHOLIC, PROTESTANT, AND ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN RESOURCES FOR A COMMON, THOUGH LIMITED, CONVERSATION

Roman Catholicism: At its core, Roman Catholic moral theology embodies a relatively positive appraisal of natural moral insight available to persons as a function of God's grace in creation. In Aquinas's formulation, human beings share in God's Eternal Law by virtue of their rational nature (ST I–II, 79–85), and that insight, though distorted after the fall, remains available as a source of moral reasoning and insight. What is evident from the first, then, is the fairly robust account in Thomism of Creation as a category of moral reflection and insight. Despite the necessity of Christ's redemptive acts for achieving the supernatural end of beatitudo, natural moral knowledge about good and evil is possible for all persons of good will. Moreover, those moral insights, even without the infusion of theological virtues, can provide, at least in principle, the basis for shared agreement among individuals and communities. Since the days of High Scholasticism through the Second Vatican Council (1961–1965), Roman Catholic moral method has emphasized natural law as a source of moral knowledge in principle available to all persons. Both nature and human nature are teleologically suffused in Catholic thought. While original sin has distorted human capacity to know and to do the good, Catholic moral method retains an optimism concerning a shared natural moral capacity to discern the good and a natural ability to will the good (at least partially). ²

Drawing on Aristotelian categories, Aquinas depicts nature as Creation. The human capacity to reason about nature and human nature allows men and women, upon reflection, to understand the ends and purposes of the created order, including the ends and purposes of human life. For Thomas, the basic goods of human flourishing transparent to reflection (per se nota truths) are self-preservation, the begetting and education of children, the good of community, and knowledge of and communion with God. ³ Since the time of Vatican II, however, traditional natural law thought has been subject to both critical scrutiny and to major efforts at reformulation. Increasingly, one finds in moral theology the approach and language of “personalism.” That perspective has significantly broadened the focus of traditional natural law. The goods of human embodiment—individual, sexual, and communal—are contextualized in more existential fashion, with the constitutive elements of human flourishing now considered in terms of the overall good of persons “integrally and adequately considered” ⁴ The extent to which personalism's shift of focus alters moral judgments based on more traditional natural law grounds remains the subject of ongoing debate.

Another emphasis in the recent tradition has been a renewed interest in, and appreciation for, the place of Scripture in moral reflection. Nonetheless, while recent Catholic moral discussions have appealed to Scripture as an important context for moral reflection, as Aaron Mackler observes, “Detailed analysis of Scripture generally receives relatively little attention in the formulation of specific ethical judgments” (Mackler, 2003, p. 32). Although John Paul II emphasized broad Scriptural motifs in several encyclicals, the influence of Scripture on moral reasoning and judgment remains primarily at the level of motivation and disposition (e.g., John Paul II, 1993). It is fair to say, then, that while Catholic moral discussions have recently paid greater attention to Scripture, Catholic moral theology retains its characteristic emphases on human reason, natural law, and the pronouncements of the magisterium.

Roman Catholicism is perhaps most distinct from other traditions in its official understanding of the magisterium as its central teaching authority. The foci of magisterial teaching are matters of faith and morals. While natural law remains a fundamental source of moral insight, the magisterium as central authority embodies the Church ecclesiological self-understanding; viz., that the Pope, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is able to provide distinctive insights concerning the essentials of the Catholic faith and fundamental implications of natural law. Such confidence about the magisterium's role in clarifying moral conclusions that remain in principle derivable from natural law flows from Catholicism's affirmation of the mutuality between Revelation and natural moral insights. As James Gustafson observes about Catholic moral method, “There are no serious cleavages between the revealed moral will of God and the natural moral law, as both have the same ultimate source” (Gustafson, 1978, p. 26).

In that light, Catholic social teaching follows straightforwardly. Because Divine Revelation and natural law speak to the same moral realities, Roman Catholicism remains committed to being a “public church.” Two features of that approach are especially prominent. First,

The ecclesiological premise of a public church is the conviction that its pastoral responsibility extends beyond the ecclesial community to the civil society … The responsibility is shaped by two principles: first, that institutions as well as individuals must be judged in light of the moral law; and second, that the long-term effect of social and cultural patterns on members of the church requires a continuing effort to harmonize the demands of personal conscience and the prevailing institutional mores of society. (Hehir, 1992, p. 354)

Second,

This view of ecclesial responsibility leads directly to the issue of whether it is possible to shape a moral consensus beyond the community of faith. This question has consistently evoked, in a Catholic context, the response that a limited but significant degree of public consensus on moral questions is possible in the areas of civil law and public policy. (Hehir, 1992, p. 354)

Protestantism. As Allen Verhey observes, “Protestant reflection about morality, including medical morality, defies generalization” (Verhey, 1995, p. 2117). There are both theological and institutional reasons for Protestant pluralism; viz., “freedom of thought, within quite wide boundaries, is essentially Protestant, and it is impossible to say—as one can say for the Roman Catholic Church—that this or that is ‘the Protestant position’ at any place and time” (Johnson, 1978, pp. 1364–65). Nonetheless, two features of Martin Luther's perspective remain critical to Protestant understanding: first, an emphasis on the sovereignty of God, and second, God's unmerited grace that enables the Christian to respond in freedom to the concrete requirements of loving one's neighbor. Distinctively Protestant ethical reflection proceeds from seeing Scripture as a foundational authority, but the ways that Scripture functions as an authority vary widely, in keeping with the Protestant pluralism noted above.

However, often missing from discussions of Protestant approaches to issues of religion in the public square are the perspectives of Luther and Calvin concerning the nature of, and relations between, between “law” and “gospel” as theological and ethical “categories.” For Luther, law is that which God demands, the gospel that which God gives. On this reading, law precedes gospel, or, as often formulated, the imperative (law) precedes the indicative (grace). Central to Protestant understanding here is an emphasis on sin as the general condition of a broken relationship between God and man as the result of Adam's Fall (Lazareth, 1986, pp. 360–363). ⁵

Of particular importance for exploring the possibilities of shared public conversation are Protestant interpretations of the norms appropriate for Christian participation in the structures and processes of a fallen world. Luther developed his doctrine of the “two realms” of creation and redemption. In the realm of redemption, “the Redeemer rules all regenerate believers through Christ and the gospel” (Lazareth, 1986, p. 361). In the realm of creation, even after the Fall, God's love remains for all creatures in the “dependable order which furthers human well-being” (Heinecken, 1986, p. 346) [my emphasis]. Although creation remains under the law and not the gospel, “there is good in the world which is not derived from the reconciling act of Calvary but from the fact of Creation” (Heinecken, 1986, p. 346) [my emphasis]. A fortiori that is the case for John Calvin, who often describes creation, even though fallen, as the theater of God's glory: “God's love is manifest, therefore, also in the structures of creation, the lawful order of the world, which makes the world a fit theater for the realization of God's good purpose … There is no profane realm, but the whole creation is God's. The so-called ‘secular,’ too, is holy in a ‘sacred secularity’ and persons may take real delight in the law of God” (Heinecken, 1986, p. 346). The work of Lutheran theologian Gilbert Meilaender exemplifies this strain of thought in Protestant social ethics. In a thoughtful summary, Meilaender observes the following:

This problem—the possibility of continuity between our created humanity and the revealed grace by which God re-creates—is a permanent one within Christian theology. And in some way both continuity and discontinuity must be affirmed. We can see this, for example, in the central event of the gospel, the resurrection of Jesus. On the one hand, the risen Lord displays the marks of the nails in his hands to demonstrate that he is Jesus who was crucified. On the other, the risen Lord is more than a resuscitated corpse; his life is that of the world to come, and his continuity with Jesus of Nazareth can never simply be demonstrated. To require that the Christian message accommodate itself to human understanding allows no place for such death and resurrection of the self. But to ignore the self who is addressed by the message would make the gospel simply news from elsewhere rather than good news that speaks to the needs of sinful creatures … Theology cannot therefore proclaim itself ‘non-Cartesian’ and ignore the ‘vestibule’ of self-understanding, the context within which the message is spoken and of which it must make sense (even while overturning and transforming it). Put in Johannine terms, we may say that when the Word becomes flesh, he comes not to what is alien but to ‘his own.’ (Meilaender, 1991, pp. 26–27)

Thus, from the Reformation onward, the characteristic Protestant emphasis on the freedom of the Christian is constrained by the fundamental distinction drawn between the realms of creation and redemption, and much of the variety of Protestant thought is based on that division in framing the nature and scope of human responsibility. While many Protestant thinkers continue to emphasize the pervasive effects of sin on human epistemological and moral capacities, a number of recent thinkers offer more positive accounts of possibilities for creative engagement with others on the basis of the structures of creation that sustain all human beings, believers and unbelievers alike. In bioethics discussions, this latter more positive emphasis on the continued goodness of God's creation, and the need for responsible stewardship under the rubric of “created co-creation,” provides the possibility for common conversation, and perhaps even moral persuasion (e.g., Peters, 1997). In social ethics more broadly, this emphasis in Lutheran thought is captured by William Lazareth in his remarks about the need for cooperation between the church and the world:

Christians cannot be worldly enough. Scripture admonishes us to live “in” but not “of” the world, and to help others do the same. In our day, especially, worldly involvement has become the hallmark of authentic human existence. To be truly human is to be truly engaged in and for humanity.

It is therefore only through selfless encounter and passionate dialogue—with atheists, agnostics, secularists, Communists [and others]—that intellectual Christians may once again learn to out-think as well as out-bleed the world. For we are God's chosen instruments by whom others might find their maturity in Christ. This means that we are called not only to Christianize heathen, but also to humanize idolators. We proclaim that the Exemplar for true humanity, as well as true divinity, has been revealed in Jesus Christ, the Second Adam who inaugurated a new humanity based on a new testament with God. (Lazareth, 1976, p. 113)

Orthodox Christianity: According to Stanley Harakas, a prominent Orthodox voice during recent decades, especially on bioethics issues, Orthodoxy views itself as one with the “life, method, doctrine, ecclesial organization, history, spirituality, sacramental life and worship, canon law, and ethical teaching [of the] united church of Jesus Christ of the first eight centuries” (Harakas, 1986, p. 166). Its major authority is Revelation in a somewhat broader sense than the meaning of that term as invoked in Roman Catholic or Protestant thought. Orthodoxy emphasizes the “living tradition”—liturgy, canonical Scriptures, the judgments of the first seven ecumenical councils, and the monastic tradition of Eastern spirituality. The Orthodox Church is hierarchical in structure, with an ordained clergy, and with national and ethnic churches organized under patriarchs.

As Harakas observes, the “ethical” approach of Orthodoxy is distinguished from Roman Catholic and Protestant Christianity by its central focus on corporate worship more than “formulations of abstract ethical constructs” (Harakas, 1995, p. 85). Harakas views all “ethical” reflection as proceeding in light of foundational theological doctrines of the Holy Trinity, creation, Christ's incarnation and redemption, and the church. As Trinity, God is a “community of persons in organic relationship” rather than “an abstract impersonal essence.” In his inmost nature, God is transcendent and unknowable, but he sustains His creation through what are called his “divine energies.” Here Orthodoxy is distinctive in its understanding of the divine energies as “grace”—“not a substance or thing imparted to creation, but rather the very presence of God” (Harakas, 1995, p. 85).

Humans are made uniquely in the “image” and “likeness” of God. Image refers to capacities that distinguish humans: intelligence, self-determination, moral perceptivity, creativity, and the capacity for interpersonal relations. “Likeness” refers to “the potential open to such a creature to become God-like” (Harakas, 1978, pp. 643–44). This potential for deification (theosis) has been lost through sin, and has distorted all of creation, but the possibility of deification has been restored through the saving merits of Christ. The church, in the sacraments or “mysteries,” is the locus for “cooperation between the human and divine” (synergy) in the process of theosis (Harakas, 1978, pp. 643–44).

At the same time, Harakas observes that among recent Orthodox discussions one finds certain elements that suggest the possibilities for some substantive agreement among different Christian traditions, and between religious and secular voices, on divisive issues. To be sure, Orthodox discussions often emphasize redemption as their central category, with radical disjunctions between unredeemed and redeemed human existence or, alternatively, they draw primarily upon the mystical and ascetic insights of later Eastern Christian writers. But there is also a recognizably Orthodox approach that emphasizes creation and, in that context, identifies “the continuities … between philosophical understandings … and foundational Christian views.” Here, although the triune God is understood as the source of good, there are “inborn” goods as well; thus other approaches to ethics, in considering such goods, share “in a portion of the truth” (Harakas, 1978, pp. 643–44).

Unlike classically more pessimistic Protestant understandings, this third Orthodox approach recognizes the capacity of even unredeemed human beings to discern and do the good, at least partially. One might, on this basis, identify a certain resonance between Roman Catholic and Orthodox perspectives in their limitedly positive assessments of the presence and exercise of shared human moral capacities, despite the effects of sin. Indeed, one does find in Patristic writings references to what the Fathers call the “natural moral law.” That term refers to basic norms that are shared across societies, with the Second Table of the Decalogue their paradigmatic expression (Harakas, 1986, p. 169). The natural moral law, as interpreted by this strain of Orthodox thought, provides, at least in principle, a universal basis of conscience, despite the presence of sin. Moreover, from the “paradoxical relationship between God and the world, one that is both continuous and discontinuous,” there emerges a “relative independence and autonomy” to the world that allows for its use and development (Harakas, 1986, p. 169). At the same time, the Orthodox understanding of human persons as made in the image and likeness of God embodies a dynamism, a movement toward theosis, which frames Orthodox understanding of human nature in more open-ended than static terms. In this respect, Orthodox thought may be closer to recent Protestant interpretations of humans as “co-creators” (Peters, 1997) than to traditional, fairly static, Roman Catholic depictions of natural law and the human nature on which it is based.

III. ENGELHARDT'S SECTARIAN VISION

After that brief overview meant to identify elements within the Christian traditions that support the effort at common conversation with others, I turn now to H. Tristram Engelhardt's forcefully argued rejection of Roman Catholic natural-law based understandings and Harakas's more inclusive reading of Orthodoxy. Although Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christian teaching proscribe direct abortion as gravely immoral in all circumstances (and thus appear to be allies in contrast to far more permissive understandings in other religious and secular discussions), Engelhardt eschews that shared substantive proscription because the two traditions frame their conclusions in distinctive ways. According to Engelhardt, recent Roman Catholic discussions of abortion reduce moral-theological considerations to moral-philosophical considerations. In contrast to both Thomas's account of natural law reasoning and more recent papal affirmations of the possibility of shared rational agreement between Christians and other persons “of good will,” Engelhardt rejects all efforts to seek broad areas of even limited moral agreement with others on divisive issues. Engelhardt's account, in contrast to Roman Catholic moral method but in seeming agreement with traditional Protestant judgments, emphasizes the fundamental misdirection of both moral reason and the human will as a result of the Fall. In a characteristic passage, Engelhardt observes that

[t]he robust connection between contemporary Roman Catholic morality and secular philosophical reflection is grounded in an epistemology that inadequately appreciates the centrality of grace for rightly-directed moral knowledge. It thus fails sufficiently to comprehend how all moral reasoning requires reasoning from initial moral premises and facts, as well as how a passion-distorted heart will see and appreciate basic human goods, their ordering, and the human condition in misdirected fashion. It will assess facts and moral issues wrongly. An uncritical embrace of rationality, and in particular a failure to appreciate how fallen reason sees wrongly, will bind rational reflection to a crucially distorted point of departure. (Engelhardt, 2004, p. 97, note 5)

By way of possible rejoinder, how should one fairly assess Roman Catholic arguments for the possibilities of natural reason to reach appropriate judgments on moral questions? Here, two matters are especially important. First, while Engelhardt accuses Catholic thought of failing to appreciate sin's effects on natural-law reasoning, Thomas himself, and the recent papal tradition, make clear the central need of the church and its teaching authority to clarify what is, in principle but often not in practice available to the lights of natural reason. That emphasis on the function of Divine Revelation as a necessary corrective to human capacities after the Fall is, though different in degree, an acknowledgement of the effects of sin on human moral discernment and capacities.

But second, and more crucially, Roman Catholic thought discusses the species and realities of grace in more capacious terms than does Engelhardt. The fundamental differences between Engelhardt's perspective and Catholic understanding here reflect their contrasting assessments of the way that grace remains operative in the created order. Thomas's account of the differences between the moral (especially cardinal) virtues and the theological virtues is often misread as an affirmation of human moral capacities “untouched” by grace. Yet that is an interpretation expressly at odds with Thomas's own account. Granted, according to Thomas, the moral virtues can be “acquired,” while the theological virtues are “infused”; but that is not, despite regular misinterpretation, a denial by Aquinas that moral growth and development of the natural virtues are somehow independent of God's continuing grace in created nature, including human nature. Rather, it is a broader and more positive appraisal of the various species of grace that remain in nature and human nature, despite the Fall.

In other words, Engelhardt's approach focuses almost exclusively on the realm of redemption rather than that of creation, an account that puts him in alliance (however uneasily) with a particularly Lutheran strain of traditional Protestant Christianity. And yet, perhaps ironically, given his own regular pledges to the merits of non-ecumenism, Engelhardt also shares material affinities with Calvinist understandings of law and grace, whereby once one receives the merits of Christ's saving acts, the yoke of the law is transformed into a guide to righteousness. For both Engelhardt and Luther, reason is a “whore” when it extends itself inappropriately into matters of faith. For both Engelhardt and Calvin, reason transformed by grace can, in the context of the Christian worshipping community, order one toward holiness.

However, Engelhardt's discounting of reason as a means to civil and political agreement also makes him decidedly un-Lutheran in his appraisal of the appropriate means available for maintaining the civil order. Luther, unlike Engelhardt, saw reason as a harlot when brought to matters of faith, but an appropriate, even godly, aid in terms of maintaining civil security and peace (Lazareth, 1976). In this regard, traditional Protestant thought remains closer to Roman Catholic notions of the common good as a realizable goal than Engelhardt's sectarianism allows.

Only in light of Engelhardt's own failure to sustain a doctrine of creation can he conclude, as he regularly does, that outside of his particular community, all efforts to offer reasoned arguments are, at their core, misguided. Engelhardt's claim cannot be that the material agreement between his own Orthodox perspective and the denunciations of abortion voiced by some non-Orthodox Christians differ materially in their conclusions; indeed, in this shared opposition to abortion, they emerge as religious allies vis-à-vis regnant secular perspectives on abortion. Yet Engelhardt acknowledges no broader meaning to such alliances, because the Christian convictions underlying seemingly shared conclusions are associated with different methodological commitments. From his vantage, only traditional Christianity, with its liturgical emphasis, allows the evil of abortion to be framed appropriately:

To address questions such as how early one may baptize and how late one may give anointing to the sick is to confront the question in Christian terms as to when a person comes into existence, as well as when death occurs. So, too, one must ask which actions, such as abortion, harm our ability to come into communion with God, a spiritual fact of the matter that carries considerable weight, whether or not the embryo is ensouled and despite a high natural loss of embryos. (Engelhardt, 2004, p. 85)

Nonetheless, Engelhardt sometimes appears to accept a limited general role for philosophizing across communities of discourse, both secular and religious, despite the usual conceits (in both senses) of postmodern theory. As he observes,

… many describe the status of the early embryo imprecisely by asking when human life begins or whether the embryo is a human being. No one seriously denies that the human zygote is human life. The zygote is not dead. It is also not simian, porcine, or canine. It is human diploid life. (Engelhardt, 2004, p. 84)

This sort of philosophical clarity, though limited, is a value that Engelhardt affirms, apparently even among non-Orthodox observers who exercise such minimal philosophizing as a natural power.

What I suggest, then, is that the Roman Catholic approach emerges as one different in (admittedly significant) degree rather than in kind from the quite limited role Engelhardt allows general philosophical reasoning, for example, about the above aspects of early forms of “human” life. Roman Catholic thought affirms a far greater domain appropriate to such philosophical clarity, primarily because it finds a meaningful context for shared moral reflection by offering a more robust doctrine of creation as a theological category. God's grace in creation remains a source of general revelation in principle available to humans in their reasoning about natural (in contrast to supernatural) ends.

IV. ENGELHARDT VERSUS HARAKAS CONCERNING ORTHODOX RESOURCES

I suggest that the similarities and differences between Engelhardt's account and that provided by Stanley Harakas are worth developing in brief compass here, precisely because the latter's discussion, as outlined above, indicates significantly greater possibilities for engagement between the Orthodox Church and “the world.” ⁶ In contrast to Engelhardt's account, Harakas adopts a more modest and less judgmental tone. First, a word about their apparent similarities. I assume that Engelhardt would agree with Harakas's characterization of Orthodoxy as deeply countercultural:

Contrary to the secularism dominant in the modern world, Eastern Orthodoxy has a sacramental perspective that looks for the transfiguration of life through its liturgical and spiritual incorporation into the life of the Kingdom, while affirming its created reality. (Harakas, 1999, p. 85)

I assume a second area of general agreement between them; viz.,

In sharp distinction from the rampant individualism of the contemporary mind set, in Orthodoxy, both theological and ethnic considerations play important roles in affirming, rather, the corporate reality of human existence and peoplehood. (Harakas, 1999, p. 86)

But the two emerge in stark contrast concerning the language of social justice as a possible rubric for cooperation with nonecclesial others (“moral strangers,” in Engelhardt's regular nomenclature). Engelhardt sharply rejects that idea as an invitation to betray the faith:

If one appeals to concerns for social justice in a way that can claim a place in the public forum of a secular society, then one will support post-Christian forms of social justice. If one appeals to concerns for social justice in a way that is true to one's religious commitments, then one's appeals will be marginalized as sectarian. The second choice appears morally unavoidable. It is unjust for Christians to call for social justice in secular terms when, given the character of the society, social justice will take on a character in opposition to Christian commitments. (Engelhardt, 2000, p. 297)

In contrast to Engelhardt's dismissal of the language of social justice, Harakas details the possibilities of a more constructive social ethic on Orthodox grounds that opens possibilities for cooperation with both non-Orthodox Christians and the secular world:

… the social teachings of the Fathers should continue to shape the social teaching of the Church today. Among these are the affirmation of the basic equality of all human beings; the doctrine of the right of private ownership; the principle that the material goods are destined by God for the use of all human beings to satisfy their basic needs; the insistence on the necessity of conversion of heart and detachment from earthly possessions; the inculcation of the duty of almsgiving not only out of charity but also of justice [my emphasis]; the doctrine of the identity of Christ with the poor. These elements are the perennial heritage that the Church should cherish and preserve in presenting its message of solidarity and hope to the world of today. (Harakas, 1999, p. 87)

At the same time, Harakas acknowledges that his own interpretation of Orthodoxy is challenged by other recent Orthodox perspectives, three of which he traces. The first, exemplified by Michael Azkoul, appears quite similar to Engelhardt's position and is classically sectarian in Troeltsch's sense. According to Azkoul, the church and the world are “two different cities, based on different faiths … and irreconcilable aims [that] produced opposite kinds of men” (Azkoul, 1979, p. 86, quoted in Harakas, 1999, p. 92). A second approach, found in the writings of Vigen Guroian, is less antagonistic in its language about the nonecclesial world but emphasizes the need for the church's critique and witness. In that vein, Guroian specifically faults the church for recent centuries of what he calls an Orthodox version of neo-Constantinianism, which amounts to “the surrender of [Orthodox] evangelical witness … compounded by a long history of compromise and accommodation” (Guroian, 1987, p. 148, quoted in Harakas, 1999, p. 95). Harakas also discusses a third approach, one close to his own perspective, which is set forth by Metropolitan George Khodre. Khodre, while acknowledging the countercultural and prophetically critical aspects of Orthodoxy, offers a richer vision of “a mutual relationship between worldly culture and faith, and ethically speaking, a call to transfigure culture, as well as to learn from it” (Harakas, 1999, p. 96). Consequently, there are major differences in implications and interpretation between Metropolitan Khodre's perspective and the Azkoul-Engelhardt sectarian emphasis. Harakas captures the differences in this way:

First, both the Church and the world share in evil. It is wrong for the Church to compare its “eschatological purity” with the sinfulness of the world. Both Church and world move together toward renewal. God works in both, fulfilling His will. Consequently the Christian cannot be divorced from life in the world. The Christian disciple must live a life which is in communion with God through and in the Church, but the disciple cannot realize that communion with God without being in communion with his or her own generation, and with its life, problems, and culture. (Harakas, 1999, p. 97)

In Metropolitan Khodre's own words,

The Church is made eschatologically present before God, not before the world … [As such] it is that to which humanity aspires, the icon of that which humanity is called to become, and by this very fact, like the icon, it is made of this same stock of humanity through a light that comes from above [my emphasis]. (Khodre, 1969, p. 37, quoted in Harakas, 1999, p. 98)

Therefore,

If we can establish the fact that there are no two spheres of spiritual existence from the theological as well as the ethical point of view, we can point to the fact that the activity of Christians goes on at the same time both within the sanctuary and without it. (Khodre, 1969, p. 47, quoted in Harakas, p. 98)

While Engelhardt pledges allegiance to the first of the above emphases, Harakas seeks to draw on the strengths of all three perspectives by outlining an integrative approach that can be in the world yet not of it, that can engage the world from a stance of prophetic critique even as it affirms the possibilities for both persuasion and conversion. Thus Harakas says,

A stance that is able to condemn what is evil and to separate from it, to courageously and prophetically speak to a fallen and distorted world seeking its correction, repentance, and reform, but also to affirm its most wholesome values [my emphasis], seems to reflect a good portion of the patristic tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy, while standing in solidarity with those who suffer the consequences of the evil in the world. (Harakas, 1999, p. 101)

How, then, should a non-Orthodox Christian understand these significant differences between Engelhardt's and Harakas's interpretations of their own tradition? In light of my discussion in Part II above, it appears that Harakas's justification of engagement with the world, and his acknowledgement of the partial though incomplete goods to be found in the extra-ecclesial world, proceed from his reliance on a richer doctrine of creation than Engelhardt's more restrictive account. Harakas emphasizes that doctrine in explicitly Trinitarian terms:

… if “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son” (John 3:16) for its salvation, it follows that the model of communion in the Holy Trinity which is to be realized in the Church, is also, after a fashion, a model for the world as a whole, fallen and distorted as it may be. The conclusion is that human community, in a limited, distorted, incomplete, and imperfect way, needs to reflect some of the inter-personal, intimate and yet, at the same time, the ordered and patterned structure of the inner life of the Holy Trinity. Otherwise it cannot be community, and in failing that, it makes impossible the realization of even elemental human existence.

Thus, even non-ecclesial communities participate in some measure in the life of the Trinity. For failing that, the only consequence can be dissolution and destruction. In its most simple form, this is reflected in the conformity or not of a given community to the most elemental, yet essential standard of community living, the Decalogue. For the Greek Fathers, the Decalogue is an elemental, essential ordering of human society. It is not an externally imposed law, but a description in the creation itself of what holds any given society or community together, giving it the coherence and structure necessary for it to exist. It is an elemental, basic, low-level ethic for community living [my emphases]. (Harakas, 1999, p. 129)

V. THE ISSUE OF ABORTION

In the pages of this journal, Engelhardt has found regular occasion to make the case for what (to my mind) can only be described as fideism, in contrast to alternative theological perspectives that incorporate discursive methods in procedures of discernment within the church and in conversation with the world beyond the church. However, the overview in Part II of Catholic natural law, Protestant discussion of the realm of creation, and Harakas's account of the “general moral law” suggests a range of Christian resources available to religious individuals and communities to enter into common, though limited, conversation with other voices, both religious and secular. To acknowledge that such a conversation will remain, at most, partial, is not to deny the plausibility of general agreement on certain shared concepts and perspectives. Diverse understandings of commonly invoked terms do not, in themselves, mean that nothing is available for shared insight and reflection. The fact that lexicography describes a variety of meanings for common terms undercuts neither the value of using a dictionary, nor the possibilities of amplifying and nuancing one's own favored definitions. Any philosophical or theological effort at “conceptual cartography” presumes at least that much. Other perspectives can be identified, understood, and appreciated; they may also increase the possibilities for greater clarity in addressing publicly divisive issues across different communities of practice and discourse.

I began by noting that there are good religious reasons for Christians to embrace toleration as a political virtue. There are also good religious reasons for Christians to choose with care the labels they adopt against “enemies” in the “culture wars” with care. The latter flow from an awareness of how far we are from Christ's own perfection, and how likely our own righteous indignation in the use of labels will be prompted by very mixed motives, some decidedly un-Christian in spirit and tone.

Moreover, efforts to find a shared basis for common conversation emerge as theologically appropriate. To insist that one's own position is based on noetic rather than discursive knowledge need not gainsay the potential value of efforts to navigate differences on the basis of a “mid-level” discourse. The Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox resources I reviewed above suggest the plausibility of such efforts. To acknowledge a potential for such limited understandings, to describe them as less than “contentful,” does not thereby make them contentless. Indeed, there may be a performative irony in denying the possibility of discursive reasoning on divisive issues in the public square. For example, that denial would appear to make any public description of abortion as “murder,” strictly speaking, meaningless. One knows the truth without having to speak it; one judges without having to justify. But the general dictionary definition of murder as unjustified killing requires such discursiveness. To be sure, abortion may be judged to be gravely immoral as a direct conclusion of noetic intuition or as a conclusion of discursive moral reasoning. But a shared conclusion on mutually supporting grounds need not be viewed as a weakness, especially within a pluralistic context committed to tolerance as a political requirement. Those who would restrict the domain of grace to the church rather than the world, or the efficacy of grace to the order of redemption but not of continuing creation, foreclose possibilities for a variety of Christian approaches and perspectives that may lead to changes of heart and of mind for different individuals in different ways.

Little of the foregoing is dispositive concerning the appropriate relations between Christian perspectives and secular discussions, or the appropriate sorts of influence that Christians should seek to exercise in the public square. Interdenominational Christian differences on the issue of abortion are obvious to any observer. Yet despite the commitment to non-ecumenism that characterizes this journal, there are core elements of broadly Christian judgments about the morality of abortion that stand in broad contrast to general secular discussion. Two brief generalizations are worth offering here, if only impressionistically, First, despite the highly charged nature of the political discussion of abortion, it is inaccurate to try to capture the moral arguments offered by religious communities in terms of the simplistic labels invoked by secularists. While only some religious positions, including Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, proscribe direct abortion as a grave moral evil in all circumstances, it is misleading to characterize less “conservative” religious voices as thereby “pro-choice” in the secular sense of that phrase. Indeed, what one finds, even among moderate Protestant Christians, are considerations that significantly constrain the moral justification of abortion. Even traditions that emphasize the personal freedom of the Christian do not equate that capacity with the simple act of “choice.” Thus, for example, recent Lutheran statements limit the “sound reasons” for a moral choice of abortion to circumstances of clear threat to the pregnant woman's life, “involuntary or nonvoluntary intercourse,” and severe fetal abnormality (Nelson, 1993, p. 168). A recent widely cited Reformed discussion limits morally justified abortions to “what are often called the ‘hard cases,’ which probably amount to only a small percentage of abortions actually performed” (Vaux, 1991, p. 206). Thus, while acknowledging genuine differences among Christian denominations, especially concerning the relations between moral judgments and pluralistic policy choices, their generally shared conclusion about the morality of abortion stands in significant contrast with secular perspectives: abortion, if not morally proscribed in all circumstances as a tragic choice that requires theological/moral justification within a fairly narrow range of considerations.

Contrast that broadly Christian evaluation with two characteristically secular evaluations of the moral status of abortion:

The examination of the ontological status of the fetus, then, has led to … the recognition of two categories of human life: biological and personal. In short, the ontological status of the fetus is found to be nonpersonal, or merely biological.

The conclusion is that one can prosecute the establishment of liberal abortion laws … on the prima facie ground of a woman's right to control her body. The distinction between human biological and personal life … means not compelling a woman to have an unwanted pregnancy … (Engelhardt, 1974, 233–34)

Thus, since the fact that even a fully developed fetus is not personlike enough to have any significant right to life on the basis of its personlikeness shows that no legal restrictions upon the stage of pregnancy in which an abortion may be performed can be justified on the grounds that we should protect the rights of the older fetus; and since there is no other apparent justification for such restrictions, we may conclude that they are entirely unjustified. Whether or not it would be indecent (whatever that means) for a woman in her seventh month to obtain an abortion just to avoid having to postpone a trip to Europe, it would not, in itself, be immoral, and therefore it ought to be permitted. (Warren, 1996)

In the interest, then, not of ecumenism but of accuracy, it is important to acknowledge broad areas of agreement among the Christian churches on the moral status of abortion that stand in marked contrast to liberal secular discussions, despite differences among denominations in moral methods and theological emphases. At the same time, one must proceed with caution. Differences in moral and theological understanding do not appear to correlate directly with reported abortion rates among various Christian groups. For example, in the United States, Roman Catholic women are 33 percent more likely than Protestant women to have abortions (Henshaw and Kosk, 1996). As a second example, statistics from Greece are equally troubling. That country, despite its overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian majority, reports the highest abortion rate among European nations (Macedonia Press Agency, 2007). Such discrepancies between ecclesial teaching and empirical practice among believers, though tragic, may not be that surprising; perhaps they simply confirm the prevalence of sin as a category broader than any given ecclesial context. Still, that shared disjunction between official teaching and lived practice makes it problematic to offer unambiguous evidence about the truth of one theological or moral approach as reflected through the prism of abortion. On such disappointingly shared grounds, the broader comparison of traditions will remain moot. Finally, and more generally, for any of the Christian traditions under review there seems little merit in the notion that the options of reasoned persuasion, prophetic witness, or cooperation with one's “secular” fellows need to be viewed as mutually exclusive. Instead, in each of the traditions I have discussed, one finds support and justification for any or all such efforts as appropriate implications of Christian commitment. ⁷

Notes

1. Tolerance, however, is classically interpreted in two quite different versions, associated respectively with the arguments of John Locke and John Stuart Mill. For Locke, tolerance is a necessary requirement of political life in order to prevent the violation of rights of individuals and communities; in effect, tolerance is the necessary lubricant of political accommodation of different worldviews and understandings of the good, but essentially a “negative” virtue protective of the possibility of civil society. Alternatively, John Stuart Mill celebrated tolerance in quite positive terms. In the judgment of one commentator, for Mill, “Tolerance now becomes the virtue of open-minded individuals who are willing to suspend judgment and belief, in order to further pluralistic, dialogical communities” (Khushf, 1994, p. 172). On Mill's reading, diverse opinions are welcome, in effect “the more the merrier,” because ever greater approximations of truth, both political and moral, result from the free exchange of ideas and arguments offered from different individuals and communities.

2. At the same time, though too often underemphasized in Catholic moral theology, special revelation (Scripture and Church tradition) functions crucially in two respects: first, to illuminate and empower human beings to know and to realize their supernatural ends (beatitudo, or final union with God) and to bring greater clarity to the conclusions of “natural” moral knowledge that, although in principle available to moral reason, may be distorted by sin.

3. Summa Theologica I–II, q. 94, art. 2: “There is an order of precepts of natural law corresponding to the order of natural inclinations. First, there is an inclination in man towards the good corresponding to what he has in common with all individual beings, the desire to continue in existence in accordance with their nature. In accordance with this inclination, those matters which conserve man's life or are contrary to it are governed by natural law. Secondly, there is in man an inclination to some more specific objects in accordance with the nature which he has in common with other animals. According to this, those matters are said to be of natural law ‘which nature has taught all animals,’ such as the union of male and female, the bringing up of children, and the like. Thirdly, there is in man an inclination to do good according to the nature of reason which is peculiar to him. He has a natural inclination to know the truth about God and to live in society. Accordingly, those matters which concern this inclination are matter for natural law, such as that a man avoid ignorance, that he not offend others with whom he should have converse, and other matters relating to this.”

4. David Kelly: “… personalism refers to that modality of application of theological principles whereby an emphasis is placed on the entire personal complexus of the act in its human dimensions, circumstances, and consequences … personalism does not limit its scope to the physical or biological qualities of the action, but rather extends its purview to psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions” (Kelly, 1979, p. 419; quoted in Mackler, 2003, p. 40).

5. In this context, for Luther, the law has only two functions: an “elenctic” or judging function, which offers a mirror to our depravity in failing to heed God's command; and a civil use, as a dike against the effects of sin through what Luther called the “orders of nature,” including the function of government in maintaining public order. For John Calvin, law also has a third or spiritual use, whereby the law can school believers in the path of sanctification and spur them to holiness.

6. Absent a magisterium on the Orthodox side, alternative interpretations of that tradition by respected Orthodox authorities should be, if not welcomed by this journal, at least considered seriously (though whether in an ecumenical or non-ecumenical spirit will, I suppose, depend on one's predetermined commitments).

7. Much depends here on a further matter; viz., need the bleak vision of incommensurability between various communities of discourse be accepted, despite the currency of postmodernism? Or are there indeed theological resources in Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christianity that suggest possibilities for meaningful though limited cooperation between the church and secular society? Here I am struck by a peculiar feature of moral theory (and moral theorists) seldom acknowledged. If, as recent theories of knowledge suggest, there are no uncontextualized facts, there are, then, no univocally objective accounts of moral experience. As a result, apparent “descriptions” of the nature and scope of moral pluralism combine elements of “data gathering” and of framing. I have long noticed how much one's respective commitments—either to radical incommensurability among communities of discourse or to the possibilities for agreement—depends on what one is predisposed to look for. Those seeking endless and irresolvable differences will be predisposed to find them. Those seeking degrees of commonality will be equally predisposed to find them. While that may seem an ad hominem point (depending on which allegiance one pledges), it is, I think, an obvious implication of recent turns in theories of knowledge, and of human psychology more broadly.

John Paul II. (1993). ‘Veritatis Splendor,’ Origins, 23 (October 14).