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Balthasar’s experimental faith-ethic: The Nine Propositions in the aftermath of Vatican II Christopher Orton PhD Divinity The University of Edinburgh 2016 ABSTRACT This thesis locates, introduces and interprets Hans Urs von Balthasar’s short text Nine Propositions on Christian Ethics (1974). The text is commended to the contemporary reader as a substantial Catholic contribution to the discipline of Christian ethics or moral theology. It is particularly interesting in its theological treatment of biblical and moral law. The first chapter identifies some of the factors pressing on the discipline of Catholic moral theology in the decade before Balthasar’s text. First, the 1960s saw the popular rejection by clergy and laity of the neo-Scholastic manuals of moral theology. Second, Vatican II instructed theologians to integrate moral and ascetical theology and endorsed the emerging ‘Christological shift’ in moral theology. Third, Paul VI rejected the official report of the Pontifical Commission on Population, Family and Birth (1966) in his 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae . This latter controversy disrupted attempts by moral theologians to reach a consensus in their interpretation of the council. The chapter also provides an interpretation of the teaching of the council on moral theology grounded in detailed exegesis of key conciliar texts. It concludes by discussing Josef Fuchs’ influential interpretation of the council which attempts to reconcile the Christological shift in moral theology with natural law. Fuchs’ work remains an influential interpretation of the council for English language moral theologians. The second chapter provides the fullest English language account of the formation and early years of the International Theological Commission (ITC). The ITC entered into the debate regarding the future of Catholic moral theology from its first meeting in 1969, culminating in a discussion of moral theology in 1974 for which Balthasar prepared his Nine Propositions . From 1972 it is clear that Balthasar diverged from the majority view of the ITC regarding the future direction of postconciliar moral theology and tabled the Nine Propositions at the 1974 assembly in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the commission to take a different approach. The chapter also offers a detailed interpretation of Hegel’s eighteenth century text The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate (SCF) in order to cast light on the structure of Balthasar’s argument in the Nine Propositions , including his treatment of law in all its forms. The final two chapters offer a detailed interpretation of the Nine Propositions , Balthasar’s extended experiment in faith-ethics. These chapters explain the unfamiliar format of the text and detail Balthasar’s attempt to fulfil the council’s instruction that moral theology should be perfected. They also develop the interpretive insights into Balthasar’s argument generated by our close study of Hegel’s SCF. Balthasar’s proposal clearly conforms to the council’s desire that the Mystery of Christ be placed at the centre of the discipline. His proposal also gives a theological account of the fulfilment of Old Testament law in the life of Christ. This account challenges any absolutisation of the moral law in contemporary Christian ethics and adds significance to Balthasar’s treatment of the divine gift of personhood and of individual missions. The thesis concludes by commending Balthasar for his attempt to reconcile the various schools in postconciliar Catholic moral theology. 3 CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 6 Chapter 1: Moral theology before the Nine Propositions .................................................... 9 i. The neo-Scholastic moral manuals and the “Christological shift” .............................. 9 ii. Vatican II (1962-1965) .............................................................................................. 14 a. Lumen Gentium (LG) ....................................................................................... 15 b. Optatam totius (OT)......................................................................................... 20 c. Gaudium et spes (GS) ...................................................................................... 24 iii. Fuchs’ ethical experiment: the Mystery of Christ and the natural law ...................... 37 Chapter 2: The occasion and purpose of the Nine Propositions ........................................ 52 i. The International Theological Commission (1969-1972) .......................................... 53 ii. Balthasar’s ethical experiment: the Mystery of Christ as a criterion ......................... 68 iii. Balthasar’s disagreement with the ‘Christian moral knowledge’ research programme (1972-1974) ............................................................................................ 85 Chapter 3: Reading the Nine Propositions : Preliminary Note and Section I ................. 101 i. Balthasar’s “Preliminary Note” ............................................................................... 102 ii. Section I: The fulfilment of ethical life in Christ (propositions 1-4) ........................ 126 1: Christ as the concrete norm ........................................................................... 127 2: The universality of the concrete norm ........................................................... 134 3: The Christian meaning of the “golden rule” .................................................. 137 4: Sin .................................................................................................................. 138 Chapter 4: Reading the Nine Propositions : Sections II and III ...................................... 140 i. Section II: Old Testament elements of the synthesis to come (propositions 5-6) ..... 141 5: The promise (Abraham) ................................................................................. 146 6: The law .......................................................................................................... 150 ii. Section III: Fragments of extrabiblical ethics (propositions 7-9) ............................ 156 7: Conscience ..................................................................................................... 160 8: The pre-biblical natural order ........................................................................ 171 9: Post-Christian anthropological ethics ............................................................ 174 Conclusion: Balthasar’s proposal for postconciliar moral theology .............................. 176 Appendix: The textual history of the Nine Propositions (1974) ...................................... 178 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 180 4 “Catholic moral theology must be above all Christocentric.” Bernhard Häring, Road to Relevance (New York: Alba, 1970), p.22, translating Häring, Moralverkündigung nach dem Konzil (Bergen-Enkheim: Kaffke, 1966). 5 Introduction Balthasar submitted the Nine Propositions on Christian Ethics for discussion at the 1974 assembly of the Catholic International Theological Commission (ITC). This commission was Balthasar’s first high profile appointment as a theologian and he played an active role from its formation in 1969. The commission did not adopt the Nine Propositions officially in 1974, but allowed it to be published under Balthasar’s name on a ‘semi-official’ basis for wider study. 1 The few reviewers of the text have been critical and it has been largely ignored by English language moral theologians.2 This even extends to the main contemporary proponent of Balthasar’s ethical thought, Christopher Steck, who excludes the Nine Propositions from his study on the basis that it does not make prominent use of Balthasar’s concept of attunement. 3 This thesis revises previous assessments of the Nine Propositions by showing that Balthasar’s text is a deliberate and sophisticated intervention into the debate concerning the future of postconciliar Catholic moral theology. The text was composed following a period of considerable instability within the discipline – epitomised by the rejection of the official report of the Pontifical Commission on Population, Family and Birth (1966) by Paul VI in his 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae – and offers an impressive synthesis of Balthasar’s broader theological concerns with the preconciliar Christological shift in moral theology and the various instructions regarding moral theology in the texts of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II).