From
Living Theology in
the Metropolitan Chicago Synod
Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America
Volume 6, Number 2
Summer 2001
The Christian Moral Life: Roman Catholic and Lutheran Perspectives
Thomas A. Nairn
Comparing our two moral traditions is probably a
dangerous undertaking for a Roman Catholic (or for a Lutheran, for that
matter). I shall therefore begin with words from a mentor, James Gustafson. In
his important work, Protestant and Roman
Catholic Ethics: Prospects for Roman Rapprochement, he suggests that both
traditions share a common question, “namely, how can the Christian community
and its members make moral decisions and moral judgments which are both
responsive and responsible” (p. 33). In light of this shared question, he
continues, “Protestant and Roman Catholic theologians are learning from each
other.” In the past thirty-five years
since the Roman Catholic church’s Second Vatican Council the mutual learning
has been amazing, culminating in 1999 with the signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.
Yet it still seems that Lutherans and Roman Catholics have diverse understandings both about how and why one lives one's life as a Christian and about what the church ought to say regarding moral issues. Many Lutherans might think that Roman Catholics are too dependent upon precise rules binding their behavior in areas such as divorce, contraception, abortion, or in vitro fertilization. They see Catholics asking some authority, whether that is pastor, bishop, or pope, either for permission to do something or for a “dispensation” not to do something. On the other hand, some Catholics might think that in the Lutheran church everyone makes up their own rules as they go along. Lutheran appeals to faith and biblical authority do not seem comforting at all. In view of both apparent rapprochement and yet deeply felt differences, one may very well ask: Do Lutherans and Roman Catholics look upon ethics at all in similar ways? And if there are differences, what accounts for them?
The
easy answer is that there is probably more that unites Lutheran and Roman
Catholic understandings of the moral life than what divides them. This should
not be a surprise since both communions depend upon a common scripture and, at
least prior to the sixteenth century, shared a common history. Yet the last
four hundred years have also had an effect on the way Lutherans and Catholics
concretely live their moral lives. Given the complexity within and between the
churches, it might be helpful to begin not by explaining where Lutherans and
Roman Catholics stand on the concrete issues facing the churches but rather by
asking about the reasons both churches give for being moral.
Roman Catholic Moral Theology
Roman
Catholics understand moral theology as the study of the implications of faith
for the way people live – both for the sorts of persons we become (virtue) and
for the actions we ought (or ought not) to perform. Furthermore, Catholics see
such actions as affecting their union with God, either by placing them in a
state of sin, thereby turning one’s heart away from God, or by enhancing the
state of grace by virtuous living, thereby uniting them even more closely to
Christ in active love. Thus Roman Catholics consider their moral actions as
having religious significance,
affecting their relationship with God. Catholics do not see this as
“justification by works.” Rather, as
the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification states, “according to
Catholic understanding, good works, made possible by grace and the working of
the Holy Spirit, contribute to growth in grace, so that the righteousness that
comes from God is preserved and communion with Christ deepened” (par 38).
The
Roman Catholic church often appeals to natural
law as the basis of its teaching. Such teaching is not based on laws of
nature as a contemporary biologist or physicist would understand them. Rather,
natural law is concerned with the nature and destiny of the human person and
what sorts of actions are consistent (or inconstant) with human nature.
Especially in the past 400 years, Roman Catholic moral theology has grounded
its moral arguments in this natural law tradition rather than in the authority
of Scripture. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to claim that there is no
scriptural basis for Roman Catholic moral theology (see, for example, Porter,
124-146). Furthermore, inspired by the Second Vatican Council, Catholic
moralists have attempted to return to a more self-consciously biblical articulation
of the moral life.
The leaders of the Roman Catholic church, that is the pope and bishops, understand that part of their duty as teachers is to offer official moral guidance to the members of the church. The Roman Catholic church describes this duty as part of the church’s “magisterium” or authentic teaching office. Members of the church are to accept all such teaching with deep respect. Certain moral issues are considered so central to the church’s identity and mission that the pope and bishops have stated that Catholics may not adopt a contrary position.
The
Roman Catholic church has a particular, centuries-old way of communicating
official teaching called the “encyclical.”
Such documents are written by the pope and are among the most
authoritative in Catholicism. They often (though not always) deal with social
justice or other ethical issues. Other writings of the pope, while not as
authoritative are still important for Catholics in forming their consciences.
National
and regional conferences of bishops also issue pastoral statements for
Catholics living in their jurisdictions. In the United States, for example, the
bishops’ letters, The Challenge of Peace
and Economic Justice for All, have
been read widely, even by those who are not Catholics. While consultation with
others, both inside and outside the Roman Catholic church, occasionally occurs
(as in both pastoral letters mentioned above), such consultation is not
necessary.
Roman
Catholics hold the tradition of a teaching office of the church on moral
matters in tension with an equally strong tradition regarding the dignity and
inviolability of a person’s conscience. Catholics understand conscience as
relating to the moral judgments one must make here and now. The Second Vatican
Council described this conscience as a person’s “most secret core and
sanctuary” where one “is alone with God whose voice echoes in the person's
depths” (Pastoral Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World, 16). Conscience attends to the values we are
committed to and by means of them judges what we must do. Although Catholics
acknowledge that there can be tensions between the activity of the individual
conscience and the church’s ministry of authentic teaching and moral guidance,
they do not see these as contradictory. According to the Catholic church, no
external authority can replace the functioning of conscience, but no conscience
can be properly formed without the help of the church’s teaching authority.
Lutheran Ethics
Lutherans
also believe that ethics is the study of the implications of faith for the way
Christians live, but this is not understood in quite the same way as within the
Catholic church. If a Catholic, for example, were to ask a Lutheran, “what does
ethics mean to you?” the Lutheran might respond using a vocabulary of serving
God within one’s station in life or through one’s “vocation.” This answer
exhibits a different religious context of ethics. Faith in Christ frees people
from their own striving for salvation, and in doing so not only relates them to
Christ, whose grace is the source of salvation, but also enables them to
discern the deeper meaning of the structures involved in daily living. These
life structures – family, ministry, and secular government – are stations
ordained by God. Lutheran ethics emphasizes that it is in these concrete
stations that God wants people to live responsible lives. It is therefore not
moral actions, understood as good works that are religiously significant but
rather justification by grace through faith in Christ that rectifies the
relation between the person and God. The moral life is the result of this
relationship rather than its source. Luther believed that this conviction was
central to biblical theology. Consequently, Scripture and not natural law ought
to be seen as the primary authority for moral judgments. In fact, Gustafson suggests that the major
difference between Roman Catholic and Protestant ethics historically “has been
the place of Scripture in ethical thought” (p. 29).
As
there is a tension inherent in the Roman Catholic understanding of the moral
life, there is also a tension in Lutheran ethics, but it has a different cause.
Lutherans believe that the Christian lives in two realities at the same time,
secular life, governed by God by means of the law, and Christian life, governed
by God by means of the gospel. Each reality is under the governance of God but
in sharply different ways. God’s aim in both realities is the same—overcoming
evil and recalling creation to God. This tension is present both within the
individual believer and in the church community. The Holy Spirit is alive and
active within all Christians and calls them to transform their worldly callings
into Christian vocation. The church, too, lives in this tension. It must
proclaim the gospel in addressing society but must also see itself as part of
sinful creation in need of healing.
As
the social statement The Church and
Society: A Lutheran Perspective, states: “The gospel does not take the church
out of the world but instead calls it to affirm and to enter more deeply into
the world . . .” But, “the gospel does not allow the church to accommodate to
the ways of the world.” Nevertheless,
the church “shares fully the brokenness
of the world. . . . Repentance, forgiveness, and renewal characterize the
church that lives under the cross with the hope of the coming in fullness of
God's reign.” The document concludes, “the church must participate in social
structures critically. Not only God but also sin is at work in the world.
Social structures and processes combine life-giving and life-destroying
dynamics in complex mixtures and in varying degrees.” The church must “discern
when to support and when to confront society's cultural patterns, values,
powers.”
The
ELCA describes itself as a church of moral deliberation in which “Christians
fulfill their vocation diversely and are rich in the variety of the gifts of
the Spirit. Therefore, they often disagree passionately on the kind of
responses they make to social questions.” (Church
and Society) The ELCA statement “welcomes and celebrates
this diversity” understanding the church as a community struggling together on
social questions in order to know better how to live faithfully and responsibly
in their various callings or stations. Therefore, processes of deliberation
attempt to inform and guide the community’s corporate witness in society.
Lutherans have not developed teaching structures similar to the Catholic church
because they fear subordinating the Holy Spirit and the gospel to human
structures. Their structures of teaching occur by means of a process in which
local and national assemblies make a determination of the matter. However,
individual believers, guided by the Holy Spirit, are the final judges regarding
whether a particular teaching is morally binding on their consciences.
Social Teaching
Social teaching on behalf of both churches is centuries old. Both medieval Catholicism and early Lutheranism had specific teachings regarding the social order. In the brief descriptions that follow, one can see the similarities and differences in social teaching of both communions in broad strokes. As one looks at these social teachings, however, one needs to remember the different judgments that these churches themselves make on the authoritative nature of the teachings.
War and Peace. In 1983, during the Cold War, the U.S. Catholic
bishops’ pastoral letter, The Challenge
of Peace, described the government’s action regarding the stockpiling and
potential use of nuclear weapons as one of the most pressing moral questions of
the age and called for accelerated work for arms control, reduction, and
disarmament. Their desire was to confront all people involved—military
personnel, public officials, scientists, educators, ministers, citizens—with
the moral responsibilities that their public positions demand. The ELCA's 1995
social statement, For Peace in God's
World, reflects a similar attitude as the Catholic bishops but is addressed
to a post-Cold War situation. It calls especially for a culture of peace,
reflecting the challenges of the 1990’s: the strengthening of international
cooperation, encouraging the work of non-governmental organizations, and
advocating on behalf of refugees.
Environment.
Both Lutheran and Roman Catholic ethics root concern for the
environment in the biblical vision of the goodness of creation. In its statement,
Caring for Creation, the ELCA draws
upon this vision of creation by suggesting that human sin disrupts both
creation and human relationships. The church then uses the rubric of “justice”
to discuss ecology, justice understood as acting interdependently and in
solidarity with creation. Justice is achieved through participation,
solidarity, sufficiency, and sustainability. Recent Catholic writings on
the environment, especially those of Pope John Paul II, maintain the Catholic
tradition's attention to justice and the global common good but also have added a second emphasis, that of contemplation. The pope had developed
this understanding by means of the rubric “co-creation,” which the pope sees as
having two axes, subduing the earth and self-mastery.
Capital Punishment. On the issue of capital punishment, both
communions have had to reflect upon and revise their own historical traditions
that had accepted capital punishment. In one of its earliest social statements,
the ELCA went on record opposing the death penalty, suggesting that it
undermines morality because of the violence inherent in this form of punishment
and the questionable justice involved in its administration. It did
acknowledge, however, that its own members might differ from the church
position. Similarly, Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical The Gospel of Life, stated the strong reservations of the Catholic
church. He expressed a deepening concern for the use of the death penalty in
modern times, suggesting that the state has at its disposal other means of
punishment and protection that better correspond to the common good and to the
dignity of the person.
Medical Issues at the End of Life. The
fantastic growth of medicine and medical technology continues to challenge
Roman Catholics and Lutherans with new questions and new urgency. Both churches
acknowledge that patients have the right to refuse treatment when it is
burdensome without being beneficial to the patient, and both churches teach
that patients need to be kept as free of pain as possible and that the use of
pain medication for dying patients is important, even if such therapy may
indirectly shorten a person’s life.
Assisted
Suicide. Although both churches acknowledge the option of a patient to
forgo futile or burdensome medical treatment and the right to be kept as
pain-free as possible, both also deny the right to assisted suicide. In its Message on End-of-Life Decisions,
however, the ELCA does recognize that there might be ambiguous borderline
situations, such as extreme unmanageable pain, that may call this affirmation
into question.
Abortion. The ELCA acknowledges that it is God who is the
creator of life and that there is a strong Christian presumption to preserve
and protect life. It understands abortion as a source for deep concern within
the church and therefore in most circumstances it discourages abortion.
However, exceptional circumstances are delineated when the choice to abort can
be made responsibly. These would include cases of rape, incest, extreme fetal abnormality,
and when the physical life of the mother is threatened. Since the Catholic
church believes that fetal life is indeed vulnerable human life that demands
protection, it considers all direct abortion to be the taking of innocent human
life and therefore seriously morally wrong. The Catholic church acknowledges
that “in certain cases, perhaps in quite a considerable number of cases, by
denying abortion one endangers important values.” It nevertheless concludes
that “none of these reasons can ever objectively confer the right to dispose of
another’s life” (Declaration on Procured Abortion).
Homosexuality.
The ELCA acknowledges that a great deal of disagreement exists within
its own church body regarding homosexuality. Some theologians and pastors see
homosexual activity as contradictory to the meaning that God has placed in
sexuality in creating persons male and female. Others believe that homosexual
actions need to be evaluated within the context of a loving and committed
relationship. Nevertheless, the ELCA has stated that it values the gifts and
commitments of gays and lesbians to the church. The Catholic teaching is clear
in its position: Although the Catholic
church maintains that homosexual orientation in itself is not sinful, it also
teaches that homosexual acts are gravely immoral. Both churches, however, do
condemn acts of violence and prejudice directed against homosexual persons.
Conclusion
Since Christian ethics is the concrete living out
of our faith convictions, it is not surprising that the different emphases in
Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism lead to different articulations of the moral
life. What might be more surprising for both Lutherans and Catholics is how
similar the churches’ concrete positions are on many moral issues. It is in the
area of abortion and certain teachings on sexual ethics that the greatest
divergence between the official church statements occurs. In many other areas
of morality the public statements of both church bodies correspond
significantly.
Church documents can be
found on the appropriate web sites: www.elca.org; www.vatican.va;
and www.usccb.org.
Althaus, Paul. The Ethics of Martin Luther. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972.
Bloomquist, Karen L., and Stumme, John R., eds. The Promise of Lutheran Ethics.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998.
Gustafson, James. Protestant and Roman Catholic Ethics:
Prospects for Rapprochement. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1978.
Joint Declaration
on the Doctrine of Justification.
Porter, Jean. Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the
Tradition for Christian Ethics. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1999.
Thomas A. Nairn
Associate Professor of Christian
Ethics
Catholic Theological Union