The Identity of Christian Morality

This book will re-examine the debate in Catholic Moral Theology on the specificity of Christian morality. Rather than approaching the question of Christian morality's uniqueness from the perspective of specific norms or motivation, or attempting to state whether natural morality is to be favoured over revealed morality, this book will suggest that the focus should be placed on how a specifically Christian identity or moral self is formed. Thus the primary focus of the debate will be shifted from 'what should I do?' to 'who am I?'With a view to transcending the divisions between theologians who rallied around two schools of thought, called respectively the Autonomy and Glaubensethik schools, this book attempts to move the debate away from the search for specifically Christian norms or principles towards a stance that emphasises the particular identity of Christian morality, which is constructed through the Christian story, Christian practices and Christian symbols of hope and goodness. The author argues that the role of the Scriptures, for instance, is not to provide principles of conduct but to provide Christians with an enduring sense of who they are as they search for truth in the world. For if we do not know who we are, how can we know what we should do?

Ann Marie Mealey is Lecturer in Moral Theology at Leeds Trinity and All Saints, UK.