Category: Religious Legal Theory

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Justice Law and Policy Religious Legal Theory Science & Technology Spirituality Theology

Caritas in Veritate

An extensive new Papal Encyclial was just issued concerning social teaching in light of the current economic crisis.  This is an important document, which all Christians should carefully consider.  I hope to do a number of posts on it.  A taste:

We recognize . . . that the Church had good reason to be concerned about the capacity of a purely technological society to set realistic goals and to make good use of the instruments at its disposal.  Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end that provides a sense of both of how to produce it and how to make good use of it.  Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.

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Historical Theology Justice Law and Policy Religious Legal Theory

God's Joust of History

To be sure, God’s plan and our history are not identical.  God’s plan consists of much more than what God chooses to reveal to us or what we are able to discern of it.  Much of what we see appears to be the work of a concealed God, even at times a seemingly capricious God.  In Martin Luther’s (1483-1546) colorful image, history is ‘God’s mummery and mystery,’ ‘God’s joust and tourney.’  History is ‘God’s theatre,’ in which the play cannot be fully understood until it ends and until we exit.  To equate one act or actor, one speech or text, with the divine play itself is to cast a partial and premature jugment.  To insist on one interpretation of the play before it ends is to presume the power of eternal discernment.  To judge the play on the basis of a few episodes is to insult the genius of the divine playwright.

— John Witte, Jr., God’s Joust, God’s Justice:  Law and Religion in the Western Tradition.