Fons Iustitiae: Justice in the City of God

This article seeks to account for the nature of human justice in the City of God. I argue that finite justice, for Augustine, is participatory; it always ‘refers’ itself to the font of justice from which it overflows; it is always received by participation in Christ’s justice. This claim implicates both of Augustine’s central adversaries in the City of God, namely, imperial paganism and Pelagianism. Attention to how Augustine weaves the two major polemical antagonists of the City of God, imperial paganism and Pelagianism, into the same cloth reveals a unified claim about justice in the City of God. Both of Augustine’s antagonists are guilty of claiming a self‐referential and self‐manufactured conception of justice. Pagans and Pelagians do not confess justice as a gift received; they instead treat it as something constructed on the tottering foundation of collective or personal virtue. Justice in both cases fails and finds its end in self‐glorification and pride. Finally, I propose that Augustine’s participatory account of justice has implications for a vexed twentieth‐century debate about the City of God, namely the question of what allegiance, responsibilities and loves citizens of the heavenly city ought to have towards the earthly city in which they live as pilgrims.     

Theistic or secular grounding of human rights?

The philosophical debate on human rights and their core notion of “human dignity” is marked by controversy, not least regarding the relevance of a religious perspective. This article addresses two markedly different approaches to human rights: Nicholas Wolterstorff's Justice: Rights and Wrongs (2008) and George Kateb's Human Dignity (2011). While Wolterstorff argues for a theistic grounding of human rights, Kateb is highly critical towards theology and sets out to achieve a strictly secular account of what makes a human being unique. After two sections outlining their respective positions, the article moves into a comparative discussion and concludes that instead of the rigid alternative “theistic” or “secular” what we need in order to understand and defend human dignity and human rights may be a more open and broad-minded perspective on religion.     

REPUBLICS AND THEIR LOVES: REREADING CITY OF GOD 191

In City of God 19.24, Augustine rejects Cicero's definition of res publica as a society founded on justice for a new definition focused on common objects of love. Robert Markus, Oliver O'Donovan, and a host of Augustinian political theologians have depicted this move as a positive gesture toward secular society. Yet this reading fails to account for why Augustine waited so long to address Cicero's definition, first discussed in Book 2, and for the radical dualism Augustine sets forth between the two cities throughout his text. I argue, in line with Rowan Williams and John Milbank, for a minority reading of Book 19 that draws upon the narrative structure of City of God. In Books 3–5, Augustine recounts the history of the earthly city according to Rome's penchant for violence and idolatry, both a function of love for temporal goods. In Book 18, Augustine traces the history of the earthly city before Rome according to the same themes, completing a narrative argument that humanity has always been divided according to differing loves. Book 19 advances the idea that such idolatry is injustice—a failure to grant God the worship he is due. With the new definition of 19.24, Augustine retains Cicero's emphasis on the importance of virtue in civic society while characteristically shifting the terms of discussion from justice to love. While such a definition means that Rome can be called a res publica, it also prompts a negative judgment upon her history according to her objects of love. Given her violence and idolatry, Rome is no better than Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, and Greece—all subject to withering critique in Book 18. Thus, Augustine's new definition does not retract but extends the polemic of City of God.     

THE LANGUAGE OF RIGHTS AND CONCEPTUAL HISTORY

The historical problem about the origins of the language of rights derives its importance from the conceptual problem: of “two fundamentally different ways of thinking about justice,” which is basic? Is justice unitary or plural? This in turn opens up a problem about the moral status of human nature. A narrative of the origins of “rights” is an account of how and when a plural concept of justice comes to the fore, and will be based on the occurrence of definite speech‐forms—the occurrence of the plural noun in the sense of “legal properties.” The history of this development is currently held to begin with the twelfth‐century canonists. Later significant thresholds may be found in the fourteenth, sixteenth, and eighteenth centuries. Wolterstorff's attempt to find the implicit recognition of rights in the Scriptures depends very heavily on what he takes to be implied rather than on what is stated, and at best can establish a pre‐history of rights‐language.     

Scripture's Practical Authority and the Response of Faith from a Speech‐Act Theoretic Perspective

This paper brings together the work of Nicholas Wolterstorff and William Alston in speech‐act theory with the aim of providing a deeper understanding of the nature of divine speaking through the medium of Scripture. Despite the fecundity of Wolterstorff's seminal work on the philosophical theology of Scripture, aspects of his speech‐act centric account are underdeveloped and would benefit from the contributions of William Alston. In particular, his account of divine speech‐acts could be fruitfully expanded by incorporating the concept of ‘taking responsibility’ that is central to Alston's analysis of the nature of illocutionary acts. This would elucidate both the way in which readers of Scripture encounter divine practical authority in the reading process and the nature of the response of faith that is demanded of them.     

A dilemma for wolterstorff’s theistic grounding of human dignity and rights

In a number of recent works, Nicholas Wolterstorff defends the claim that human rights inhere in the dignity of every human. He further contends that the explanation of this dignity cannot be found in the intrinsic features of humans; rather, the only plausible explanation for human dignity is that it is bestowed upon humans by God’s love. In this paper, I argue that Wolterstorff’s theory concerning the ground of human dignity falls prey to something quite similar to the classic Euthyphro dilemma: either God must love every existing human in a dignity-bestowing manner or he need not, and either option is problematic. If the former, then whatever it is about humans that ensures God’s love can reasonably be thought to be the independent source of human dignity and/or rights, thereby leaving us without cause to appeal to God’s love for the explanation of this dignity. If the latter, the implication is that moral statements which appear to be necessarily true are only contingently so. Wolterstorff’s theory will thus require substantial modification, or else abandonment.     

NICHOLAS WOLTERSTORFF'S JUSTICE: RIGHTS AND WRONGS: AN INTRODUCTION

This introduction sets the stage for four papers on Nicholas Wolterstorff's Justice: Rights and Wrongs , written by Harold Attridge, Oliver O'Donovan, Richard Bernstein, and myself. In his book, Wolterstorff defends an account of human rights. The first section of this introduction distinguishes Wolterstorff's account of rights from the alternative account of rights against which he contends. The alternative account draws much of its power from a historical narrative according to which theory and politics supplanted earlier ways of thinking about justice. The second section sketches that narrative and Wolterstorff's counter-narrative. The third section draws together the main points of Wolterstorff's own account.     

Agency,Patiency, and The Good Life: the Passivities Objection to Eudaimonism

Many contemporary eudaimonists emphasize the role of agency in the good life. Mark LeBar, for example, characterizes his own eudaimonist view this way: “It is agentist, not patientist, because it emphasizes that our lives go well in virtue of what we do, rather than what happens, to us or otherwise”. Nicholas Wolterstorff, however, has argued that this prioritizing of agency over patiency is a fatal flaw in eudaimonist accounts of well-being. Eudaimonism must be rejected, Wolterstorff argues, because many life-goods are “passivities” that are out of a person’s hands, including how she is treated by others. In this paper, I defend eudaimonism against this passivities objection. I argue that eudaimonism can maintain its agentist character while also capturing the element of truth in the passivities objection—namely, that human well-being is vulnerable and social. I also argue that eudaimonists should avail themselves of the notion of receptivity to capture important aspects of the good life.     

Excellence‐Prior Eudaimonism

Eudaimonism is often regarded as egoistic. If it recommends that agents pursue their own good because it is their own good, it is guilty as charged. But excellence‐prior eudaimonism offers a non‐egoistic alternative to this welfare‐prior eudaimonism. Excellence‐prior eudaimonism recommends that an agent live in a way that is in fact good for the agent, but it does not regard the agent’s own good as necessarily that for the sake of which the agent acts, nor does it regard living well as justified by the fact that it is good for the agent, but simply because it is good. The Christian eudaimonisms of Augustine and Aquinas are best understood as deepened forms of excellence‐prior eudaimonism.     

Illocutionary Acts and the Uncanny: on Nicholas Wolterstorff's Idea of Divine Discourse

Nicholas Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse attempts to give philosophical warrant to the claim that 'God speaks'. While Wolterstorff's argument depends largely on his appropriation of J.L. Austin's speech act theory, he also uses two narratives that for him demonstrate how 'God speaks'. The first is the story of Augustine's conversion in the Confessions and the second is a story that Wolterstorff recounts about a certain 'Virginia'. This study argues that what Wolterstorff claims to derive from Augustine's narrative for his view of divine discourse is not fully supported by the Confessions , and that Augustine's interpretation of the words 'tolle lege, tolle lege', can be construed as a useful interpretation of an ambiguous sign. This is consistent with Augustine's understanding of the interpretation of texts in both the De doctrina christiana and the Confessions . In short, Augustine is far more open to the ambiguity of signs than Wolterstorffs's account suggests.     

“HEROISM ON AN EMPTY STOMACH”: Weil and Hillesum on Love and Happiness Amid the Holocaust1

I do four things in this essay: (1) briefly rehearse the biographies of Simone Weil and Etty Hillesum, (2) outline and compare some of the key themes in their lives and works, noting interesting (and also troubling) similarities between them, as well as salient differences, (3) use their examples as lenses through which to look at contemporary attitudes toward altruism vs. self‐interest, freedom vs. necessity, eating vs. fasting, and acting vs. writing, and (4) highlight both their strengths and their weaknesses as religious witnesses to the truth. An overarching issue throughout the essay is the relation between the soul and the body, but I am especially concerned with the relation between self‐sacrifice and self‐love—also known as agape and temporal happiness—when confronted by radical evil. When allowed to correct one another, Weil and Hillesum show us, I believe, how Christian agapism can refuse both hatred and false security, even in an era of terrorism and torture.     

Kierkegaard's Critique of Eudaimonism: A Reassessment

Interpreters are less univocal than one might think in assessing Søren Kierkegaard's attitude toward eudaimonism. Through an analysis of several key texts from across Kierkegaard's authorship, I argue that existing interpretations do not convincingly address the relationship between Kierkegaard's critique of eudaimonism and his mid‐nineteenth‐century context, which was dominated by post‐Kantian idealists. While I am sympathetic to aspects of deontological and aretaic interpretations, a contextual reading shows that his critique centers on what he diagnoses as the enclosure of the modern self. This puts his critique of eudaimonism in the purview of his moral psychology and in continuity with his critique of romanticism.     

For the Sake of the Final End

The question of the viability of theological eudaimonism as an interpretation of the moral life has generated increasing debate in recent years. This essay aims to advance the debate about theological eudaimonism (and eudaimonism more generally) by addressing a closely related but insufficiently discussed issue: the nature of human agency and its relationship to value. The most commonly raised objection to eudaimonism is that it is objectionably agent-oriented. I argue that worries about objectionable self-orientation often stem from importing foreign pictures of agency into the eudaimonist tradition. I make this case through an analysis of Nicholas Wolterstorff’s recent critique of eudaimonism. Wolterstorff presupposes a common contemporary conception of agency. Drawing on Thomas Aquinas and Elizabeth Anderson, I show that other conceptions of agency are available. Clarity about the nature of human agency and its relationship to value will bring greater clarity to the debate about eudaimonism and self-orientation.     

DOES HE PULL IT OFF? A THEISTIC GROUNDING OF NATURAL INHERENT HUMAN RIGHTS?

This paper focuses on two key issues in Nicholas Wolterstorff's Justice: Rights and Wrongs . It argues that Wolterstorff's theistic grounding of inherent rights is not successful. It also argues that Wolterstorff does not provide adequate criteria for determining what exactly these natural inherent rights are or criteria that can help us to evaluate competing and contradictory claims about these rights. However, most of Wolterstorff's book is not concerned with the theistic grounding of inherent rights. Instead, it is devoted to a detailed and rigorous articulation of the meaning and defense of a theory of justice as consisting of inherent rights and with showing why this theory of justice is superior to the alternative right order theories that Wolterstorff criticizes. The paper concludes that these accomplishments are not diminished even if Wolterstorff has failed to provide us with a satisfactory theistic grounding of his theory.     

The Merits of Eudaimonism

This paper starts with Immanuel Kant’s definition of “eudaimonism” (a term he created) as a single‐source account of motivation, and explains why he thinks the eudaimonist is unacceptably self‐regarding. In order to modify and improve Kant’s account, the paper then revisits the Christian scholastics. Scotus is distinguished from Aquinas on the grounds that Scotus has a more robust conception of the will that encompasses the ranking of the affection for advantage (for the agent’s happiness and perfection) and the affection for justice (for what is good in itself, independent of this relation to the agent). This is a double‐source account of motivation. With these conceptual resources in hand, the paper goes on to examine Jean Porter’s defense of eudaimonism, urging that she begs the question against the Scotist view. Finally, the paper makes a conciliating suggestion that preserves most, but not all, of what the eudaimonist wants.     

FORMATION,GRACE, AND PNEUMATOLOGY: Or,Where's the Spirit in Gregory's Augustine?

Eric Gregory's Politics and the Order of Love takes up an audacious project: enlisting Saint Augustine in order to “help imagine a better liberalism.” This article first provides a summary of Gregory's argument, focusing on his emphasis on love as a “motivation” for neighborly care, and hence democratic participation. This involves tracing the theme of motivation in the book, which is tied to his articulation of liberal perfectionism and an emphasis on civic virtue. In conclusion I raise the question of whether his project has ignored a key aspect of Augustine's account of love, namely, the role of the Holy Spirit, thereby demarcating the limits of Gregory's “rational reconstruction” of Augustine.     

Christianity and Eudaimonia,Luck and Eudaimonism

I argue that Christians have at least two reasons to reject eudaimonism, interpreted as the view that attaining eudaimonia—or happiness—is what fulfills the moral life. First, I contend Christian conceptions of eudaimonia should encompass more than realized moral excellence and its requirements. Second, I claim Christians should construe the love at the heart of their moral life as fully realizable even if it is not evidently reciprocated. Both affirmations contradict eudaimonism by implying that eudaimonia depends on more than fulfilling the moral life—the former by rendering eudaimonia more subject to luck than eudaimonists can allow, the latter by depicting the moral life as less subject to luck than eudaimonists can accept. These affirmations also enable Christians to regard God’s love integral to eudaimonia apart from its role in realizing moral excellence and to deny all inability to attain eudaimonia manifests moral failure.     

Nature,corruption, and freedom: Stoic ethics in Kant's Religion

Kant's account of “the radical evil in human nature” in the 1793 Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone is typically interpreted as a reworking of the Augustinian doctrine of original sin. But Kant does not talk about Augustine explicitly there, and if he is rehabilitating the doctrine of original sin, the result is not obviously Augustinian. Instead, Kant talks about Stoic ethics in a pair of passages on either end of his account of radical evil and leaves other clues that his argument is a reworking of an old Stoic problem. “Radical evil” refers to the idea that our moral condition is—by default and yet by our own deed—bad or corrupt; and that this corruption is the root (radix) of human badness in all its variety, ubiquity, and sheer ordinariness. Kant takes as his premise a version of the Stoic idea that nature gives us “uncorrupted starting points” (Diogenes Laertius 7.89). What sense can be made of the origin of human badness, given such a premise? Kant's account of radical evil is an answer to this old Stoic problem, which requires a conception of freedom that is not available in his Stoic sources.     

With a Sword Pointing to the East,West, South,and North

In his In Defense of War, Nigel Biggar argues for an account of war based in Christian love. In the process, he opposes Christian pacifists, the British Left, liberal accounts of just‐war, and accounts of just‐war based on self‐defense. Although framed in terms of love, his account pivots around punishment, which is further explicated by a thorough review of the recent war in Iraq, the invasion of which he deems justified. This review compares Biggar's monograph to prior iterations of a love‐based approach to just war by Paul Ramsey and Oliver O'Donovan. Biggar's contributions regarding love, punishment, and policy analysis are recognized, as well as his attempt to carry on the tradition of the ‘mournful warrior’. As a model for the kind of scrutiny that Christian ethicists should bring to bear on serious social issues, Biggar's monograph is excellent. However, the political stance and – largely implicit and unstated – political theology operating behind this book are, in the end, disconcerting.     

The Legacy,Leadership, and Hope of Pan‐African Women as a Missional Focus for Theological Education

This article analyzes the experience and self‐understanding of Pan‐African women of faith, who have often been viewed at the margins of church history and in the larger context of this history. This article challenges this marginal location. It argues that through the theological lens of the ecumenical Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace—and under the tenets of via positiva, via negativa, and via transformativa—the historical, present, and future pilgrimage of Pan‐African women of faith and their vision of hope needs to be further examined for a more inclusive embrace and accompaniment of the ecumenical community. Theological education should be a priority in preparing leaders for advancing the agenda of justice and peace. The article concludes by detailing the past, recent, and future work of the Pan‐African Women's Ecumenical Empowerment Network (PAWEEN) and its partners.