Frank Van Der Veken
Midterm Exam On this popular television show, the host announces comments that are very arguable. He states that bishops, priests, and nuns have no business talking about justice and that the, along with activists and theologians are turning the church into something like the Communist Party. The host does not agree with any relationship between faith and justice. He contends that faith is about trusting in God and God’s mercy and does not require promoting justice. Also, he insists that justice is a socialist idea, not a Christian one. Overall, making a bold observation that faith has nothing to do with justice. Although, this host has strong opinions, he needs consider more factors before making such bold points. Everyone has their own opinion and not all Christians understand faith in the same manner. According to one of Avery Dulles’s writings, The Assurance of Things Hoped For, faith has multiple understandings throughout both Testaments of the Bible. Faith can be defined as an acceptance of God’s promises and demands. “In the Old Testament faith is depicted as the appropriate response to God’s faithfulness to his covenant promises” (Dulles 17). Overall, faith is tested by obedience and fidelity. In the New Testament, it refers to faith as Pistic which is a Greek word that means faith and further, a truth in God. Moreover, faith means personal trust in Jesus as the bearer of the kingdom (Dulles 17). According to Dulles, faith can be clustered into small identifiable groups which represent the different types of approaches. Dulles discusses seven different models that describe how Christians understand faith. There is the Praxis, Affective-Experiential, Personalist, Propositional, Transcendental, Obediential and Fiducial Model. The Praxis model suggests that faith is doing justice like working with the poor and essentially overcoming injustices. This variety of the theology of faith is mostly found in some European political theology and in contemporary liberation theology, especially in Latin America (Dulles 177). The Affective-Experiential model focuses on the concept of feeling and experience. It “emphasises the affective component in faith and the close connection between faith and experience” (Dulles 175). According to Edward Schillebeeckx, a contemporary theologian who believes in the linkage between faith and experience, Christianity is an “experience of faith which becomes a message” (Dulles 176). The Personalist model teaches through authorities and personal experiences. This model defines faith as a “new personal relationship conferring a mode of life and being” (Dulles 179). This understanding of faith has an advantage over the other models because it defines faith in terms of special faculties and functions. The Propositional model looks at faith based on intellect. This model has a “biblical foundation” where theologians think about the Bible and then apply to their lives and live by it (Dulles 171). In this view, “faith consists essentially in the acceptance of revealed truths, which are identified as doctrines” (Dulles 172). This view consists of many assets including giving straight authority to Scripture and the identity of the Church as a community. The Transcendental model focuses on a theologian’s own experience as a person of faith. According to this model, “faith is not, or not primarily, an acceptance of particular revealed truths” (Dulles 172). Transcendental theologians put a strong emphasize on the role of subjectivity in faith. The sixth perspective on faith is called the Obediential model which highlights obedience. This view may also be noted as Pauline because Paul mentions several times the “obedience of faith” (Dulles 176). An example of a known obediential theologian that strongly asserts the relationship between faith and obedience is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This model views God as the Lord of all things in which we have to follow him; God rules over everything. There is a sense of divines in this model which commands ethics. The final model, the Fiducial model is characterized as Protestant and opposite of the Propositional and Transcendental in which it does not involve intellect but consists of trust. This model “identifies faith more closely with trust” (Dulles 174). The fiducial understanding contrasts the propositional model because it is more emotional and heart-felt. An example of a fiducial theologian is Martin Luther, who believed in two kinds of faith (Dulles 174). These are the seven different views of the theology of faith according to Avery Dulles. In The Faith That Does Justice by Avery Dulles, examines three approaches to faith and justice. The three approaches are the Intellectualist, Fiducial and Performative Approach. The Intellecutalist theory creates a link between faith and belief, reason and the mind. It is centered “about faith as a kind of knowing” (Dulles 14). Within this understanding, there are two subdivisions which are the illuminist and assent theory. “The illuminist theory of faith center about the question whether it fosters responsible commitment to the building of the earthly city” (Dulles 16). This theory states how you must understand to believe. The assent theory understands faith as an assent to which the Church teaches in the name of God. Whereas, this theory you must understand and accept it to believe. In the Fiducial approach, it highlights the “personal relationship of the believer to God or to those who speak for God” (Dulles 23). Followers of this theory are Luther, Calvin, Bonhoeffer and Moltmann. Luther and Calvin have similar doctrines where a right relationship to God is constituted by avoiding sinful acts and living the merits of Christ and who trust in his grace (Dulles 24). “Like Luther, Calvin stresses not simply the truth of God’s word but even more the reliability of God’s promises in Christ” (Dulles 25). Bonhoeffer believed that obedience involved the Kingdom of God and we should all live it out in obedience. Moltmann tries to combine a fiducial theory of faith with a strong commitment to social and political activism (Dulles 30). Overall, in the Fiducial approach, faith and justice are seen separately. According to the Lutheran understanding, faith is trust. Good works is generated by true faith, for example, happy people praising the lord show how their faith creates good works. The third major approach may be called Performative. This view explains how faith and justice work together, where doing justice is faith. Justice is to do what is right and faith is to have trust in God according to Dulles. Within faith there is conviction, commitment and trust. They are equal in the fact that if there were more teachings of faith, they would need to learn more about justice and vice versa. Two followers of this theory are Hodgson and the Latin American liberation theology. I believe the most accurate approach to describe the relationship between faith and justice would be the Performative approach. I think that justice and faith works together as when doing justice you have faith. Faith and justice balance and assist one another to create a stronger relationship and understanding. I consider out of the three approaches, the Performative view shows the proper construal of the relationship between faith and justice. The concept of justice in the Catholic tradition can be represented in both the Old and New Testaments. In Economic Justice for All written by U.S Catholic Bishops, it states, “Biblical justice is the goal we strive for. This rich biblical understanding portrays a just society as one marked by the fullness of love, compassion, holiness and peace” (17). Then, explains how there are three dimensions to basic justice which are commutative justice, distributive justice and social justice. Commutative justice is when there is fairness in all situations between individuals and groups (Bishops 17). Distributive justice describes how the distribution of income, wealth, and power in society should be evaluated and have an effect on people who do not have their basic needs met. Social justice imposes that people have a commitment to be active and a participant in the life of society and that in return society has a duty to enable them to be able to participate. The opposite of social justice is marginalization which is when people do not benefit from the common good. In the Old Testament, there were examples of proper treatment of the poor with the story of the Israelites helping the sick, widowed strangers. God reminds them how they used to be treated when they were enslaved and “strangers” (Bishops 14). “Through the Gospels and in the New Testament as a whole the offer of salvation is extended to all peoples, Jesus takes the side of the most in need, physically and spiritually...It imposes a prophetic mandate to speak for those who have no one to speak for them, to be a defender of the defenseless, who in biblical terms are the poor” (Bishops 14). When reading the Bible, everyone reads the scriptures differently. Hermeneutics is the art of interpretation and i used to help us understand the Bible. In the novel, How Do Catholics Read the Bible? by Daniel J. Harrington, S.J. discusses how three different philosophers approach interpreting texts. Hans-George Gadamer believed that the text speaks for itself in its original context. He uses the concept of “horizon” to apply to the range of the reading and the mixture of the reader’s horizon and the true understanding of the reading takes place with the combination of the two horizons (Harrington 98). Eric D. Hirsh takes Gadamer’s “horizon” and only applies it to the “horizon” of the text. He believes in retrieving the original message of the text without any other probabilities. Paul Riceour believes that the purpose of writing creates an alienation of the text from its author (Harrington 100). He states that when reading the text, there is a distance between the author and the readers where the readers cannot get into the author’s mind and understand the text the way the author had interpreted. So, a reader will read the text and understand it the way they believe is correct. There are also four senses of scripture described which are literal, moral, allegorical, and analogical. The literal sense is fundamentalism which should not be done. The readers who interpret texts literally will apply them directly to their own lives which might not be plausible or relevant. Fundamentalism is not the right thing to do because the reading may not be relevant to the current time period especially in the Bible. For example, the story of a wife and husband who were looking to store food better so that they do not starve. The husband tells his wife, “Luke 12 not only tells me that I should not build bigger barns, but it says I should “consider the birds of the air” (Keenan). In this case, the husband is reading the scripture literally and not thinking of the time period of where it was taken from. This is just one example of why Catholics should not read the Bible in a fundamentalist way. It is appropriate for the Roman Catholic bishop to state that Catholics cannot ever vote for a pro-choice candidate. But, if they do select a pro-life candidate, they might agree with the principle but will have different types of policies and not base the decision on their beliefs. There are obvious reasons behind the fact that the bishop stated in his claim. For Catholics, pro-choice candidates are basically supporting homicide which would be viewed as the worst in just action in a society with social justice. In the homily delivered by Bishop Martino, he states, “Even the Church’s just war theory has moral force because it is grounded in the principle that innocent human life must be protected and defended” (Martino 2). Catholics believe that killing a blameless person should not happen and their life should be protected. One of the Ten Commandments states “Thou shalt not kill” and an abortion is an example of murdering a person. Martino also proclaims, “The Church’s teaching that all life from conception to natural death should be protected by law is founded on religious belief to be sure, but is also a profoundly American principle founded on reason” (Martino 4). With these statements, Martino was hoping that Catholics would vote with the candidate for pro-life. Given the world and society we live in, Catholics should try to lessen the number of abortions. In the novel By What Authority? by Richard R. Gaillardetz, he describes the exercises of the Magisterium and the authority that the bishop exercised. There are three distinct modes the Church can use to teach its authority. Ordinary magisterium refers to the most common exercises of the pope and bishops when teaching individually or in a group. Extraordinary magisterium refers to the more rare exercises of the Church’s teaching by either the pope or an ecumenical council (Gaillardetz 75). And ordinary universal magisterium refers to a common ruling of the college of bishops that a teaching is to be held as definitive and infallible (Gaillardetz 75). Bishop Martino would be using the ordinary universal magisterium type of authority because he states “my fellow bishops” which would imply the college of bishops agreeing on the argument of abortions.

Works Cited

"Bishop Martino of Scranton on Respect Life Sunday." The Diocese of Scranton. Web. 12 Oct. 2012. .

Dulles, Avery. The Assurance of Things Hoped For: A Theology of Christian Faith. New York: Oxford UP, 1994. 7-282. Print.

Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Catholic Conference, 1986. Print.

Gaillardetz, Richard R. By What Authority? Collegeville: Liturgical, 2003. Print.

Harrington, Daniel J. How Do Catholics Read the Bible? Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. Print.

Haughey, John C. The Faith That Does Justice: Examining the Christian Sources for Social Change. New York: Paulist, 1977. 10-43. Print.

Case for Discussion worksheet- James F. Keenan, S.J.