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Practical Theology and Political Theology
By Don Browning

"It gets to the heart of what makes practical theology practical to be able to answer the question, 'Where are we now?'... For a practical theology to be genuinely practical, it must have some description of the present situation, some critical theory about the ideal situation, and some understanding of the processes, spiritual forces, and technologies required to get from where we are to the future ideal, no matter how fragmentarily and incompletely that ideal can be realized. "

THE new interest in practical theology offers great promise for both the church and the larger society. To date, the writings that have attempted to redefine the meaning of practical theology have been primarily methodological. This is a proper emphasis, I believe, because the problems which have beset older definitions have themselves been primarily methodological. But, of course, practical theology must be more than methodological; it must actually do theology and it should do it in such a way as to illuminate Christian practice in relation to life's concrete problems and issues. So, sooner or later, the renewal of practical theology must go beyond the methodological discussion.

I have tried to do this in at least some of my recent writings on the nature of practical theology. ¹ But this essay will have to content itself with being transitional. It will range somewhere between methodology ,and a critique of an important contemporary statement of practical theology as political theology. In short, I will attempt to restate some positions I recently have taken as to the nature of practical theology, and then I will attempt to give at least hints as to what this method might accomplish by using it to analyze Johann Baptist Metz's practical fundamental theology as political theology. Although the approach to

Don Browning has written extensively in the area of pastoral care and ethics. His most recent publications include The Moral Context of Pastoral Care (1976) and Religious Ethics and Pastoral Care (1 983). He is the Alexander Campbell Professor of Religion and Psychological Studies at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.
¹ Don Browning, "Pastoral Theology in a Pluralistic Age," Practical Theology, edited by Don Browning (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983), pp. 187-203; and Religious Ethics and Pastoral Care (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983).

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practical theology outlined here was first elaborated as a practical theology of care, I have some confidence that it can be extended to a wider sphere and even have some cogency when applied to a practical theology aimed toward the political arena. It is my conviction that the meaning of practical theology should be kept broad and flexible and that the same basic methodology should be applicable to all the various regions of practical theology, that is, applicable to both the region of care and the region of political life, and, in addition, to all the regions in between-education, worship, preaching, and rhetoric.

I

A brief summary of some of the positions I have taken about the task of practical theology in our time is in order. First, it is my firm conviction that practical theology should be in our era a basically public enterprise. By this I mean that it should attempt to communicate to both the faithful within the church and the wider community outside the church. It should, in the words of Edward Farley, go beyond the "clerical paradigm." By this he means that practical theology should consist of theological reflection on the church's ministry in the world and that, within this larger framework, it should then deal with the theology of professional ministerial activity within the church. If one were to take this injunction seriously, practical theology in all of its regions would have both an ecclesial and a public direction. For instance, it would concern itself not only with religious education within the congregation, but with a theological perspective on the reform and fulfillment of public education. What we call pastoral care should be reconceived as a practical theology of care and should address not only the pastoral care of those within the church but an attempt to both criticize and fulfill the care structures of the larger society. Similar statements could be advanced for the other regions of practical theology-ethics, worship, and preaching. Both the inner-ecclesial and public foci of these activities would be a part of the concerns of practical theology.

Second, practical theology should be hermeneutical, but hermeneutical in the more ethical or moral sense of the term as recently discussed by Gadamer, Rorty, and Bellah. ² In this perspective, the interpretative interests of hermeneutics are not ends in themselves but processes of understanding and self-interpretation toward the goal of orienting individuals and communities toward action. Practical theology, to be practical, must attempt to describe and interpret both contemporary situations and classic Christian resources. In fact, the "thick" description of contemporary practices within the church and between church and world is one of the most essential features of any theology that

² Hans-Georg Gadamer, Reason in the Age of Science (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984); Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979); Robert Bellah, "The Ethical Aims of Social Inquiry," Social Science as Moral Inquiry, edited by Norma Haan, Robert N. Bellah, Paul Rabinou, and William L. Sullivan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), pp. 360-383.

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purports to be practical. This is one of the modest contributions of clinical pastoral education; it invited students to make "thick" descriptions of their conversations with the people they were trying to care for. But "thick" descriptions of situations is only one aspect of the normative and transformative task that the hermeneutical enterprise aims towards.

Third, practical theology in our time needs to be philosophical and critical. In saying this, I do not mean to deny the role of faith and tradition in the formation of believing communities. In fact, I would affirm positively the beginning point that faith always precedes reason, not only in things religious but in all aspects of life. In saying that practical theology must be philosophical and critical, I mean that it should bring philosophical reflection to the beginning points of faithful action. It does this not only to test these beginning points, but to devise a public language for the purposes of communicating to a pluralistic situation the truth of the Christian message. Faith needs to be followed by reflection-reflection about the transformative power of faith as well as reflection on the various cultural and sociological contexts of faith. Practical theology needs to be philosophical enough to enter into the public discourse of a pluralistic society prepared to give public reasons, as nearly as possible, for its practical proposals.

And finally, in order to implement these features, practical theology should use a revised correlational method. Some variation of this method has been the implicit theological method undergirding from the beginning the interdisciplinary commitments of the pastoral care and pastoral psychology movements, the pastoral counseling movements, and the hospital chaplaincy movement. Seward Hiltner and Daniel Day Williams held early versions of this method, although they did not use the phrases "revised correlational method." ³ The most powerful contemporary statement of this method has been put forward by David Tracy. Tracy has presented important statements of the method as applied to both fundamental theology and systematic theology and, in a variety of more recent essays, has gone far to demonstrate its meaning in the area of practical theology. In his essay entitled "The Foundations of Practical Theology," he advances the following useful definition of practical theology: " ... practical theology is the mutually critical correlation of the interpreted theory and praxis of the Christian fact and the interpreted theory and praxis of the contemporary situation." ⁴

This definition is long and difficult but is worth studying. It suggests that practical theology take contemporary cultural practices seriously, both what is done and the theory behind what is done. It permits these practices in the contemporary cultural situation in turn to provide a

³ Seward Hiltner, Preface to Pastoral Theology (Nashville: Abingdon, 1957); Daniel Day Williams, The Minister and the Care of Souls (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961).
⁴ David Tracy, "The Foundations of Practical Theology," Practical Theology (Harper & Row, 1983), p. 76.

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critique of proposed Christian practices as well as the theory behind them. Hence, the approach permits a mutual criticism between so-called Christian practices and contemporary cultural practices. It is not an imperialistic approach to practical theology. It functions differently than a Tillichian correlational approach to practical theology, which might work to see contemporary practices asking certain existential questions which Christian practices, or proposed practices, might answer. ⁵ It is because of this divergence from Tillich's method of correlation that Tracy has referred to his own method as a "revised" correlational method. It is revised because it is a mutually critical correlational method, the implication being that Tillich's correlational method was not. The revised method of correlation takes cultural practices seriously, not only as sources of questions to be answered by theology, but also as potential generators of alternative answers, which practical theology must critique and, in light of which, practical theology must be critiqued.

The revised correlational approach to practical theology is open to the possibility that there might be a variety of relations between Christian praxis and contemporary cultural praxis. The relation can be a matter of identity. (the two might be highly congruent), one of non-identity (they might be vastly different and perhaps antagonistic), or one of analogy (the two might be different but have many overlapping analogies). And finally, the definition reminds us that practical theology is hermeneutical. We are always dealing with various interpretations, which themselves may be more or less adequate or controversial, of the praxis implications of the Christian witness and of the cultural praxis in contemporary situations.

II

As abstract as all of this may seem, it is really highly useful for a variety of contemporary ministries. Let me illustrate with reference to the ministry of the modern hospital chaplain. First, it is clearly a ministry in a public situation, although the chaplain is indeed the representative of the church. It is a ministry in a pluralistic situation; there are other professionals with their own praxis and their own theory of their praxis. Some of the praxis of these professionals is highly similar to the chaplain's own praxis. Social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists all deal with the inner life, address grief and loss, help rationalize the problem of suffering, and even help prepare for death. The chaplain discovers many points of both identity and difference between his or her practice and the practice of other professionals. In addition, the chaplain must communicate the nature of his or her focus in a public way in interdisciplinary case conferences. Occasionally the chaplain must be critical of other perspectives, but must be able to give publicly-

⁵ Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. I (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), pp. 3-68.

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intelligible reasons for this. The reverse is also true: there are times when the other professionals will bring a critique to the praxis of the chaplain. Yet their diverse forms of praxis, the chaplain's and the other professionals', need to be correlated. They need to have ways of positioning their forms of praxis in complementary yet mutually critical ways, understanding the points of overlap, difference, and tension.

To some extent, the chaplain is a metaphor of ministry in contemporary society. Even the minister of the local congregation functions in a pluralistic situation, with other institutions and professionals, and with other actors who follow forms of praxis which may be identical, different, or analogical to the praxis of the minister and the community that he or she represents. If the minister is to develop a ministry in any way oriented to the world, the minister will need to follow, implicitly or explicitly, something like a revised correlational approach to practical theology. Or to say it in ways which go beyond the clerical paradigm, the church in its ministry to the world must follow something like a revised correlational method if it is to find its way, in a critical and reflective manner, through the labyrinth of institutions, professionals, alternative faiths and competing philosophies that beset modern pluralistic societies. In fact, it is my conviction that many highly effective churches and ministers are already functioning with something like this method and, for this very reason, the method deserves to receive heightened clarification and wider acceptance.

III

Both Tracy and I have argued that theological ethics should play a privileged role in the clarification of the goals of Christian praxis. Tracy understands theological ethics to be "critical theoretical reflection upon moral praxis…. Ethical reflection depends on a hermeneutics (or phenomenological description) of moral praxis itself...." ⁶ In an effort to supply a framework for both a description of moral praxis and a method for moral theological thinking I have advanced in recent writings, particularly in Religious Ethics and Pastoral Care, what I am now calling the five dimensions of practical moral thinking. ⁷ It is my conviction that such a framework is crucial for several of the regions of practical theology. It is certainly important for the practical region of theological ethics itself. Yet, insofar as such a framework can be stated both aretaically (from the perspective of its implied theory of character and virtue) as well as deontically (from the perspective of its general principles of obligation), it also could be relevant to the practical regions of care and education. Both the care exercised by the church and the care of the larger society need to be guided by a critical theory of human fulfillment. A theological ethic stated in terms of a theory of character and virtue is absolutely fundamental for the care ministries of the

⁶ Tracy, Practical Theology, p. 78.
⁷ Browning, Religious Ethics and Pastoral Care, pp. 5 3-7 1.

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church-in its own pastoral care, in its pastoral counseling, in its pastoral psychotherapy, and in its wider efforts to influence the care patterns of society as a whole. A theological ethical theory of virtue and character is equally important to guide religious education. An example of how this works can be seen in the highly creative influence of the ethics of character of Stanley Hauerwas ⁸ on contemporary religious education, especially the writings of Craig Dykstra ⁹ and John Westerhoff. ¹⁰ If time permitted, similar cases for the centrality of theological ethics for the other practical theological regions could be made with special reference both to worship and liturgy and to preaching, or religious rhetoric. Theological ethics as the discipline most concerned with the norms of action should provide the critical theory necessary to keep the other regions of practical theology from degenerating into what Aristotle called techne. In fact, following Aristotle's distinction a little further, I would argue that the crucial agenda for practical theology in our time is to bring together genuine theoria about the norms of practice with compatible techne for the means of practice. ¹¹

But much of contemporary theological ethics lacks a sufficiently complex theory to do both good description of contemporary moral praxis and good critical work about the goals or direction toward which we should move. Yet it gets to the heart of what makes practical theology practical to be able to answer the question, "Where are we now?" The persistent question of the alert religious leader or the alert church must be, "Where is this person we are trying to help (indeed to transform)?" or, "Where is this church?" or, "Where is this community, this society?" For a practical theology to be genuinely practical, it must have some description of the present situation, some critical theory about the ideal situation, and some understanding of the processes, spiritual forces, and technologies required to get from where we are to the future ideal, no matter how fragmentarily and incompletely that ideal can be realized.

In some earlier writings, I have described five levels of moral thinking and practice. I have used the word "levels" because I do indeed believe that some aspects of moral thinking are more inclusive and determinative than others. But the concept of levels does suggest a hierarchical relation to the aspects of moral thinking that obscures a very important point that I want to retain, and that is that the lower levels of moral thinking rebound to the higher levels and give them content and specificity. Therefore, after weighing some constructive comments put forward by friendly critics, I now want to speak about the five dimensions of practical moral thinking.

⁸ Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1982).
⁹ Craig Dykstra, Vision and Character (New York: Paulist Press, 198 1), p. 51.
¹⁰ John Westerhoff, Building God's People (New York: The Seabury Press, 1983), p.
80.
¹¹ See Tracy's discussion of the Aristotelean categories, Practical Theology, pp. 73-74.

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A careful examination of any example of moral praxis will reveal five dimensions. There is, I believe, a visional dimension, an obligational dimension, a tendency-need dimension, a contextual dimension, and a highly concrete rule-role dimension. It is best to call them dimensions rather than levels because they are generally so interwoven that they appear to be a single fabric. Analysis reveals, however, that moral thinking and action generally contain assumptions about all these dimensions. Analysis also reveals that they are hierarchically-related with the higher dimensions (for instance the visional and the obligational levels) setting the general abstract framework for the functioning of the lower dimensions. At the same time, the lower dimensions provide much of the concrete content of the higher dimensions.

The five dimensions are derived from five types of questions humans implicitly or explicitly ask themselves when they try to determine what they should do. With relative degrees of clarity and consciousness, they ask first, "What kind of world am I in?" Or to say it differently, "In what kind of world does my action take place?" Second, they ask, although generally not very consciously at all, "By what general principle should I act?" Then, third, they ask, "What are the relevant human tendencies and needs that my action should try to accommodate or coordinate? Should I attempt to take account of only my needs, or should I include the needs of my neighbor? Which of my various needs should I count most and which of my neighbor's needs should I count the most, if I decide to take cognizance of his or her needs at all?" Fourth, "What is the context of my action'? What does this context mean for what actions are possible? What does it mean for the question of which needs, of all the conflicting needs that demand attention, can be morally accommodated within the constraints and trends of the present context?" And fifth, "What are the concrete roles and rules that are morally justifiable once one has made the best possible judgments at the prior four dimensions?"

IV

It is quite clear that in most moral action people simply follow tradition, but when tradition seems under strain and fresh moral thought is required, these five dimensions of moral thinking come more explicitly into play, although not always consciously or well. Hence, as a description of the thickness of moral praxis, the five dimensions are more discernible in instances of fresh moral action, but they are also dimly perceivable in examples of simply following tradition.

(1)The visional dimension of practical moral thinking tries to find ways to represent the nature of the world and the ultimate context of human experience. This is done basically through the use of metaphor. We finally do not have direct cognitive grasp of the way the world is in its most abiding features, so we have to give expression to our intuitions (or revelations) indirectly through the metaphorical use of aspects of

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familiar experience, which we use to represent the unfamiliar. ¹² The writings of Max Black, Paul Ricoeur, Ian Barbour, and Sallie McFague have informed us profoundly about how this metaphorical process is used as a tool of discovery in both science and religion. ¹³ It is through these metaphors that we represent the world as warm or cold, predictable or unpredictable, trusting or untrustworthy, morally serious or morally indifferent.

In some situations of moral praxis, these deep metaphors (or metaphors of ultimacy) become elaborated into narratives and stories. This is certainly the case in certain parts of both the ancient Hebrew and Christian scriptures. But in this day of the rediscovery of the importance of narrative, we must remind ourselves that not all forms of biblical moral praxis are undergirded by narrative and story. Much of the Wisdom literature seems singularly devoid of narrative, and the classic Sermon on the Mount is without narrative line as well. But narrative, as we will see more clearly later when we discuss the work of Metz, has the great ability to hold together in an integrated whole all the dimensions of practical moral thinking. Some larger image of the world and its deep possibilities, some general principle of obligation, some definition of human need, some analysis of the particular context of action, and finally some prescriptions with regard to concrete rules and roles-all of these can frequently be artfully woven together in a single story and intuitively grasped by the mind in a flash.

A brief glance at the Parable of the Prodigal Son can illustrate the power of narrative to integrate the dimensions of practical moral thinking. The point of the story is to illustrate through the metaphorical use of "joy" the attitude of God as the ultimate context of experience toward all humans, especially the lost and the wayward. As the father of the prodigal son joyfully welcomes the son back into the family, there is ,'more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents" than there is over those who need no repentance. But the deep metaphor of joy applied to the nature of God is integrated into the other dimensions of practical moral thinking. This deep attitude of God becomes associated with a general moral principle: have compassion and actively "embrace" even those who have indulgently wronged their communities. Extend to them the spirit of equal regard. As the father treated the younger son equally with the older son, so we should do the same with regard to other wayward people of the human community. The metaphorical dimension-the vision of God's joy over repentance-influences but does not logically dictate the active regard to the wayward. For instance, it would be logically possible for both God and the earthly father to have joy over repentance, but still to take the attitude that prodigals should only

¹² See my discussion of this issue in Religious Ethics and Pastoral Care, pp. 57-63.
¹³ Max Black, Models and Metaphors (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1954); Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977); Ian Barbour, Myth, Models, and Paradigms (New York: Harper & Row, 1974); Sallie McFague, Metaphorical Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982).

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gradually be reaccepted into the community as they demonstrate worthiness. I make this observation only to show that there is a relative autonomy between the deep metaphors and the general principles of obligation of our practical moral thinking. Our deep metaphors influence and shape but do not necessarily dictate in all respects general principles of obligation.

Third, some needs are recognized and dealt with in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. His nakedness was clothed and his hunger was met. But even then, the meeting of these needs in such a way as to restore the fundamental need of human dignity is the main point of the story. Fourth, the context of the story is both specified and generalized. The specific context is the Roman occupation of Israel and the taboo against Jewish fellowship with those who had been co-opted, such as tax collectors, to become tools of Roman oppression. It was Jesus' own fellowship with such undesirables that occasioned the telling of the parable. But, by implication, the story applies to all contexts in which there are individuals who are estranged from a community but who also want to be restored. The fifth dimension is also present. Concrete rules and roles are suggested. All of us, and not just Jesus, should be willing to demonstrate the fundamental human regard to such people that fellowship communicates. We too should be willing to "eat" with them, "receive" them into our company, and take joy in their restoration. Hence, even though the Parable of the Prodigal Son is not a systematic ethical treatise and is not designed to answer all imaginable ethical issues, it is an excellent example of how a story integrates the dimensions of moral thinking and orients us at several different levels to a way of moral being and thinking in the world.

(2)Although the five dimensions of practical moral thinking can be used as frameworks for the description of moral praxis (something along the order of what I did with the Parable of the Prodigal Son), they can be used normatively as well. Of course, to use these dimensions normatively raises the question of an adequate content for each of the five dimensions and an adequate logic or method for relating them. For instance, there are many different general theories of obligation. The Kantians follow the categorical imperative and attempt to act on a principle that can be willed to be a universal law. ¹⁴ The neo-Kantian followers of John Rawls use the deontological principle of justice as fairness as their central principle of obligation. ¹⁵ The utilitarians follow the principle of maximizing as much non-moral good over evil as possible for the largest number of people and attempt to follow that rule or discover that particular act that will bring about this state of affairs. ¹⁶ Others use the general principle associated with ethical egoism and act in such a way as

¹⁴ Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1959), p. 18.
¹⁵ John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 197 1).
¹⁶ William Frankena, Ethics, 2d ed. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1973) p. 15.

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to produce more non-moral good for themselves. ¹⁷ Some would follow the general principle that they are always to do the will of God whatever that will is revealed to be.

Present day religious ethics is divided between those who tend to give Kantian definitions to the Christian principles of love and justice (such as Ramsey, Outka, and Ronald Green) and those who gravitate to more utilitarian definitions (such as Fletcher and the early John Giles Milhaven.) ¹⁸ In between there are those who attempt to avoid articulating any general theory of obligation at all. Stanley Hauerwas' attempt to elaborate an ethic of virtue and character is the best example of this move in theological circles, as is the work of Alasdair MacIntyre in philosophical circles. ¹⁹ My own convictions run toward more mixed theories of obligation, especially those that give a priority to Kantian deontological views, such as Rawls's and Green's concern with fairness and Outka's concern with equal regard. ²⁰ But I believe that these positions must still find room for concern with the just distribution of the range of concrete pre-moral goods that humans need and desire for the purposes of the affectively full and joyous life. Hence, I am attracted to interpreting the principle of neighbor love and justice with general principles of obligation, such as William Frankena's mixed deontological and teleological theory of obligation ²¹ or Louis Janssens' recent synthesis of the ordo caritatis and the ordo bonorum in his broadened theory of Christian love as equal regard. ²²

But practical theology must learn how to do good descriptions of moral praxis before it attempts to transform moral praxis. Hence, it must search for the principles of obligation that are actually functioning in a given situation. These will often be different from the official principles of obligation that are being espoused. In fact, as ideology analysis reveals, the official and public principle of obligation may be in fact a rationalization designed to conceal the operative ethic. But all of this can be discovered more readily if the same dimensions we use to think normatively about moral praxis are also the dimensions or categories we use to describe moral praxis to begin with.

(3) The tendency-need dimension is in some ways one of the most important and yet one of the most elusive of the five dimensions of

¹⁷ Ibid., p. 17.
¹⁸ For Kantian perspectives, see Paul Ramsey, Basic Christian Ethics (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950); Gene Outka, Agape (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972); Ronald Green, Religious Reason (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978). For more utilitarian perspectives, see Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966). Also, the early work of John Giles Milhaven, Toward a New Catholic Morality (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1970).
¹⁹ Alasdair Maclntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1981).
²⁰ See especially Outka's highly influential discussion of equal regard, Agape, pp. 10, 19-21,91,269-70.
²¹ Frankena, Ethics, pp. 43-45.
²² Louis Janssens, "Norms and Priorities in a Love Ethics," Louvain Studies, Vol. VI (Spring, 1977), pp. 219-229.

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practical moral thinking. For fear of psychologizing, relativizing, or subjectivizing practical moral thinking, both theological and philosophical ethics have, on the whole, attempted to establish the grounds of moral thinking without significant attention to the structure of human need. Yet, on the other hand, developmental psychology, sociobiology, and teleological approaches to ethics are a few examples of modern currents of thought that do indeed believe that the structure and pattern of basic human needs is relevant to moral thinking. I tend to agree. In the past, humans doubtless relied on their own intuitive awareness of human needs and tendencies, or relied on the codifications of particular traditions, for knowledge of the range and hierarchy of fundamental human needs. But in the context of modern rapidly-changing societies, where both moral traditions and intuitive experience are under crisis, more and more moral thinking will turn to the human sciences for finely-tuned judgments about the range and order of human tendencies and needs. This includes issues regarding the centrality of self-cohesion, the nature of sexuality, the place of self-actualization, the nature of cognitive needs and the needs for new experience, the place of effectance needs, the relative role of so-called masculine and feminine tendencies, as well as the basic survival needs for food, clothing, and shelter. In addition, there are more general needs, such as liberty and opportunity (Rawls), or freedom and welfare (Gewirth), which can be seen as presuppositions for the possibility of action and can therefore rightly lay a claim on moral considerations. ²³ Questions about the natural hierarchy of such needs, questions about which needs are fundamental for the realization of other needs, and questions about their appropriate time-table for emergence and realization-all of these are important as one part of the task of practical moral thinking.

But knowledge of these needs and tendencies only enters into moral thinking on judgments about what Frankena calls the non-moral good and Janssens calls the pre-moral good. ²⁴ These non-moral judgments about what is good and valuable for human life do not determine in themselves the nature of the morally good. The morally good has to do with those principles whereby various, and sometimes competing, non-moral or pre-moral goods are organized together in some kind of just or equitable distribution. Hence, these pre-moral goods enter into the morally good when some principle from the second dimension of practical moral thinking is applied to them, such as the principle of neighbor love, the principle of justice as fairness, or the principle of equal regard. But my discussion here is illustrative and not substantive. I want to settle here neither the question of the range and hierarchy of fundamental human needs nor the principle of moral organization which might harmoniously coordinate them with one another both within and between individuals.

²³ Alan Gewirth, Reason and Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).
²⁴ Frankena, Ethics, pp. 9-10; Janssens, "Norms and Priorities in a Love Ethics," p. 211.

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(4)The analysis of contexts or situations for practical moral thinking is extremely important for arriving at concrete rules and roles for responsible human action. The analysis of contexts helps answer several crucial questions: (a) Which of all the competing human tendencies and needs (competing premoral goods) can be justly actualized within the constraints of this particular situation? (b) If the ideal cannot be realized, what likely next approximate steps can be taken? (c) What are the interests and ideologies at stake which would resist steps toward the morally good and exploit moral rhetoric for purposes of oppression? And, finally, (d) What is the disparity that exists between visional and obligational ideals and what is actually done?

(5)Finally, after these analyses are made, we can arrive at decisions about the actual concrete rules we should follow and roles we should occupy in order to take concrete moral action. When these five dimensions are used normatively, rather than simply as rubrics for the descriptive analysis of any moral praxis no matter how adequate or inadequate, a certain logic as to their appropriate relation can be proposed. In Religious Ethics and Pastoral Care, I suggested the following formula which I am slightly rewording to make consistent with this essay.

General principles of obligation (dimension two), nurtured and qualified by metaphors of ultimacy (dimension one), should mediate lovingly and justly-impartially with equal regard-between conflicting human tendencies and needs (dimension three), while taking into account the realistic possibilities and constraints of various social, psychological, and cultural environments or ecological niches (dimension four). When judgments at these four levels have been made, it should be possible to arrive at rules and roles governing specific actions (dimension five). ²⁵

V

Although the approach to practical theology which is being suggested by the normative use of these five dimensions seems to give theological ethics a privileged position among the regions of practical theology, there are ways, in which this perspective can have considerable implications for all of the regions of practical theology. I will illustrate this by making some brief remarks about pastoral care and religious education.

Both care and education need normative images of human fulfillment to guide the praxis that they entail. Care entails some normative models of character or human fulfillment as measures of the wholeness that it seeks to restore. Education also needs models of character or human fulfillment as foundations for the goals of the educational process. But is it possible to move from the five dimensions of practical moral thinking to the question of the nature of character or the optimal image of human fulfillment? Space does not allow me the freedom here to say much

²⁵ Browning, Religious Ethics and Pastoral Care, p. 89.

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about that issue. I will simply make a reference to a theme developed toward the end of Religious Ethics and Pastoral Care; that is, that the five dimensions of practical moral thinking have their characterological analogues. There I argued that a person's faith is the subjective counterpart to the visional dimension of the objective procedures of practical moral thinking that we discussed above. The obligational dimension has its subjective expression in our actual level of moral development as this might be discerned with the aid of Kohlberg, Gilligan, Piaget, or even Freud. ²⁶ The tendency-need dimension has its subjective analogue in our emotional development and our own personal experience of our needs, their hierarchies, and their schedules of ascendancy and decline throughout the life cycle. Other slightly different lines of human development can be discerned as counterparts to the last two dimensions of practical moral thinking. For instance, our capacity to perceive and to deal realistically with situations and contexts probably has much to do with our emerging ego capacities. And our capacity to follow rational rules and occupy specific roles may entail slightly different human faculties.

But my point is that character is complex, has its counterparts to the procedures for critical moral reflection, and is important to understand in order to accomplish the transformative goals of both religious education and pastoral care. The great influence on religious education in recent years of Stanley Hauerwas' theology of virtue and character has the limitation, however, of not being organically connected to an actual method for practical moral thinking of the kind I am advocating here. As a consequence, this view can say much about the nature of the good Christian person, but it can say little about how the good Christian person thinks, how he or she makes decisions, and about the method that a Christian might follow in orienting himself or herself to the challenges of life. Practical theology in the regions of education and care should be served by both a theory of the procedures of practical moral thinking as well as an image of the kind of person or character that can think and act according to such procedures.

But the fact that practical theology as procedure (with its five dimensions and its logical relation between them) can be translated into a theory of character gives us something of an idea about the nature of human transformation. This, too, is relevant for both religious education and care. Transformation can occur at several different levels of the human personality, and, although the levels are interrelated, it is possible that they have some degree of relative autonomy as well. Hence, it is possible that changes in a person's faith and the deep metaphors around which faith is formed may be slightly different from what transforms one's capacity for moral thinking. Both of these may be

²⁶ The difference between these thinkers on their theory of development is not at stake in this assertion. The main point is that there exist today various resources for studying moral development and this is an approach to understanding the subjective pole of the obligational dimension of practical moral thinking.

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related to, but still distinguishable from, a person's emotional development. These are the questions now being debated between Kohlberg and Fowler on the relation of faith development and moral development. ²⁷ They are also the questions being discussed between Fowler, Erikson, and others on the relation between faith development and emotional development. ²⁸ Although it is a fundamental theological conviction that the transformation of persons is finally the work of God, it may also be true that God uses many instruments and many avenues of approach, and that the church and its ministries as tools of this transformative process may need a deeper understanding of the levels and dimensions at which the transformative process occurs.

VI

Although my own formulations of practical theology have been developed in close association with the region of care, I believe that the five dimensions of practical moral thinking can illuminate the region of political theology as well. More significantly, it is important to develop continuities between the various regions and to grasp the wholeness of practical theology as profoundly as possible. The five dimensions of practical moral thinking can illuminate political theology, especially as this has been formulated in Johann Baptist Metz's Faith in History and Society (1977).

In this work, Metz is attempting to formulate a practical fundamental theology that will balance neo-classical Catholic theology's interest in advancing apologetic warrants for the cognitive claims of faith. Hence, he affirms the priority of praxis as the beginning point for theology. ²⁹ By this he means that reflection on the Christian faith should emerge out of a confrontation with the practical social demands of the contexts of modern life. In spite of my own hierarchical understanding of the five dimensions of practical moral thinking, Metz's emphasis upon the priority of praxis is something I can entirely affirm. But both for him and for me, this priority only means that situations and contexts help us to see normative resources differently; it does not mean that we can actually derive norms from situations.

Metz presses for an interpretation of the broadest global features it is possible to grasp in order to establish an accurate context for political theology. This context is seen as a world-wide process of domination by principles of "exchange" and "consumption," principles which render irrelevant all traditions and moralities that do not conform to their logic. ³⁰ It is a view of modernity highly influenced by Max Weber'

²⁷ See especially Ernest Wallwork's discussion, "Morality, Religion, and Kohlberg's Theory," in Moral Development, Moral Education, and Kohlberg, edited by Brenda Munsey (Birmingham: Religious Education Press, 1980), pp. 214-31.
²⁸ James Fowler, Stages of Faith (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981), pp. 37-88.
²⁹ Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society (New York: The Seabury Press, 1980),p.50.
³⁰ Ibid., p. 72.

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so-called "iron cage" theory which sees modernity as launched on an irreversible project in which capitalistic rationalism combines with technology and bureaucratization to overrun and repress all other aspects of life except the middle-class moralities which have arisen to serve these social processes.

This, of course, is a very powerful view of the global features of the modern context that practical theology as political theology would want to recognize. It even has a great deal of relevance to the practical region of pastoral care, as I tried to demonstrate in the opening chapter of The Moral Context of Pastoral Care. ³¹ Although this may be a useful characterization of the broad context of action in modern societies, it has its dangers and shortcomings. It overlooks certain aspects of Marxist analyses centering on class domination. It does not apply to many underdeveloped countries in the same way as it does to the countries of the West. But more important, its very abstractness would lead one to overlook many of the more specific ways in which even Western cultures are not completely dominated by the exchange principle or, even to the extent that they are, to overlook how this works out in specific locales. Hence, both for the purposes of practical theology as political and for the contribution that political theology might make to the political dimensions of other practical theological regions such as pastoral care and religious education, it is important not too readily to accept this highly general analysis without supplementation and particularization from other points of view. Practical theology in all of its manifestations must have both local and global levels of analysis.

But there are two more important sets of problems in Metz's important contribution to practical theology as political theology, and these problems can be illuminated by the five dimensions of practical moral thinking. One set of problems centers on Metz's failure to differentiate sufficiently between what I have called the visional and obligational dimensions of practical moral thinking. The second set of problems is Metz's complete lack of attention to the tendency-need dimension of practical moral thinking which, in the end, is as important for political theology as it is for the other regions of practical theology.

The great strength of Metz's theology is his unique approach to the classic question of the relation of religion and morality. He seems both to assume and yet want to correct the Kantian critique of practical reason. His major point, powerfully stated and of indisputable importance, is that practical reason has a narrative embodiment. Practical reason is not just a set of abstract rules such as the categorical imperative; it is embodied in a narrative structure that entails both memory and anticipation and, indeed, anticipation that is largely shaped by memory. Practical reason receives its goals from theology's dangerous memory of

³¹ Don Browning, The Moral Context of Pastoral Care (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), pp. 17-33.

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both a freedom that humans once possessed but now have lost and the history of suffering, even the suffering of the dead, that has accompanied this loss of freedom.

Metz's understanding of the relation of narrative and memory to practical reason is, as I perceive the issues, not unlike the relation of the visional dimension to the obligational dimension of practical moral thinking. Metz gives expression to one of the most succinct statements of his position when he writes, "The God of the living and the dead is a God of universal justice who destroys the norms of our society based on exchange and the satisfaction of needs, saves those who suffer unjustly and die, and therefore calls on us to become subjects, to help others to become subjects in the face of hostile oppression, and to remain subjects in the face of guilt and in opposition to apathy." ³² The narrative that guides and directs the practical reason of Christians is a narrative about a God who guarantees a freedom based on justice, not only for the living, but also for the dead in their future resurrection.

Such a statement, although a generally useful correction to liberal Kantian perspectives on the priority of practice, does raise questions. First, is the Christian narrative about the suffering of God in Christ and about the events of Good Friday and Easter the only narrative that can nourish and motivate practical reason? In addition, just what does that narrative offer practical reason? What precisely is Metz's argument? The answer, I believe, is that the narrative and memory of God's justice and the history of suffering gives practical reason a sense of "solidarity" with the pain and anguish of all human beings both present and past. The function of this feeling of solidarity is to extend our sense of obligation to include more than just family, loved ones, community, or even all those who are living and rational enough to enter into some kind of mutual relation with us. The function of this sense of solidarity with the suffering of the dead is to universalize our sense of obligation in all directions-toward the powerless, the irrational, and those who cannot enter into communicative relations with us, that is, even the dead. Its function, in short, appears to be to extend the Kantian principle of universalization implicit in the categorical imperative to include not only those who are rational enough, co-equal enough, and alive enough to enter into the reciprocal and just transactions of a exchange society but, also, to include even those who are not so qualified. Toward the end of Faith in History and Society, Metz tells us that "solidarity is strictly universal in its application ... , " and that it "extends to those who have been overcome and left behind in the march of progress. It includes the dead. Indeed, the theological category of solidarity reveals its mystical and universal aspect above all in its memory of solidarity with the dead." ³³

³² Metz, Faith in History and Society, p. 72.
³³ Ibid., p. 231.

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But this striking and emotionally moving statement must be reflected upon. As a statement about the motivational relation between narrative and practical reason, it has merits. Remembering the huge, colossal, world-wide, and almost unthinkably needless and unjust suffering of humans through the course of history might indeed motivate us to try to remove this suffering. This is true and Metz's point is a strong one. But it is not a new one. In a variety of ways, moral philosophers, even those in the Kantian tradition, are willing to admit that religious narratives have a potential motivating function with regard to our moral action. But the question that Metz never quite addresses is this: Just what does solidarity with the dead do to help us understand how to be just with the living?

It is not enough to associate closely the dead and those who are weak, overcome, or left behind. The weak, overcome, and left behind are, as such, not yet dead, and although they may be powerless, they probably are still endowed with marks of rationality. Without settling the question of the specific definition of justice that we might use, what would it mean to include the dead in questions of justice? What can we divide, justly distribute, or fairly actualize in such a way as to meaningfully include the dead? We may indeed have an obligation to the memory of the dead, but what is our obligation to the dead as such? Even if God will resurrect the dead, what does the ontological possibility mean for questions of justice between living members of this planet at this time? In fact, isn't it the case that if one tried to convert the memory of the suffering of the dead into concrete actual historical judgments about a justice that would include the dead, one would be in a hopeless muddle? So there must be a distinction between the general vision of solidarity, that might indeed include the memory of the suffering of the dead, and the specific requirements of obligation that we are required to enact among the living.

Furthermore, it is not clear just what principle of obligation Metz is advancing. He is clearly interested in some principle of universal justice. God, as we saw, is a "God of universal justice." Because Metz is elaborating his understanding of the narrative foundations of practical reason against the background of Kant, we assume Metz is attempting to state a deontological and universal theory of justice that exceeds even Kant's community of just ends between rational humans. We can furthermore assume that he is against all utilitarian theories of justice. But as a matter of fact, the entire question is quite unclear. This unclarity is seen in his attack on the principle of mutuality as it tends to function within a society dominated by the principle of exchange. Indeed, there are pressures within capitalist society to reduce mutuality to an ethic of reciprocal advantage. Equality and mutuality mean that "I will look after your interests if you look after mine." ³⁴

³⁴ Ibid., p. 230.

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But in the process of critiquing and rejecting mutuality as reciprocal advantage, Metz fails to investigate more acceptable statements of mutuality such as the idea of equal regard stated and defended by Outka, Janssens, and others. This, of course, applies even to the powerless and the suffering. And although mutuality is the ideal-and we would hope that even the poor, the suffering, and the powerless would someday be capable of thorough equal regard-in the meantime, and as a transitional ethic, we have the obligation to sacrifice on their behalf in an effort to empower them toward the capacity of equal regard themselves. A justice that would include the dead and reject all ethics of mutuality would have some of the masochistic features of an ethic such as Anders Nygren's, and to a lesser extent Reinhold Niebuhr's, that makes self-sacrificial love the norm of life rather than making it a transitional ethic designed to restore life to genuine mutuality. ³⁵ Placed in other practical theological contexts, it is just this ethic that can lead to unproductive sacrificial behavior in marriage life, work relations, and indeed can be used to exploit the poor and powerless themselves and keep them in their position of suffering and pain.

Finally, Metz has almost nothing to say about the third dimension of practical moral thinking: the tendency-need level. In fact, Metz is so determined to make the Christian faith a matter of historical action and historical memory, that he appears to split completely the human subject from the realm of nature. Yet one of the grounds for resistance to a society of exchange, with its technologically-induced social engineering and rapid social change, may indeed be psychobiological, as Marcuse, Erikson, and Barrett and Yankelovich have all tried to say, although in different ways. ³⁶ Some attention to the range, hierarchy, and schedule of human tendencies and needs is fundamental to a realization of human health within the context of society. Although the Christian faith is principally interested in the category of redemption, it is indeed interested in the category of health under the rubric of the general fulfillment of creation. Although redemption and creation should be distinguished within Christian theology, they must still be seen as dialectically related. Redemption surpasses but at the same time includes health and the fulfillment of creation. Hence, both for the purposes of practical theology as political theology and its continuity with the other regions of practical theology, Metz's lack of attention to the third dimension of practical moral thinking is a loss. Although he is concerned with freedom as a fundamental human need, and although freedom is a presupposition to the level of agency necessary for humans to pursue the realization of their basic human needs, freedom is not the

³⁵ Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1959), pp. 61-104; Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. 11 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1964), pp. 84-85.
³⁶ Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955); see my discussion of Erikson in Generative Man (New York: Dell, 1975), pp. 145-178; Daniel Yankelovich and William Barrett, Ego and Instinct (New York: Random House, 197 1), pp.451-469.

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only human need, and to state it as such obscures the full range of human potentials and requirements that are foundational to the possibility of a just life that is also a good life.

VII

This attempt to critique Metz's great contribution, although far too brief, serves to illustrate the point that without firmer statements at almost every one of the first four dimensions, it would be very difficult to use his theology to arrive at clear understandings of concrete rules and roles to govern actual praxis. His theology might help us empathize with the suffering and lead us to grasp desperately for ways to help them, but as we approached the actual concrete cases of human suffering, there might be more confusion and hesitancy then the situation demands. This would especially be the case if we are to deal with the suffering as groups, nations, communities, classes, etc. rather than as individuals, one at a time. In the one to one situation, our intuitions to do good carry us a long way, at least in the beginning. But with larger groups, where systemic issues become more clearly involved, more clarity is required. If practical theology as political theology is to have an impact, then this clarity is important. The turn toward practical theology is an important movement within contemporary theology, but it will only reach its greatest potential when more attention is given to the actual procedures of practical moral thinking.