Traumatismo abdominal

Based on the warrant given by the resurrection to look backward from the vantage of eschatological transformation, O’Donovan chooses to begin from the first page ofR&MOto

25

R&MO, 55. Cf. O’Donovan’s remarks on the teleological import of “eschatological expectation”: “Within Christianity one cannot think or speak about the meaning of the world without speaking also of its destined transformation”; O’Donovan, ‘The Natural Ethic’, 26.

26

Luke Bretherton credits O’Donovan’s “eschatological framework” with being able to “account for the continuity and radical discontinuity between this age and the age to come… and thus for the continuity and discontinuity between Christian and non-Christian approaches to morality”; Bretherton,Hospitality as Holiness: Christian Witness Amid Moral Diversity(Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006) 87. Bretherton shows good insight into O’Donovan’s doctrine of “eschatological teleology”, but he does not develop the consequences of O’Donovan’s epistemological realism (see Chapter 7 ofHospitality as Holiness).

27

On this view we do not interpret Paul’s language regarding the ‘futility’ of the creation (Romans 8:20) as indication that the present creation must pass away, only to be replaced by a better creation; but rather the whole creation will be redeemed; cf.R&MO, 55. This raises a question to be taken up in the following chapters: How is the doctrine of new creation (cf. Isa. 66:22; 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1) to be integrated with O’Donovan’s doctrine of objectivity and continuity of the created order with the new heaven and new earth?

assert the validity of Christian ethics as a reasoned approach toward discernment and

description of the “ordered structures of being and good” which have existed within the world from the beginning. O’Donovan finds warrant within Christian faith to assert the ontological reality and absolute structure of the moral order woven into the fabric of the creation—

The order of things that God has made isthere. It is objective, and mankind has a place within it. Christian ethics, therefore, has an objective reference …in accordance with this order …In this assertion we can find a point of agreement with the classical ethics of Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics …ethics as a close correlate of metaphysics.28

Thus the search for moral order may take confidence in the objective reality of its epistemic goal. The moral order isthere. Its ontological presence within the creation may be stated assuredly as a steadfast and unassailable doctrine of evangelical ethics. This assertion is not threatened by the subjective, existential limitations of our human experience, whether conceived in terms of spirituality, religion, psychology, or otherwise. O’Donovan offers no quarter for critiques which would make the objective reality of the moral order contingent upon subjective experience.29 Any such critiques are refuted as being unrealistic, on account of their abandonment of the objective reality of the creation in deference to a hidden reality cloaked in the subjectivity of individual experience. He argues that any such contingency leads to “absolute disorder” due to a flawed metaphysics which devolves into an incoherent nihilism—

If some [reality] A and some B were related neither teleologically nor generically in any respect whatsoever, there would be two unconnected universes, which is to say, no universe at all.30

In the modern era, the predominant challenge to this view has come from the direction of existentialism in a form which emphasizes subjective reality as the only reality we can

experience. This existential view identifies subjective reality as the epistemic goal of our ethical and spiritual response. O’Donovan demonstrates how this view of subjectivity undermines any attempt to construct an evangelical ethic, because it infects the ontological

28

R&MO, 17. 29

R&MO, 11. To clarify his concern here, we may look to his earlier essay where he explains: “It is one thing to say that until the Word became incarnate, man could discern no meaning in nature; quite another to say that until the Word became incarnate nature had no meaning. Revelation is the solution to man’s blindness, not to nature’s emptiness.” O’Donovan, ‘The Natural Ethic’, 26. The point is that reality isthere, regardless of how, or how accurately, we perceive it.

30

Chapter 2: The Concept of Moral Order 30

implications of eschatological transformation with the psychological implications of

subjectivity, resulting in a sure descent into disorder and relativism. This error he attributes to the

…Idealist polarization of ‘subjectivity’ and ‘objectivity’, in which object and subject lose their primary relational sense… and become overweighted with psychological and ontological implications.31

Such idealism is not coherent within anevangelicalethic, because it separates reality into two opposing realms: one which is objectively true, and the other which is subjectively

experienced. As a result, the discussion of objectivity is rendered moot, and thus unable to convey the ethical content of the Gospel in the form of assured principles of ontological truth. Accordingly, O’Donovan argues that this idealist view will not suffice for statement of an evangelical ethic, because it fails to affirm the objective reality of the moral order realized through eschatological transformation. Thus anevangelicalethic must be built upon the foundation of the objective reality of the created order as a truth which extends throughout all times, and is not simply a disjoint new reality which is being held in abeyance until some future time at which it will emerge in a transformed, and ultimately complete form.

Recognizing how easily an idealist view of the subjectivity of human experience can distort the objective reality of the Gospel, O’Donovan is careful to explain how an evangelical ethic will necessarily circumscribe the meanings of ‘subjectivity’ and

‘objectivity’ in the context of moral reasoning. Any apparent differences between subjective and objective realities must be confined to the realm of the personal perspective of the observer; these differences do not reflect the ontological structure of the created order. To ascribe any more substantial content to subjective reality is to slip into the errors of

“misleading Idealist implications”.32 Thus to speak coherently of reality, we must conclude that there is precisely one universal objective reality which contains all subjective

apperceptions of itself:

The ‘subjective reality’ is… no different reality from the ‘objective reality.’ It is the one reality, the reality of a world redeemed…33

31

R&MO, 102. O’Donovan here notes that he follows “a lead given by Karl Barth” in his understanding of the relational definition of ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ within the trinitarian concept. This supports O’Donovan’s view that subjectivity is defined by the relationship of the moral agent as a subject who responds in freedom to God, others and the world.

32

R&MO, 106. 33

The objective order of creation thereforecontainssubjective experience. Subjective

experience is not an independent reality; rather, it is an experience formed by, and occurring within, the unity of the one objective reality: the creation “includes us and enables us to participate in it.”34He thus defines our experience of subjective reality asparticipation in the moral order.35

This doctrine of objective reality extends also to the concept of moral ‘rightness’. Based on the premise that the structure of the moral order exists independently of human perception of it, O’Donovan claims that the moral attribute of being ‘right’ can be applied to moral choices and behaviors, in accordance with general rules which stand as ontological realities independent of subjective knowledge:

Moral deliberation… is a matter of finding therightqualification for one’s general rule of action, which will recognize thetruthabout the circumstances in which one has to act.36

Are we therefore to understand ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ as being categorical attributes to be assigned to moral actions, regardless of how our capacity to discern the structure of the moral order might be affected by the limitations of subjective human experience? O’Donovan seems to move in this direction, as he cements the connection between objectivetruthand rightdecisions. He demonstrates the practical application of such a connection by affirming the belief that the Bible may be read as a source of “acomprehensivemoral viewpoint” providing witness to objectively real moral principles:

…We read the Bible seriously only when we use it to guide our thought towards a comprehensive moral viewpoint… We must look within it not only for moral bricks, but for indications of the order in which the bricks hold together.37

This reference to “moral bricks” suggests the possibility that theological ethics might be reducible to a codified set of universal principles, as if the moral structure of the universe could be parsed in discrete units. After all, O’Donovan explains that “the items in a code

34

R&MO, 101. 35

O’Donovan exegetes Phil. 2:13 helpfully in this regard, to show that our experience of freedom as moral subjects is real; yet our free response remains, as Augustine articulated, always subject to God’s initiative, 102. Cf. 76, “Morality is man’s participation in the created order.”

36

R&MO, 96. Italics in the original. Cf. p. 216: “When we deliberate on something we are about to do, or …have done, we have, in the final analysis, a single point to resolve: is it, or was it, therightthing to do?” 37

Chapter 2: The Concept of Moral Order 32

stand to the moral law as bricks to a building”, and “this has an immediate bearing on how we read the Bible”38; however, thus would be a superficial reading of O’Donovan’s intent. He is walking the fine line here of insisting upon the objective reality of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ actions, while at the same time acknowledging that the criteria of judging ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are not reducible to the status of explicit objectifiable principles, as though they were free- standing tracts in a moral code. There would seem to be an exception to every moral principle; thus, “be there ten of them or six hundred and thirteen” rules or moral bricks in a moral code, they would have no meaning unless there be also acomprehensivemoral viewpoint to prevail over them and provide them with an interpretive context. To arrive at such a comprehensive moral viewpoint is no simple matter, for such a viewpoint (as well as the epistemic access it provides onto the moral order) can be neither derived from, nor reduced to, objectifiable principles.39It requires wisdom to make sense of moral reality— “Wisdom must involve some comprehension of how the bricks are meant to be put

together.”40 This would seem to be the perennial challenge of ethics and dogmatics, which begs the larger question: from where does such wisdom descend? Before we can adequately address that question in light of O’Donovan’s realism, we shall continue to identify the salient features of his outline.

Holding in abeyance the question of wisdom, we may sum up the importance of objectivity for O’Donovan’s doctrine by noting it asserts the existence of right action, and furthermore, that it implies the possibility and freedom to choose the right action in any given situation as an expression of “the universal character of all Christian life”. In support of this conclusion, O’Donovan points to Paul’s confession of “one Spirit, one Lord, one God” [1 Cor. 12:3-6] as an affirmation of this universal character, revealed in the diversity of gifts, activities and vocations which comprise Christian lives.41 In the same way, O’Donovan reads Paul’s chapter on love [1 Cor. 13] as a confirmation that no matter how wide a variation we may see in Christian lives and vocations, they all serve as windows “through which the universal character of all Christian life may appear.”42 Thus, love represents the universal structure of the moral order within God’s creation:

38 R&MO, 200. 39 R&MO, 199f. 40 R&MO, 200. 41 R&MO, 222 42 R&MO, 222.

Just as the variety of voices within the church are unified in a common confession, ‘Jesus is Lord’, so the variety of forms of life are unified within a common form of life

according to God’s order, the life of love.43

Having established love as the core reality representing the universal character of all Christian life, O’Donovan is quick to recognize the need to guard against the currents of idealism which lead into non-evangelical misinterpretations of the universal character of love. To sever love from its source in the incarnate truth of “the historically concrete figure of Jesus of Nazareth”44, and to treat it as a universalized ethical principle, is to take a non- evangelical misstep away from the objective reality of the moral order. This cannot be permitted within an evangelical ethic, because it leads into Christological errors. To take a step in the direction of defining love as an abstract, universal principle, is to

… step outside the limits of Chalcedonian Christology. This would have one of two results. Either we would settle for a static Nestorian theism, in which the object of our love was, in truth, simply the divine principle… or, more characteristically of the modern period, we would embrace a monophysite humanism, …the emerging idea of a divinized humanity.45

An evangelical ethic cannot countenance such a move, because the Gospel is grounded in physical history, not in metaphysical principles. This presents a challenge to the formulation of a doctrine which states evangelical ethics in terms of objective reality, for the claim of objectivity implies applicability to all times and places—in other words, to be universally applicable. Yet the historical foundation of the Gospel speaks of a unique non-repeatable historical person in Jesus of Nazareth. How is this challenge to be resolved? Again,

O’Donovan asserts the witness to the Resurrection as the key to holding this tension together. By virtue of the bi-directional vantage of eschatological transformation, he links the

eschatological hope of redemption with the objective shape of the moral order, and thus suggests that evangelical witness to transformation avoids the misstep of conceiving of love as an abstract, universalizing principle:

43 R&MO, 222. 44 R&MO, 242. 45 R&MO, 242.

Chapter 2: The Concept of Moral Order 34

[T]he love of Christ cannot be conceived in such a universalizing way but must be viewed eschatologically, as the form which our moral obligations have taken in these last days, at the climax of God’s redemptive work.46

This requirement to view moral obligations from the eschatological vantage point of historical climax guards against the un-evangelical idea that love can be expressed as an abstract principle, but by the same stroke, the emphasis of historical particularity also begs the question: How are we to understand the role of history and the reality of time within the context of moral order and eschatological transformation? How are we to conceive of the moral order as revealing a universally applicable ontological structure, if it remains in some sense incomplete as it awaits its ultimate transformation? We turn next to these questions.