Wholeness of Faith and Life: Orthodox Christian Ethics, Part 1: Patristic Ethics by Stanley S.

Harakas; Wholeness of Faith and Life: Orthodox Christian Ethics, Part 2: Church Life Ethics
by Stanley S. Harakas; Wholeness of Faith and Life: Orthodox Christian Ethics, Part 3:
Orthodox Social Ethics by Stanley S. Harakas
Review by: Perry Hamalis
The Journal of Religion, Vol. 81, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 161-163
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1206977 .
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 Book Reviews
with his conversion, arguing instead that what Augustine rejected was a particular
form of rhetoric that then prevailed in the late Empire, and in which he himself
had been trained, namely, the "second Sophistic," a brand of rhetorical training
that stressed technique, was dryly and excessively formal, and was geared entirely
toward what we would now call "career advancement." What Augustine did so
brilliantly, argues Troup, is to show how beings caught in temporality and history's
flux can nonetheless come to speak, to know, and to believe. "For Augustine," he
writes, "the Incarnation is the embodied Logos-the eternal Word made flesh
... As this speaking Word functions theologically in prophetic fulfillment, so it
resonates rhetorically, meeting and exceeding the standard of embodied speech
required for Cicero's ideal orator" (p. 2).
Rather than driving a wedge between philosophy and rhetoric, Troup contin-
ues, Augustine imaginatively and powerfully drew them together. He rejected the
"rhetoric of the lie"-that Second Sophistic, with its instrumental drive-in favor
of what Vaclav Havel would call "living in truth"-and the only way one can do
that is through faith seeking understanding and expressing it in human speech
(p. 16). Augustine's rhetorical genius shines through this work, as Troup high-
lights Augustine's commitment to what he calls "the Incarnational Paradigm" or
"Charity in Interpretive Rhetoric." "Augustine,"he points out, "offers no founda-
tionalist interpretive theory. To argue for a singular, comprehensive interpreta-
tion rankles him. He values ordinary language as a check against skepticism, as
long as we understand our occasional imprecisions. He follows the incarnate
Word as his interpretive paradigm: the ultimate act of sacrificial love. Therefore,
the prerequisite he demands for every interpretive performance is charity. The
positive value of interpretation, whether as performance or dialogue, depends on
the charity of speaker and listener" (p. 176). This is a fascinating work.
JEANBETHKEELSHTAIN, Universityof Chicago.

HARAKAS, STANLEY S. Wholenessof Faith and Life: OrthodoxChristianEthics, Part 1:

PatristicEthics. Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1999. xiii+ 161
pp. $12.95 (paper).
HARAKAS, STANLEY S. Wholenessof Faith and Life: OrthodoxChristianEthics, Part 2:
ChurchLifeEthics. Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1999. xiii+ 148
pp. $12.95 (paper).
HARAKAS, STANLEY S. Wholenessof Faith and Life: OrthodoxChristianEthics, Part 3:
OrthodoxSocial Ethics. Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1999.
xiv+ 140 pp. $12.95 (paper).

"Orthodoxy may be likened to a jewel," writes Stanley Harakas, "which displays

its wholeness through the multiplicity of its facets" (part 3, p. 4). The multifaceted
richness of the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition provides both the construc-
tive foundation and the unifying theme of Harakas's new collection, Wholenessof
Faithand Life:OrthodoxChristianEthics. Sixteen of this distinguished ethicist's essays
(six of which are previously unpublished) comprise the three-volume set. While
they are largely occasional works, Harakas's claim that the essays "are capable of
standing as authentic expressions of Orthodox Christian Ethics over the long
run" (part 1, p. xi) is justified. Moreover, the essays' allocation among the three
volumes, under the headings "Patristic Ethics," "Church Life Ethics,"and "Ortho-

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The Journal of Religion
dox Social Ethics," both concentrates their teachings and facilitates their class-
room and research use.
Harakas develops the "wholeness" theme on several levels. In terms of sources
for ethics, he draws judiciously from the biblical, patristic, dogmatic, liturgical,
canonical, and iconographic dimensions of Orthodox tradition. Harakas moves
from ancient to contemporary texts and between Orthodoxy's "facets" with deft-
ness. More important, he does so with an awareness of the historical particularity
and a respect for the diversity of traditional sources. Harakas thus avoids the
tendency among some Orthodox writers to blend the manifold Eastern tradition
into a monochrome puree.
Harakas also develops the "wholeness" theme in terms of ethical approaches
and methods. In this respect volume one on "Patristic Ethics" is especially ger-
mane. While "there can be no examination of Orthodox theology or Orthodox
Christian Ethics without reference to the Fathers of the Church" (part 1, p. xiii),
according to Harakas, there can also be no reduction of patristic ethics to a single
approach or method. For example, in his superb chapter on "Ethical Decision-
Making in Saint Basil's Long Rules,"Harakas identifies St. Basil's use of cathekon-
tic, consequentialist, emotivist, situational, deontological, and virtue approaches.
All can be employed because none is absolutized. Harakas notes rightly that what
buttresses the plurality of approaches and methods in the Long Rules, as well as
in other patristic texts, is not a single ethical theory but a unified theology (part 1,
pp. 5, 41, 84, 118). Two chapters on St. Gregory the Theologian's writings and
one on "Resurrection and Ethics in St. John Chrysostom" serve further to support
his claim.
Thus the basis for "wholeness" in Eastern Orthodox Ethics, according to Hara-
kas, is neither a single source nor a single method but, rather, the unified wholeness
of the church. "Ethical behavior," he writes, "is inextricably bound up with belief,
piety, worship, and the sacramental life" (part 2, p. 3). Again, Harakas resists re-
ductionism; however, now his target is reductions of the church to any single di-
mension of its life. In his important chapter, "Responding to Contemporary
Challenges to Orthodoxy," Harakas argues compellingly that Orthodoxy is not
merely "the Eucharist," "Iconography," "Monasticism," or even "Love"; it is all of
these, and more (part 2, pp. 89-90). The current tendency toward such reductions,
he suggests, is pernicious, if not heretical. This suggestion is implied by Harakas's
further contention that the wholeness of the church is grounded in nothing less
than the Trinitarian God. Part 2's opening essay, "The Doctrine of the Trinity in
Eastern Orthodox Ethics," thus serves as the keystone for Harakas's project.
The theme of wholeness continues into the third volume. Through thoughtful
essays on economic justice, bioethics, ecology and peace, international relations,
and public theology, Harakas confirms that the church's wholeness necessarily
overflows into social outreach. Since all spheres of life are ordered teleologically
toward divine participation, or theosis,sectarian retreat can never be justified as
the church's permanent posture.
Yet here, in the relationship between the church and "that which is not
Church" (p. x), is where a potential difficulty arises. Harakas writes, "in the Or-
thodox ethical tradition there can be no treatment of concrete and specific ethical
issues, whether they be personal, ecclesial, or social, which are divorced from the
foundational affirmations of the Orthodox Christian faith tradition" (part 3,
p. 50). Clearly, Harakas holds that Orthodox ethical norms are inseparable from
Orthodox tradition. While this may prove unproblematic for the personal or ec-
clesial realms (assuming the moral agent locates herself or himself within the Or-

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 Book Reviews
thodox faith tradition), it would seem to pose an acute problem in the social
realm- especially in contemporary pluralistic societies. Put simply, why would a
non-Orthodox Christian accept Orthodoxy's normative claims? In the third vol-
ume's concluding essay, "A Theologian's Reflections on the First Amendment,"
Harakas comes closest to articulating an Eastern Orthodox approach to plural-
ism. In his defense of church-state symphonia,Harakas implies that neither reli-
gious pluralism nor the sharp separation of church and state is consistent with
Orthodox tradition. With these two claims, I agree. Harakas further states that
he agrees with Nicholas Wolterstorff's interpretation of the First Amendment and
with Wolterstorff's recommendation to let citizens use any reasons, including ex-
plicitly religious reasons, when arguing in the public square (part 3, pp. 124-25).
Here again, I agree. However, Harakas does not give an Orthodox account of the
relationship between tradition and rationality or of the way in which the claims
of rival traditions are adjudicated. Two of the most popular approaches to these
issues are Roman Catholic natural law theory or something like Alasdair MacInt-
yre's "tradition embodied rationality," neither of which seems to be a perfect fit
for the Christian East. My comments, therefore, are not so much a criticism of
Harakas's teaching as they are an invitation to this pioneer of Orthodox ethics in
America to articulate an Eastern alternative.
As one may have guessed, treating such a robust ethical tradition in the context
of essays precludes the possibility of comprehensiveness. Indeed, the topics of
each of these sixteen fine chapters deserve full-length studies. For those readers,
however, who are looking for an accessible yet substantive work through which to
make a foray into Orthodox Christian ethics, this collection is ideal.
PERRYHAMALIS, Chicago,Illinois.

CONNORS,RUSSELLB., JR., and MCCORMICK, PATRICKT Character,Choices,and

Community.The ThreeFaces of ChristianEthics. New York: Paulist Press, 1998.
ix+266 pp. $15.95 (paper).

Making use of recent work in moral theology, Russell B. Connors, Jr., and Patrick
T McCormick present a synthetic introduction to Christian ethics, written for the
undergraduate level. The authors examine person, action, and community as the
essential elements of moral experience in light of the central themes of the gospel.
They address the contemporary emphases on story and virtue as central to the
formation of a good conscience and synthesize these concerns with the natural
law tradition and the status of moral norms and moral reasoning.
The authors insist that reflection on morality should begin with lived experi-
ence rather than with theories and principles. It is in our experiences, they argue,
that we begin to feel a "moral tug" (p. 14). With examination and critical reflec-
tion, these experiences are the basis for, and a check against, moral theories and
norms. Further, they argue that these experiences are not only personal but com-
munal. Thus morality must also attend to the significance of social structures and
institutions as "both expressive and formative of who we are as communities and
persons" (p. vii).
Chapters 2, 3, and 4 on character, choices, and community, respectively, draw
on this emphasis on personal and communal moral experience. Character is de-
fined as "the core, unique, self-chosen and integral moral identity of a person"
shaped by our responses to our moral experiences (p. 18). Freedom, virtue, and
responsibility are described as part of this process of moral development. Choices

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