Abstract

The author analyzes Christian morality in terms of three interdependent strands: the "splanchnic", in which morality is grounded upon response of organisms to their environment; the "somatic", in which social practices (e.g. property ownership) are presupposed while a rule or way of life furnishes community guidance for life employing the practices; and the "anastatic", in which revisionary events direct a venturesome moral revision and transformation. Part II supports these theses with biblical examples and arguments, starting from the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, while Part III seeks to relate the three-stranded analysis to the familiar H. R. Niebuhr typology (here found defective) and to the styles of Kant and the Utilitarians (here treated as derivative from one of the three strands). The three strands are then applied to the analysis of the work of three contemporaries, who begin their work respectively in the first strand (Iris Murdoch), the second (Stanley Hauerwas) and the third (John Cobb). The three-stranded typology is seen to permit a clear understanding of the work of each while suggesting critical questions about them.