Mere Christian Social Ethics and the Challenge of Social Science

Christian social ethics needs a confident theology of the person and society—a theology rooted in revelation, embodied in Christian consciences and community, and able to give an account of the person and society that is independent of the social sciences. The account of positive and moral knowledge in Pinckaers (1995) and the discussion of the four sources of moral knowledge in Ratzinger (2007) describe what is possible from a collaboration of economics with Christian social ethics. When theology acknowledges and embraces its status as crucial interior knowledge shaped by revelation, it will then assume its proper role in orienting positive, exterior knowledge toward true human values.