In recent years, I have come to think that at the risk of stretching hermeneutical principle, the opening line of the Gospel of John could be rendered, “In the beginning was the Story.”

In his superb little book on parables, John Dominic Crossan said in Ins good Irish fashion, “we live in story like fish in the sea.” Story-telling is the art of making sense out of life, and because of that, out of grace, God, and revelation. Story does not simply support us cn a sea of chaos, it teaches us how to survive and flourish. When we want to know who we are and where we’re going, whether as individuals or as a people, we tell stories. Personal stories, family stories, corporate myths and legends, the great stories—all of them help us establish identity and build a world. The story-teller is one of the most beloved members of society and, I think, one of the most important. I want to explore the role of the Story-Teller as Evangelist, that is, as Preacher, and the Preacher as Story-Teller.

What I hope to do, provisionally and inadequately, is to explore the dimensions of story and story-telling as a way of proclaiming not merely good news, but the good news, the relevance of story to preaching the Gospel. First I intend to look at imagination, dreaming, and memory as the faculty or spiritual power which personally grounds our story-telling. Then, I will look briefly at myths, parables and memoir as examples of stories, ending with a brief glance at some evangelical story-tellers.

David Hume first raised the “is-ought” problem in this famous passage from A Treatise of Human Nature:

Behind Hume’s quietly persuasive comments lie at least two questionable assumptions. The first is that the way language is ordinarily used is wrong; rather than take note, in an empirical fashion, of how moral discourse is normally conducted, Hume chooses to be negatively prescriptive in respect of “all the vulgar system of morality”.

Professor John Webster is not only a colleague and friend he is also someone with whom I have a good deal of theological affinity. Moreover, and more importantly, while he is an Anglican and I a Roman Catholic, we, on fundamental Christian doctrine, share a common faith. Because of this I read with special interest his article “‘Fides et Ratio”, articles 64-79’ (New Blackfriars, Vol. 81 No. 948 (2000) 66-76). I knew that he might be critical of the encyclical at certain points, as would be expected from any serious thinking theologian examining a particular piece of work. What I did not expect was his almost complete lack of sympathy towards the encyclical’s aim, his almost thorough disagreement with its approach, arguments, and judgements, as well as at times, his dismissive attitude toward the encyclical, which on occasion, so it appeared to me, to border on the mocking. In response to Professor Webster I want to address some of the issues that he raised in an attempt to show that his reading of the encyclical is not the proper reading, and in so doing hopefully demonstrate that the encyclical is not as misconceived and flawed as he thinks.

The Philosophical and Theological ‘Rumpus Room’

Webster begins by noting the Pope’s leadership in addressing such an important issue as the relationship between faith and reason and in so doing intruding himself into what some academics might consider their privileged and private domain. However, Webster faults the tone of the document.

My friend Tom Weinandy has taken my admittedly polemical words very seriously, so that a paper which was intended to provoke seminar discussion has also provoked dismay on the part of a theologian and colleague whose judgment I respect very highly. What I have written, I have written; others must judge its truth. But some things in Tom's response call for a brief reply.

First, the tone of my remarks, Tom says, betrays ‘almost complete lack of sympathy’ with Fides et Ratio and a ‘dismissive attitude’ bordering on ‘the mocking’; ‘if he tells me, ‘one restrains one's impatience and focuses one's mind'—which it looks like I have failed to do—things can be seen to be a good deal better than I have made them out to be. Maybe, though on re-reading Fides et Ratio I remain unconvinced that it is a first- rate piece of apostolic teaching. What I must make clear—and what the polemical tone evidently obscured—is that I am not at all opposed to bishops intervening in the academy: far from it. I entirely agree with Tom that much in the academy is ‘inimical to the Christian gospel', and that Christian theologians can be victims of academic terrorism. My protest is not intended to suggest that the teaching office should leave the academy alone, but that its interventions must betray a consistently apostolic character. An episcopal judgment, if it is to be received as apostolic, has to commend itself by indicating the truth, and the rather bullying tactics deployed in some bits of Fides et Ratio simply do not help.

In responding to the Second Vatican Council’s call for a renewal in moral theological reflection, Servais Pinckaers, Benedict Ashley, and Romanus Cessario, all Dominicans, are engaged in the earnest labour of authentically interpreting that call to renewal via a systematic examination of the sources of ethics contained in Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and natural reason.

The years since the Second Vatican Council have seen many divergent trends in moral method, not least the adoption of a widespread adherence to the methodology of proportionalism, particularly in the United States. The above mentioned Dominicans reject such a method as being incompatible with those crucial sources of our faith. In contrast to the popularity of proportionalism, they are engaged in a quiet, patient, and determined project, centred on virtue theory, that is gradually bearing fruit.

In Sources of Christian Ethics, Pinckaers tackles the distorted picture of an ethic based solely on the demands of obligation. The search for the minimal content of obligation in Christian ethics has been corruptive of a fully integrated approach to ethical understanding, and its latent effects are manifested in the minimalism of proportionalism that reduces the moral life to a form of quasitechnical calculus based on the will of the acting subject. Quite simply, proportionalism as a method seems incapable of adequately accounting for our profound sense of personal integrity, and with it, the control we exercise over the constitution of our character expressed in virtuous and unvirtuous conduct.

Understanding of our acts operates on two layers. The first layer is the externally observable act. The second layer, lying near the centre of our being, goes much deeper.