One of the paradoxical side-effects of the shift of interest in New Testament studies from historicity to tradition-history (Redaktions- geschichte) has been an increased awareness of the historical character of revelation. In the process of distinguishing sources and noting literary techniques we become very conscious of the personality of the writers. We discover human minds grappling with the problems of their communities, minds operating within the problematic imposed upon them by their culture and interests, minds limited by their resources. This discovery has destroyed the concept of the New Testament as an ageless monument. In its place we have a library whose volumes reflect the varied personalities of their authors. The inspired character of their insights guarantees that they cannot be ignored, but recognition of the fact that they have been conditioned historically means that they cannot be accepted without critical examination.

This conclusion has implications for both dogmatic and moral theology. Attention has centred in the area of dogma, as is only natural given the traditional understanding of the relationship between the two, but unfortunately lack of adequate investigation into the relation of language to religious thought has rendered the discussion less fruitful than one might have hoped. This difficulty does not arise with regard to morals because here there certainly can be no question of simply modifying the verbal expression. The problem posed by moral precepts is not one of understanding but of relevance: to what extent are concrete specific directives given to first-century communities binding today?

Even for those who are still willing to learn with St Thomas Aquinas, the image of him may be that of one whose achievement was, supremely, synthetic: starting from the first and ultimate principles, he descends steadily down from God to man, in the manner of those streams from the heavens down the mountains into the plains celebrated in the psalm (103, 13) which St Thomas chose as the text of his inaugural lecture as Master in the university of Paris:

This image has some measure of truth in it, but for reasons which will appear only slowly in the course of this article. Nevertheless, the plain—and to us more sympathetic—fact remains that this image is also false: St Thomas found men much as we find men: man is broken and lives in a broken society, a creature always liable to fall apart into his constituent pieces within a society riven by discord and distortions.

The point about being a Christian (other versions of this are no doubt possible!) is that one lives, loves, works, feels and thinks in the light of the disclosure/discovery of a sense of end (finis, telos), and hence of a possibility of happiness (beatitudo, eudaimonia), which in turn points to a whole style of being-with-others, a particular form of community (amicitia, koinonia). In principle this is both nuclear and global. As well as the smaller projects, such as the guerrilla bases, proleptic utopias, regenerating sanctuaries and the like which our local church-communities should be, there must be permanent transformation of the structures of interdependence, ongoing liberation of mankind as a whole, active sponsoring of the righteousness of God which happens as the righting of relationships within society. Salvation occurs as community: that is unmistakably the Christian emphasis. In other words, then, politics cannot be divorced from ethics. It is in the ethical, precisely, that the relation between the personal and the social-political is negotiated. And if that is a commonplace in the tradition represented by St Thomas Aquinas, as it is, however uncharacteristic it may be of many Catholics ‘in public life’, it is also a principle which is central in the literary- critical tradition developed and sustained by Scrutiny.

The plan of this paper, then, is first to outline how the Scrutiny tradition forms an essential part of the long revolution against the society which inhibits and falsifies all reference to an ultimate source of meaning and an ultimate ground of being,

Virtue is not in fashion. Not even the word appears in most catechetical or theological writings. For us today it carries a musty smell of moralizing; it suggests a puritanism which we have good reason to mistrust, for we no longer want the prohibitions and obligations imposed on us by society to be the immediate criteria of our conduct. Even when it is the prohibitions and obligations imposed on us by the Church which are in question, we no longer feel that the quality of our Christian lives is to be judged according to our capacity to conform to the patterns of behaviour imposed on us in this way.

This is, however, not the only reason for our mistrust of virtue. We also react against its suggestion of the cultivated soul, the ideal of the ‘righteous man’ whose virtues are his adornment. And that is indeed what virtue meant at the beginning of our culture: the Greeks were so taken by virtue because it was the spiritual equivalent of physical beauty. Against this, on the one hand, we feel that this ideal is too self-centred: other people and the mystery of being and of the world seem to become mere pretexts or instruments for our personal perfection. On the other hand, we have also learned to distrust the clear conscience: Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger and Sartre have all, in their turn, unmasked the illusions of the cultivated soul. And Christians have reason not to turn deaf ears to these voices,

I. Speaking to Willing Ears

First of all, let me speak on behalf of the Third World, and thank those of you who represent the Haslemere Group for the Declaration which you are transforming into a programme of thought and action. I assure you, in my capacity as a man of the underdeveloped world, that your vision could not be clearer nor your attitude more courageous. This is what I have already said in Manchester, at the Manchester Student Congress, organized by the Student Christian Movement.

I have come here to co-operate with you; to urge you on in your effort in spite of the obstacles before you. I have come here to testify to the truth of the theme of this Conference.

I will try to show you quickly how the underdeveloped world is being crushed by a triple violence.

II. The Triple Violence against the Underdeveloped World

1. Internal colonialism, which means established violence

Taking Latin America as an example, when people ask me if I think our Continent is threatened by violence I feel that the question is looking ahead to the possible, eventual violence of those who are now oppressed, whereas it does not take into account the already existing violence of the oppressors—a small privileged group whose wealth is maintained at the expense of the misery of million of their countrymen.

Those who are unfamiliar with Latin America may think I am exaggerating; they may think I am being demagogic, or deliberately provocative.