This session addresses how different Christian communities do or do not envision the life of the church in terms of Christian or human freedom. Risto Saarinen's paper, "Martin Luther and the Ecclesiological Appeal of Christian Freedom" will argue that the perspective Luther develops in The Freedom of a Christian continues the Scotist and late medieval understanding of justice as a pursuit of another’s good (bonum alienum). Phyllis Zagano's "Does Catholic Synodality Promise Ecclesial Freedom for Catholic Women" questions whether the ongoing process of synodality will bring about a free Catholic acceptance of ordained women. Lastly, Roberto De La Noval shows the consequences of erroneously taking “doctrine” as the subject of development, and how this perspective serves to make invisible the role in “doctrinal developments” of the theologian and her intellectual freedom in "The Freedom of the Theologian as Precondition for 'Doctrinal Development:' Catholic Teaching on Slavery as Case Study."
The Catholic Church’s magisterium has acknowledged doctrinal development as integral to the Catholic conception of the church and of divine revelation itself. But Catholic theologians, beginning with Newman, have mistakenly cast what is the church’s development as a development of doctrine itself. This paper concerns the consequences of erroneously taking “doctrine” as the subject of development, and how this perspective serves to make invisible the role in “doctrinal developments” of the theologian and her intellectual freedom. To show this, I focus on the Catholic Church’s development in its magisterial teaching on slavery; without theologians’ exercise of freedom vis-a-vis what was established doctrine in their time, no development would have occurred. Ultimately, I argue that to deny this freedom to theologians is to fall into the incoherence of a performative self-contradiction, for to deny the necessary means for a touted end is to deny the very validity of the end.
A review of synodal efforts of the 2021-2024 Synod on Synodality to examine structures and policies that restrict and, ultimately, endanger women, and the possibilities for continued synodal discernment for and about women. The presenting question is whether the ongoing process of synodality will bring about a free Catholic acceptance of ordained women, as well as whether there will be any ongoing process of synodality in the future.
Many Reformers replaced traditional virtue ethics with a view that emphasizes Christian freedom and individual consience. While this development connected Christianity with the emerging European modernity, Catholic-minded scholars like Alasdair MacIntyre or Brad Gregory have argued that Protestant individualism can no longer support the understanding of the church as communio, an institution in which the virtues are preserved so that a flourishing community can emerge.
Based on my recent work in ecumenical theology and Reformation history, I argue that the Lutheran doctrine of Christian freedom continues the Scotist and late medieval understanding of justice as a pursuit of another’s good (bonum alienum). This understanding is community-oriented rather than individualistic. While it provides an alternative to Thomist virtue ethics, it also regards virtues and communitarian needs as primary. An ecclesiology built on Christian freedom may highlight individual rights but it also builds on a strong concept of reciprocity and service.