Narrative Theology and Moral Theology: The Infinite Horizon

Alexander Lucie-Smith

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007 - 233 pages

Moral thinking today finds itself stranded between the particular and the universal. Alasdair MacIntyre's work on narrative, discussed here along with that of Stanley Hauerwas and H. T. Engelhardt, aims to undo the perceived damage done by the Enlightenment by returning to narrative and abandoning the illusion of a disembodied reason that claims to be able give a coherent explanation for everything. It is precisely this -a theory that holds good for all cases - that John Rawls proposed, drawing on the heritage of Emmanuel Kant. Who is right? Must universality be abandoned? Must we only think about morality in terms that are relative, bound by space and time? It is Lucie-Smith's contention that each narrative that points to a lived morality exists against the background of an infinite horizon; and thus it is that the particular and the rooted can also make us aware of the universal and unchanging.

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