critical use of intelligence one can become aware of cultural influences, aware of oneself as subject to them, and aware of other possibilities that have not been revealed by these cultural influences. In their anxiety to construct an ethics that is convincing to the contemporary world the uncritical reformers remove any ethical barriers to domination by the new cultural forces. Given the shortcomings of this approach, it is not surprising that others emphasize authority and tradition. Christians, they remind us, are not called to conform to the world. They must be critical and judge which characteristics of the modern world have a legitimate place in Christian life and which do not. The Church, more in touch with the wisdom of the ages, saves us from the narrowness and bias of our own culture. An extreme form of this appeal to tradition and authority might be called uncritical reaction31. By holding unconditionally to what is perceived as tradition, it makes absolutes of human and fallible ethical formulations of one moment in time, usually of the relatively recent, remembered past. This has several drawbacks. First, a particular formulation of a moral rule may reflect a particular situation. For example, in one society perhaps capital punishment is the only way to prevent a complete breakdown of public order that threatens the lives of the innocent. Capital punishment in such a society is certainly more defensible than in societies where that situation does not prevail. An appeal to a tradition that makes an absolute of a previous permission of capital punishment cannot recognize the possibility that in a new situation it may not be justified. Furthermore, an ethical formulation by the Church at one moment in time may reflect only a partial realization of the implications of the Gospel. The Gospel is a leaven that only gradually transforms society; only gradually do Christians begin to realize the practical implications of some of the truths they believe. It took some centuries, for example, for Christians generally to realize that slavery in any form is incompatible with the dignity and 31
Here the term "conservative" is avoided for reasons similar to those given above for avoiding the term "liberal".
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