Catholic positions on contested moral issues are rejected by the majority in the secular West and are increasingly rejected by Catholics themselves. In this book, David Deane argues that there are two main reasons for this. First, the dominance of secular approaches deprives Catholic positions of their claim to coherence. Second, the Catholic positions, Deane shows, have lost contact with the theology on which they were originally based. In response, Deane undertakes a deconstruction of the dominant secular positions, and seeks to restore Catholic positions to their theological roots. The result of this is a moral theology reconnected with the Trinitarian understanding of God and God’s relationship with the world. Restored to its doctrinal foundations, the moral theology that Deane offers is more coherent, more beautiful, and more convincing than has been found in Catholic moral discourse for centuries.
In this book, David Deane proposes a renewal of Catholic moral theology by deconstructing dominant secular positions and restoring Catholic positions to their theological roots. In doing so, Deane makes space for a constructive Catholic moral theology restored to its foundations in the doctrine of the Trinity.
