Communication, Punishment, and Virtue

The Theological Limitation of (Post)Secular Penance

Bibliographic Data

ID14760657
AuthorsRichard Bourne (0009-0009-2580-0606), Richard S Bourne (0000-0003-0893-525X, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume42
Issue1
Pages78-107
Publication date2014-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Religious Ethics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0384-9694 • E-ISSN: 1467-9795
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/jore.12045
OpenAlexW1561628116
LanguageEN
References cited30

This essay suggests that while A ntony D uff's model of criminal punishment as secular penance is pregnant with possibilities for theological reception and reflection, it proceeds by way of a number of separations that are brought into question by the penitential traditions of C hristianity. The first three of these—between justice and mercy, censure and invitation, and state and victim, constrain the true communicative character of his account of punishment. The second set of oppositions, between sacrament and virtue, interior character and external action, and formal and moral reconciliation, subject the model of state punishment as secular penance to problematic liberal and libertarian constraints. A postsecular analogy, outlining a theology of the invitational nature of divine judgment, and drawing on T homas A quinas's account of penance as both sacrament and virtue, is proposed

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