Communication, punishment, and virtue: the theological limitation of (post)secular penance

This essay suggests that while Antony Duff'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 Christianity. The f...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Bourne, Richard (Author)
Format: Electronic/Print Article
Language:English
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Published: Wiley [2014]
In: Journal of religious ethics
Year: 2014, Volume: 42, Issue: 1, Pages: 78-107
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Duff, Antony 1945- / Crime / Punishment / Fine / Theology / Secularism
IxTheo Classification:AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism
AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
FA Theology
NCC Social ethics
NCD Political ethics
Online Access: Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:This essay suggests that while Antony Duff'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 Christianity. 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 Thomas Aquinas's account of penance as both sacrament and virtue, is proposed.
ISSN:0384-9694
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of religious ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/jore.12045