Conservative Anglican approaches to casuistry in moral theology

Moral Theology and Christian Ethics:

Casuistry is the process of determining what in right and wrong is specific cases where general or conventional norms are not specific enough. In essence, casuistry is the process with which basic moral principles are applied to activities of daily living. Throughout its history, casuistry has developed as method of moral reasoning when extraordinary new issues emerge and was particularly high in the 16th Century. These moral dilemmas during this period were sometimes accompanied by expeditions with religious and political conflicts in England raising questions that were unexpected in the earlier period. In such conflicts, there were few principles that tackled the emerging questions though most of them were inadequate to offer solutions (Keenan, 1996).

In the Anglican tradition, casuistry was mostly preserved in its ancient way though it was also integrated with the new ways. Anglican casuistry was normally generated by a confrontation of values that were already established with the emerging situations that challenged those values (Jonsen & Toulmin, p. 158). In its initial years after the break with Rome, the Anglican Church maintained a relatively similar ecclesiastical policy like the one it had for many centuries though it experienced the greatest difficulty to do so. During this period, the Anglican Church used Catholic books on casuistry when they were relevant or when forced to do so due to lack of a newly developed policy on casuistry. This was largely due to the fact that Catholics had developed their own books regarding casuistry while Anglicans were yet to develop their own books.

The lack of an Anglican casuistry to deal with the emerging conditions during this period was noted by ecclesiastical writers who developed several books which were later used by Anglicans. Robert Sanderson is considered as the first Anglican author to produce an original work on casuistry and is greatly revered for his prudence and clever resolution of cases. The Anglican ecclesiastical writers were rarely concerned with the proper application of Church law to cases since their aim was the formation of a Christian's conscience. Therefore, the traditional Anglican casuistry was explicitly for the purpose of both intensive and extensive moral education.

Casuistry v. Contextualism:

Contextualism is the belief that the moral standards with which moral judgments are determined usually vary depending on the specific context. The teachings of Anglicans on moral thoughts, actions, standards and judgments are similar to those of other traditional Reformed Protestantism. While a closer examination of Anglican teachings on moral actions tend to lean on moral perfection, it's not the teaching of Anglicanism since it's impossible for a Christian to attain moral perfection. In the traditional Anglican teachings, the bases of determining the goodness of a moral act were scripture, reason and tradition though the roles of these factors are quite diverse. However, the Anglican moral teaching has now been greatly impacted by the cultural norms that characterize human experience and interpretations of the reasonable ("Anglican Principles of Moral Thought," n.d.).

Since the purpose of traditional Anglican casuistry was the formation of a Christian's conscience, it's similar to contextualism because conscience is used to pass moral judgment on all actions. This is evident from the fact that contextualism accommodates various moral judgments made by several people in different contexts. Furthermore, casuistry and contextualism are similar because of the fact that they are greatly influenced by the existing cultural norms and emerging conditions. According to Anglican casuists, morally right actions are established from a rational judgment that is dependent on all available evidence.