Vol. XXXVIII / 1 - Studia Moralia

MODELS AND MULTIVALENCE 51
concrete expression in the presence of the gifts of the Spirit in
the life of the believer. 5
Strengths. The strengths of the integrative model lie in the
continuity it is able to sustain between the moral and spiritual
spheres of life, while at the same time allowing for appropriate
distinctions. In this model, spirituality is not subsumed into
moral theology; nor is moral theology subsumed into
spirituality. The distinctions between the two disciplines, simply
do not exist. That is not to say, however, that the two spheres
cannot be logically distinguished from one another (as if the
tropological sense could be absorbed by the other senses, or
Aquinas’ understanding of the gifts of the Spirit collapsed into
the virtues). On the contrary, the model assists the believer in
seeing the moral implications of all Christian spiritual teaching,
as well as the spiritual implications of the moral. Because it
existed prior to the hierarchical rendering of theology into
various disciplines and subdisciplines, the model also supplies a
badly needed corrective to those who have become convinced
that theology cannot be rethought to embrace fundamentally
different organizing categories of thought. Finally, the presence
of the model in two very different understandings of philosophy
(i.e., Christian Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism) and theology
(i.e., of the monastic and high scholastic types) encourages the
development of similar complementary attempts at integrating
these two intimately related spheres of human existence.
Weaknesses. The weaknesses of the model stem from the
lack of focus it can have toward specific problems faced by the
believer in the spiritual-moral life. By concentrating on the
integrative role of theology in general, it can easily lose sight of
5
For an excellent comparison of monastic and scholastic theology, see
B. P. GAYBBA, Aspects of the Medieval History of Theology: 12th to 14th
Centuries (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1988), 7-65. For the historical
relationship between monastic and scholastic theology, see JEAN LECLERCQ,
“Monastic and Scholastic Theology in the Reformers of the Fourteenth to
Sixteenth Centuries,” in From Cloister to Classroom: Monastic and Scholastic
Approaches to Truth, Cistercian Studies Series, no. 90, ed. Rozanne Elder
(Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1986), 178-201, esp. 194. For the
limitations of the scholastic method, see DULLES, The Craft of Theology, 41-
46.