On keeping theological ethics theological: An alternative to Stanley Hauerwas's diagnosis and prescription (Attempting a modern denial of metaphysicsthrough an idiom of contemporary theology)

Stanley Hauerwas argues that Christian ethics has lost its theological voic e because it has accommodated itself to the secular assumptions of modern p hilosophical ethics. What has led to this fateful accommodation, he argues, is that theology has sought to translate its insights into a nontheologica l idiom in order to remain publicly intelligible and relevant. My thesis is that Hauerwas rightly recognizes that a fateful accommodation has occurred but wrongly identifies what it is. The real accommodation is found not in theology's attempt to be publicly intelligible and credible but in its wide spread acceptance of the modern denial of metaphysics.