Principles of finance

2 How Faith

Makes a Difference: Business as a Calling or

the Calling of Christians in Business?

JOHAN VERSTRAETEN

johan.verstraeten@theo.kuleuven.ac.be

Abstract

REFLECTION ON THE CALLING OF BUSINESS and the role of Christians

can easily lead to two misunderstandings: either to an underestimation of the specific rationality

of business or to an ideological misuse of Christian ideas for the justification of the status quo in

the business world.

In my paper I try to demonstrate that Christians are called to affirm a difference in business

and that as such they become relevant as a source of moral innovation and transformation

towards more humanity. It is precisely the narrative basis of their traditions that enables them to

mobilize the necessary imagination for innovating moral practices in business.

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1. The specific rationality of business and the different hermeneutic horizon of the Christian interpretation of the world

Talking about the ‘calling’ of business can give the impression that one can easily merge

the rationality of business with the ethico-religious language of ‘vocation’ or ‘calling’. This is quite

problematic since the world of business and the sciences related to it (management theories,

business ethics) are affected by the differentiation process of modernity.

As products of modernity, business and management are differentiated fields determined

by a sort of system-immanent logic of the market in the broadest sense of the word. Even when

the practice of business is understood as more than merely the art of profit making, and even

when on acceptance that profit making is based on the more fundamental end of producing

meaningful goods via the creation of work communities in which people 'work with others for

the benefit of others'1, the ethical understanding of business is still driven by market pressures.

Business is 'value' driven, but in real life, value is often reduced to shareholder value (profit),

which remains the ultimate criterion. Good practices and ethical considerations are accepted and

included in daily business as far as they are necessary and efficient for the realization of the goals

of profit. Multinational companies pay attention to human rights and moral values, but in many

cases only when they are, so to speak, coerced to do so as a result of market pressures by

significant stakeholders such as NGO's with ethical agendas (Amnesty International, Greenpeace,

the other-globalists), ethical investment funds, religious communities engaged in shareholder

activism (cf. the interfaith centre for corporate responsibility), consumer organizations, etc. As

soon as they can escape the market pressure via political support, their ethical ‘vocation’ becomes

extremely shallow (cf. the refusal by the Bush administration to implement the Kyoto norms).

Even business ethics as an academic discipline which pretends to guide the business community

towards a more ethical behavior cannot escape the problem of being caught in the iron cage of

modern rationality.

Already more than 16 years ago Dennis McCann convincingly diagnosed that business

ethics, although it has rightfully contributed to criticizing the myth of amoral business life, has

enclosed itself in the same illusion as amoral business itself in so far as it has taken over the

presupposition which accords this myth its plausibility and which protects it against critique,

namely, the belief in the typical rationality of management and the acceptance of the manipulative

power that is linked to it. In other terms: business ethics does not escape from the manipulative

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modern rationality of which management is the expression par excellence.

Like any other sort of expert ethics, business ethicists often nurture the illusion that they

possess a collection of specialized knowledge with which they can objectively and professionally

solve the problems of business life and thus can improve the praxis of management. The ethical

expertise view has been defended by Th. Van Willigenburg in a dissertation on Inside the Ethical

Expert (1991).2 According to this view, an ethicist is an expert who possesses within a certain

domain an amount of specialized knowledge and skills which are obtained only after thorough

study and training. Aside from the ability to clarify problems and to analyze concepts and

arguments, he or she is also capable, as an expert, to make use of the specific skills of moral

reasoning in such a way that he or she can come to an weighing of values and norms, so that he

or she can offer advice if necessary.

Taken on itself, expert ethics is a legitimate project. But in order to become the

acknowledge dialogue partner of management, it has to pay a price. And this price is the

acceptance of the modern presuppositions which determine the hermeneutic horizon in which

management operates. In doing so the ethical experts in business are not as such capable of

offering other perspectives than those determined by this hermeneutic horizon of modernity and

its forms of manipulative rationality. They do not allow real innovation in moral behavior.

The acknowledgment that business can have on itself no other "calling" than to apply the

know-how of instrumental rationality does however not mean than no innovation would be

possible.

Business is not only a field dominated by instrumental rationality, but also a dynamic field

of human interaction. Business organizations are not only visible organizations, but also complex

institutions, and this implies the possibility of change: "in our life with other people we are

engaged continuously, through words and actions, in creating and recreating the institutions that

make this life possible (…) We form institutions and they form us every time we engage in a

conversation that matters…".3

As much as institutions and structures influence the individuals working on behalf of

business organizations, these same individuals also interact in such a way that they permanently

reshape by way of their innovative behavior the business context.

In this perspective I prefer to speak in terms of the 'calling' of people in business rather

than of the calling of business itself.

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In it are individual persons (acting as members of a community with a different

hermeneutic horizon) interacting with others who make the difference, who retell and reinterpret

the story of business and who give meaning to it.

In a Christian perspective it consequently becomes interesting to raise the question: what

is the ‘calling’ of Christians in business? Does their presence make a difference?

The answer is clearly ‘yes’ and this in more than one regard.

Christian life leads to a hermeneutic interruption of business since Christians are not only

"citizens" of the world of business and its hermeneutic horizon, but they have also access to

another horizon of interpretation which is quite different. The point is not, as McCann has

suggested, that they have access to a hermeneutical horizon which is “older” than the horizon of

modernity with its instrumental rationality4, but that it is different. Because Christians cultivate an

hermeneutic relationship to an interpreting community and an ethos that is different than that of

modernity and its forms of instrumental and managerial rationality, they able to discover ethical

and meta-ethical perspectives that can break through the dominance of this type of rationality

and social organization which is coupled with it, as well as it enables them to break through the

narrow angle of "problem solving" (seeking solution on the basis of the analysis of problems

instead of on the basis of innovative new perspectives).

As a consequence of the creative interplay between the rational and the narrative aspect

of Christian practice and thinking, the Christian community is able to introduce a sort of counter

point, a different interpretation in business.

An aspect of this is the introduction of another vision. This is crucial, since, as Elsbernd

and Bieringer have demonstrated, without vision there is no transformation of life possible. 5

The transformation by way of vision takes place

(i) by engaging the imagination, which can be interpreted as follows: the journey into

metaphor and story moves the actors beyond classical problem solving since it

enables them to disclose new worlds of meaning (and this is the source of real

innovation);

(ii) by opening ways of challenging the status quo and by offering the potential for

alternatives to the present reality;

(iii) vision moreover engages all who share the same vision in changing realities,

(iv) and it integrates diverse components into a whole.

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2. Although the ethos of capitalism has its roots in Christian thinking, it is

not the calling of Christians to justify the market.

Nobody will deny that there has been, in one or other regard, a link between Christian

ethics and the emergence of the capitalist work ethic. This does, however, not justify a simplistic

use of Christian ideas for the justification of the market or as new ‘window dressing’ for

capitalism.

It is indeed one of the striking characteristics of the history of modernity that the manner

in which theologians have interpreted the relationship of human beings with God has influenced

the development of the cultural framework wherein modern business life could come to unfold.

Capitalist society is not only founded, as Marx claimed, on the material substrate of

relations of production and means of production. It is also based on a spiritual foundation, more

specifically, on a mentality generated by a certain form of religious thought. In his famous work

Protestantism and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber demonstrates that a link can be made between

modern capitalism and a labor ethos rooted in the Protestant tradition of thought. In this ethos

the systematic pursuit of profit goes hand in hand with methodical diligence, soberness and a

sense of individual responsibility with regard to the profession one practices.

An important first step towards this ethos was, according to Weber, Luther’s translation

of the text of Jesus Sirach 11:20-21: “Stand by your obligations, go on with your work until you

are old, trust in the Lord and keep at your job (Beruf).” In this text, Luther attributes to the word

Beruf (vocation), which refers to a spiritual calling, the meaning of professional work. According

to Luther, people must praise and serve God not by means of a contemplative life but ‘in

vocatione’, in the performance of the daily labor to which a person is called.

Much more influential than Lutheran theology was the Calvinistic tradition. Like Luther,

Calvin attached much importance to the duty of glorifying God ‘per vocationem’, by means of

meticulously devoting oneself to the ordained fulfillment of one’s professional tasks. In this the

doctrine of predestination plays a crucial role even though at first sight it does not seem to

promote harder work because, according to this doctrine, a believer cannot absolutely justify

himself or herself by good works. The decision over a person’s salvation or damnation is totally

dependent on God’s arbitrary and sovereign predestination, his ‘decretum horribile’ that leads

believers into a state of inner loneliness and uncertainty. Weber, however, has very keenly

observed that Calvinistic pastoral theology has found a solution to this: The one who is chosen

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by God must also consider oneself as predilected, and the one who fails to do so shows a lack of

trust, and therefore he or she is not in a state of grace. One must clearly bear witness of the

‘certitudo salutis’ by an attitude of self-confidence and one can best externalize this by an ascetic life

coupled with an industrious and, most preferably, successful professional labor. This has to be

kept up in a systematic way during one’s whole life. Weber described this as ‘inner-woldly ascetism’.

It is this systematic inner-worldly ascetic way of life which has set forth, according to him, the

rationalization process that determines modern economy to this day.

Weber also points out that later, in the preaching of vulgarized Calvinism, economic

success (earning money) was considered to be a sign of divine predestination. In English

Puritanism, moreover, much emphasis was placed on hard work as an ascetic means against the

temptations of an impure life, and aversion to labor was interpreted as a sign of the absence of

grace. Religious leaders were also very well aware that the Protestant work ethic did not only

bring a new spirit, but also a real accumulation of capital. To put it in the words of the Methodist,

John Wesley: “religion” entails “necessary thriftiness and diligence” and “that can do nothing else

but bring forth wealth”.

Weber’s theses were criticized by a number of commentators. They have, among others,

questioned the fact that he practically links the ethos of capitalism exclusively with the Protestant

tradition. A thorough reading of Weber’s work shows nevertheless that he certainly does not

exclude influences “of a different nature”. In Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft he refers to the methodical

organization of life in the monastic tradition, and at the same time he emphasizes the continuity

of this form of asceticism with the inner-worldly ascetism of the Calvinists. And yet the Catholic

contribution, or better, the contribution of pre-reformation Christianity, to the development of

the modern work ethic is very much underestimated. Along with Mumford and Toynbee one

can, nevertheless, refer in this context to the influence of the ‘ora et labora’ of the Benedictines.

This device establishes a link between monastic life and the ethos of capitalism, especially by the

way of internalizing the motivation to work. According to him, “the Benedictine rule” achieved

“what was never achieved by the land reforms of the Gracces or the imperial alimenta because

they did not function as an operation imposed by the state from above, but rather from below by

inciting the (economic) initiative of the individual through the channeling of his or her religious

enthusiasm”.6

As to whether the proponents of the Catholic or those of the Protestant thesis are right,

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we leave that aside for now. Neither do we intend to comment on the historical correctness of

Weber’s interpretation in itself. His thesis, however, remains important in so far as it

demonstrates that there can be a link between theological views and the development of the

modern economic mentality. For Weber, this link was in fact no more than a scientific

hypothesis, or, to put it more precisely, only a careful affirmation of a certain affinity between

Protestantism and capitalism. After Weber, however, this point of view has evolved into a

legitimation theory wherein theological views are considered as means of justifying or supporting

capitalism. How could it have come to this?

According to Oliver Williams, it was Daniel Bell, a typical representative of the present-

day neo-conservative culture criticism in the United States, who started making an ideological use

of the thesis of Weber.7 In The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976), Bell states that business

life has come to a deep moral crisis. According to him, the true cause of this crisis is not the

failure of the economic system, but the breakdown of the religious frame of reference within

which the ethos of business life was originally embedded. In this regard Bell associates himself

with the warning that Weber had already issued himself at the end of his essay on Protestantism,

namely, that when the inner-worldly ascetism is alienated from its religious roots, only a secular

utilitarianism and materialism is left. Through the dissolution of the religious background,

materialism, originally nothing more than a “light cloak that could be taken off at any moment”,

was changed into an “iron cage”. And Weber adds: “When capitalism reaches its highest

development, the pursuit of profit, devoid of any religious and ethical significance, becomes

associated with pure mundane passions, through which it not seldom acquires the character of a

sports event: earning money in itself becomes a performance; and to earn even more means to

extend the limits of achievement”. In this way a culture arises of “specialists without a soul,

sensualists without a heart; this nullity makes itself believe it has attained a stage of civilization

never attained before”.

From the conclusion of Weber and Bell, that the disappearance of the original theological

frame of reference leads to a rude materialism, a further step towards a theological justification is

not large. Henceforth, it was claimed that the crisis of the capitalist ethos had to be averted by

restoring its theological foundations. In this way theology became a ‘useful’ science for

economics. With that a remarkable development arose. Not only did the American business

community begin to support, especially in Latin America, the radically Calvinist church

communities and sects, but at the same time it also directed its attention to Catholic social ethics

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and theology. This shift is evidenced in a symptomatic way from the title of Novak’s book which

echoes Weber: The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1993).8

In such books the theory of Weber is in a way reinterpreted as a means in the struggle

against any type of market unfriendly ways of thinking such as it has been the case in liberation

theology. Catholic theology is used as the alternative ‘hired legitimist' of capitalism. A significant

example of this is the moment when Michael Novak once summoned the business community

not only to remain competitive in the market, but also in what he called the ‘battlefield of ideas’.

In his apologetics for democratic capitalism, Novak ventured into a thorough and more market-

economy-friendly reinterpretation of the social teaching of the Church and even of classical

dogmatic concepts like the Holy Trinity (as model of a community which does not destroy

individuality), Incarnation (as model for realism), the combat against evil (as model for

competition), original sin (as warning against the illusion to change society by the way of

structural reforms and as legitimization for the role of self-interest), creation (as model for co-

creation and economic inititative), etc.

In reinterpreting Christian dogmatic concepts and catholic social teaching, Novak

sometime displays a clear lack of scientific sense for nuances. An example will suffice to

demonstrate this.

In a passage from Toward a Theology of the Corporation, where he refers to the suffering

servant in Deutero Isaiah, he even turns the whole matter upside down: “For many years, one of

my favorite biblical texts was Is 53,2-3: ‘He had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others.’ I

would like to apply these words to modern enterprise, an incarnation of God’s presence in the

world that is very much disapproved of”.9 This association of the powerless, non-violent,

suffering servant with the powerful organizations of the world, the multinational companies, does

not do any justice at all to the original meaning of the biblical text, and not one single fraction of

its prophetic eloquence remains.

Moreover, such a concept of the role of Christian or Catholic thinking with regards to

business is nothing more than an affirmation of the status quo of conventional thinking about

the market in the business community. It does not really offer a new and humanizing

hermeneutic horizon, since it stays within the interpretative framework of business itself. It does

fail to appreciate Christianity as innovative force or as source of semantic and practical

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innovation and defends too unilaterally the established order (what Mounier would have called

the ‘established disorder’, since it is in fact an order which leads to many victims).

3. The vocation of Christians in business: introducing semantic and practical innovation

A more concrete description of what the calling of Christians in business can mean

elucidated from the perspective of narrative ethics (and ethic based on the reading of the bible as

part of participating in a broader tradition10).

I point to the narrative aspect of Christian calling in business in order to avoid another

misunderstanding.

A possible complaint about the specific calling of Christians could be that they want to

introduce into business supererogatory principles such as “caritas” (that a principle is

supererogatory means that it allegedly asks too much of the economic actors). This interpretation

is typical for a discourse of ‘experts’ who are of the opinion that one should make a careful

distinction between principles that ‘are acceptable’ within the sphere of a functionally

differentiated role of responsibility and principles that do not belong within that segment of

reality or that, at most, are intended for private use. Christian principles such as Christian love

are, according to them, only acceptable in private life, not in business.

This 'privatization' of the Christian caritas is inadequate and typical for the first

misunderstanding that we have already described. It fails to take into account that Christian

morality is not primarily about abstract principles, but about a practice which can be fully

understood in the light of the concrete narrative contexts in which these ‘principles’ appear.

Without their original narrative context, moral principles are but abstractions or skeletons.

In this regard the commandment of love is not an abstract principle, but a

commandment, the meaning of which only comes to full light in narratives like the parable of the

good Samaritan. It is not an abstract exposition on love, but rather a narrative set within a

concrete context. It grants the listener the possibility of gaining insight into what he or she should

do within his or her own decision making context. The parenetic (exhortative) character of the

narrative plays an important role in this (see further): the confrontation with the story is not

noncommittal. The listener is offered a choice; he or she is held responsible, even for that which

does not strictly belong within the domain of professional deontology.

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In a certain sense, one encounters this narrative structure also in the many stories of

business life itself (e.g., in the well-known success stories), wherein principles such as efficiency

and efficaciousness are touched upon. But this call to imitation remains rather limited to the

economic sphere.

The fact that members of the business community are confronted with stories from

different narrative traditions can sometimes cause them unbearable tension. One tradition

initiates them towards a praxis in agreement with the rationality of business life, whilst other

traditions urge them on towards a responsibility that surpasses their specific role obligations.

Thanks to this area of tension, moral actors can look at business life in a new way, from a

different horizon of knowledge other than that of managerial rationality alone. Thus a familiarity

with the biblical narrative tradition can actually contribute towards the creation of a space of

freedom that makes it possible to make choices that are reinvigorating and more human.

Let us now explore some concrete aspects of the calling of Christians in business from

the perspective of narrative ethics.

3. 1. The indirect effect of reading the bible on the transformation of Christians in

business and of business by Christians.

3. 1 . 1 . The effect of the scriptures as poetic texts.

Referring to a specifically poetic ‘world’, the biblical text generates a metamorphosis in its

readers which enables them (and their communities) to interpret their life and the world in a new

light. Biblical poetry does not offer in the first place new moral norms (although some texts are

explicitly normative), nor does it lead to immediate conclusions for concrete problems; rather, it

puts the common morality in a new and particular perspective, that of (1) an abundant economy

of grace and love11 and (2) the fundamental obligation to a merciful justice in response to the

'surabondance de la grace'12 one has received from God (cf. the framing of the decalogue in a

broader perspective of human liberation according to the model of God who liberates his people

from the slavery of Egypt). Moral norms get a new formal meaning, and ethics passes thereby

from the level of formal obligation (obedience to the moral law imposed by reason) to the level

of radical loving obedience.13

There is more, however. The point is that not only the formal meaning of norms is

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changed, but also the moral life of those who read the biblical texts. Persons who have read the texts

and appropriated them imaginatively undergo a ‘metanoia’; they are radically changed. In this

sense one might say that the transformative biblical ‘poesis’ is more concerned with a new way of

being than with new way of acting. Precisely because the metanoia is the starting point, Christians

mark a difference and it is in and through the incarnation of that difference in real business life

that they act as moral innovators. The world of business is not moved towards more

humanization by way of misusing Christian concepts for the maintenance of the status quo or of

the typical presuppositions of the business community, but by way of implementing new life and

new practices, which at first sight are particular, but can be acknowledged as universal after they

humanness has been proved by life.

An important aspect of this transformative poesis is that the biblical connection of meta-

ethics and ethics is not a ‘heteronomous’ obstacle to freedom but an empowerment of the human

capacity to act in a morally responsible way. The biblical poesis, with its perspective of an

abundance of grace, transforms a human person into a homo capax, and this in a much broader sense

than merely a regeneration of the will, because all the creative human faculties are affected, such as, for example, the

moral imagination.14 The bible speaks about what God enables and not only about what he requires

human persons to do under the natural, historical and social conditions in which they live.

3. 1 .2 . The crucial role of bibl ical texts with regard to the constitution of

the human person as a moral subject

Morality is not only a matter of right moral decisions and isolated acts; it concerns, in the

first place, the integration of decisions and acts in a person’s life as a whole.15 Moral subjects bear

a unique responsibility for the moral quality of the whole of their lives as persons.

The problem is that business is too much oriented towards problem solving and this is

reflected in the textbooks of business ethics which refer to concrete cases which need to be

‘solved’. But however meaningful this case-method may be in itself, it disregards an important, if

not the most important, aspect of moral life. Morality is not only a question of particular

decisions and separate acts, but also and in the first place a continuing actualization of a

fundamental ethical life intention which finds its significance in a meta-ethical or religious

fundamental option. The moral decisions of persons are also about what Peter Kemp calls ‘a

narrative configuration of true life’, the configuration of oneself as a narrative unity.16 People also bear

a unique responsibility in business life, not only for their professional choices, but also for the

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totality of their lives. Professional decisions which are fundamentally in contradiction with a

fundamental ethical life choice will not only have negative consequences for others (which is an

important element in moral judgement), but also lead to self-alienation. Managers cannot escape

from the problem that their professional decisions fundamentally influence their dignity as moral

subjects. That an unbearable conflict can break out between the kind of persons they want to be

and the kind of persons they actually are professionally is beyond dispute. One does not solve

this, however, by means of a cynical division of a person into a private sphere and a professional

sphere. There is but one person and therefore one is responsible whether one likes it or not. In

relation to this problem, the moral theologian can perhaps play a meaningful and even

comforting role. On the one hand, he or she cannot do otherwise than accentuate the tension

between role morality and a fundamental personal responsibility for the whole of one’s life.

The unity of the human person cannot, however, be adequately understood without

taking the role of narrative configuration into account. According to Mark Johnson “narrative is

our most comprehensive form of synthetic understanding; ...the unity of the self and its acts is, in

the broadest context, a narrative unity”17. What this means and how it is related to reading the

bible is explained in a masterly way by Paul Ricoeur. In his book Soi-même comme un autre he

demonstrated that a moral subject is not merely a completely autonomous or self-sufficient

identity, not only a sameness (idem-identity), but also a more dynamic identity (a self, ipse) that is

configured in a permanent interaction with an otherness. This otherness is not only represented

by the real otherness of the concrete other,18 but also the otherness of the texts (in the broad

sense of the word: bible, but also liturgy or the great texts of a tradition) that enable a person to

configure and re-configure himself or herself by way of an imaginary elaboration of the

possibilities of being and meaning that are offered by those texts. For Ricoeur “comprendre s’est

se comprendre devant le texte”.

A person as interpreted ‘self’ is a distillation, as it were, and an imaginative elaboration of

the metaphoric and poetic texts (religious texts as well as expressions of arts and culture) that he

or she has experienced. With regard to the issue at hand, we can say that Christians who have

developed a lively relationship with the biblical texts through reading and worshipping are in a

relationship which does not merely provide them with moral insights; it also provides them with

a narrative identity as Christian moral subjects. In other words the texts with their manifold

“plots” offer the opportunity for an imaginative appropriation of possibilities that can be

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transformed into meaningful patterns, not only for concrete acts (which can be interpreted as a

stories with a plot), but primarily for the narrative configuration or reconfiguration of oneself as a

person.19 Such a narrative configuration or reconfiguration of the person as mediated by the bible

enables Christians to overcome both the “deflated pretensions of an essentialistic or egocentric

self, on one hand, or alternately the aberration of the de-centred post-modern subject” with its

total loss of structures of inner plausibility.20

For Christians, the development of a culture of reading the bible is a necessary condition

for the formation of their moral identity, an absolute must (although it is not exclusive - cf. the

role of reason).

3.2. The direct influence of the bible on the concrete actions of Christians

3.2 . 1 . First of all we must acknowledge the parenetic character of biblical narratives. This

exhortative aspect is sometimes interpreted - as seems to be the case with Bruno Schüller - in an

overly minimalist way. According to Schüller, the bible and especially the gospel does not provide

us with “an adequate determination of what is morally right” since it is exhortative rather than

“normative”. Exhortation in itself does not convey any new moral insights and therefore

parenetic texts should be judged primarily in terms of their influence on the reader rather than in

terms of their informative normativity.21

The problem remains, however, that Schüller’s interpretation, which is a typical example

of the thesis of the autonomous morality school, does insufficient justice to the radical character

of biblical parenesis. In this regard Luc Ankaert’s interpretation is more in line with the bible.

Taking into account the ‘ternary’ relationship of the reader with the referent of the world of the

text (God), the exhortative nature of the text radicalizes human responsibility. Limited forms of

human autonomy and of limited types of 'role responsibility' are broken open towards a more

universal responsibility, even a limitedness responsibility for the whole world which is

represented concretely by the face of the individual who appeals to us.22

In this way, the biblical perspective introduces the difference between the role based

'doing things right' and 'doing the right thing', which is more fundamental.

Such a radical ‘universalization’ of human responsibility, to which the readers of the bible

are called, is particularly relevant with respect to professional ethics. A ternary relation to the

biblical texts surpasses limited and functionally differentiated ‘role-obligations’ and moves

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towards an ethics of real and global responsibility in which one reckons with the ‘neighborhood-

effects’ and long-term effects of professional decisions and in which one expresses a deeply

human concern for the concrete victims whose tears are often disregarded by a bureaucratic or

technocratic mentality.

An example are the engineers who worked for IBM in Nazi-Germany and maintained the

new machines allowing the Nazi's to manage more efficiently the registration of the Jews in view

of their extermination. From the perspective of limited role responsibility it can be interpreted

with some goodwill as 'doing things right' (their technical support was indeed of high quality and

useful), but from the perspective of the bible it was fundamentally wrong, since in the context of

a broader concept of responsibility, they actively participated in making the holocaust more

efficient!

Another example that shows how much a perception of reality based on faith can be

relevant for business life is described by Oliver Williams.23 It is about the story of Mr. Hewlett,

founder of Hewlett Packard, one of the most trend-setting companies in the computer science

sector and at the same time a company characterized by a very humane management style. This

manager had, in the 40s, coincidentally been personally confronted with the fact that an employee

became incapacitated due to a serious disease and then landed in bitter poverty along with his

family. The consequences of disease or accident to the family were obviously much worse than

he could ever have imagined, especially in the American context of that time wherein social

security was still practically non-existent. After this shocking experience, he resolved to work out

a social business policy that was for its time extraordinary. It included system of employment

security and health insurance. This very socially moved decision was not made on grounds of

denatured principles or on grounds of the generally recognized role obligations of business

people at that time. What he did actually did not fit into the usual framework. It was a

groundbreaking decision which, as it were, spontaneously grew out of the contrast between his

confrontation with the suffering of a concrete employee and the demands of evangelical love. His

deeply rooted familiarity with the gospel stories allowed him to intuitively make an ethical choice.

The Christian narrative tradition, as such, had taken possession of his deepest self so that in a

new and concrete decision making context, namely that of a manager in a specific situation, he

was capable of making himself a neighbor to his employees just as much as the good Samaritan

did in the well-known story.

15

The example of Mr. Hewlett is also interesting because it shows that there is a distinction

between the rational justification of a decision which usually happens afterwards and the taking

of a decision on grounds of an intuitive ‘seeing’ or ‘knowing’. Obviously, the former element is

likewise important because it is necessary in order to evaluate whether the given solution,

objectively speaking, is the most adequate answer to the given situation. But the loving power in

the taking of such a decision is at least just as important. A fundamental ethical decision is taken

intuitively out of the entire personality of an actor. This brings me to a third consideration.

3.2 .2 . The role of imagination

In my description of the meta-ethical role of biblical ‘poesis’ I noted that telling and

reading stories creates the possibility for the development of an imaginative space for

experiments of thought in which one’s moral judgment can exercise itself in an hypothetical way.

Biblical imagination influences concrete acts as “first laboratories for moral judgment”.24

Indeed, ethical acting is not only a matter of an act of the will or an act of obedience to

moral norms on the basis of rational insight, it is also the result of a more spontaneous and

creative process in which persons are moved by a re-productive and productive imagination.

Such an imagination makes it possible to develop fundamental inner dispositions and new models

for action.

A least one aspect of the biblical imagination requires a special attention at this juncture:

its role with regard to the imitation of Jesus Christ.

For the Christians the three sections of the Hebrew bible (Torah, Prophets and Wisdom)

find their accomplishment – not, of course, their abolition – in Jesus Christ who is the ultimate

Christian model and norm. Acting in the spirit is made possible by biblical imagination. Such an

imagination enables Christians to look at the world and at life through his eyes (“voir comme”) and

it enables them also to discover new ways of being and new models of action (“agir comme”).

When Christians have identified themselves imaginatively with Christ, they can transform the

‘self’ into a ‘christomorphic self’. This has nothing to do with servile imitation or a mimesis as

described by Rene Girard. What really matters here is that such Christians enter into the same

type of experience as that of the first disciples who gradually discovered Christ as their ‘interior

master’. The moral life of Christians can not be practiced without discipleship.25 This

imaginatively mediated mystical ‘acting as he would’ leads not only to a radicalization and

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humanization of Christian attitudes, but also to an acceptance of the scandal of the cross and to

self-sacrificing love.

This is relevant in business: in being confronted with resistance against the humanization

of work, against re-balancing work and leisure, against implementing standards of justice in the

market, Christians experience this negativity as a cross. Not a cross that leads to mere acceptance

of facts, but of suffering because of what is not yet possible, because of what does not go into

the direction of the Kingdom announced by Christ. In taking up this cross one inserts oneself in

the process of redemption and liberation of the world.

At this level of the imitation of Christ, the heart of the christomorphic self can have

reasons that secular reason can not yet easily understand. This does not mean, however, that the

mystic-ethical imitation of Christ must be irrational. A deeper reflection on the meaning of a life

that accepts the scandal of the cross can lead to a deeper understanding of the mystery of the

person and of his or her universal nature “under the conditions of a kenotic existence”.26 To put

it in the words of Hans Urs von Balthasar: “Christ is the categorical imperative in concrete form,

insofar as... by his suffering... he empowers us in our inner self to do the Father’s will along with

him (cum ipso).”27

Accepting the cross also requires that we open ourselves to the concrete suffering of

others, the immediate others as well as the distant others who can or do become victims of

professional or institutional decisions.

Leaders in business should open themselves to the suffering of the victims of history. So

instead of focusing unilaterally on the success stories of business, they must also look at the

consequences of decisions for those who are often unjustly considered as losers, or for those

who are victimized by well-intended profit-oriented decisions.

3.3. The universal meaning of the calling of Christians in business

In modern and post-modern political and social ethics there is a tendency to privatize

religious perspectives, norms, commitments and practices or to accept it consider them only on

the condition that they can be understood as a comprehensive moral theory which needs to be

‘thinned out’ into abstract universal procedures and principles28 in order to be publicly acceptable

and relevant.

17

This opinion is symptomatic of an un-historical conception of moral norms. What is

accepted or acceptable at a given moment in history as universal moral reference framework for

public life is not merely the product of a synchronic consensus, but also, and in equal measure,

the result of a permanent process in which generally accepted norms are broadened and enriched

by moral convictions and by the moral practice of particular narrative and rational traditions.

Many norms or customs that we accept today as ‘universal’ are the historical product of a

complex process of enculturation upon which the Judeo-Christian, and thus biblical, moral

tradition had a humanizing influence.29 In this context one can say that biblical-semantic and

practical innovation, translated into well-considered convictions and justified praxis, will

continually contribute to a substantial enrichment of public debate and to a public ethos which is

expressed in a more substantial way than merely by formal rules and procedures, a public ethos in

which substantial public virtues are cultivated (e.g. a real sense of justice and solidarity).

One can illustrate the relevance of the dialectic between the specifically biblical and the

universal aspects of ethics by way of a hermeneutic of the ‘golden rule’ in light of the dialectic

between love and law.

At first sight there is a clear difference between biblical love and the deontological rule of

reciprocity. Even the language-form is different: poetic, hymnic, metaphoric language as

opposed to prosaic and procedural language. There is also a tension between the logic of

abundance (love your enemy) and the well-balanced logic of proportion (golden rule). Inspired by

Ricoeur, Thomasset states that this difference should not be interpreted as a separation. The

golden rule has always a double meaning. It can be the expression of a kind of enlightened self-

interest or a utilitarian calculus (do ut des as a sort of market logic), but it can also be understood

from a perspective that transcends self-interest. In this way it becomes an expression of the

economy of grace. Both aspects influence each other: the commandment of love brings the

golden rule to generosity and the golden rule protects the logic of love against chaotic adventures

while still allowing love to be incarnated in social life. In this sense the dialectic the generally

accepted rule of reciprocity becomes a mediator of love, and love becomes a source of inspiration

for business rules.30 It introduces in a world of scarcity (economy) the logic of abundance.

This socially relevant dialectic brings me to a last reflection on the influence of biblical

poesis on business. The semantic richness of the world of the bible, with its potential to generate a

new imagination, is not only relevant for the members of Christian churches, but also for the

whole of society. The biblical world makes it possible to rediscover paradigm-changing root-

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metaphors, new perspectives for a better understanding of our time. These root-metaphors

enable society to live with paradoxes once again.31 They bring self-interest and the mechanism of

the invisible hand in tension with the perspective of solidarity and the invisible handshake. They

humanize contracts by the commitment of a social covenant. They orient people to a common

good, but not without a preferential option for the poor, and they enable individuals to break

through the closed horizon of a one-dimensional technocratic and economist culture. In short,

the metaphors offered by the bible can enable society to de-mythologize and overcome its

ideological distortions.32

It is not by pure coincidence that the paradigm-changing force of the biblical imagination

is particularly appreciated in the report of the World Governance Commission on new values for

a globalised world.33 Using the words of Barbara Ward the document writes: “the most important

change that people can make is to change their way of looking at the world. We can change

studies, jobs, neighborhoods, even countries and continents, and still remain much as we always

were. But change our fundamental angle of vision and everything changes - our priorities, our

values, our judgments, our pursuits. Again and again in the history of religion, this total upheaval

in the imagination has marked the beginning of a new life... a turning of the heart, a metanoia, by

which men see with new eyes and understand with new minds and turn their energies to new

ways of living.”

In dialogue with other traditions, the biblical, meta-ethical poesis is indeed capable of

changing the world of business and to make it conscious of the unique calling of its constituents

to humanize the world.

19

1John Paul II, Centesimus annus, ch. 4 2 Van Willigenburg, Theo, Inside the Ethical Expert. Problem Solving in Applied Ethics (Kampen: Kok, Pharos, 1991) 3 Bellah, Robert, The Good Society (New York: Knopf, 1992), 11-12. 4 McCann, Dennis, P., Umpire and Batsman: Is it Cricket to Be Both? Journal of Business Ethics, 5 (1986), pp. 445-452. 5 Elsbernd, Mary, and Bieringer, Reimund, When Love Is Not Enough. A Theo-ethic of Justice. (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2002) 157 6 Toynbee, A.J., A Study of History. (London: Oxford University Press, 1947) 226 7 Williams, O.F., Introduction, in: O.F. Williams, J. Houck (eds.), The Judeo-Christian Vision and the Modern Corporation. (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1982) 9. 8 Novak, Michael, The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. (New York: The Free Press, 1993) 9 Novak, Toward a Theology of the Corporation (Washington: AEI Press, 1991) 10 Verstraeten, Johan, Rethinking Catholic Social Thought as Tradition in: J.S. Boswell; F.P. McHugh, J. Verstraeten, Catholic Social Thought. Twilight or Renaissance? (BETL, CLVII), (Leuven: University Press/Peeters, 2000) 59-77. 11 Thomasset, Alain, Paul Ricoeur. Une poétique de la morale (B.E.T.L. CXXIV). (Leuven: University Press/Peeters, 1996), 459. (When the text refers to Thomasset 1995, it is the same text, but in the original form of a doctoral dissertation) 12 Ricoeur, Paul. Soi-même comme un autre (l’ordre philosophique). (Paris: Seuil, 1990) 13 Thomasset, Alain, Paul Ricoeur. Une poétique de la morale (B.E.T.L. CXXIV). (Leuven: University Press/Peeters, 1996), 326 14 cf. Paul Ricoeur as interpreted by Thomasset, 1995, 204 15 Demmer, Klaus, Die Wahrheit Leben. Theorie des Handelns. (Freiburg: Herder, 1991) 16 Kemp, Peter, Ethique et narrativité. A propos de l'ouvrage de Paul Ricoeur, 'Temps et récit', in: Aquinas, 29 (1986), 211-231. 17 Johnson, Mark, Moral Imagination. Implications of Cognitive Science for Ethics. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 164 18 Levinas 19 Morny, Joy. Reflections on Ricoeur’s ‘Soi-même comme un autre’, in: R.C. CULLEY and W. KLEMPA, The Three Loves: Philosophy, Theology and World Religions. Essays in Honor of J.C. McLELLAND, (McGill Studies in Religion, 23, 1994), 85. 20 Ibid. 21 Schüller, Bruno. The Debate on the Specific Character of Christian Ethics: Some Remarks, in: Charles CURRAN, Richard A. McCORMICK, The Distinctiveness of Christian Ethics (Readings in Moral Theology, 2). (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), 216-217 22Anckaert, Luc. God, wereld en mens in het tweestromenland. Tussen westerse wijsbegeerte en bijbelse wijsheid. Een filosofische, ethische en theologische dialoog met het ternaire denken van Franz Rosenzweig. (Leuven: unpublished doctoral dissertation, 1994), LXXXV-497 23 Oliver Williams, O.F., Can Business Ethics Be Theological? What Athens Can Learn from Jerusalem, Journal of Business Ethics, 5 (1986), 473-484. 1986, 473-484 24 Ricoeur, Paul. Soi-même comme un autre (l’ordre philosophique). (Paris: Seuil, 1990) 167, 200. 25 Thomasset, Alain, Paul Ricoeur. Une poétique de la morale (B.E.T.L. CXXIV). (Leuven: University Press/Peeters, 1996), 208. 26 Demmer, Klaus, Naturrecht und Offenbarung, in: Marianne Heimbach-Steins, Andreas Lienkamp, Joachim Wiemeyer (Hrg.), Brennpunkt Sozialethik. Theorien, Aufgaben, Methoden.(Freiburg: Herder, 1995), 42. 27 Schüller, Bruno, The Debate on the Specific Character of Christian Ethics: Some Remarks, in: Charles CURRAN, Richard A. McCORMICK, The Distinctiveness of Christian Ethics (Readings in Moral Theology, 2). (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), 218 28 cf. J. Rawls 29 cf. Demmer, Klaus, Naturrecht und Offenbarung, in: Marianne Heimbach-Steins, Andreas Lienkamp, Joachim Wiemeyer (Hrg.), Brennpunkt Sozialethik. Theorien, Aufgaben, Methoden.(Freiburg: Herder, 1995), 41. 30 cf. Thomasset, Alain, Paul Ricoeur. Une poétique de la morale (B.E.T.L. CXXIV). (Leuven: University Press/Peeters, 1996), 463. 31 cf. Handy, Charles. The Empty Raincoat. Making Sense of the Future. London: Hutchinson, 1994. 32 Verstraeten, Johan. Narrativity and Hermeneutics in Applied Ethics. Some Introductory Considerations. Ethical Perspectives 1 (1994): 51-56. 33 Our Global Neighborhood. The report of the Commission on Global Governance. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).