A Protestant View of the Common Good

The ‘common good’ is tantalizingly elusive. The concept is also a contested one, the ‘common’ is perhaps not so common after all. Contested, that is, within the tradition of Catholic Social Thought, a rich mine of theological wisdom and insight, but one which also reveals the complexity of the idea. The rooting of the common good within Catholic Social Thought raises the question of whether the concept is restrictively located within the Roman Catholicism rather than being of broader application. Certainly, from an ecumenical perspective, Catholic Social Thought can be both attractive and impenetrable at the same time. The presence of a body of social doctrine within the Roman Catholic Church, however contested, is not, and indeed in many traditions, cannot be replicated. However, that is not to say that the Protestant traditions contain no doctrine or even that they lack bodies of systematic theological thought; they contain both. The difference lies in the authority which is attached to each. Equally, the way in which common good ideas within Catholic Social Thought have been grounded in concepts of Christian theology such as the nature and dignity of the human person cannot simply be dismissed as narrowly Catholic, more of a gift of Catholicism to the whole of Christianity.