Tomorrow's Troubles

[T]his is a book that fully merits careful reading and consideration. It succeeds in doing what too few books on applied theology do, in that it draws deeply both on theology and on the particular issue to produce a new way of thinking about the issue and responding practically.

This book will be helpful to theologians, ethicists, pastors, and educated laypeople with a strong background in at least one of the traditions Scherz draws on: Thomism, pre-Christian Greco-Roman philosophy (especially Stoicism), and mid-20th-century Protestant ethics of responsibility (e.g., H. Richard Niebuhr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

[A]s a guide to life on an individual level, Scherz’s paradigm has much to offer.

Roman Catholic moral theologian Paul Scherz’s wide-ranging and insightful study charts how probabilistic risk management has become the dominant paradigm not only for business decision-making today but also for government deliberation and even individual life choices. Scherz’s well-crafted and scholarly text fits not only within the established theological tradition of modernity criticism but also evidences high-level engagement with sociological literature interrogating the prominence of probabilistic mechanisms of control in contemporary life.

Paul Scherz is an associate professor of moral theology and ethics in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America. He is the author of Science and Christian Ethics. He has a PhD in theology from the University of Notre Dame and a PhD in genetics from Harvard University.