ABSTRACT
In 1943 Paul Ramsey argued that Reinhold Niebuhr failed to realize that idealism could account for tragedy as well as Niebuhr’s own realism. Ramsey’s ideal had not been actualized; with the loss of the ideal, “realism” and neo-orthodoxy prepare a way for him to make sense of the troubled times. By 1962 realism and idealism have been synthesized into a useful methodology known as “love transforming natural law.” The increasing pragmatism of some Niebuhrian “realists” suggested the inevitability of doing evil that good may come under the guise of a “realism.” Ramsey gave a different interpretation to “realism” and “idealism” than did Niebuhr. For Niebuhr, realism denoted taking into account “all factors” into a calculation of justice in the development of a response within a social and political situation tainted with sinful self-interest.
