This dissertation is a focused comparison of the work of Catholic theologians Michael Novak and Jung Mo Sung. Chapter one is an introduction that sets out a typology of the ways in which theology, ethics, and economics are often related. I argue that Novak and Sung, despite most often being labeled in opposing ways as neoconservative and liberation theologians, respectively, share a common approach to social analysis and critique from a theological perspective. The fact of this commonality motivates this comparative investigation. Chapters two and three present an overview of their lives, methodologies, basic theological claims, and perspectives on ethics. An integral conceptualization of the human person functions at a foundational level for both Novak and Sung theologically and critically. Chapters four and five describe in detail their understandings of the human person as such, in society, and as a moral agent. Their similarities are increasingly apparent at this level.

The first five chapters set the stage for an even more detailed analysis of their socio-economic critiques and constructive visions. Chapters six and seven describe these constructive critiques, focusing especially on their analyses of economic realities. The final chapter, chapter eight, presents a series of direct comparisons of their work, along with my critiques and constructive suggestions, beginning with their methodologies and working through to their socio-economic critiques. I conclude that these two thinkers actually represent two-sides of the same coin, their differences being largely traceable to their distinct geographic and intellectual contexts and their similarities being far more profound: Novak evincing a positive critique while acknowledging the imperfections of his economic vision and Sung beginning with and moving through a negative critique while avoiding absolutes and eventually arriving at a kind of realism strikingly similar to Novak’s.