This paper argues that Western theology has lost a certain intellectual unity by becoming divided between dogmatic theology (or doctrine) and moral theology (or ethics). The history of theological reflection on Mary illustrates this, because it has become confined to dogmatic theology and has hardly ever been discussed in the context of morals. However, mariology can help us to understand the doctrinal foundations that must support any adequate moral theology. By helping us to see how morals depend on dogma, mariology can help us to recover the unity of theology.
