Christian Moral Principles Flashcards
3 approaches to Christian ethics
The bible - divine law
Bible and reason - natural law
Decide what’s best for each circumstance, no different from non religious ethics - Situation Ethics
Christian ethics suggests
Man is essentially sinful and ignorant and needs God to reveal what is the best way to behave
Laws in the Old Testament showing how to act
Ten Commandments
Sermon on the mount
How did the bible come about
Bible was inspired by God he spoke to the prophets who wrote his teachings down
The Bible is
Infallible, it cannot be wrong
Dangers with the Bible
Jesus says ‘if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out’
Can be taken too seriosupt
Contradictions with the Bible
Says do not kill
But God supports his chosen people in battle where many are put to death
Advocates the death penalty, yet in Gospel says ‘turn the other cheek’
Debunking the criticisms of the Bible
Some words are metaphors, reason must be applied
Jesus teachings will show what life will be like in the kingdom of God, in the meantime we live in an imperfect world
Roman Catholics using reason when they apply NL
Divine Law and Primary precepts.
Working out ethical decisions is called
Synderesis
What is the official teaching of the Catholic Church
Magisterium
Magisterium
The authority that the Catholic Church has to teach, held by the bishops (with the pope as the leader of the bishops)
Stanley Hauerwas
Suggests a Protestant ethical heteronomy - there is no magisterium in Protestant churches
What does Stanley believe
Ethical decisions should be something decided by the church community based on the Bible and reason
What example does Hauerwas give
Pregnant teenager, we cannot say abortion is a sin
Autonomous Christians would say about right and wrong
Theres nothing distinctively Christian about right or wrong
The Church has authority over an individuals Christian ethics
May become too subjective and simply a matter of individual preference
The church is not an individual to people it’s a ‘collective wisdom’
Receivers the process of Jesus
The Church does not have authority over an individuals Christian ethics
The Bible is Gods word and on its own should be sufficient
The church exists just to bring the bibles message to people
God gave reason to people and we should use our conscience to work out the most loving thing to do in any situation
Situation Ethics is an example of
Autonomous Christian Ethics
Where what is right or wrong will depend on the circumstances
The basic guiding principle of SE
Agape
Fletcher argues goodness is
Goodness is not peculiar to Christians but is a basic part of everyone’s human nature
Hans Kungs views as a liberal Catholic
Although euthanasia goes against the magisterium it is not contrary to recognise the great distress someone is kept in being alive as morally right
Pope Benedict XVI on Kung
Undermining the authority of the magisterium
Critics of Autonomous Christian Ethics argue
It’s distinctive from other forms of ethics because
Christians believe in things like sin, redemption and being saved, these influence decisions made
Jesus was to show us how to carry out the laws
At odds with society’s values ‘sell everything he has and give the money to the poor’ more than just agape that makes someone a Christian
