Christian Moral Principles Flashcards
Reasons why the Bible is a comprehensive moral guide?
-It makes sense that God would give his people a way to understand how to live and so the Bible should contain all people need to live
-The Bible’s moral guidelines may not always be welcome to modern thinking but this doesn’t make them wrong
-The Bible and Church teachings are clear that the Bible is a form of revelation. Other forms of revelation are not rejected, so why should the Bible be?
Reasons why the Bible is not a comprehensive moral guide?
-God’s word surely cannot be expressed in human language and so more than the Bible alone is needed: some form of interpretation is required.
-The Bible cannot be comprehensive because it does not cover many modern ethical issues. For example, although it is clear that life is sacred, it is not clear when life begins
-The Bible cannot be comprehensive because some of it reflects societies and ways of life that have long since gone.
What is theonomous Christian ethics?
These place God at the centre: God’s commandments are what is required for living morally. Humans are so sinful because of the Fall that the cannot make right decisions for themselves and so they must use the direct words of God, found in the Bible
What are heteronomous Christian ethics?
-There is a variety of sources of authority for morals. The Bible remains important, but, perhaps because it was written so long ago, morality requires additional support to be understood. This support can come from church or from reason, or both
What are autonomous Christian ethics?
-The authority is placed onto the individual. The idea behind it is that Christian ethics are ethical decisions that happen to be made by Christian’s; here we look at those ethics that use love as the guiding force that helps Christians make moral decisions
How would we say that the Bible is the only source of ethics?
A theonomous approach to Christian ethics sees the Bible as containing all a person needs to live a good life. Behind this is the idea that the Buber is a set of truth statements that reveal God’s message to the world: it is propositional revelation. If the Bible is, indeed, a set of statements that God has made then it is logical that these statements should be followed directly
What is a quote from the Bible that claims to be the only source of ethics?
“All scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness”- 2 Timothy 3:16
How would we analyse theonomous ethics?
-Some suggest the Bible contains contradictions, such as a change in approach to revenge and violence between old and New testaments
-However theonomous ethics might argue that the Bible looks at situations from different angles in different places and that much of the Old Testament was replaced by the NT
-Bible contains many different styles of writing and some of these styles are written in a specific context by a person (e.g. the letters of Paul to different churches). This would suggest that the Bible cannot have been written by one author (God)
-A strength is that it provides clear guidelines that cannot be questioned. However, some would observe that some modern situations are not covered by the Bible and any attempt to apply Biblical content to these situations wojld. be using our reason, which js not true theonomous ethics
What is the approach by some Protestants to church authority?
-Over 2000 years, the church has interpreted the Bible and this interpretation should guide people in their moral lives
-Churches are often governed by councils or synods that guide people how to live
-The church is the bridge between the first century and today and it’s journey is as important as the journey of the first Christian’s
-Preaching is a valid method of interpretation for Christian’s
-Prayer and worship are ways in which Christian’s use scripture and therefore learn from it
-The Bible was written after Christianity had existed for some time and so what was written down was written for the specific context of the authors of the different books
What is the approach by Roman Catholics to church authority?
-The authority of the church was given by Jesus to Peter and the apostles and itself already existed when the NT was put together
-Tradition comes from the spoken tradition given to the apostles and handed down over time. It therefore has the same criterion of apostolicity
-Authentic interpretation of the Bible is one of the jobs of the church, under the influence of thr Holy Spirit
-‘To the church belongs the right always and everywhere to announce moral principles’
-With this authority comes the assertion that there are moral absolutes: some things are simply wrong or right
-Humans are weak and sinful and therefore cannot rely on themselves to make moral decisions properly- the Bible and church are required
What issues do the approaches to church authority lead to?
-It is reasonable to suggest that humans cannot effectively live their lives without an authority? Would God have created humans that way?
-The relationship between people and the authoriyu of the church has created problems in Christianity’s past and partly led to the reformation
-It is unclear how the church is able to transmit God’s authority on a day to day basis- does God reveal himself specifically to church leaders? Corruption within churches also suggests that church leaders are as human as others
-How do we determine when to take the Bible at face value and when to interpret it through the church
-Which situations make a new interpretation of the Bible authentic? Who decides?
How do Catholics use reason?
-Catholics give authority to the conscience to help make moral decisions
-Thomas Aquinas said that the conscience was reason being used to work out what is right to do
-In the 19th century, John Henry Newman said that conscience has more authority even that the pope because having a conscience predates the church’s existence
How would we analyse heteronomous ethics?
-Heteronomous approaches to ethics might suggest that the Bible is a form of non propositional revelation. Any heteronomous approach begs 3 fundamental questions.
1. What sources are the correct sources of authority? Which or church leader?
2. Where there is disagreement who or what is the ultimate authority? Catholics would say the church Protestants would say the Bible, both of which have their problems
3. Has the ability to God to reveal himself and to be recognised by faith been undermined?
How could we say love is the only ethical principle?
-In mark 12:30-31, Jesus summarises all the law as being about love. This is clearly a theme throughout the Gospels and so a starting point for many Christian approaches to ethics.
-Paul Tillich saw love as a central precept, underpinned by justice and growing out of the wisdom of the past. The laws of the Bible are wisdom from which we learn, but central to our ethical decision making needs to be an ultimate fairness for all, which is characterised by love. Tillich rejected non-autonomous approaches to ethics
Reasons why love is sufficient to live a good life?
-Love gives us all we need to have the confidence to follow our instincts
-Love is the only force that can fully recognise the ever changing moral situations we find ourselves in
-Love is a fundamental and extreme human emotion and so God could well have expected that to drive us
-Love can empower the Christian to be able to put people first in challenging times, especially when mainstream society needs to be challenged
