Christian Moral Principles Flashcards
3 Strands of Thinking
- Heteronomous
–> Moral authority comes from combination of Church, Bible and Reason - Catholic View - Aquinas - - Theonomous
–> Moral authority comes from God, accessible through God’s revelation of the Bible - Church has less authority than Bible - Protestant - Karl Barth - Martin Luther - Autonomous
–> People individually figure out for themselves what is morally right or wrong - reason focused - Joseph Fletcher
What is the Basis for Heteronomy
Apostolic succession
- The basis for Catholic Church’s moral authority
- Passing down moral authority through religious leaders
- ‘sacred tradition’ - church teaching separate from bible
- Vatican II - Scripture and the Church should be “accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence”
Biblical basis for succession
- Matthew - Christ began apostolic tradition telling his disciples “Make disciples of all nations”
- Christ gave disciples authority “whoever hears you, hears me. Whoever rejects you, rejects me”
Criticism + Scholars for Apostolic succession
- Corruption of Catholic Church
–> Paedophile preist scandels and church cover-ups
–> Allegiance with facism including Hitler - Sale indulgences
–> Catholic church accept money in return for forgivness of sins
–> Money for Presits to pray relatives out of purgatory quicker - condemned by Martin Luther
Dawkins
- condemned systematic cover-up of sexual abuse cases within church - undermining church moral authority
- God delusions - “Church is an institution where child rape is not rare, and when discovered, is seldom punished”
Christopher Hitchens
- Church has constantly shown itself to be on “wrong side of moral matters, from fascist regimes, contraception and LGBT rights” - its claim to moral authority is a “hypocritical farce”
- Catholic response
–> church led by humans with OG sin, these sins do not overrule authority given to church by Jesus
Heteronomy view of Bible
Bible as credible source of moral authority
- Vatican II - Bible written by humans but “without error” containing only that which God wanted
Heteronomy view on reason + Scholar
- Catholic church follows Natural theology, view human can use God-given reason to understand God’s natural law
Aquinas
- Reason help support faith in God
- Believed able to reason
–> God’s existence
–> God’s moral law - primary precepts
–> God’s nature through natural world analogy
- Cannot fully reason God, but can help
Critiques of Heteronomy’s reason
- Karl Barth
–> Dangerous to over rely on human reason
–> reason corrupted by the fall, and OG sin, leads to worship of idolatry e.g. Nazi’s
–> If humans able to reason God, would make revelation unnecessary
–> “Finite has no capacity for the infinite” - Humans believing they have ability to gain knowledge of God through reason is same arrogance that led to disobeying God and causing Fall
Criticism of Heteronomy’s tradition
- Rosemary Radford Reuther
–> Feminist theology, traditional Christianity reflects patriarchal values that marginalise women
–> over reliance on reason perpetuates gender inequalities in Church + broader society
What is the Basis for Theonomy
idea of Sola Scriptura
- Bible as direct revelation of the world of God - holding supreme and sole authority
- Moral commandments /system found through bible e.g. ten commandments, or Leviticus ‘holy codes’ or Jesus teachings in Sermon on the Mount
- Scripture as self-authenticating - doesn’t need interpretation
- Bible is infallible source of morality - clear ethical guidance with no room for mistakes
1 Timothy
- “One God and One mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus”
–> Jesus as only mediator between God and humanity - Pope and clergy do not have power to mediate God
Scholars supporting Theonomy
Martin Luther
- “Leyman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest Pope without it”
-developed Priesthood of all believers;
–> doctrine that all people have status of priests
–> Contradicting Catholic view of Presist having special status as mediator
Karl Barth
- Scripture as primary source of God’s revelation
- Scripture interpretation must be Christocentric
- Bible important, but cannot give equal weighting with God’s revelation as could lead to “Bibliolatry” worship of Bible
- Critical of literalism - Bible should be read in consideration of historical and cultural context
Richard Mouw
- If someone thought Bible had error, that was an error in understanding rather than inerrancy of scripture
Criticism of Theonomy
- Bible esp. NT gained authority from Church
–> NT given authority by Catholic Clergy in 4th Century, why trust those Catholics not new ones - Subjective interpretation inevitable
–> Impossible to read bible without interpretations, bound to draw on experiences and culture - Different writing styles
–> Bible cannot be literal word of God as different books have different styles
–> Johns gospel more mystical and theological than other Gospels
–> Mathew’s Gospel contains more references to Jewish culture than others - Contradictions within the Bible
–> Matthew - Jesus in Sermon on the Mount - contradicts Hebrew teachings of ‘eye for an eye’ replacing it is ‘turn the other cheek’
–> Mark - Jesus states “Sabbath was made for man, not man the Sabbath” - Hebrew Scripture overlooked
–> May rules in Hebrew Scripture are not followed by Protestants e.g. Leviticus prohibits touching pig skin, or planting two crops in same field - Over Literal
–> clear examples of Biblical symbolism and hyperbole
–> e.g. command to ‘pluck out’ your eyes is a metaphor for repentance and change, would sola scripture tell you to literally remove your eyes if they were to make you sin
Critical scholars for Theonomy
Walter Kasper
- Sola Scriptura reduces Christianity to a “religion of the book”,
- leads to individualistic and subjective interpretations of the Bible - ignoring communal aspect of Christianity
John Stuart Mill
- Christianity teaches “passive obedience” making people submissive to authority instead of preaching important virtues like greek philosophers e.g. Aristotle did
Autonomy definition + scholar
- People individually figure out what is morally right or wrong - based on reason
Joseph Fletcher
- Rejected Heteronomy and theonomy as a forms of legalism
- Proposed autonomous form of Christian ethics focused on agape, as preached by Jesus
- Said Humanity has evolved becoming more education and controlled, no longer needed fixed rigid rules, as can understand complexity of morality
- Bible should be thought of as suggestions, not perfect (literal) word of God
Criticism of Autonomy 3 points, 3 scholars
- Recent Horrors
–> Fletchers idea dependent on Humans being able to understand morality becoming educated and controlled
–> Horrors such as Hamas kidnapping people, Government dropping Bombs in Gaza + Wars waged in Ukraine, racism, anti-semitism etc.
–> people still need fixed moral principles - Traditional Christianity
–> Autonomy ignores teachings of bible e.g. ten commandment’s - Over-dependence on reason
–> same hubris that led to Adam+Eve disobeying God and causing the Fall - Karl Barth etc.
Scholars
- William Barclay
–> Gives humans dangerous amount of freedom - If all men were angels would be perfect
–> Humans need protection of law to guard against selfishness and cruelty
–> If given freedom people will choose selfish + cruel option e.g. Stanford Prison experiment 70’s
- Karl Barth
–> Over reliance on human reason is dangerous
–> reason corrupted by OG Sin and Fall, can lead to worship of idolatry e.g. Nazi’s
–> “Finite has no capacity for the infinite”
–> If human reason was enough to know God, wouldn’t have need for revelation
Richard Mouw
–> Criticised autonomous approach
–> Biblical commandment of love is important, but does not overrule other commandments e.g. “Thou shalt not kill”
–> Wouldn’t have need for scripture if reason all thats necessary for moral life
–> Should use reason in combination with Bible
Sola Scriptura vs. Prima Scriptura
Sola Scriptura - Doctrine of exclusively following the Bible as the sole source of moral authority - Theonomous
Prima Scriptura - Bible as the principle source of authority, but understood with Church teachings and reason
Inerrancy of Scipture defenition
Scripture as free from any errosr, as God would not inspire flawed scriptures
