Christian Moral Principles Flashcards
What are morals?
A set of principles linked to doing right actions.
What is seen as authority in the Roman Catholic tradition?
The authority of the words of Jesus, spoken to the Apostles and passed down through the Church, holds high authority.
What is seen as authoritative in Protestant Christianity?
The Bible is the highest authority, with different traditions giving different weight to reason and to church teachings.
What is Theonomous Christian Ethics?
These place God at the centre, Gods commandments are what is required for living morally. Humans are sinful because of the Fall that they cannot make right decisions for themselves and so they must use the direct word of God, found in the Bible.
What is Heteronomous Christian Ethics?
There is a variety of sources of authority for morals. The Bible remains important, but perhaps because it was written long ago, morality requires additional support to be understood. This support can come from the Church or from reason, or both.
What is Autonomous Christian Ethics?
The authority is placed onto the individual. The ideas behind it is that Christian ethics are ethical decisions that happen to be made by Christians, using love as the guiding force.
How does the theonomous approach view the Bible?
Containing all a person needs to live a good life. Behind this is the idea that the Bible is a set of truth statements that reveal Gods 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 directly followed.
What is propositional revelation?
The idea that God reveals himself in truth statements. To say that the Bible is an example of this is to say that the Bible is a series of truth statements.
What is stated in 2 Timothy 3:16
‘All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness’.
How does theonomous Christians overcome contradictions within the Bible?
Theonomous Christian ethics might argue that the Bible looks at situations from different angles in different places and that much of the Old Testament was replaces by the New Testament.
How is Theonomous ethics criticised?
It seems that interpretation is required, due to a change in approach to violence and revenge between Old and New Testaments, which could point to the need for the use of reason for Church guidance.
What is a strength to Theonomous Christian ethics?
The Bible provides clear guidelines that cannot be questioned.
Why is the Bible not a good source of morality?
Modern situations are not covered by the Bible and any attempt to apply Biblical content to these situations would be using owing reason, which is not true theonomous ethics.
What is stated in Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2032?
‘To the Church belongs the right always and everywhere to announce moral principles’.
What is the Roman Catholic belief of reason?
Reason can be used to identify what God has revealed. God has a core understanding for the universe, and has revealed some laws through the Bible. These laws are verified by the Church, but can be worked out through reason.
What is conscience?
The inner sense of right and wrong in a person, sometimes described as an internal voice.
What did Thomas Aquinas state the conscience was?
The conscience was reason being used to work out what is right, and therefore identifying the secondary rules of Natural Law.
Why would Protestants agree with the Roman Catholic understanding of conscience?
Reason is, at the very least, required to help distinguish between correct and incorrect interpretations of the Bible. Reason is required to understand the Bible in an ever changing world, but it is also important to understand reason as trying to establish what would be in the Bible if it were being written in todays context. The Bible can speak into current situations if appropriately analysed.
What is non-propositional revelation?
The idea that God does not reveal himself through truth statements, so the revelation might need interpretation.
What questions are raised at heteronomous Christian ethics?
- What sources are the correct sources of authority?
- Where there is disagreement between the reasoning of two individuals, who has ultimate authority?
- Has the ability of God to reveal himself and to be recognised by faith been undermined?
What is agape?
The unconditional love God has for humans that humans need to try to reflect.
What is stated in Mark 12:30-31?
Jesus summarises all the law as being about love. This is clearly a theme throughout the Gospels and so starting point for many Christian approaches to ethics.
How does Paul Tillich see love?
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 decisions. Tillich rejects non-autonomous Christian approaches to ethics.
How does Joseph Fletchers situation ethics relate to autonomous Christian ethics?
In situation ethics love is the central principle that prevents the Christian from falling into over-reliance on laws or a life without rules. It tells Christian’s to follow the rules unless it is more loving to do otherwise. Fletcher argues his theory is person-centred just like Jesus.
