Situation Ethics

Question 1

Give a quote from Fletcher on legalism.

Answer 1

“Any web thus woven sooner or later chokes its weavers.”

Question 2

Give a quote from Mark 2:27 in support of situation ethics.

Answer 2

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”

Question 3

Give a quote from Luke 10 in support of situation ethics.

Answer 3

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart… and love your neighbour as yourself… do this and you will live.”

Question 4

Give a quote from Corinthians 13 in support of situation ethics.

Answer 4

“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Question 5

Give a quotation from Fletcher on the boss principle.

Answer 5

“What a difference it makes when love, understood agapeically, is boss. When love is the only norm. How free and therefore responsible we are!”

Question 6

Give a quote from Fletcher on relativism.

Answer 6

“It relativises the absolute, it does not absolutise the relative.”

Question 7

Give a quote from Fletcher on personalism.

Answer 7

“The legalist is a what asker (what does the law say?); the situationalist is a who asker (who is to be helped?)”

Question 8

Give a quote from Fletcher on pragmatism.

Answer 8

“To be correct or a right thing- a thought or action- must work.”

Question 9

Give a quote from Fletcher on positivism.

Answer 9

“Christian ethics ‘posits’ faith in God and reasons out what obedience to his commandment to love requires in any situation.”

Question 10

Give a quote from Fletcher on love as the only good.

Answer 10

“Only one ‘thing’ is intrinsically good; namely, love: nothing else at all”

Question 11

Give a quote from Fletcher on love as the ruling norm.

Answer 11

“The ruling norm of Christian decision making is love, nothing else.”

Question 12

Give a quote from Fletcher on justice.

Answer 12

“Love and justice are the same, for justice is love distributed, nothing else.”

Question 13

Give a quote from Fletcher on love for all.

Answer 13

“Love wills the neighbour’s good whether we like him or not.”

Question 14

Give a quote from Fletcher on teleology.

Answer 14

“Only the end justifies the means, nothing else”

Question 15

Give a quote from Fletcher on relativism

Answer 15

“Love’s decisions are made situationally, not prescriptively.”

Question 16

Give a quote from Leviticus 18:22 on homosexuality

Answer 16

“Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, as that is detestable.”

Question 17

Give a quote from Fletcher on homosexuality and Christian sex relations.

Answer 17

“The triple terrors of infection, conception, and detection which once scared people into ‘Christian’ sex relations have become obselete through medicine and urbanism.”

Question 18

Give a quote from Fletcher on homosexuality and evil traits

Answer 18

“The most evil traits are not those of the sexual appetite… but the irrational emotional passions such as hate, fear, greed…”

Question 19

Give a quote from Fletcher on polyamory and the sanctity of marriage.

Answer 19

“Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure.”

Question 20

Give a quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the sanctity of marriage.

Answer 20

“The sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage. Outside of marriage it is always a grave sin and excludes one from the sacramental communion.”

Question 21

Give a quote from Fletcher on monogamy.

Answer 21

“Monogamy may be an ideal, but it is not a idol.”

Question 22

Give a quote from Fletcher on laws against homosexuality/ polyamory.

Answer 22

“It is doubtful that love’s cause is helped by any of the sex laws.”