Christian Ethics
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CHRISTIAN SOURCE OF AUTHORITY FOR MORALITY
Christians since the reformation have disagreed about a series of moral issues. The division of the church has lead to the development of three main traditions, each turning to a different source for moral teaching:
1. Authority – Roman Catholic (the encyclicals or papal teachings and the belief that the pope is infallible)
2. Bible – Protestant (belief that the bible is the literal word of God)
3. Conscience – Orthodox (belief that the conscience is the literal voice of God)
MAIN ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
• God created human beings in his image and called us to a life of responsibility and freedom
• Ignorance and sin have lead to the misuse and corruption of human freedom
• Christian ethics therefore does not ask the question “what we ought to do?” but “what kind of moral persons are we called to become?”
KINGDOM OF GOD
The announcement of the coming of the Kingdom of God called humankind to put right their relationship with God as preparation. In New Testament times the church thought the Kingdom was on its way soon.
JESUS CHRIST
Jesus was both God incarnate and man who understood man’s fear and weakness
THE HOLY SPIRIT
The Holy Spirit is a life-giving force that Christians turn to for guidance on modern ethical issues – It has come to continue the work of Jesus Christ after his death and resurrection.
MORAL DECISION MAKING
To make moral decisions Christians look to:
1. The Holy Spirit
2. The Bible
3. The Church community
OLD TESTAMENT
Christianity began as a Jewish sect. The first Christians were Jews brought up to obey the Torah and the laws set down by the Decalogue.
DECALOGUE
Exodus 20: 1-17
The reading of the commandments took place on Mt. Sinai – a sign of the authority of the law. The commandments are all about relationships with:
1. Commandments about man’s relationship with God (first four)
2. Commandments about man’s relationships with others in society (last six)
The commandments are:
• Negative commandments – prohibitive
• Apodictic – categorical and absolute
After 1000 years of following the Torah, religious officials had developed a system of obeying the law that made the law more important than the people and the principles it sought to protect.
NEW TESTAMENT
The New Testament upholds the significance of the Old Testament law but corrects the oral law that had evolved in order to protect the written law. Jesus said:
“Do not think I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have not come to abolish but fulfil” - Matthew 5:17
Jesus’ approach therefore was not one of legal prescriptivism, but more concerned with demonstrating compassion through upholding to the law e.g. the incident/parable of the woman in adultery.
SERMON ON THE MOUNT
The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 also took place on a mount to reflect the authority of Jesus’ teaching. It can therefore be seen as the New Testament equivalent of the Decalogue, as it takes the Law set down by the Torah and updates it into:
• A list of beatitudes are a list of behaviours that will lead to rewards ‘if you are like this, then you will receive that’
• Positive commands
‘Happy are the pure in heart; they will see God!’
‘Happy are those who mourn; God will comfort them’
There are many sections of ethical teachings such as murder, adultery, divorce. These take the form of the Old Testament teachings and up-dating them in a way that is more relevant to the time:
“You have heard it said; ‘do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart”
Jesus teaches that the Law is best fulfilled by demonstrating acts of compassion for example in the story of the Good Samaritan. Compassion cannot be achieved just by conforming to the apodictic negative laws of the Decalogue as the first generation of Christians thought. Christian Ethics is much more demanding than this.
ABSOLUTIVITY AND RELATIVITY IN RELATION TO JESUS
Matthew 5:17:
“Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill them.”
• Jesus argues for the absolute authority of the Law implying that the Law sets down an absolute moral code which should not be compromised. It is universal and prohibitive of actions regardless of the circumstance.
However, there are incidents when Jesus is seen to go against the law:
Matthew 12
? Cornfields – Jesus ate from the cornfields on the Sabbath (forbidden by the Law)
? Paralysed hand – Jesus cured a man with a paralysed hand in the synagogue on the Sabbath (also forbidden by the Law)
In these incidents Jesus recognises a ‘higher’ love – agape. Jesus compromised the Law so that a better end may be achieved, implying a relativist approach to the Law; the view that it is acceptable to disobey the Law when circumstances permit it.
When questioned about the authority of the Law regarding the rules of the Sabbath Jesus replied:
“Man was not made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for man”
This can be applied the Law as a whole; inferring that man is not subordinate to the law, but the law was given to man in order to help us understand the concept of sin and how to live a good life.
Mark 12:30
When questioned about the two most important commandments Jesus replies:
‘Love the lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’
‘love your neighbor as yourself’
Jesus has effectively condensed the apodictic Decalogue into two positive commands, implying that the Law is relative to circumstances and can be made to fit these two basic principles.
Golden Rule
He also replaced the entire body of the Torah with the single directive, which has become known as Jesus’ Golden Rule:
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”
Jesus upheld the authority of the Law but taught that the Law is subject to humanity and is there for the service of human beings. Thus Jesus could be regarded as a relativist and an absolutist – drawing parallels with the absolute approach of Kant and the relative approach of Bentham and Mill (Utilitarianism).
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