The Westminster Standards and the possibility of a Reformed virtue ethic

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
David B. Hunsicker
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Virtue Ethic ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Moral Discourse ◽  
Moral Progress ◽  
Divine Sovereignty ◽  
Reformed Tradition ◽  
Material Content ◽  
Divine Agency

AbstractThe renaissance of virtue ethics in Christian moral discourse has led a handful of Reformed theologians to consider whether or not the Reformed tradition is compatible with classical and medieval concepts of virtue. Barthians, in particular, express doubt regarding the prospect of such a retrieval, arguing that classical notions of virtue compromise the Reformed hallmark of divine sovereignty and Luther's dictumsimul justus et peccator.This essay counters that the Reformed tradition is broad enough to find more productive ways to engage virtue ethics. In particular, the Westminster Standards provideboththe formal space for a significant theological exploration of human agencyandthe material content for the development of something like a classical virtue ethic. Barthian concerns regarding divine sovereignty and moral progress are satisfied by a demonstration that Westminster's attention to human agency is always within the context of a greater emphasis on divine agency.

Where in the world is God? On finding the Divine in Esther

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-191
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Newman
Keyword(s):  
Human Agency ◽  
Human Action ◽  
The Other ◽  
Divine Providence ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
Divine Agency ◽  
The World ◽  
Insight Into

The word “God” does not appear in the book of Esther. Some argue that this divine absence highlights human action over against Divine providence or sovereignty. I maintain, however, that it is a theological mistake to place divine and human action in separate domains. Divine action is not only the ground that makes human action possible; it is also the compelling spring that draws persons to act faithfully. Aristotle’s account of friendship sheds light on how friends act through one another, enabling each to become and do more than they would have otherwise. Aquinas’s discussion of primary and secondary causality provides compelling insight into how human agency relies upon Divine agency enabling us to move toward our true telos: communion with God. With Esther and Mordecai, one sees shared human agency: both rely upon the other to act. Even more, one sees how their faithfulness derives from their identity as persons in covenant with God, whose saving deeds on behalf of the Jews and the world make their lives possible.

Vivisection as War: The “Moral Diseases” of Animal Experimentation and Slavery in British Victorian Quaker Pacifist Ethics

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hayley Rose Glaholt
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Virtue Ethic ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Animal Experimentation ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Source Materials

Abstract This paper demonstrates how British Quakers, between 1870 and 1914, attempted to understand and debate the issue of vivisection through the lens of the Quaker peace testimony. Drawing on primary source materials, the article argues that these Friends were able to agitate for radical legislative and social change using virtue ethics as their framework. The paper further suggests that the moral parameters of the Quaker testimony for peace expanded briefly in this period to include interspecies as well as intraspecies engagement. Friends accomplished this by arguing that humans could not engage in vivisection—a “moral disease” just like slavery and war—without risking individual and social virtue. Friends were able to call for radical change in society without arguing for ethical egalitarianism. Hierarchy was implicit in their virtue ethic, but this did not hinder their creation of a forward-thinking stance on human-animal relations.

Revisiting Karl Barth's doctrine of baptism from a perspective on prayer

2015 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-272
Author(s):  
Ashley Cocksworth
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Lord's Supper ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Lord's Prayer ◽  
Sharp Distinction ◽  
Divine Agency ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Spirit Baptism

AbstractThis article focuses on Karl Barth's mature doctrine of baptism, as it is developed in the final part-volume of the Church Dogmatics. Published in 1967 (English translation in 1969) as a fragment of the ethics of the doctrine of reconciliation, Barth's theology of baptism is not without its controversy. Among the critiques that the baptism fragment has generated, one of the most significant concerns is over its presentation of the relation between divine agency and human agency. The formal division in the baptism fragment (and its sharp distinction between ‘Spirit baptism’ and ‘water baptism’) is taken to imply an uncharacteristic separation of divine agency and human agency, which renders his doctrine of baptism inconsistent with other areas of his thought. The argument proposed in this article, however, is that better clarity as to what Barth is theologically up to in the baptism fragment can be gained by reading his mature theology of baptism in connection with his theology of prayer. Barth's theology of prayer is rich and extensive. Although very present across all of his writings, his thinking on prayer (and indeed the Church Dogmatics itself) culminates in an intriguing set of meditations on the petitions of the Lord's Prayer. Although unfinished, these lectures on prayer were published posthumously as The Christian Life in 1976 (English translation 1981). Together with his doctrine of baptism and his unwritten doctrine of the Lord's Supper, the finished lectures on prayer would have formed the ethics of reconciliation. Importantly, Barth insists that baptism and the Lord's Supper were to be understood not only in the context of prayer but actually as prayer, as ‘invocation’. Rooted in the motif of ‘correspondence’, which is deployed at a number of key points throughout the Church Dogmatics, Barth's theology of invocation is based on a highly participative account of the divine–human relation: divine agency and human agency ‘correspond’ in the crucible of prayer. From the perspective provided by his writings on prayer, invocation and the motif of the ‘correspondence’ of divine and human agency, this article revisits the critique that Barth unduly separates divine and human agency in the baptism fragment.

Divine and Human Agency in Calvin’s Institutes

2021 ◽  
pp. 42-56
Author(s):  
Emily Theus
Keyword(s):  
Human Agency ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
Divine Agency ◽  
Human Responsibility ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter considers the doctrines of providence and sin in the Institutes of Christian Religion in order to draw out Calvin’s views on the interplay of human and divine agency. Calvin’s account of God’s particular providence establishes the basic conditions for human responsibility and characterizes God’s agency as perfectly efficacious—so much so that the relationship between God’s willing and evil/sin cannot adequately be captured through language of ‘permission’. The doctrine of sin further inflects this account, clarifying the relationship between human freedom, necessity, and responsibility for sin. The result is a challenging picture, in which humans are responsible for sin, but not for good, and in which God is causally determinative of both good and evil. The key to this account—to understanding its perplexities and to identifying what features of meaningful human action are at stake—is the nesting of intentions within a layering of human and divine agency.

John Gill and the History of Redemption as Mere Shadow

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 377-400
Author(s):  
David Mark Rathel
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Covenant Theology ◽  
Reformed Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Accurate Reading

Abstract John Gill was an influential minister and theologian of the eighteenth century. Deeply influenced by the Reformed tradition, he made significant innovation to the doctrine of the covenant of redemption. Current surveys of his theology have unfortunately not adequately explored this innovation. The primary cause of this failure is a lack of attention to Gill’s historical context, a context shaped by doctrinal antinomianism and no-offer Calvinism. This article will contextualize Gill’s thought and provide a more accurate reading of his covenant theology by arguing that he offered a unique construction of the covenant of redemption that radically minimized human agency in the reception of salvation.

The Unhappy Marriage of Care Ethics and Virtue Ethics

Hypatia ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 21-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Sander-Staudt
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Virtue Ethic ◽  
Care Ethics ◽  
Care Ethic

The proposal that care ethic(s) (CE) be subsumed under the framework of virtue ethic(s) (VE) is both promising and problematic for feminists. Although some attempts to construe care as a virtue are more commendable than others, they cannot duplicate a freestanding feminist CE. Sander-Staudt recommends a model of theoretical collaboration between VE and CE that retains their comprehensiveness, allows CE to enhance VE as well as be enhanced by it, and leaves CE open to other collaborations.

Superstition in Sacramental Theology

2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-154
Author(s):  
Cathal Doherty
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Sacramental Theology ◽  
Divine Agency ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Careful Distinction

Maurice Blondel’s Action (1893) illustrates that the phenomenon of superstition inveigles its way into all forms of human activity, even intellectual pursuits like philosophy and theology, when they insulate themselves from the transcendent in human self-sufficiency. This essay explores how superstition is a constant threat for sacramental theology, manifest in particular, when the heterogeneity of human and divine agency in sacramental synergy is blurred or ignored. It argues that Blondel’s philosophical acumen permits a retrieval of vital insights of the scholastic synthesis, especially the careful distinction between divine agency ( opus operatum) and human agency ( opus operantis) in the sacramental act.

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