Karl Barth's Moral Thought

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald McKenny
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Theological Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Moral Good ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
God's Grace ◽  
The Right

Does theological ethics articulate moral norms with the assistance of moral philosophy? Or does it leave that task to moral philosophy alone while it describes a distinctively Christian way of acting or form of life? These questions lie at the heart of theological ethics as a discipline. Karl Barth’s theological ethics makes a strong case for the first alternative. This book follows Barth’s efforts to present God’s grace as a moral norm in his treatments of divine commands, moral reasoning, responsibility, and agency. It shows how Barth’s conviction that grace is the norm of human action generates problems for his ethics at nearly every turn, as it involves a moral good that confronts human beings from outside rather than perfecting them as the kind of creature they are. Yet it defends Barth’s insistence on the right of theology to articulate moral norms, and it shows how Barth may lead theological ethics to exercise that right in a more compelling way than he did.

The Command of God as a Moral Norm

2021 ◽  
pp. 25-51
Author(s):  
Gerald McKenny
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Moral Norm ◽  
Divine Command ◽  
Theological Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
God's Grace ◽  
Mutual Accountability

Barth’s divine command ethics claims that God’s grace to human beings in Jesus Christ is the norm of human action. In Jesus Christ, God both poses and answers the question of the good of human action, which is the question of its conformity to grace. Rather than a norm of a distinctively Christian way of acting or form of life, Barth argues that this is a moral norm that pertains to human action as such. When moral philosophy considers the question of conformity to the good that is posed to human action, it implicitly attests the grace of God which poses this question. And when moral philosophy considers the answers to the question of the good that derive from reason or experience, it implicitly attests the grace of God as the answer to the question. In its explicit attestation of the grace of God as the norm of human action, theological ethics makes use of this implicit attestation in moral philosophy. Barth thus endorses the traditional position according to which theology articulates the moral norm with the assistance of philosophy. However, Barth’s claim that the norm of human action is a revealed norm, and not a rational norm that is clarified, specified, and extended by revelation, qualifies the goodness of the human creature, fails to secure the mutual accountability of those who are inside and outside the circle of revelation, and limits the grounds on which Christians and others cooperate with one another in moral endeavors.

Karl Barth’s Theological Ethics

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Gerald McKenny
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Divine Command ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Theological Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Divine Grace ◽  
God's Grace

Barth’s theological ethics is a version of divine command ethics. However, it is a highly unusual version. Its premise is that the Word of God—the revelation and work of God’s grace to human beings in Jesus Christ—is also the command of God, that gospel is also law. What God commands, therefore, is that human beings confirm in their conduct what they already are by virtue of God’s grace to them. Human beings confirm grace in their conduct by performing actions that correspond to grace, so that the moral life is lived as a human analogy to divine grace. The problem with Barth’s divine command ethics is that the claim that grace is the norm of human action fails to do justice to human beings as creatures. For Barth, God’s resolution from eternity to be gracious to human beings and God’s realization of this eternal resolution in time determines human beings as creatures, not just as those who have fallen into sin. It follows that the human creature exists for the actualization of grace, not grace for the perfection of the creature.

Nature of dignity and human dignity

Human Affairs ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasil Gluchman
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Life Form ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
The Right

AbstractThis paper argues that the concept of dignity should be understood as a concept that we use to describe an aggregate of values and qualities of a person or thing that deserves esteem and respect. The primary value that creates the right to have dignity is life. The degree of dignity a life form has depends on its place in the evolutionary scale. Human beings are the highest form of life so they possess the highest degree of dignity.

scholarly journals The Consumer Ideology and the Truth about Man

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Adrian J. Reimers
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Truth ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
Moral Good ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Philosophical Writings

The formation of the human conscience is a controverted question in both philosophical ethics and moral philosophy. Conscience refers to one’s conception and understanding of the moral good. An especially significant manifestation of the problem of conscience in the 20th and 21st centuries is the impact of ideology on the individual person’s moral sense. This article considers the impact of two 19th century philosophies―Mill’s utilitarianism and Marxism―on contemporary moral thought insofar as the interaction of these two produce a powerful materialist ideology to determine the modern European and American conscience. We then turn to the thought of Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyła), who in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor and in his earlier philosophical writings developed an account of moral truth by which the dangers of materialistic ideology can be overcome. It is argued, with John Paul II, that only in the context of truth can a coherent account of freedom of conscience under the moral law be developed.

Sin, Grace, and Free Choice in Post-Reformation Reformed Theology

2014 ◽  
pp. 227-241
Author(s):  
Stephen Hampton
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Strong Commitment ◽  
God's Grace ◽  
Theological Vision ◽  
Moral Capacity

This chapter discusses Reformed thought on sin, grace, free choice, and ethics, by focusing on some prominent theologians—particularly Samuel Maresius, Francis Turretin, Petrus van Mastricht, and Pierre Du Moulin. It argues that the freedom and moral capacity of human beings is central to the Reformed theological vision. The Reformed deploy careful distinctions to demonstrate that the fundamental contingency of human action is compatible with the divine decrees. The disastrous effects of the Fall are highlighted, but the persistence of natural human faculties is also underlined. God’s grace is conceived as working so powerfully within the elect, that it invariably achieves its end, but not by undermining the rational faculties of its recipients. In ethics, the Reformed are shown to have a strong commitment both to natural law and virtue ethics, without tension with their overarching commitment to God’s revealed law.

List und Form

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuel Seitz
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Morality Politics ◽  
The World ◽  
Skill Building ◽  
Blind Spots

Prudence is the prerequisite for skill. Building on this suspicion, Emanuel Seitz examines the essence of prudence from its beginnings in ancient philosophy to Heidegger's reinterpretations. He frees prudence from its dubious reputation of being no more than an instrumental calculus. Its real task is to provide advice on the form of life and skillful ways of dealing with the world. The attempt to conceive of human action in terms of prudence brings to light the blind spots in modern theories of morality, politics and society. It serves to illuminates the riddle of practice, explores the hidden meaning of cunning and explores what is possible for human beings beyond what is merely necessary.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 174-188
Author(s):  
Gerald McKenny
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Theological Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
God's Grace

“The task of theological ethics,” Barth asserts, “is to understand the Word of God as the command of God.”1 The Word of God is the revelation and work of God’s grace to human beings in Jesus Christ, and the command of God is the summons, direction, and empowerment of human beings to be in their conduct what they are by God’s grace. In Jesus Christ, God acts for human beings and in their place. Human beings confirm God’s grace, so understood, in their actions that directly or indirectly correspond to it. The action God commands is thus a likeness to God’s action. Ethics takes form as an analogy of grace....

Hume on Suicide

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugenio Lecaldano
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Moral Principle ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right

The chapter starts with the history of Hume’s essay on suicide, and the sources and the social context of it in 1755. It also exposes the first reactions to the essay, particularly that of Adam Smith. The central sections present a critical discussion of the interpretation of the essay as a text of the philosophy of religion. The thesis of the chapter is that “On Suicide” is a text of moral philosophy. Hume refutes the Christian position and also the distinction between rational and irrational suicide; he advances—as resolutive—the positive moral principle of the natural liberty of all human beings and “the right to dispose of their own lives.” The essay has an influence in the contemporary bioethical literature just for this conception on the choices for the end of life.

The Command of God as a Morally Binding Norm

2021 ◽  
pp. 52-77
Author(s):  
Gerald McKenny
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Divine Command ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Theological Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Good

As a version of divine command ethics, Barth’s theological ethics answers the two fundamental questions posed to every divine command ethics, namely, how is it that God’s command determines the good of human action, and why is it that human beings must accept what God determines as good? Barth’s answer to both question is that in Jesus Christ, God both poses the question of the good to human beings and answers it in their place. In him, God’s goodness both confronts other human beings as the norm of their goodness and fulfills that norm in their place. It therefore determines the good of human action insofar as Jesus Christ is the human being who takes the place of other human beings. And other human beings must accept what God thereby determines as their good because—again, insofar as Jesus Christ has taken their place—their good is already a reality in him, in whom they exist as the human beings they are. The problem is that while the grace of God in Jesus Christ is the genuinely human good of other human beings insofar as they exist in Jesus Christ, it is, precisely as grace, a good that constitutes them from outside and not a good that fulfills them as the kind of creature they are.

scholarly journals KEDUDUKAN PEREMPUAN DALAM Al-QURAN DAN HADIS

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-65
Author(s):  
Wiwin Mistiani
Keyword(s):  
Moral Norms ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Equal Status ◽  
Women In Islam ◽  
Right To Work ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
God's Grace ◽  
The Right

Islam is a religion that highly respects and values ​​women. Islam erases the Jahiliyah tradition which is so discriminatory towards women, in Islam men and women are considered to be equal, free-tackled, and even complementary and needy creatures of God. Islam as rahmatan lil Alamin positions women in a noble place. There is no dichotomy and discrimination between men and women. Al-Qur’an teaches the position of believers both men and women are equal before God, therefore they must obtain equal status in the eyes of God, and both have been declared the same as getting God’s grace. The departure of women to study even without mahram can be justified as long as their honor and safety are guaranteed and does not invite disobedience. Women have the right to work as long as they need it or the job needs it and as long as religious and moral norms are maintained. Therefore  there is no obstacle for women to work as long as the work is carried out in an atmosphere of respect, courtesy, and they can maintain their religion and can also avoid negative impacts on themselves and the environment. Ignoring women and not involving them in activities that benefit the community means wasting at least half of the community’s potential.

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