Christian Righteousness

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Gifford A. Grobien
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theology ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Human Response ◽  
Good Works ◽  
Full Expression ◽  
Christian Teaching ◽  
Justification By Faith ◽  
Ethical Formation ◽  
Law And Gospel

This chapter presents an overview of the question of ethical formation in relation to the Christian teaching of justification by faith alone. Lutherans in particular are seen as struggling with this relation and are often viewed as struggling to present a developed moral theology. The distinction between law and gospel opens up language of “two kinds of righteousness,” which risks separating justification from good works. Both “justification” and ethics are related to righteousness. Their contradistinction has served systematic theology well in emphasizing the graciousness of justification. In moral theology, however, this contradistinction may lead to disjunction, when, in fact, Christian ethics cannot be understood theologically without vigorous roots in justification. Rather than setting justification and ethics separately or at odds, one could investigate how both the activity of God to reconcile humanity to himself, and also the active human response to this reconciliation, give full expression to “righteousness,” theologically understood.

scholarly journals The Goods of Human Sexuality: Ethics and Moral Theology

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-30
Author(s):  
Ellen Wondra
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Behavior ◽  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Human Sexuality ◽  
Moral Theology ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Sexual Relationships ◽  
Sexual Ethics ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Church

AbstractChristian ethics has always taken a complex view of the goods and purposes of human sexuality and its role in human relationships. Sexual desire and behavior have to be seen always within the overarching moral imperatives of love of God and love of neighbor. Such love entails self-giving and other-regard, and in longer-term relationships also some measure of commitment, fidelity, reciprocity or mutuality, truthfulness and generativity. Yet not all relationships with these characteristics do (or should) include sexual behavior. Nor do all sexual relationships include all these characteristics or virtues all the time. So we do better to base our moral evaluations of relationships on the exercise of these virtues than on more obvious criteria of sexual orientation or even status in the eyes of the church. At the same time, it is also possible for faithful and reasonable people to disagree faithfully and reasonably on sexual ethics, as on other things.

The Feminist Turn in Ethics

Horizons ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-347
Author(s):  
Daniel C. Maguire
Keyword(s):  
Social Ethics ◽  
Moral Theology ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
History Of Ethics ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Natural Target ◽  
Political Science Education

Anyone who plies the noble art-science of social ethics (moral theology, Christian ethics), while taking no account of the feminist turn of consciousness, is open to charges of professional irresponsibility and incompetence. No. That is not an overstatement or an overblown rhetorical lead-in. The history of ethics is turning an epochal corner. To miss the turn is to be lost and useless.Feminism is concerned with the shift in roles and the question of the rights that have been unjustly denied women. But all of that, however important and even essential, is secondary. The main event is epistemological. Changes in what we know are normal; changes in how we know are revolutionary. Feminism is a challenge to the way we have gone about knowing. The epistemological terra firma of the recent past is rocking and as the event develops, it promises to change the face of the earth.The main impact of feminism will be felt in the area of moral knowledge. That, of course, is broader than ethics since all of the social sciences are heavy with moral assumptions and evaluations. Economics, politics (simplistically called political science), education, journalism, business administration, engineering, et al. are all intra-familial siblings of social ethics, although educational systems have treated them as separable strangers. (This mischievous separation, indeed, is a natural target of the emerging feminist consciousness.)

Early Calvinist Resistance Theory: New Perspectives on an Old Label

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 309-319
Author(s):  
Glen Bowman
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Associate Professor ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Resistance Theory

In the article The Use of Natural Law in Early Calvinist Resistance Theory, David VanDrunen, Robert B. Strimple Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics at Westminster Seminary (California), analyzes natural law as it appeared in the writings of several sixteenth—century resistance theorists—John Knox, Christopher Goodman, John Ponet, Theodore Beza, Francois Hotman, and the unknown writer of Vindiciae contra Tyrannos. Van Drunen's article is much needed, since Richard Tuck, in his otherwise astute 1979 study on natural law, does not adequately address Reformation-era developments, focusing instead on Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Pufendorf, and other seventeenth-century theorists. Nevertheless, I take issue with Van Drunen's assertion that these writers were all “committed to the theology of Calvin” and were “early Calvinist resistance theorists.” One could make the case that most of these writers were, but there is one notable exception: English reformer, humanist, bishop, and polemicist John Ponet.

Christian Ethics and Moral Theology, 1939–60—I

Theology ◽  
1961 ◽  
Vol 64 (487) ◽  
pp. 3-7
Author(s):  
Ronald Preston
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theology ◽  
Christian Ethics

Luther, Martin (1483–1546)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.A. Higton
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Good Works ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Church Hierarchy ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Justification By Faith ◽  
The Holy Spirit

Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk who found the theology and penitential practices of his times inadequate for overcoming fears about his salvation. He turned first to a theology of humility, whereby confession of one’s own utter sinfulness is all that God asks, and then to a theology of justification by faith, in which human beings are seen as incapable of any turning towards God by their own efforts. Without preparation on the part of sinners, God turns to them and destroys their trust in themselves, producing within them trust in his promises made manifest in Jesus Christ. Regarding them in unity with Christ, God treats them as if they had Christ’s righteousness: he ‘justifies’ them. Faith is produced in the sinner by the Word of God concerning Jesus Christ in the Bible, and by the work of the Holy Spirit internally showing the sinner the true subject matter of the Bible. It is not shaped by philosophy, since faith’s perspective transcends and overcomes natural reason. Faith, through the working of God’s Holy Spirit within the believer, naturally produces good works, but justification is not dependent upon them – they are free expressions of faith in love. Nevertheless, secular government with its laws and coercion is still necessary in this world because there are so few true Christians. Luther’s theology brought him into conflict with the Church hierarchy and was instrumental in the instigation of the Reformation, in which the Protestant churches split from Rome.

Evil and Models of Christian Ethics

Horizons ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-22
Author(s):  
Norbert J. Rigali
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Slight Modification ◽  
Moral Theology ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Moral Norm ◽  
Relational Model ◽  
Fundamental Model ◽  
Theological Understanding

AbstractTo the “moderate consequentialism” that has emerged as new moral theology in recent years and is now represented by many moral theologians an alternative is proposed: relational moral theology or relationalism. In moral theology the consequentialist or means-end model cannot bear the weight of being the fundamental model of moral norm-making and decision-making; and a relational model, which is apt for this function, should replace it. Moreover, “moderate consequentialism” developed out of an insufficient reconsideration of the traditional ethical categories, moral and physical evils, which resulted only in slight modification of these philosophical categories. Still needed is the radical reconsideration of evil that introduces a theological understanding of it into moral theology. And once introduced, this theological understanding of evil itself calls for a relational model of moral norm- and decision-making in moral theology.

Virtue and Catholic Moral Theology

2018 ◽  
pp. 372-387
Author(s):  
Livio Melina
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Theology ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Early Christian

This chapter considers the possibility of a Catholic ethics based on the notion of virtue. Although the notion of virtue has been much discussed in recent years, and was central to early Christian ethics, for much of modernity it was a neglected concept in Catholic moral theology. After considering the shift that has again brought the concept of virtue to prominence, the chapter assesses different current models for virtue ethics. The remainder of the chapter argues for a contemporary Thomistic model of virtue ethics, arguing that St Thomas offers the most philosophically coherent model, and one that is also Christologically focused.

scholarly journals N.T. Wright’s New Perspective on Paul: What implications for Anglican doctrine?

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lekgantshi C. Tleane
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Apostle Paul ◽  
Good Works ◽  
New Perspective On Paul ◽  
Justification By Faith ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Church Structures

The entrance of New Perspectives on Paul as a reinterpretation of what the Apostle Paul wrote evoked varied responses, especially within the evangelical circles of the Reformed community. Interestingly, one of the foremost thinkers within the New Perspectives on Paul school is the retired Anglican Bishop and New Testament scholar Nicholas Thomas Wright. Wright’s scholarship is interesting to study, given his prominence within evangelical circles in general and his respectable standing within the Anglican Communion in particular. Yet there does not appear to be any coherent response or position from the Anglican Communion in relation to the New Perspectives on Paul, let alone Wright’s views. The key question posed in this article is whether Wright’s writings might influence Anglican doctrine. The Communion’s soteriological doctrine as contained in Articles XI, XII and XIII of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion may be understood to affirm the ‘old perspective on Paul’ and its ‘justification by faith only, and not by good works’ approach. Finally, the article examines the complexities that Wright’s influence might have, in the form of a possible shift in doctrinal posture, and the implications for church structures that such a shift might necessitate.

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