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.

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 Spark That Still Shines: John Calvin on Conscience and Natural Law

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constance Y Lee
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Moral Discernment ◽  
Central Figure ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Sufficient Knowledge

Abstract John Calvin (1509–64), a central figure in Reformed theology, is perhaps best known for his bleak doctrine of total human depravity. This dismal view of human reason has commonly overshadowed his statement that ‘some sparks still shine’. This article proposes that Calvin’s account of conscience, by conserving an illuminated space in human nature, makes possible a formal doctrine of natural law. Calvin enlists the interconnectedness between the knowledge of God and human reason to frame his anthropology. According to this, human reason was originally created to perfectly access knowledge of God but after the Fall, can only attain imperfect access. Within this broader framework, by adopting a dialectic of dual perspectives, Calvin maintains that, however fallen, human nature still partially reflects the Imago Dei as first intended. As through a glass darkly, this divine image is reflected in human conscience endowing it with sufficient knowledge for moral discernment. Calvin’s emphasis on ‘common grace’ in the preservation of this knowledge allows him to simultaneously maintain human ignorance and their universal accountability to objective norms. In this way, Calvin’s account of conscience enables him to hold both apparent extremes in tension: the immanent fallibility of human beings with the external normative standards they ought to pursue.

Natural Law for Reformed Theology

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-130
Author(s):  
David VanDrunen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
First Century ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Divine Judgment ◽  
Twenty First Century

This paper outlines a constructive account of natural law for the twenty-first century, rooted in the Reformed theological and confession heritage. It suggests how natural law can provide us with a deep theological way of affirming the existence of an objectively meaningful natural order, discusses the importance of natural law for maintaining the accountability of all human beings before the divine judgment, and reflects on how natural law serves as crucial foundation for the church’s ministry of the gospel to a hurting and needy world.

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.

scholarly journals Is Kierkegaard a “Virtue Ethicist”?

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-342
Author(s):  
Robert C. Roberts ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Good Source ◽  
Virtue Ethicist ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
God's Grace ◽  
The Relationship

Several readers of Kierkegaard have proposed that his works are a good source for contemporary investigations of virtues, especially theistic and Christian ones. Sylvia Walsh has recently offered several arguments to cast doubt on the thesis that Kierkegaard can be profitably read as a “virtue ethicist.” Examination of her arguments helps to clarify what virtues, as excellent traits of human character, can be in a moral outlook that ascribes deep sin and moral helplessness to human beings and their existence and salvation entirely to God’s grace. The examination also clarifies the relationship between virtues and character and between the practices of virtue ethics and character ethics. Such clarification also may provide a bridge of communication between Kierkegaard scholarship and scholars of virtue ethics beyond the theistic communities. In particular, I’ll argue that a character ethics that is not a virtue ethics would be suboptimal as an aid to the formation of Christian wisdom and sanctification. Kierkegaard’s character ethics is a virtue ethics.

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.

Secondary-Cause Autonomy and Divine Motivation

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 75-92
Author(s):  
Christian Schröer
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Moral Autonomy ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Religious Motivation ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Theoretical View ◽  
Human Autonomy ◽  
The Voice

An act-theoretical view on the profile of responsibility discourse shows in what sense not only all kinds of technical, pragmatic and moral reason, but also all kinds of religious motivation cannot justify a human action sufficiently without acknowledgment to three basic principles of human autonomy as supreme limiting conditions that are human dignity, sense, and justifiability. According to Thomas Aquinas human beings ultimately owe their moral autonomy to a divine creator. So this autonomy can be considered as an expression of secondary-cause autonomy and as the voice of God in the enlightened conscience.

On the Artifactual—and Natural— Character of Legal Institutions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corrado Roversi
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Legal Positivism ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Legal Realism ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
The Law ◽  
Theory Of Law

Are legal institutions artifacts? If artifacts are conceived as entities whose existence depends on human beings, then yes, legal institutions are, of course, artifacts. But an artifact theory of law makes a stronger claim, namely, that there is actually an explanatory gain to be had by investigating legal institutions as artifacts, or through the features of ordinary artifacts. This is the proposition explored in this chapter: that while this understanding of legal institutions makes it possible to find common ground between legal positivism and legal realism, it does not capture all of the insights offered by these two traditions. An artifact theory of law can therefore be necessary in explaining the law, but it will not suffice to that end. This chapter also posits that legal artifacts bear a relevant connection to certain conceptions of nature, thus vindicating one of the original insights behind natural law theory.

The moral theology of John Paul II: Protestant reading

2007 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-340
Author(s):  
Stephanie Smith
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Moral Theology ◽  
Human Action ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Analogia Entis ◽  
Social Realm ◽  
Normative Order ◽  
Moral Capacity

AbstractThis work critically examines the moral theology of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. In his writings as Wojtyla, and later as John Paul II, the theme of human dignity served as the starting point for his moral theology. This article first describes his conception of human dignity as influenced by Thomist and by phenomenological sources. The Thomist philosophy of being provided Wojtyla with an optimistic view of the epistemic and moral capacity of human persons. Wojtyla argued that because of the analogia entis, humans gain epistemic access to the normative order of God as well as the moral capacity to live in accordance with the law of God. Built upon the foundation of his Thomist assumptions, Wojtyla's phenomenological research enriched his insight into human dignity by arguing in favour of the formative nature of human action. He argued that human dignity rested also in this dynamism of personhood: the capacity not only to live in accordance with the normative order but to form oneself as virtuous by partaking in virtuous acts or to form one's community in solidarity through acts of participation and self-giving. After presenting his moral theology, this article then engages critically with his assumptions from a Protestant perspective. I argue that, while human dignity provides a powerful and beneficial starting point for ethics, his Thomist ontology of being/substance and the optimistic terms in which he interprets human dignity ultimately undermine his social programme. I propose that an ontology of relation provides a better starting point for interpreting human dignity and for appealing for acts of solidarity in the social realm.

Reformation: a Two-edged Sword in the Cause of the Ministry of Women

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Fleur Houston
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Logical Consequence ◽  
Social Model ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Women's Ministry ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Social Challenge ◽  
Normative Expectations ◽  
God's Grace

When Martin Luther mounted an attack on the industry of Indulgences, he affirmed key Reformation principles: human beings are saved by God’s grace alone and the priesthood of all the baptised gives all followers of Christ equal status. This was in conformity with an earlier generation of reformers who saw the Bible as ultimate authority and witnessed to biblical truth against corruption. The logical consequence of this should have been the enabling of women who were so disposed to exercise a theological vocation. In practice, the resulting rupture in religious and social life often affected women for the worse. Educational formation and leadership opportunities were restricted by the closure of convents. While the trade guilds, with their tightly regulated social systems, did not allow scope for women who transgressed normative expectations, their suppression was not necessarily liberating for women. The new social model of the home replaced that of convent and guild and marriage was exalted in place of celibacy. Changes in devotional practice involved loss and gain. Women who did not conform to the domestic norm were treated at best with misogyny and female prophets of the radical Reformation paid for their convictions with their lives. In education, leadership, piety and radical social challenge, women’s options were restricted. However, the key Reformation principles ultimately enabled the development of women’s ministry which was marked by the ordination of Constance Todd 400 years later.

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