Christian Moral Principles

This topic is all about where Christians get their ethics from. It has a lot of tie ins to the topic "Knowledge of God's Existence".
Questions you should be able to answer by the end:

whether or not Christian ethics are distinctive
whether or not Christian ethics are personal or communal
whether or not the principle of love is sufficient to live a good life
whether or not the Bible is a comprehensive moral guide

The Episcopal Ordination of Deodatus (Claude Bassot).

Heteronomy

Heteronomy is the idea that moral authority comes from a combination of places:
- The Bible
- The Church
The word "heteronomy" literally means to be under the control of rules, laws or something other than self-determination.
Morality does not come from an individual's own judgement. But the use of reason is still acceptable: Aquinas advocates for the use of reason to deduce the primary precepts and apply them to practical situations.
Heteronomy is typically a Catholic view - this is because ethics are accessible via the bible and the authority of the church as well as reason.
The authority of the church to teach Christian ethics comes from something called the Apostolic Succession.
The Apostolic Succession is the idea that Church authority is inherited, or handed down, via a direct, and unbroken line of bishops from Jesus Christ’s original Apostles to the present day.
Catholics argue that Jesus began the apostolic tradition where he commanded his disciples to “make disciples of all nations” – thereby creating a social institution with a mission. (Matthew 28).
The Magisterium is the church's authority to give authentic interpretation of the word of God.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church: Dei Verbum:
“Therefore both sacred tradition and sacred scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence”...“But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church … explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit.”...“It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, sacred scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.”

Problems with Heteronomy

The idea of the Church as a moral authority has been long criticised by Protestant Theologians. Martin Luther claimed that “a simple layman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest pope without it”.
He developed a doctrine called the Priesthood of All Believers which claims that all people have the status of a priest. There is nothing special about Priests in churches that set them apart from any other Christian that has a genuine relationship with God.
The Church has been seen to act in a way that could be considered corrupt, thereby diminishing its claims of authority. For example, the selling of indulgences.
Another problem is given that Heteronomy places importance on multiple sources, are some to be given greater weight than others?
Many Protestants outright deny and question the legitimacy of the Catholic claim of Apostolic Succession. Eric G. Jay claims: "many ambiguities in the early history of the Christian ministry are passed over".

Theonomy

Theonomy is the view that moral authority comes from God and this can be sourced from his revelation in the Bible.
The Church has no authority, nor does it need any, because God's commands can be found in the Bible.
This view is called Sola Scriptura - which means knowledge from the Bible alone.
Evidence for this can be found in Bible passages such as:
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16)
The only thing that should govern people and societies and all of the ethics contained within these is God.
"Theonomic ethics, to put it simply, represents a commitment to the necessity, sufficiency, and unity of Scripture. For an adequate and genuinely Christian ethic, we must have God's word, only God's word, and all of God's word" - Greg Bahnsen

PROBLEMS:
The Bible seems to contain some contradictions that give conflicting moral guidance. For example: Jesus teaches that we should "turn the other cheek" (Matthew 5:39), but the old testament tells us: "An eye for an eye" (Exodus 21:23-35).

REPLY: The Old Testament should be read within the context of Isreali civil code. This was not meant to condone personal retributive justice, but rather an indication of what authorities had the right to do.
Similarly, we can argue that Jesus' teachings have more authority due to his divine nature. The New Testament exists to clarify earlier moral laws.
We can criticise Theonomy more generally and claim that we are not able to sufficiently interpret the Bible due to our corrupted reason.
Even if we were to ignore the corrupted reason objection, some contradictions in the Bible do not align with modern ethics and we might need help to interpret them (maybe from the Church);

Autonomy

Autonomy means to be governed by the self by using rational judgement to determine what morality is and what it requires.
Aquinas can be said to be a proponent of Autonomous Ethics in that Natural Law requires individual reasoning to deduce the primary precepts and to apply them to certain situations.
Kantian ethics is also highly reliant on reason. Whilst Kant is a Christian and does believe in God, Kantian ethics is deduced substantially without reference to revelation.
However, most obviously Fletcher's Situation Ethics asks that individuals figure out for themselves what the most loving action is in any given situation.
J.A.T. Robinson defends this approach, claiming that humanity has “come of age.”
Hans Küng advocated for the individual conscience as being vital in decision making. He rejected heteronomy as this could be accepted without people knowing what they are accepting.

PROBLEMS:
We could argue against Fletcher's Situation Ethics in claiming that he is selectively choosing what rules to focus on from scripture.
William Barclay claims that people are not perfect and so any level of autonomy in ethical decision making could be dangerous. People can be selfish and corrupt and thus we need guidance.
Thomas Hobbes claims that we need a strong system of rules in order to keep people in line. If everyone had the freedom to choose what ever they wanted, it would lead to
Autonomous ethics and the application of rational judgement therefore go hand in hand and so it can be criticised by theologians who believe in the corruption of our reason.

John Stuart Mill

Are Christian Ethics Distinctive?

Christianity is built off of the idea of the resurrection and how to obtain salvation. This is obviously very distinctive.
Christian ethics are about more than just the rules, it is also about grace, relationship with God which is emphasised by the life, incarnation of, death and resurrection of Jesus. Morality is thus inextricably linked to the person of Jesus rather than an independent set of rules.
AUTONOMY: could be considered distinctive as love is not just about fairness or justice but about the notion of self-sacrifice.
THEONOMY: Revelation via scripture seems to be distinct to Christianity. We could use the quote from Timothy 2 here to back this up.

HOWEVER:
John Stuart Mill argues that Christian ethics are not distinctive, but exist in relation to other ethical systems and incorporate them. The Old Testament contains laws and customs from a significantly Jewish landscape.
Furthermore, Mill argues that Christianity is mainly a reaction to Paganism and is therefore about adapting laws to promote the abstinence from evil that already exists rather than a distinctive set of ideals.
“a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral teaching has been the work, not only of men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected, the Christian faith”
THEONOMY: Theonomous ethics from Judaism and Islam are very similar to Christianity.

Are Christian Ethics Personal or Communal?

Both autonomous and theonomous ethics have a personal aspect as the former requires individual judgement whereas the latter requires an individual meditating on the Bible.
Moral responsibility can be seen as a direct relationship between the individual and God. Morality is discerned internally and guided by personal prayer and the Holy Spirit.
"When you pray, go into your room...pray to your father who is unseen" (Matthew 6:6)
Many of the rules found in the Bible focus on individual morality and personal responsibility. For example the Ten Commandments are aimed at individual actions.
Heteronomous ethics have more of a communal aspect in that multiple sources should be taken into account when making decisions. The church also promotes community rather than individual worship.
Early Christian ethics seems to be based around the concept of community - Jesus preached to communities and helped to liberate certain structures.
"when one member suffers, all members suffer with it" (1 Corinthians)
The early church in Acts also promoted caring for others, challenging injustice. Ethics are something that should be practiced together.
Protestant Theonomous ethics, however, can also have a communal aspect. Bonhoeffer strongly advocated for acting for others, which is demonstrated in his seminaries that were held at the community of Finkenwalde

Extra Resources

Here are some extra resources for this topic. Things like essay plans for A* answers. They are paid for, sorry! They're £2 each because they take me a really long time to make :)

"Are Christian Ethics Personal or Communal?" [OCR]

£2.00