Introduction to Ethics - Session 2

Sean Doherty

- 6 minutes read - 1198 words

Before the session, please complete this exercise and bring it to the session. Full instructions are in the file itself.

Suggested Preparatory Reading

More introductory or general items:

Most of the textbooks mentioned in the section above have chapters on this topic and are worth consulting.

Further Reading (what follows is a deliberately long list of particular use for those who choose this subject for the assessment):

  • BARTLETT, David L., The Shape of Scriptural Authority. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983. Develops Paul Ricoeur’s suggestion that different biblical genres have different kinds of authority, which matches their genre.

  • BIRCH, Bruce C and Jacqueline E Lapsley, Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life: A New Conversation. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2018. On DTL.

  • BROCK, Brian, Singing the Ethos of God: On the place of Christian Ethics in Scripture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. Especially the Introduction and Part I, a survey of contemporary approaches to ‘reading the Bible for ethics’.

  • CHIA, Edmund Kee-Fook, Asian Christianity and Theology: Inculturation, Interreligious Dialogue, Integral Liberation. Abingdon: Routledge, 2022. See chapter 7 on Asian biblical hermeneutics.

  • FELDER, Cain Hope (ed.), Stony the Road we Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991). On DTL.

  • GREEN, Joel B., ed., Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), especially the introductory articles. On Perlego and DTL.

  • HAYS, Richard B. The Moral Vision of the New Testament. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996. Esp. pp. 207-312. On DTL.

  • KIM, Uriah Y, and Seung Ai Yang, T&T Clark Handbook of Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics. London & New York: T&T Clark, 2019. On DTL.

  • KUNHIYOP, Samuel Waje, African Christian Ethics (Nairobi, Bukuru & Grand Rapids: Hippo Books, an imprint of WordAlive, ACTS and Zondervan, 2008) esp. chapters 4-5.

  • *MARSHALL, I Howard, 'Using the Bible in Ethics' in Essays in Evangelical Social Ethics ed. David F Wright. Exeter: Paternoster, 1979.

  • MBURU, Elizabeth, African Hermeneutics. Bukuru, Nigeria and Carlisle: Africa Christian Textbooks and Langham Publishing, 2019.

  • *NELSON, P G, “Christian Morality: Jesus’ Teaching on the Law,” Themelios 32.1 (October 2006): 4-17.

  • O’DONOVAN, Oliver, 'Scripture and Christian Ethics' in Anvil 24.1 (2007), pp. 21-9.

  • O’DONOVAN, Oliver M T, ‘The Moral Authority of Scripture’, in Markus Bockmuehl and Alan J Torrance (eds), Scripture’s Doctrine and Theology’s Bible: How the New Testament Shapes Christian Dogmatics. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008.

  • RADFORD RUETHER, Rosemary, 'Feminist Interpretation: A Method of Correlation' in From Christ to the World: Introductory Readings in Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), pp. 88-91. On DTL.

  • REED, Esther, The Genesis of Ethics: on the Authority of God as the Original of Christian Ethics. London: DLT, 2000.

  • WEBSTER, John, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch. Cambridge: University Press, 2003. On DTL.

  • WENHAM, G.J. ‘Ethical Ideals and Legal Requirements’ chapter 5 in Story as Torah: Reading the Old Testament Ethically (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2000). On DTL.

  • WRIGHT, C, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God. Leicester: IVP, 2004, chapters 1-3 and especially chapter 14. Also on DTL.

Session 2 slides

Scripture, Tradition and Reason in Christian Ethics

Aim: To explore possible contemporary hermeneutical approaches to Christian ethics, and seek to equip students to think for themselves about the way in which they use and apply the Bible in ethical deliberation and decision-making.

Why does it seem hard to ‘use’ the Bible for ethics?

  • the diversity and complexity of Scripture

  • difficulties of interpretation… what does it actually mean?

  • moral difficulties in the Bible

  • major cultural differences between time of writing and now

  • issues which simply didn’t exist or the Bible never mentions

  • stipulations which are not addressed to us

Why it is actually hard to ‘use’ the Bible for ethics

Because we are asking the wrong questions of it (see Brian Brock, Singing the Ethos of God: On the place of Christian Ethics in Scripture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007).

  • Turns the tables on the other approaches

  • Inseparability of spirituality/life with God and ethics

Question should be: how does God by his Spirit use Scripture in the economy of salvation to shape and renew his people?

Several ways in which God uses Scripture

Narrative theology: the Bible is not primarily a rule book. e.g. N T Wright’s ‘five-act’ approach at https://ntwrightpage.com/2016/07/12/how-can-the-bible-be-authoritative/ or the longer treatment in Scripture and the Authority of God (London: SPCK, 2005).

…to communicate his will (discerning whether and how commands do still apply today) …to reveal his character and heart: e.g. the Law and the Prophets …to illuminate reality …to disclose his original intentions: creation …to expose our sin …to explain what it is to be truly human: Christology — The example of Jesus, the true human …to make known his ultimate purposes: eschatology — what the life of the Kingdom is concretely like …to show us the people we are called to be: ecclesiology (Paul)

What about the commands which are in the Bible?

Exercise: ‘grading’ biblical commands using separate sheet

Process your initial responses: what criteria did you deploy (however quickly or sketchily) to make your decisions? On what basis did you say what you said? What theological or other reasons can you give for the things you decided?

Some possible criteria in the theological interpretation of Scripture drawing on key article: [Oliver O’Donovan, ‘Towards an Interpretation of Biblical Ethics’, Tyndale Bulletin 27 (1976), pp. 54-78]https://tyndalebulletin.org/article/30627-towards-an-interpretation-of-biblical-ethics.pdf.

  1. Exegetical criteria:

    • original meaning

    • authorial intention

    • genre: see David Bartlett, The Shape of Scriptural Authority.

    • circumstantial context (including cultural context)

    • form of the command: particular/universal

  2. Theological criteria:

    • canonical context

    • is text or group of texts referred to elsewhere and how is it handled there?

    • is this issue referred to elsewhere and what is said about it there? *stablish theological reasons to explain whether a command is in force for us.

    • type of command: ceremonial, civil, moral etc.

    • context in salvation history/progress of revelation

Scripture, tradition, and reason

  • Note use of tradition (how the church has read these texts) and reason (Scripture is the authority but reason needed to interpret it).

  • Scripture, tradition and reason are related to each other.

Word and Spirit together in discernment

The charismatic fallacy * Role of the Holy Spirit in ethics: * Favourite text:

The evangelical fallacy * Role of the Holy Spirit in ethics: * Favourite text:

Bringing the two together: * The Spirit of truth: John 14:15-26 * Acts 10, 11 and 15:28