CHRISTIAN MORAL PRINCIPLES !!!!!

A01 knowledge about church

APOSTILLIC SUCCESSION

• catholic church is authorative source

• apostles first spread christianity

• make disciples of all nations

• jesus gave church authority

• apostles made bishops their successors

Papal infalibility

• pope never wrong

SACRED TRADITION

• came from apostilic succession

• catholic church can transmit own morals

• magisterium- transmit word of god thru apostles and successors

• sacred tradition and scripture should be equal

• dei verbum- sacred script word of god

issues with catholic church

• paedo scandals

• money scams- sale of indulgences

• facism

• Luther claimed Purgatory was ‘fabricated by goblins’

• expectations of church which it doesnt fulfil

• shouldn’t be equal to bible

counter

• Jesus still gave his disciples that authority nonetheless. 

• Luther’s arguments at best suggest the Church needs reform

• No human like Luther has the right to undo what Jesus has created. Jesus created the Church and gave it authority

issue of reason in ethics

we should use our god given reason

natural theology

counter

• luther/calvin- PREFER bible

  BARTHS CRITIQUE

• if we can learn about god thru reason whats the point of revelation

• ‘finite has no capacity for Infinite’

• we dont have divine thoughts

• we are corrupt so is our reason

• can nevr understand god thru reason or fully prove his existence

• need epistemic distance

eval

tillich

• Barth too negative

• self dec-eption in every denial of natural moral law

• you need conscience to deny the gap between god and us so we must accept our fallen state

• RE and revelation needed for connection

• st paul god written on heart

theonomy bible ao1

• Christian moral principles come directly and only from God – e.g. sola scriptura (protestant view)

• bible inerrancy- never wrong

• The church can make teachings, but those teachings must be subject to correction by the Bible – this is the crucial difference to catholicism. 

• Luther

  • said ‘a simple laymen armed with scripture is greater than the mightiest Pope without it’

  • church is corrupt so we must revert back to biblegrew out of church

  • the priesthood of all believers’- priesthood of all believers is the doctrine developed by Luther that all people have the status of priest

• divine command theory- take ethical theories from god through bible

• Calvin agreed with Luther – arguing that it is an ‘error’ to think that the Church should have authority over the bible

• messer - moral guidance in the Bible can be found not just in the commandments, but also in other passages- against autonomy

• mouw cant cherry pick- against autonomy

• The Bible says that ‘Ru-ach’ – God’s breath, was breathed into the authors of the bible – directly inspiring them

issues with bible

• Sola scriptura is not in the Bible – The Bible says it is authoritative, but it doesn’t claim to be the only source of authority. 

• In fact, there seems to be a lot of biblical evidence supporting the apostolic succession

• illogical to claim that only the Bible is your source of teachings if the Bible itself doesn’t say that

• anagogical interp- mystical interp- can be interpreted many ways- catholics protestants etc

• bible multiple authors not direct word of god

• outdated views- homosexuality

counter fletcher liberal views

eval- not only bible needed

Autonomy love

• the (usually liberal) view that Christians can figure out right/wrong themselves through their conscience – e.g. situation ethics.

• Christian moral principles have to be figured out by individual Christians in a moral situation (Fletcher’s situation ethics)

• Fletcher thought the main theme of the bible was love

• Every situation will be different. There are no intrinsically right or wrong actions, it depends on whether in a situation an action maximises agape or not.

• Fletcher’s rejection of legalism & antinomianism

• BARCLAY- situation ethics has some validity

counter

• Traditional Christians- Fletcher’s theory is not genuine Christian ethics- Bible is full of other commands

• Fletcher fails because he claims to be Christian yet does not follow the Bible

• Mouw pointed out that Jesus made other commands- cant cherry pick

• messer - moral guidance in the Bible can be found not just in the commandments, but also in other passages

• Pope Pius XII- Fletcher is therefore unwittingly attacking Christ.

• we won’t do most loving thing

• stamford prison and lord of flies

• original sin and psychology corrupts us

eval

• Fletcher’s point about the difficulty of interpreting the Bible fails against the catholic approach

• role of the Church is to collectively interpret the bible for Christians. So there isn’t a crisis of interpreting the Bible

• Fletcher’s analysis of the bible as justifying autonomy through following agape fails

fletchers liberal bible view

• we either supposed to interpret bible or we take it literally

• both leads to issues

• not perfect word of god

• not legalistic law book

• should view actions by maximising agape

combination heteronomy

• combination of bible, church and reason (Catholic view)

• ‘go and make disciples of all nations’. 

• Pope Paul VI during the second vatican council, thus feels entitled to create ‘sacred tradition’

• Church equal to the Bible as a source of christian moral principles, because both come from God.

• Reason refers to the use of natural law ethics (reason is how we know the primary precepts and figure out how to apply them). The Catholic Church uses natural law ethics.

• Since Jesus is God – God therefore divinely ordained the catholic church – it is equal to the Bible.

distinctive christian ethics

• scapegoat

• G- all human societies follow scapegoat mechanism - everyone blames someone else for problems they have - immigration, Middle East blames Jews

• exposes persecuting the innocent

• This helps bring people together in society but persecution of another

• Jesus death on the cross exposes mechanism as a lie bc Jesus was innocent even tho everyone blamed him

  Holland said western secularism is founded on this ethic

• clean and unclean good samaritan- led to equality- leads to apolitical view world- caused secularism in western spciety

• principle of love- emphasis bible - Christianity breaks the cycle of violence from the mechanism - love thy enemies ( most rational ethic)

• subverts power sturctures of society

  however

• - dont have to be christian to follow teachings- golden rule- more ethical teachings