AO2

The Catholic view of the Bible

• The second Vatican council’s document Dei Verbum states that the Bible is indeed written by humans but inspired by God via the Holy spirit such that it is “without error” and contains “that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings”

The Catholic Church’s corrupt sale of indulgences. There have been many crimes perpetrated by the Church such as the paedophile priest scandals and allegiance with fascism, especially Hitler. Protestants suggest that the Church is therefore corrupt. They arguably don’t act like they are guided by the Holy Spirit.

• Catholics would respond that of course the Church can sin because it is populated by human beings. Christ knew this yet still wanted them to be a source of moral authority. We can’t use human flaws as evidence that Jesus didn’t want humans to have this role

• Protestants could respond that the extent of their corruption is so great that they have betrayed and sacrificed their right to the authority Christ entrusted them with. Arguably the crimes of the Catholic Church go beyond normal human flaws. Jesus entrusted flawed humans with the role of forming a Church, but if the Church went beyond normal human flaws then they are going beyond Jesus’ expectations

Theononomy

• Moral authority comes from God, usually sourced from his revelation in the Bible. Both religion and ethics have a shared source; God.

• Sola Scriptura is a form of theonomy involving Christians who think the bible alone is the source of Christian moral principles, not the Church. This is typically a protestant view since Luther thought the Catholic Church was corrupt and had deviated from God’s revelation in the Bible for their own political earthly agenda. It follows that a return to the Bible was the method for placing God at the centre of religion and ethics again. The role of the Church for protestant reformers was merely to preach the Bible.

• Sola scriptura is not in the Bible. These quotes suggest that the Bible should be a source of Christian moral principles, but they do not claim it is the only source nor speak against other sources. It is self-contradictory to believe that all religious knowledge should come from sola scriptura when sola scriptura itself cannot be derived from scripture.

• The books in the New Testament (biblical canon) were not decided on until the 4^th century by Catholic clergy. This suggests that the Bible should not be the only source since it grew out of the church and therefore if it is authoritative, the Church is also. It also seems strange for the protestants to trust those Catholics in their choice of what to include in the Bible.

• Protestants could respond that the holy spirit influenced the creation and choosing of the Bible, thus ensuring its validity.

  Jesus said “the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” John 14:26-27.

Autonomy

• Individual people have to figure out for themselves what is right or wrong

• Fletcher rejects heteronomy as a form of legalism which don’t take situations into account. Fletcher proposes an Autonomous form of Christian ethics focused on Agape; is the principle of Christian selfless love. The importance of Agape in Christianity for Fletcher is drawn from Jesus saying that the ‘greatest commandment’ is to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’.

• William Barclay thought situation ethics had some validity but didn’t agree with it fully. He argues that situation ethics gives moral agents a dangerous amount of freedom. For freedom to be good, love has to be perfect. If there is no or not enough love then ‘freedom can become selfishness and even cruelty’. If everyone was a saint, then situation ethics would be perfect. John A T Robinson called situation ethics ‘the only ethic for man come of age’ – but Barclay argues mankind has not yet come of age and so ‘still needs the crutch and protection of law’.

• Fletcher and Robinson would respond (influenced by Bonhoeffer) that humanity has ‘come of age’, however. This means that humanity has become more mature. In medieval and ancient time, when humanity had not come of age, people in general were less educated and less self-controlling. This meant that they needed fixed ridged clear rules to follow, because they could not be trusted to understand and act on the nuances and complexities in how a rule could justifiably be bent or broken if the situation called for it. However, now people are more civilised, to the point that granting them more autonomy will increase love without risking the stability of society.

• Barclay disagrees however, and thinks that although people might appear improved, if granted the freedom (and thus power) to do what they want, they won’t choose the loving thing they will choose the selfish or even the cruel thing. This is essentially the classic argument that power corrupts. It also echoes the debate about the extent to which human nature is corrupt, such as by original sin. Also relevant is psychology like the Stanford prison experiment and literature like lord of the flies. It is a well-known feature of human psychology that power is corrupting. The freedom to decide what is good or bad without external supervision of legalistic laws grants humans more power and thereby corrupts them.

• Fletcher faces criticism from traditional Christian ethics that his theory cannot be considered properly Christian, since it seems to only follow the command to love, ignoring most of the teachings in the Bible. For example, Protestants, following Luther, believe that in ethical judgement we should only follow the Bible’s teachings, a view they called ‘sola scriptura’ meaning the ‘Bible alone’ is the source of moral authority, not the autonomous individual deciding the demands of agape in their situation.

• Fletcher responds with his liberal view of the Bible. Fletcher argued that traditional views of Biblical inspiration face a dilemma of two possible approaches, each with serious downsides. Option one is to view the Bible as needing interpretation, from which rises the issue of the impossibility of deciding whose interpretation is correct. Fletcher illustrates this with the competing interpretations different theologians have made of the Sermon on the mount.

  Option two is to take the Bible literally, an even worse solution, because the “headache” of interpreting what the bible meant is far less trouble compared to trying to live as a literalist. Fletcher gives the example of ‘do not resist one who is evil’ as an example.

  • Fletcher concludes that the Bible should not be thought of as a legalistic ‘rules book’ and that ethical teachings like even those of the sermon on the mount at most offer us ‘some paradigms or suggestions’.

J. S. Mill on the Catholic Church, sola scriptura, the distinctness of Christian morality and Agape

• Mill argued that neither Jesus nor the Apostles intended the New Testament to be a complete system of morals, as it always refers to the pre-existing morality of the Old Testament and is often about the correction or superseding of that morality. Mill points out that St Paul thought Christian morals should accommodate Greek and Roman morals. This suggests the ‘sola scriptura’ protestant idea is actually against the ideals of Christ and the Apostle Paul.

• New Testament morals are expressed in very general terms which are often impossible to be interpreted literally and lack the precision of legislation, making them more like poetry and therefore requiring interpretation. The Old Testament has a precise elaborate system but is barbarous and ‘intended only for a barbarous people’.

• Christian morality in the 19^th century was really built up by the Catholic Church during the first 5 centuries, and although protestants reversed Catholic influence somewhat, Mill points out that was only really by cutting off the Catholic additions made during the middle ages, not those made by the early Church.

• Mill argues that Christian morality is mainly a reaction to paganism and is therefore about ‘abstinence from evil, rather than energetic pursuit of good’ as can be seen by how often ‘thou shalt not’ predominates unduly over ‘thou shalt’.

• we need to regard Christian ethics not as distinctive but merely one among many. That will solve the problems Christian morality has, for Mill. This is a very different solution than Fletcher’s proposal of relativizing Christian moral principles to Agape. If Mill’s suggested problems for Christian ethics are correct – heaven and hell as selfish motivations, the ‘passive obedience’ and its implications and the claim that Christian morals is about avoiding evil rather than pursuing good – then Fletcher would have to be able to respond to them in order to justify his solution and retain the distinctness of Christian morals.