sources of moral authority

One source of moral authority is our conscience. Our conscience is the central sense of what is right and wrong. The conscience was considered by St Augustine to be the whispering of God. The conscience also controls our decision making. St Thomas Aquinas states that the conscience is the ‘mind of man making moral decisions’. This is a WEAK argument because you have to form your conscience and a way to do this is by reading about Jesus’ teaching, meaning it has to rely on another source of moral authority to be strong

Another source of moral authority is natural law. No matter who you are, natural law is applied to everyone so it is a universal source of authority. St Thomas Aquinas said we need 5 things for Natural Law. This are called the primary precepts: preserve life, education, worship, live in society, reproduce. It is known as ‘do good and avoid evil’. All humans are born doing this. This is a WEAK argument because although Aquinas is still an important figure in Church history, Jesus is more important as he was divine.

The last source of moral authority is Jesus. In John, it states that Jesus is ‘the way’. This means that Jesus is the ultimate source of moral authority as he was God fully revealed. Jesus influences all other sources of authority. This is seen throughout the Bible

Furthermore, Jesus raised the standards of justice from the Old Testament. Matthew 5 tells us that we should ‘turn the other cheek’ instead of hurting each other for their wrongdoings. This is the most compelling argument because Christianity is based around following and believing in Jesus therefore his teachings will be strongest.