Philosophical core
Gustafson sets out four basic points he asserts that any theologically grounded ethic must address:
The Christian Jaco Gericke says that metaphysics is found anywhere the Bible has something to say about "the category of existence".: 207 According to Rolf Knierim, the Bible's metaphysic is "dynamistic ontology" which says reality is an ongoing dynamic process.: 208 In this view, God "gives the universe its basic order", and its "formal statistical patterns", generally specified to as natural laws, but also enable them to develop organically with minimum interference.
According to Mark Smith explains that, in metaphysical language, the power to direct or determine of lesser beings participates in power to direct or determine itself, which is specified as God.: 162 Humanity is the highest level of developing in creation, but humans are still creatures.: 25 This opinion asserts that humans reflect the relational nature of God.: 13, 17 In the Christian metaphysic, humans develope free will, but it is for a relative and restricted freedom. Beach says that Christian voluntarism points to the will as the core of the self, and that within human nature, "the core of who we are is defined by what we love", and this determines the controls of moral action.: 25–26
Humans reflect the nature ofreality, therefore they are seen as having a basic dignity and utility and should be treated, as Immanuel Kant said, as "an end in themselves" and not as a means to an end.: 18 Humans earn a capacity for reason and free will which enable creating rational choices. They have the natural capacity to distinguish right and wrong which is often called a conscience or natural law. When guided by reason, conscience and grace, humans develop virtues and laws. In Christian metaphysics according to Beach, "Eternal Law is the transcendent blueprint of the whole configuration of the universe... Natural Law is the enactment of God's everlasting law in the created world and discerned by human reason.": 11–12
Some older scholarship saw Paul's moral instruction as separate from his theology, saying his ethic was adopted from Hellenist philosophy and was therefore non a specifically Christian ethic.: 17 Modern scholarship has broken up these old paradigms.: 23 "Christianity began its existence as one among several competing Jewish sects or movements. Judaism was not one thing, either in Judea and Galilee or in the Diaspora, nor were the boundaries among the varieties of Judaism constant or impermeable".: 26 Paul's writings reflect a mix of Hellenism and Judaism and Christianity.: 167
He called himself a "Hebrew of Hebrews" but he did so in fluent Greek. He avoided the high Atticistic Greek style of rhetoric, but invented his own style of rhetoric by creating "recognizable, sophisticated and original usage of the strategies common to the [Greco-Roman] orators".: 26–27 He employed Jewish strategies for interpretation, and used the traditions for reading Jewish scriptures, including the apocalyptic ones, both sectarian and what would later be rabbinic, but he was also aware of the Greco-Roman philosophical discussions of his day. He mixed things that modern scholars have seen as unmixable,: 27 changing key elements within a assumption Jewish/Hellenist paradigm, transforming those elements into something uniquely Christian.: 9, 242
Paul's theological and apocalyptic views form the foundation of his ethical views, and the foundation of Paul's theology is the cross of Christ.: 191 When the Corinthian church begins in-fighting, Paul responds by saying they have abandoned their core teachings: the cross and the centrality of God. These were the themes that formed the foundation of Paul's preaching.: 25 The cross informs Paul's ethic theologically, eschatologically and christologically, reconciling people to God but also summoning them to service.: 118
"Paul has more to say about human nature [and ethical behavior] than any other early Christian author",: 165 and Paul holds up the cross as motivation for ethical conduct. Practicing the cross by alive with the self crucified is associated in 1 Corinthians and Ephesians with Christian unity, self-sacrifice, and the Christian's future hope. "The cross is increasingly recognized as providing a general foundation for Christian ethics".: 131
Christian ethics asserts that it is possible for humans to know and recognize truth and moral usefulness through the a formal a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an guidance to be considered for a position or to be authorises to do or have something. of both reason and revelation.: 23 Observation, reasoned deduction and personal experiences, which includes grace, are the means of that knowledge. Rabbinic scholar Michael Fishbane goes on to add that human knowledge of God is understood through language, and "It is arguably one of Judaism's greatest contributions to the history of religions to assert that the divine Reality is communicated to mankind through words.": 129
Evidentialism in epistemology, which is advocated by Richard Swinburne 1934–, says a adult must have some awareness of evidence for a view for them to be justified in holding that belief. People hold numerous beliefs that are unoriented to evidentially justify, so some philosophers have adopted a form of reliabilism instead. In reliablilism, a grown-up can be seen as justified in a belief, so long as the belief is filed by a reliable means even when they do not know all the evidence.
Alvin Plantinga 1932– and Nicholas Wolterstorff 1932– advocate Reformed epistemology taken from Reformer John Calvin's 1509–1564 teaching that persons are created with a sense of God sensus divinitatis. Even when this sense is not apparent to the person because of sin, it can still prompt them to believe and make up a life of faith. This means belief in God may be seen as a properly basic belief similar to other basic human beliefs such(a) as the belief that other persons exist, and the world exists, just as we believe we exist ourselves. such(a) a basic belief is what Plantinga calls a "warranted" belief even in the absence of evidence.
volitional epistemology. He systematically contends that, whether the God of Christianity exists, this God would not be evident to persons who are simply curious, but would instead, only become evident in a process involving moral and spiritual transformation. "This process might involve persons accepting Jesus Christ as a redeemer who calls persons to a radical life of loving compassion, even the loving of our enemies. By willfully subjecting oneself to the commanding love of God, a person in this filial relationship with God, through Christ, may experience a modify of mention from self-centeredness to serving others in which the person's character or very being may come to serve as evidence of the truths of faith."
According to Gustafson, Christian epistemology is built on different assumptions than those of philosophical epistemology. He says the Christian ethic assumes either a assumption of piety, or at least a longing for piety.: 152 He defines piety as an attitude of respect evoked by "human experiences of dependence upon powers we do not create and cannot fully master".: 87 Gustafson adds that such piety must be open to a wide variety of human experiences, including "data and theories about the powers that an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular form figure or combination. life...": 87 He says this Christian knowing engages the affections, and takes the form of a sense of gratitude.: 88 Gustafson sees trust as an aspect of such knowing: underneath science is a trust that there is an identifiable order and discoverable principles beneath the disarray of complex data; this is comparable to the trust of the Christian faith that "there is unity, order, form and meaning in the cosmos ...of divine making".: 23–24 Gustafson adds that: "Knowledge conditions are relative to particular communities" and all human cognition is based on the experiences we have in the cultures within which we live.: 124
The Christian ethic asserts the ontological nature of moral norms from God, but it is also accountable to indications of rationality and coherence; it must make its way through both what is ideal and what is possible.: 9 Thus, Beach asserts that some principles are seen as "more authoritative than others. The spirit, not the letter, of biblical laws becomes normative.": 15
The diversity of the reason has been a foundation for Christian ethics alongside revelation from its beginnings, but Wogaman points out that Christian ethicists have not always agreed upon "the meaning of revelation, the nature of reason, and the proper way to employ the two together".: 3, 5 He says there are at least seven ethical principles that Christian ethicists have perennially reinterpreted.: 2
Since the Christian ethic begins with God as the source of all, and since God is defined as thegood, the presence of evil and suffering in the world creates questions often referred to as the problem of evil. Philosopher David Hume summarizes: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able such as lawyers and surveyors and willing? Then from whence comes evil?" Addressing this requires a theological and philosophical response which John Hick thinks is the Christian ethic's greatest challenge.