The specification states “Christian ethics must be a combination of biblical teaching, Church teaching and human reason”.

The specification omits to mention one further source of Christian ethics – experience. In presenting these three as normative, the specification follows the liberal Christian tradition. Evangelical protestants do not overtly acknowledge the authority of the Church or of human reason, seeing Scripture as primary and also definitively authoritative. When we examine pluralism in the Christian Thought section, it is important to contrast the hermeneutics (interpretation) of exclusivist protestants who see Jesus as the only way to God, and inclusivists such as John Hick who see many oaths to God’s truth and salvation.

What are the main authorities or resources for Christian ethics?

1) The Bible. The Bible is the “witness to the ‘central events’ of the faith, not to every element within the faith and to every problem with which the believer may be concerned” (Jones, p55).

2) The Tradition of the Church. Since the church decided what was scripture and what was not, we can’t divorce the authority of the Bible from the authority of the Church. In ethics, what past generations thought and said and did is important but is not the overruling authority for same reasons as the Bible.

3) Reason. To use the authority of reason means that:

• We must consider all the available evidence;

• The conclusion must not be predetermined but follow from the evidence;

• The argument should be coherent and not illogical. Theologian Richard Hooker regarded Scripture, Reason and Tradition as working in a creative tension with each other. Anglican theology is usually based upon these three planks.

4) The Current Experience of Christians builds upon tradition but is firmly rooted in the present. For the Christian, authority lies with God and Christian ethics is a “matter of obedience to the will of God”. (Ward, p1). God wills the fulfilment of human nature, that we may reflect fully the Image of God. Our duty as the will of God involves “reflection, judgement, and insight; sensitivity and a creative exercise of freedom; and a concern for human fulfilment in a just society”. (Keith Ward, p106)

So Christian ethics

“takes place in a context of response to the God revealed in Christ and of growth into the ideal of the Christ-life within the sacramental community of the Church.” (Keith Ward, 106)

Bibliography

Bowker, J (2005) The Sacred Neuron: Extraordinary New Discoveries Linking Science and Religion. London & New York: I B

Tauris Macquarrie, John & Childress, James, eds. (1986) A New Dictionary of Christian Ethics. London: SCM.

Ward, Keith (1976) The Divine Image: The Foundations of Christian Morality. London: SPCK