Learning to Think Ethically with the Christian Tradition

To some extent the history of Christian ethics the history of interpretation of biblical ethical teaching. An increasingly ‘moral’ reading of Scripture emerged with the privileging of the plain (or double literal) sense during the late medieval period. As one considers the bible was looked to in Franciscan moral theology in particular then one becomes aware of factors of ‘praxis’, such as penance/sin/salvation/church/judgement (which focus on the flaws and their improvement). However there was also a confidence that the growth of virtues was indeed possible in the context of God’s grace. In the century or so after the Reformation the issue of how holiness was a matter of the individual, or society or the church became debated. An insistence on the dignity of the human being and that everyone was a human agent able to make choices on the grounds of principles or consequences was challenged by the findings of psychology and sociology during the last century. Pessimism about ‘immoral society’ led to moral theology’s being developed as an encouragement to movements which resist the trend and guarantee certain rights (not least for ‘the planet’), and/or simply to form communities of ethical accountability. We shall take certain themes: e.g. family, education, conscience and authority, spiritual practice and ‘holiness.’