What Is Christian Ethics?

By Ed Langerak, St. Olaf Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus

Christian morality consists of living one’s life with guidance and inspiration from the Christian scriptures
and traditions. Christian ethics as an academic discipline uses these scriptures and traditions in
developing and critiquing ethical norms and theories and applying them to ethical issues. Most Christian
ethicists agree that the sources for doing ethics include revelation (scripture) and tradition, as well as
human reason and experience.

Being shaped by Biblical revelation is the primary way that Christian ethics can be distinguished from
alternative ethical perspectives, both religious and secular; thus one important question for a Christian
ethicist is how morality (the practice) or ethics (ideas about the practice) depends on religion
(convictions and commitments) or theology (critical discussion about those convictions and
commitments).

Few people, whether religious or not, would deny an historical dependency; the great ethical teachers
tended to be prophets or founders of religion, and for most of human history the influential ethical
authorities tended to be religious authorities. Of course, atheists could cheerfully admit this historical
point and then claim that, in western culture at least, the 18 th century Enlightenment changed that
dependency, encouraging ethicists to avoid religious or theological assumptions and, as Immanuel Kant
famously put it in his essay “What is Enlightenment?” to dare to think for themselves.

Christian ethicists can affirm the need to think for one’s self but claim that such thinking reveals that
ethics depends on theology in ways other than merely historical. One venerable view is the meta-
ethical theory that ethics requires a theological foundation in order to avoid nihilism (no real values) or
subjectivism (values are relative to each person). This claim has been developed in at least two different
ways, the first being what is called “The divine command theory of ethics.” One version of this theory is
to claim that only God’s will makes things right or wrong; it is sometimes stated as “X is good (or
obligatory)” just means “God approves of (or demands) X.” Divine command theorists admit that, of
course, atheists and others can use moral ideas without realizing their foundation; people can use a
building, for example, without giving a thought to its foundation. Only when they start questioning will
they see a need for a foundation.

A philosophical problem with this version of divine command theory goes back to
Plato’s Euthyphro dialogue: he thought that the question, “Does God approve of something because it is
good or it is good because God approves of it?” is analogous to the question, “Does the gardener loves a
flower because it is beautiful or is it beautiful because the gardener loves it?” And he thought that the
answer was obvious: if the gardener’s love is the foundation for beauty, if there is nothing in the flower
that elicits the gardener’s approval, we end up with sheer arbitrariness. It would be as if God could
choose murder to be good, thereby making it good. A religious problem with this version of the divine
command theory is that when Christians praise God as good, they seem to be saying something deeper
than merely that God approves of himself. Contemporary versions of the divine command theory seek
to avoid the charge of arbitrariness; for example, Robert Adams links morality to God’s character
(loving) and Linda Zagzebski to God’s motivations. So the debate continues.
The second way that many Christians assert a theological foundation for ethics is by claiming that the
best—perhaps only–grounding for human dignity and universal human rights is that God creates all
persons in God’s image or that God loves all persons (see, for example, Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Justice:
Rights and Wrongs) When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (CLICK HERE for link to PDF) was
being debated during the late 1940s in the United Nations, the committee Chair–Eleanor Roosevelt–got
tired of listening to philosophers and theologians argue about the grounding of human rights, and
insisted that they simply come up with a consensus on a coherent list of human rights, and then agree to
disagree about their foundation. That is why it is called “A Universal Declaration of Human Rights”
rather than a “Declaration of Universal Human Rights” (there were abstentions but no vetoes during the
final vote). But for those who do wonder about their grounding, and who perhaps think that how rights
are grounded can affect how they are understood and applied, the claim that they are grounded in
theological conviction is an important one and one that is shared by most Christian ethicists.

Entirely apart from the view that theology is needed for the foundation of ethics is the view of many
Christian ethicists that scripture reveals at least some of the content of ethics. Most of them agree that
through reason and natural law humans can know some and maybe even most of morality, but claim
that scripture provides distinctive features and emphases for moral and spiritual life. Love for all,
including one’s enemies, in the sense of self-sacrificing agape, is perhaps the most commonly cited
distinctively Christian ethical teaching (see, for example, The Love Commandments: Essays in Christian
Ethics and Moral Philosophy, eds. Edmund Santurri and William Werpehowski).

Other teachings include an emphasis on calling to discipleship and stewardship (see, for example,
Douglas Schuurman’s Vocation: Discerning our Callings in Life), to mercy and forgiveness, and to
economic justice. Intramural debates among Christian ethicists who affirm a distinctly Christian content
for morality include the following: is the revelation one of specific rules, like the ten commandments
(which might tend toward text-citing and legalism) or more general basic principles, such as the love
commandments; or is it more a matter of basic virtues, such as the “fruits of the spirit” cited several
times by St Paul (as in Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control), virtues taught more by stories than rules.

Other Christian ethicists think that we can know about morality quite independently of our religious
beliefs and that, although Christian ethics may have distinctive emphases, few if any of its rules,
principles, or virtues are unique to Christianity or even to religious outlooks. So they question whether
ethics is dependent on theology (that is, dependent on it for knowing the content of morality). Rather,
they see the distinctively Christian feature as one of motivation: we can have the proper convictions
about what is morally appropriate or required but will we be motivated to commit ourselves to do it?
The oldest form of the claim that morality is motivationally dependent on religious commitment is the
appeal to rewards and punishments, the “fire and brimstone” preaching that “put the fear of the Lord”
into people. “Fear” here is understood as being scared of God, which does not necessarily involve
respect or love. This appeal, of course, is to self-interest—save your eternal skin—and is rejected by
others who point to a different sort of motivation, such as a sense of calling or vocation nurtured by
covenantal gratitude for creation and redemption. Here is a link to one effort at developing this latter
type of Christian moral emphasis:
10 Important Things to Know about Christian Ethics

-God’s Word teaches us how to live as God desires (Exodus 20 NIV).

-Christian ethics can be shown in every situation.

-We are given a choice at every moment to live for God or for self.

-We have the opportunity to show others the love of God by our words and actions.

-Showing Christian ethics is not hard when we choose God first.

-There will be times of failure. When those times arise, ask God for forgiveness.

-There are lessons to be learned from Christian ethics.

-Christian ethics allows us to live a life pleasing to God (1 Thessalonians 4:1 NIV).

-Christian ethics help us to consider the action, the attitude, and the motive.

-The Word of God remains the same. Trust in His Word.

How to Start Practicing Christian Ethics

News reports often share about the ethical or unethical treatment of humans, animals, places, etc. Our
call is to live a life filled with sharing the love of God with others. When we learn about troublesome
situations, we can go to God immediately to seek His guidance in how we can help. Some people are
called to be missionaries in foreign countries and help with food, water, clothing, and Bible distribution.
Other people are called to be missionaries in their own communities. Feeding the homeless, taking care
of seniors, volunteering at animal shelters are some ways to show we care for God’s creations.
Neglecting and turning away when we know there is a need for help is not how God wants us to take
care of each other. If there are times when we don’t know how to help, we can go to God in prayer and
ask for wisdom, discernment, and revelation.