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Context Versus Principles: A Misplaced Debate in Christian Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

James M. Gustafson
James M. Gustafson
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

The field of Christian ethics has been the location of a debate over the past decades between roughly delineated parties representing an allegiance to the use of formal prescriptive principles on the one hand, and those representing the cause of the more existential response to a particular situation on the other hand. The debate has taken place in Europe and the United States, it has taken place in Catholicism and in Protestantism. In European Protestant literature Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics, particularly Volume II/2, Bonhoeffer's Ethics, and Niels Søe's Kristelig Etik, have represented what has been called a “contextual” approach. More traditional Lutheran theologians who stress the importance of ethics under the law have a larger place for traditional ethical principles. Werner Elert and Walter Künneth would be representative of this group. In Catholic literature there was a movement in the early years after World War II that came to be called “situational morality.” A critic has typified it in the following terms, “The ultimate differences between this new morality and traditional morality come down then to this: In an objective system of ethics the moral judgment is submitted to an extrinsic norm, an ontological norm founded on the principles of being. In situational ethics the moral judgment is measured only by the subjective, immanent light of the individual in question.” In contrast to the situational emphasis is the whole tradition of natural law ethics and moral theology as this developed in Roman Catholicism. It should be noted that some of the recent Catholic ethics continues to be influenced by a situational approach, though not in the extreme way of earlier materials.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , April 1965 , pp. 171 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1965

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References

1 See, Barth, Church Dogmatics, II/2, Eng. ed. (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1957), especially 631–701; see also Against the Stream (London: SCM Press, 1954), especially 53–124, and How to Serve God in A Marxist Land (New York: Association Press, 1959), 45–80. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (London: SCM Press, 1955), especially 17–25, 55–72, and 194–222. Søe, Kristelig Etik, 5th ed. (Copenhagen: C.E.C. Gads Forlag, 1962), 11–234, especially 108–70 (the second edition of this book was translated into German, Christliche Ethik [Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1949], 4–187, especially 83–132.) The Christian ethics of Bultmann also belong in this general camp; for a discussion see Thomas Oden, Radical Obedience: The Ethics of R. Bultmann (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964). Currently the most significant ethics text that has come from the more radical Christian existentialist group is Knud Løgstrup, Den Etiske Fordring, 4th ed. (Copenhagen: Scandinavian University Books, 1958; German ed., Die Ethische Forderung, Tuebingen: H. Laupp, 1959). Obviously there are severe differences of opinion among these theologians, which points already to the mistake of trying to include too many writers under one rubric as is required in a debate formula.

2 See Elert, The Christian Ethos (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1957; this is generally regarded to be a poor translation), and Künneth, Politik zwischen Dämon und Gott (Berlin: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1954).

3 Gleason, Robert, S.J., “Situational Morality,” Thought, 32 (1957), 555CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The general movement was condemned by Pope Pius XII in 1952. For a readily available example of this point of view, see Dirks, Walter, “How Can I Know God's Will for Me?” Cross Currents, 5 (1955), 77–92Google Scholar. For other discussions, see Karl Rahner, Nature and Grace (London: Sheed and Ward, 1963), 84-iii; Josef Fuchs, Situation und Entscheidung (Frankfurt: Verlag Josef Knecht, 1952); and John C. Ford and Gerald Kelly, Contemporary Moral Theology I (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1958), 42–140.

4 See, for example, Bernhard Häring, The Law of Christ I (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1961), especially 35ff., and Josef Pieper, Prudence (New York: Pantheon, 1959).

5 See Lehmann, , “The Foundation and Pattern of Christian Behavior,” in Hutchison, John A., ed., Christian Faith and Social Action (New York: Scribner, 1953), 93–116Google Scholar, and Ethics in a Christian Context (New York: Harper and Row, 1963). Alexander Miller, The Renewal of Man (New York: Doubleday, 1955). Joseph Sittler, The Structure of Christian Ethics (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1958). H. R. Niebuhr, The Responsible Self (New York: Harper and Row, 1963). Albert Rasmussen, Christian Social Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1956). Fletcher, Joseph, “A New Look in Christian Ethics,” Harvard Divinity School Bulletin, 24 (1959), 7–18Google Scholar. Gordon Kaufman, The Context of Decision (New York: Abingdon Press, 1961). Charles C. West, Communism and the Theologians (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1958). Gustafson, James, “Christian Ethics and Social Policy,” in Ramsey, Paul, ed., Faith and Ethics (New York: Harper, 1957), 119–39.Google Scholar

6 For a discussion of an unpublished paper by Bennett, see Lehmann, Ethics in a Christian Context, 148–54. Paul Ramsey, War and the Christian Context (Durham: Duke University Press, 1961), 3–14, and various occasional writings. Pitcher, Alvin, “A New Era in Protestant Social Ethics?,” Chicago Theological Seminary Register, 48 (1958), 8–14Google Scholar. Gardiner, Clinton, “The Role of Law and Moral Principles in Christian Ethics,” Religion in Life, 28 (1959), 236–47Google Scholar. A running discussion of the issues can be found in the following references to Christianity and Crisis: Robert Fitch, “The Obsolescence of Ethics,” November 16, 1959; Alexander Miller, “Unprincipled Living: The Ethics of Obligation,” March 21, 1960; Paul Ramsey, “Faith Effective through in-Principled Love,” May 30, 1960. See also Edward L. Long, Conscience and Compromise (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1954). Attention should be called to Father Edward Duff's discussion in The Social Thought of the World Council of Churches (New York: Association Press, 1956), 93ff.

7 Aiken, H. D., “Levels of Moral Discourse,” in Reason and Conduct (New York: Knopf, 1962), 65–87Google Scholar. The essay was previously published in Ethics, 62 (1952), 235–46.

8 The movement from one level to another in theological ethics has been very confused. Indeed, the logic of theological ethical discourse has not been very clear precisely at this point, sometimes as a matter of conscious commitment. A great deal of work could be done in the analysis of written materials on the nest of issues opened up by Aiken's essay.

9 Kenneth Underwood, Protestant and Catholic (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957). A more recent study partially in this mode of contextualism is Denis Munby, God and the Rich Society (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1961). Other examples could be cited as well.

10 Barth, Church Dogmatics, II/2, 663–64.

11 Ibid., 576.

12 Ibid., 580.

13 Ibid., 581.

14 Ibid., 582.

15 Ibid., 645–661.

16 Sittler, The Structure of Christian Ethics, 73.

17 Ibid., Chapter I, “The Confusion in Contemporary Ethical Speech.”

18 Ibid., p. 36.

19 I read Sittler's book as a contemporary statement of the basic character of Luther's ethics under the gospel. Christ is the shaper of the Christian life in the participation of the believer in faith in him. Christ is also the shape of the Christian life that is active in love to the neighbor in his particular need. In this manner Sittler is close to the theme of the best known of Luther's writings in Christian ethics, “On the Liberty of the Christian Man.” See discussion of this document below.

20 Lehmann, Ethics in a Christian Context, 358–59, 347.

21 Lehmann, “The Foundation and Pattern of Christian Behavior,” 100.

22 Op. cit., 25. Note that the particular question of Christian ethics is on the “moral” level of discourse. Note also that Lehmann asks it in terms of “what am I to do,” and not “what ought I to do.” In this way he very selfconsciously reduces the imperative tone in favor of a more indicative one.

23 Ibid., 105.

24 Ibid., 47.

25 For a discussion of Bultmann's ethics, see Thomas Oden, op. cit. Barth also has an anthropology that stresses the immediacy of responsibility given to the particular person, and softens any lines of continuity between the person and his community, or the person and his ethos. I shall not discuss Barth here, though it would be fruitful to do so.

26 Niebuhr, The Responsible Self, 56.

27 Ibid., 61.

28 Ibid., 63.

29 Ibid., 126.

30 A similar view of man is penetrating Roman Catholic philosophy and ethics. See, for example, Albert Dondeyne, Faith and the World (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1963), 145ff., and Bernard Häring, The Law of Christ I (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1963), 35ff.

31 An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (New York: Harper, 1935), 117.

32 Ibid., 140.

33 The Nature and Destiny of Man II (New York: Scribners, 1943), especially chapters 9 and 10.

34 Christian Ethics and Social Policy (New York: Scribners, 1946), 76. Oldham's suggestions are found in Visser ʼt Hooft and Oldham, The Church and its Function in Society (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1937), 209ff.

35 War and the Christian Conscience, 6, 4.

36 “Christian Ethics and Social Policy” (1958), 126–29.

37 Ramsey, op. cit., 179.

38 Ibid., 190.

39 See, for example, his discussion of sexuality, op. cit., 133–40.

40 Ibid., 72.

41 Ibid., 116, 117.

42 Ibid., 54.

43 Ibid., 148ff., and particularly 152. “For a koinonia ethic the clarification of ethical principles and their application to concrete situations is ethically unreal because such clarification is a logical enterprise and there is no way in logic of closing the gap between the abstract and the concrete.” I regard this assertion to be the slaying of a straw man, for no serious moralist has believed that logic alone closed that gap. Roman Catholic moral theology, which is most susceptible to the criticism, never assumes that logic alone is the path from principle to concrete action, and always has a place for the person, with his natural and theological virtues, who acts responsibly. See, for example, Josef Pieper's Prudence, which admittedly makes the most of the person who is the juncture between principles and actions.

44 Ibid., 55, 16–17.

45 Citations here are to the edition, Three Treatises (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1943), 251.

46 Ibid., 262.

47 Ibid., 271.

48 Ibid., 276.

49 Ibid., 279.