Christian ethics

Christian ethics, also known as moral theology, is a multi-faceted ethical system. It is a virtue ethic, which focuses on building moral character, and a deontological ethic which emphasizes duty according to the Christian perspective. It also incorporates natural law ethics, which is built on the belief that it is the very nature of humans – created in the image of God and capable of morality, cooperation, rationality, discernment and so on – that informs how life should be lived, and that awareness of sin does not require special revelation. Other aspects of Christian ethics, represented by movements such as the social Gospel and liberation theology, may be combined into a fourth area sometimes called prophetic ethics.

Christian ethics derives its metaphysical core from the Bible, seeing God as the ultimate source of all power. Evidential, Reformed and volitional epistemology are the three most common forms of Christian epistemology. The variety of ethical perspectives in the Bible has led to repeated disagreement over defining the basic Christian ethical principles, with at least seven major principles undergoing perennial debate and reinterpretation. Christian ethicists use reason, philosophy, natural law, the social sciences, and the Bible to formulate modern interpretations of those principles; Christian ethics applies to all areas of personal and societal ethics.

Originating in early Christianity from c. 27 to 325 AD, Christian ethics continued to develop during the Middle Ages, when the rediscovery of Aristotle led to scholasticism and the writings of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). The Reformation of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the subsequent counter-Reformation, and Christian humanism heavily impacted Christian ethics, particularly its political and economic teachings. A branch of Christian theology for most of its history, Christian ethics separated from theology during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For most scholars of the twenty-first century, Christian ethics fits in a niche between theology on one side and the social sciences on the other. Secularism has had significant influence on modern Christian ethics.

Christian ethics, also referred to as moral theology, was a branch of theology for most of its history. Becoming a separate field of study during the Enlightenment of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for most 21st-century scholars it has become a "discipline of reflection and analysis that lies between theology on one side and the social sciences on the other" says Christian ethicist Waldo Beach.

Christian ethics is a virtue ethic which focuses on developing an ethical character, beginning with obedience to a set of rules and laws seen as divine commands. These behaviors are morally required, forbidden, or permitted. Although character-based virtue ethics and rule-based deontological ethics are normally seen as contrasting with one another, they are combined in Christian ethics.

Claire Brown Peterson calls the Christian ethic a natural law ethic, writing that the New Testament contains "the expectation that humans are capable of knowing much of how they should live apart from explicit divine instructions ... Thus Gentiles who lack the revelation of scripture are said to have the law 'written on their hearts' (Romans 2:15) so that they can [legitimately] be held accountable when they violate what they are capable of seeing is right." Wilkins says that in this view, the primary moral laws are universally known, are discernible through reason, are innate in all people (and, therefore, binding on all), and their practice contributes to individual and community well-being. Elements of each of these theories can be found in the Bible and the early church.

By the twenty-first century, additional traditions had formed in Christian ethics based on different interpretations of divine attributes, how God communicates moral knowledge, differing anthropological conclusions, and different ideas about how the believer should relate to the Christian community and the outside world. One aspect of these differences, which focuses on the church and its mission, developed into what Wilkins calls prophetic ethics. Its starting point is social justice and Jesus' "kingdom ideals", rather than individual morality; it recognizes the group dimension of sin, and tends to be critical of (and challenge) the other Christian ethical theories. Anabaptism is an early incorporation of the prophetic model reaching back to the Radical Reformation. They differed from other Reformation groups in that they saw the church as a unique type of human organization and its problems, not as theological, but as ethical failures rooted in entanglement with politics. Anabaptism began among the dispossessed and persecuted with isolationist tendencies, whereas modern versions, such as the Social Gospel movement, have turned toward cultural engagement. Post-colonial thought, and black, feminist and liberation theologies are examples of this Christian ethic engaging the "sinfulness of the social order".

According to Servais Pinckaers, moral theologian and Roman Catholic priest, the sources of Christian ethics are the "Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, the Gospel law, and natural law." The four sources of Wesleyan theology are the Bible, tradition, reason, and Christian experience (an experience of the decisive adoption of Christianity). Christian ethics takes from the Bible its normative rules focusing on conduct, its basic understanding of natural law, its patterns of moral reasoning which focus on character, and the ideals of a community built on social justice. Philip Wogaman writes that Christian ethics has also had a "sometimes intimate, sometimes uneasy" relationship with Greek and Roman philosophy, taking some aspects of its principles from Plato, Aristotle and other Hellenic philosophers.