“Explain what Fletcher understands by ‘Christian love’ and its role in the moral decision-making process of situation ethics” Situational ethics is an ethical theory that was created by an Anglican priest named Joseph Fletcher. This ethical system believed that all humans should make moral decisions based on what is the most loving thing to do. Fletcher didn’t mean any random type of love, he meant the love that is unconditional that divine authorities such as Jesus have displayed. Love that isn’t romantic or sexual but can be from one stranger to another as well as love between two people who know eachother. Situation ethics does have rules and principles to abide by.
In order to receive salvation, one must have faith in the word of God and “preach Christ”. To “preach Christ” is to teach and minister about Jesus, who He is and what He did. Luther clearly tells us that no works can bring about salvation. He depicts an ideal Christian as one with great faith in God’s Word. In order to live a Christian life, one must look to Christ and place faith in Him.
The second fundamental priniple is “the ruling norm of a christian decision is love; nothing else”. Jesus replaces the torah with the principle of love. The 10 commamdments are not abolsute, jesus broke them when love demanded it. Love replaces law. Also, christian love is self-giving making it right to go out and help others instead of avoiding actions.
However, if this link between religion and morality is criticised, then there are sufficient grounds for secularist and atheistic ways of life. Why is religion needed when it is not the source of moral guidance? Two famous critiques of the link between religion and morality are the Euthyphro dilemma and the many critiques od Richard Dawkins against religion. Both essentially come to the same conclusion; that we do not need God to be good. The basic concept of religion and morality, especially divine command theory, is very simple: what God commands is good, therefore only do that.
Colonialists place "...the book of God's Word over the book of God's Works, and theology over psychology." (Entwistle, 2010, p. 145). Neutral parties keep psychology and theology separate for fear that one will contaminate the other. And then there are Allies, those who believe that both psychology and theology belong to God and that "all truth is God's truth". They believe in total integration and know and respect the two books of God.
Explain moral relativism. (25 marks) The theory of moral relativism is an ethical approach to situation ethics which asserts that there are no universally true moral principles, as all moral principles held by a person or society are relative to their circumstances, culture and religion - this means that there are no actions which are and will always be wrong. Instead, if an action seems good to you then for you it is morally right and vice versa, however there is no way that we are able to objectively identify which opinion is the correct one. A soft form of moral relativism is Cultural Relativism which states that moral codes differ from culture to culture or from religion to religion, for example some cultures believe polygamy or arranged marriages to be morally right, whereas a catholic society would believe that monogamy is the only moral way of life. Subjective Relativism on the other hand is a much more extreme stem of moral relativism as it is based on the view of an individual alone and therefore then can be absolutely no debate as all values are relative.
This worldview is quite similar to Christianity. Both Christian theism and EPM’s goal is to reunite with God or Brahman. In EPM there is no right or wrong while in Christian theism one must follow Christian moral values. Furthermore, the major difference that I can notice is that in Christian theism, God loves us as individuals while in EPM individuality means nothing. The best way to be one with Brahman is to do nothing, to achieve nirvana.
This ethical theory aligns itself with a Christian worldview, arguing that an action is good only if the principle behind the action is moral law (Giersson and Holmgren, 2000). In other words, actions should only be done in accordance with God’s will. For instance, clearly stating how outliers are addressed when drawing conclusions based on the statistical analysis is ethical in that it is the right thing to do so that the probability of misinterpretation is minimized. Additionally, Kantian ethics also require autonomy, which is often required in relationship to dealing with clients and the subjects from whom data is collected (Tittle, 2000). Again, this ties back to the Christian worldview of loving ones neighbor.
I believe many of us regard the Spirit as something of an essence or wind-like force that surrounds us and leads us to be like God. The Holy Spirit is not a wind. Like God and Jesus, the Holy Spirit has all the qualities of a person. This is invaluable as we consider our relationship to the Spirit, for if the Spirit is not a personified being – if he is only a surrounding essence – how can we have a true relationship with him. And this true relationship is one of the main advantages of being human – that we are “a little lower than God and crowned with glory and honor.” (Psalm 8:5) This is proven in John 14 because as Jesus, whose relationship with the Spirit is incomparable, talks of the Spirit, he uses the pronouns he and him – not it.
From a Christian viewpoint most ethicists criticize self-interest as a ‘narrow’ view that could ingeniously embrace harmful selfishness. Do we agree with them? Though we consider its importance as a primary motive for acting in market economical and political affairs, we argue that ethical standards basically require a moral outlook that goes beyond the dominant self-interest model. Since most people have both a benevolent and self-interested attitude, we view self-love as indispensable for cooperation and social behaviour. Christian love essentially unites persons with the ontological good – originated from God – and transforms the self to be concerned both for oneself and the good of others on the level of identity.