(1787). The Federalist No. 10: The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard against Domestic Factions. Retrieved June 14, 2013, from http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm Tsagarousianou, Roza, Tambini, Damian, & Bryan, Cathy. (1998).
People who are trying to apply this broad, deep, Christian version of the word love/agape. People are flawed, jealous, greedy, have agendas, if all rules can be overridden by giving the excuse that it is done with love, then what is the point of making ethical judgements at all? If you look at case studies and apply a couple of different ethical theories to them as well as analyzing them from a situation ethic's perspective you will see the benefit of it as a theory as it basically states that 'All moral decisions are hypothetical, the only decision is to decide what the most loving thing to do is' and the end always justifies the means. Situational ethics are about real life events, they are applied to the outcomes of each real life acts and judged individually. The only moral compass, as rules can be broken and overridden, is Agape.
Omniscience refers to God’s unlimited knowledge which includes the knowledge of the past, present and future. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all believe claim that omniscience is a coherent concept, believing that God is omniscient alongside the belief that humans are morally responsible for some of their actions at the least. They believe that people have a free choice as to what they do when faced with a dilemma; that God does not force them into a certain decision but leaves humans to choose, which in turn leaves humans alone responsible for their actions. Thomas Aquinas suggested that the knowledge God possessed was not physical, he argued that humans gain knowledge through their bodies, such as taste, but this does not mean that knowledge itself is physical. We are able to know that the square root of 9 is 3, but a square root is not a physical thing, we cannot hold it, this however does not stop us from knowing what a square root is.
Soren Kierkegaard, a protestant Fideist, saw the biblical figure of Abraham as a hero and an example of the fideist position; this is because against all moral and ethical qualities, Abraham was willing to go against any kind of reason and sacrifice his own under the will of God. Strong rationalism and Fideism are the two extremes of each concept, the middle ground between those two is Critical Rationalism, believing that a balanced life allows for both reason and faith. Some things can be known by reason alone, whereas other things must be known by faith. History and reason through the bible will explain to us that Jesus lived and preached the kingdom of God, also performing
31) as he “like[s] not the smell of this ‘authority’” (1. 31). Here, he underscores one of his biggest objections to Parris’ leadership, the reverend’s inability to rule by praise of the Lord and his tendency to rule by fear of Hell; a minister’s influence in society should be more brightening than darkening. Furthermore, in regards to Parris’ leadership, John sees him as a person less concerned about spreading the word of goodness and God and more concerned about material
Vercellotti, T., & Anderson, D. (2006). Protecting the franchise, or restricting it? The effects of voter identification requirements on turnout. Manuscript, Rutgers University. 3.
For example, one of the Ten Commandments ‘Thou shall not kill’ should not be broken and is applied to situations such as the death penalty or abortion. This links to the divine command theory. This is a meta-ethical theory which proposes that what is moral is determined by God and that to be moral is to follow his commands. This theory claims that morality is ultimately based on God and the right action is the one that God requires. The divine commands vary in religions but in the end, they all have in common that moral obligations depend on God.
“Will to Power” is a section that is parallel to “Thoughts on Life” because is discusses an individuals will to become powerful and make a personal stand for themselves. In “On Interpretation” he shares his view that there is no fact in the world because everything is an interpretation. As you can see all of these sections have a possible relation to Christianity and their set of beliefs. A particular problem I notice with Nietzsche’s aphorisms is that it creates an image for the reader to portray a Christian to be a weak mined helpless being. He basically degrades the entire Bible by saying that there is no fact in the world and everything is an interpretation.
I choose whether to believe in God or not, based on evidence and experiences in my own life. Thus, it would seem quite obvious that we do indeed have freewill. But what if our actions are really all pre-determined, and we only have this illusion of freedom of choice. What if they are controlled by Distinct Causation, the idea that our behaviors are cause by things like genetics, upbringing, and other things over which we have no control (Sober 2002)? God is all powerful and all knowing.
In a world that is filled with such things as hate, war, terrorists, genocide, starvation, etc., goodness can be challenging. I believe that all too often we think of being good as a list of things we mustn’t do, but to be our brother’s keeper goes above and beyond that concept. It means, as the Bible says, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” I believe “neighbor” means all human beings. The people of Le Chambon believed that too, they carried out both the positive and negative moral injunctions. Most people will never have to face the same challenges as the people of Le Chambon, but still, it’s a core part of what it means to be morally responsible.