{"id":2314,"date":"2011-11-17T08:07:11","date_gmt":"2011-11-17T15:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=2314"},"modified":"2011-11-17T08:07:11","modified_gmt":"2011-11-17T15:07:11","slug":"the-relationship-between-doctrine-and-ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2011\/11\/17\/the-relationship-between-doctrine-and-ethics\/","title":{"rendered":"The Relationship Between Doctrine and Ethics"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a new post I have up over on Jesus Creed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It has been a while since I posted on Nicholas Wolterstorff\u2019s\u00a0 books Justice:\u00a0 Rights and Wrongs<\/a> and Justice in Love<\/a> \u2013 life and work have been busy!\u00a0 Today I return to the theme of \u201cjustice.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0However I will take a diversion from Wolterstoff\u2019s particular thesis to address a question that underlies, and I think in some ways animates, his project:\u00a0 the relationship of Doctrine<\/em> to Ethics <\/em>and Justice<\/em>.\u00a0 This seemingly arcane issue is timely and relevant because it goes to the heart of contemporary Evangelical debates such as Calvinism vs. Arminianism, the doctrine of final judgment and Hell, and gay marriage.<\/p>\n

The question is this:\u00a0 do Ethics serve as a control on Doctrine?\u00a0 Or does Doctrine serve as a control on Ethics?\u00a0 Or do Doctrine and Ethics stand in a perfectly harmonious relationship?\u00a0 Or do Doctrine and Ethics stand in some more complex sort of relationship?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rob Bell\u2019s book Love Wins<\/em> at times seems to suggest that Ethics control Doctrine.\u00a0 That is, if our ethical beliefs are offended by some construction of the doctrine of final judgment, then that doctrinal construction is wrong.\u00a0 Francis Chan\u2019s book Erasing Hell <\/em>and Mark Galli\u2019s book God Wins<\/em> at times seem to suggest that Doctrine controls Ethics.\u00a0 That is, if the doctrine of God\u2019s sovereignty says \u201cGod can do whatever he wants,\u201d and the doctrine of scripture says God\u2019s word is inviolable, then the doctrinal belief that God has ordained the damnation of the majority of humanity cannot be questioned, even if this offends our ethical beliefs.<\/p>\n

So who is right?<\/p>\n

A helpful sketch of the options can be found in Alan Torrance and Michael Banner\u2019s introduction to the excellent volume The Doctrine of God and Theological Ethics<\/a>.\u00a0 Torrance and Banner trace the modern influence of the \u201cDoctrine controls Ethics\u201d theme to Emmanuel Kant.\u00a0 For Kant, who sought to establish ethics on the foundation of \u201cpure reason,\u201d \u201c[e]ven the holy one of the Gospel must be compared with our ideal of moral perfection, before he is recognized as such.\u201d\u00a0 The problem with this approach is that \u201cGod\u201d becomes reducible to human reason \u2013 and thus ceases to be God.<\/p>\n

Torrance and Banner cite Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonheoffer as champions of \u201cDoctrine controls Ethics.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Barth famously rejected any \u201cnatural theology\u201d and therefore refused to locate ethics outside of dogmatics \u2013 \u201cdogmatics itself is ethics,\u201d Barth said.\u00a0 Torrance and Banner do not mention Cornelius Van Til, whose presuppositionalist apologetic holds significant influence over American neo-Calvinists and many other Evangelicals.\u00a0 Van Til thought Barth was a heretic, but he was cut from the same mold as Barth concerning the priority of Doctrine over Ethics.\u00a0 The key difference was that Barth\u2019s doctrine of revelation was Christological \u2013 for Barth, Christ was the ground of revelation and of ethics \u2013 whereas Van Til\u2019s doctrine of revelation was Biblicist.\u00a0 The problem with the \u201cDoctrine controls Ethics\u201d approach is that \u201cEthics\u201d become reducible to the pure exercise of power \u2013 and thus cease to be Ethics.<\/p>\n

As Torrance and Banner note, however, a \u201ccontrol\u201d relationship between Doctrine and Ethics is not the only option.\u00a0 Many great Christian thinkers have held that Doctrine and Ethics, properly understood, stand in a perfectly harmonious relationship.\u00a0 This was the view of Thomas Aquinas, whose theory of \u201cnatural law\u201d remains the basis for contemporary Roman Catholic social teaching and also informs many contemporary Evangelical ethicists.\u00a0 For Aquinas, the \u201cnatural law\u201d is part of the created order, which flows from the very being of God.\u00a0 Natural law, as part of creation, is knowable through natural reason.\u00a0 But the proper exercise of reason is never \u201cpure reason,\u201d apart from faith.\u00a0 Reason is rather a preparation for contemplation of the deeper truths of faith, which enrich and go beyond, but never contradict, the truths of reason.\u00a0 A problem with this approach is that it can tend to discount the effects of sin on nature and the consequent need for grace to overcome the corruption of nature.\u00a0 (This perceived priority of nature over grace was a key point of disputation between Martin Luther and the the Catholic apologists who opposed him).<\/p>\n

It is also possible, Torrance and Banner suggest, that Doctrine and Ethics could simply occupy entirely different spheres of knowledge.\u00a0 In this heuristic, \u201cDoctrine\u201d is essentially the mystical contemplation of a God who is rationally unknowable, and Ethics represents what is necessary to get by in the material world.\u00a0 Torrance and Banner cite the Germen pietist and Anabaptist quietist traditions as examples of this approach.\u00a0 The emphasis for ethics here is withdrawal from the corruption of the world.\u00a0 We might add that some Eastern Orthodox and Pentecostal approaches fit this mold.\u00a0 (There is also, I think, a significant pietist \/ quietist strain in Mark Galli\u2019s recent books, along with a \u201ccontrol\u201d strain).<\/p>\n

Finally, Torrance and Banner offer a hybrid approach, to which they clearly are partial:\u00a0 \u201cthe relationship \u2013 or better, relationships \u2013 between doctrine and ethics are more various and subtle than can be represented by any one of the positions thus far mentioned, taken in isolation.\u201d\u00a0 This final position, they say, \u201cwill not simply reject these accounts; indeed it will think it likely that these accounts were founded on certain insights or seeming insights which must, in turn, be accommodated or accounted for in any satisfactory treatment of this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

It probably would be no surprise to anyone who has read any of my essays and blogs that I tend to agree with this hybrid \/ dialectical approach, which of course must be carefully developed.\u00a0 But what do you think of this sketch of different approaches to the relationship between Doctrine and Ethics?\u00a0 How might a better understanding of the relationship between Doctrine and Ethics help inform our present debates about Calvinism, Hell, and social issues such as homosexuality or the welfare state?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a new post I have up over on Jesus Creed. It has been a while since I posted on Nicholas Wolterstorff\u2019s\u00a0 books Justice:\u00a0 Rights and Wrongs and Justice in Love \u2013 life and work have been busy!\u00a0 Today I return to the theme of \u201cjustice.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0However I will take a diversion from Wolterstoff\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law-and-policy","category-theology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-Bk","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}