Methodology 2: The Use of the Bible in Christian Ethics

Methodology 2: The Use of the Bible in Christian Ethics

Introduction:

This post offers seven proposals for the use of the Bible in Christian Ethics, beginning with James Gustafson in 1974 and concluding with my own proposal.  These proposals are more descriptive than prescriptive, and a statement about the authority of Scripture would be needed alongside any one of them.  Such proposals are helpful to clarify what those engaging or using Scripture are doing in their work as Christian ethicists. 

1. James Gustafson, ‘The Place of Scripture in Christian Ethics: A Methodological Study,’ Interpretation 24 (1970), 430-55, reprinted in his Theology and Christian Ethics (Philadelphia: Pilgrim Press, 1974).

I. Theological Use of Scripture for Christian Ethics: we learn who God is from Scripture, and this guides our response to him.  Scripture is used to show us our ‘responsibilities’ in life.

A. My examples: God is gracious towards us, and we obey him out of gratitude; according to William Spohn, What Are They Saying About Christian Ethics?, J. Gustafson identifies the following ‘affections’ as typically Christian affections: a sense of radical dependence, of gratitude, repentance, obligation, possibility and direction (p. 117).

II. Moral Use of Scripture for Christian Ethics: we learn about Christian morality from Scripture and accept this Scriptural morality as authoritative.

A. Moral Law Model: Scripture reveals a moral law: certain rules or principles which need to be obeyed.  Scripture is used deontologically in ethics.

My example: ‘Rules’ state exactly what to do in a specific situation or in every situation whereas ‘principles’ state exactly how to think about what to do in general.

My examples for rules: The 10 Commandments, the antitheses, Paul’s sin lists

My examples for principles: 'Only, let every one lead the life which the Lord has assigned to him, and in which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches (1 Cor. 7.17); "All things are lawful," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful," but not all things build up' (1 Cor. 10.23)

B. Moral Ideal Model: Scripture presents us with moral ideals which become goals for us to strive for.  Scripture is used teleologically for ethics.

My example: ‘Principles’ overlap with ‘ideals’ in being general guidelines for morality which guides action, but ‘ideals’ emphasize the goal of the moral life whereas ‘principles’ have more to do with moral deliberation as one considers action in a specific situation.

My examples for ideals: ‘Be holy as I am holy,’ ‘Be perfect as I am perfect,’ ‘Love your neighbour as yourself,’ ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you,’ ‘Forgive as God has forgiven you.’

C. Analogical Model: Scripture offers analogies or precedents for us to consider as we face moral issues in the present.  Scripture is used as a source of analogies in ethics, with the understanding that these are authoritative.

My examples of moral precedents: holding up of people as examples to follow, such as in 1 Cor. 11.1: ‘Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ,' Phl. 2.5-11: 'Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus....'; using stories to guide behaviour, such as in using parables for ethics (The Lost Sheep in Mt. 18.12-14 and the Two Debtors in Mt. 18.23-35 to encourage forgiveness), authoritative stories from the Scriptures (David's behaviour when he was hungry and the priests' activity on the Sabbath guiding Jesus' and his disciples' behaviour on the Sabbath, Mt. 12.3-8).

D. Great Variety Model: Scripture witnesses to a great variety of values and norms in a great variety of genres, which helps us today in making moral decisions but does not specifically dictate a certain course of action.  Scripture is used as a source of analogies in ethics, but only suggestively.

My examples of the great variety of values and norms in different genres: Divorce: Deut. 24.1 allows for a bill of divorce for some indecency; Ezra 10.3, 19, 44: Israelites put away foreign wives and children; Mal. 2.16: God hates divorce; Mt. 19.3-9: Divorce and remarriage, except for sexual immorality, involves adultery; 1 Cor. 7.11-15: divorce of an unbelieving spouse is permitted if the latter desires it; War and Violence: the OT has stories of God’s people at war, killing civilians, women, and children; of assassinations, such as Ehud’s killing Eglon in Jdg. 3.21-22; but the NT uniformly opposes the use of violence or even hating one’s enemies (e.g., Mt. 5.43-47).

2.       Allen Verhey, The Great Reversal: Ethics and the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984), pp. 187-196.

1. The Moral-Rule Level

2. The Ethical-Principal Level

3. The Post-Ethical Level (answering the question, 'Why be moral?')

3.       Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (NY: HarperRow, 1996), p. 209:

A recent discussion of the use of Scripture in ethics reorganizes Gustafson’s ideas but says little new on this point.  Richard Hays omits this model and comes up with his own four modes of moral discourse in the New Testament: rules, principles (instead of Gustafson’s ‘ideal model’), paradigms and the ‘symbolic world’ use of Scripture.  The ‘symbolic world’ equates with Gustafson’s ‘theological use’.  By this Hays means the pervasive understanding within Scripture of the human condition and the character of God.

In addition, R. Hays discusses a methodology for doing NT ethics which has four tasks or steps:

1. The Descriptive Task, which is exegetical and has to do with a faithful reading of the text in its context

2. The Synthetic Task, which has to do with trying to bring various, related passages together, understanding their similarities and differences and trying to come up with an authoritative reading of the Scripture as a whole.  In particular, Hays identifies three ‘focal images’ which help synthesize texts in Scripture: cross, community, and new creation.  These focal images may roughly relate to theological categories: christology and soteriology, ecclesiology, and eschatology and pneumatology.  The focal images may be thought of as three great rivers running through Christian Scripture into which subsidiary streams flow.  Interpreters of Scripture are variously disposed to this task, some seeing little unity in the Scriptures and others seeing little diversity at all.  This discussion is that of Biblical Theology.

3. The Hermeneutical Task, which has to do with identifying how one should go about applying the Scripture in the present context.  Here again we find a great variety of perspectives, with people variously emphasizing the roles of the author, the text, and the reader.

4. The Application Task, which has to do with how one in fact does apply the text in the present context.

Diagnostic Checklist to Determine How A Theological Ethicist Is Using Scripture

(R. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament,  pp. 212f):

*Descriptive: How accurate/adequate is the exegesis of texts used?

*Synthetic:

**Range: How comprehensive is the scope of texts employed?

**Selection: Which biblical texts are used and not used?  Is there a canon within the canon?  How is selection determined?

**How does the interpreter handle texts that are in tension with his or her position?

**What focal images are employed?  (Hays suggests ‘cross’, ‘community’, and ‘new                                        creation’)

*Hermeneutical:

**What is the mode of appeal to the text?  What sort of work does Scripture do?  What sorts of proposals does it authorise?

1. Rules

2. Principles

3. Paradigms

4. Symbolic world (human condition; character of God)

**What other sources of authority do the interpreters rely on?

1. Tradition

2. Reason

3. Experience

*Pragmatic:

The Fruits Test: How is the vision embodied in a living community?  Does the community manifest the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5.22-23)?

E.g., Abortion:

A.      Use of Scripture:

                    No Biblical Rules about abortion

Symbolic World: God is creator of life.  Abortion is wrong just as murder and suicide: Ait presumptuously assumes authority to dispose of life that does not belong to us@ (p. 450).

Paradigms [note ‘focal images’]:

(1)     Good Samaritan [community] (Lk. 10.25-37): '...we are called upon to become neighbors to those who are helpless, going beyond conventional conceptions of duty to provide life-sustaining aid to those whom we might not have regarded as worthy of our compassion....When we ask, ‘Is the fetus a person?’ we are asking the same sort of limiting, self-justifying question that the lawyer asked Jesus, ‘Who is my neighbor?’....To define the unborn child as a nonperson is to narrow the scope of moral concern, whereas Jesus calls upon us to widen it by showing mercy and actively intervening on behalf of the helpless' (Hays, p. 451).

(2)     Jerusalem Community [community] (Acts 4.32-35): Community should assume responsibility for the needy (no abortion for economic grounds or incapacity of the mother to care for the child (Hays, p. 452).  Church discipline: men force women to have abortions so as to free themselves from responsibility to women, but men should be required by the church to support the pregnant woman emotionally and financially.

(3)     Imitation of Christ [community] (Rom. 15.1-7; 1 Cor. 11.1; Gal. 6.2; Phil. 2.1-13).  Christians forgo their own freedom in order to serve others.  We should welcome (Rom. 15.7) children.

B. Use of Tradition:

Church has opposed abortion since the Didache, 1^st/2^nd c. A.D. (Did. 2.2; Ep. of                           Barnabas 19.5)

C. Reason

1. Not a matter of rights

2. Not a matter of when life begins

3. Not a matter of quality of life

D. Experience

4.       Luke T. Johnson, Scripture and Discernment: Decision Making in the Church (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), pp. 40-44.

Johnson suggests three authoritative functions when considering the role of the New Testament in ethics:

        1. There is the New Testament as 'Author', creating or renewing a community's moral identity by centring it on Jesus Christ and the Spirit. 

        2. The New Testament might function as 'Authorizer' when it offers examples for contemporary readers, facing new experiences, are guided by the Spirit in moral discourse.  Scripture functions as a witness to contemporary communities. 

        3. The New Testament may function as Auctoritates, which has to do with the specific judgements of the New Testament authors functioning as alternative proposals on a given matter.

5.       Paul Jersild, Spirit Ethics: Scripture and the Moral Life (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000).

Jersild's description of how Scripture is used in ethics involves four levels:

1. Law or commandments, embodied in codes or related hortatory material.

2. Paradigms or models of conduct, found in narrative material.

3. Principles or ideals, expressed primarily in a variety of teaching material.

4. Exhortations and imperatives, based on theological affirmations concerning the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The similarity of his first and fourth types of ethics should be noted, since they actually are the same use of Scripture.  They differ in the object they have in mind: his fourth type is based on the Gospel narrative of Jesus Christ.

6.       Glenn Stassen and David Gushee, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), pp. 100-118.

1. The particular/immediate judgment level

2. The rules level

3. The principles level

4. The basic conviction level

According to Stassen and Gushee, the basic convictions level involves the theological ground for Christian ethics and is approached differently by two groups of scholars:

–         the contextualists (H. Richard Niebuhr, Paul Lehmann, James Gustafson) and …

–         the narrative ethicists (James McClendon, Stanley Hauerwas, Darrell Fasching, Katie Cannon) (pp. 113ff).

–         ‘…we want our rules and principles to be clearly embodied in narratives, church practices and faith-community understandings.  Rules and principles are not suspended in midair; they get their meaning and have their context in the realistic, embodied, Hebraic narrative of both Testaments, and in their analogous function in a realistic, embodied way of living in our social context ….  The main point of our analysis is to correct the tendency of legalists and situationists to ignore the historically embodied narrative way of life of the people of God in both Testaments, and to correct the tendency of contextualists and narrativists to rebel against rules and principles’ (pp. 117f).

7.       My proposal (Rollin Grams)

My view attempts to combine discussion of 'levels' with methods highlighting character, actions/behaviours, and goals in ethics.  I would advocate that Scripture supports the use of these and Christians should as well--my view is not just descriptive but prescriptive, although I advocate that we begin by observing what Biblical authors are doing before we consider how we are using Scripture today.  Over against many authors on the use of Scripture, I advocate that Scripture is God's authoritative Word, and we are not meant to 'use' Scripture so much as acknowledge its authority in our lives.  Certainly this entails appreciating that Scripture can function at the rule level among believers today.

Engaging Scripture in Moral Discourse

Use of Scripture for ethics	Characters (Argument: Analogy)	Behaviours (Argument: Authority)	Ends—Outcomes or Goals (Argument: Deliberation)
Specifying	habits, practices, roles, norms (mores, folkways)	moral actions, language, laws	Outcomes, reward or punishment
Warranting	virtues (and vices), honour or shame, innocence or guilt (conscience)	general rules, obligations, principles	intentions, values (and disvalues), pleasure or displeasure
Witnessing	character, community, narratives, heroes and villains	symbolic actions	performances
Describing God and our world	the metanarrative of God and His creation	God’s eternal law and the natural order	God’s purpose and the world’s future