Book contents
- Front Matter
- Contents
- General editor's preface
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: Relating the Bible to Christian ethics
- Part One LIBERAL PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE
- Chapter 1 Eternal values
- Chapter 2 The principles of social ethics
- Part Two ESCHATOLOGY AND ETHICS
- Part Three PARTICIPATION IN MEANING
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
Chapter 2 - The principles of social ethics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Front Matter
- Contents
- General editor's preface
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: Relating the Bible to Christian ethics
- Part One LIBERAL PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE
- Chapter 1 Eternal values
- Chapter 2 The principles of social ethics
- Part Two ESCHATOLOGY AND ETHICS
- Part Three PARTICIPATION IN MEANING
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
Social ethics is historically relative, dealing with issues which are appropriate to a time and situation, concerned with universal imperatives but as they bear on particular issues. This fact about social ethics makes the simple application of historical examples to contemporary problems relatively meaningless, even when those examples are drawn from holy texts.
(Gibson Winter)Liberal scholarship did not shrink from the challenge of social ethics, which may be defined briefly as questions of ‘moral rightness and goodness in the shaping of human society’. Typically, it attempted a synthesis of Christian perspectives with those derived from secular disciplines in a quest for the highest corporate morality: hence appeal was made above all to principles and ideals. But it could also sponsor a prophetic dynamic much more closely related to the biblical tradition, and transcending anything that could be described as ‘the simple application of historical examples to contemporary problems’. Indeed, liberal scholars gradually absorbed perspectives from social science which enabled them to acquire some understanding of the importance of context, although they did not always recognise the extent to which their own views were shaped by society and its intellectual traditions in particular: witness their acceptance of the myth of progress, usually in the form of a theological rationalization.
The theological and philosophical background of social ethics is impressive.
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- Biblical Interpretation and Christian Ethics , pp. 47 - 64Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993