Christian Ethics in Contemporary Society.
What is Ethics?
Ethics is a systematic reflection upon human actions, institutions and characters. It is concerned with what is morally good or bad, right or wrong, correct or incorrect, valid or invalid. It deals with what people ought to do. It judges human conduct, action and behaviour on their levels of goodness or badness. It evaluates and judges all voluntary actions and inward activities such as speech and the movement of the doers.
Ethics studies the conduct of human beings living in society and judges their conduct as right and wrong, good or bad, depending on
how such conduct enhances the well being of the members of society. Ethics is a branch of philosophy termed as moral philosophy and is a pervasive discipline cutting across all aspects of man’s life such as politics, religion, economics, law etc.According to Harold De Wolf, ethics is athe discipline concerned with the evaluation of human conduct that is with determining the goodness or evil properly ascribed to human choices and also a discipline concerned with establishing norms and methods.
Christian Ethics.
Normative Science which is based on the revelation of God in the Bible, especially on the will of God as revealed in the life and teachings of Jesus that considers what Christians and Churches, motivated and empowered by the Holy Spirit and God’s love.
Sources of Christian Ethics.
The Bible: The Bible which is the scripture of the Christians is defined by Richard Jones as the assembled witness of the Christian and Jewish communities to the central events of their faith as authorised by the Christian church In about AD 376. It is persuasive with several ethical teachings which are found in both the Old and the New Testament. It contains passages of high ethical significance. In the Old testament we find the Ten Commandments which could be described as the Covenant Code. Others include Holiness code which can be found Leviticus 19vs 1-18, Deuteronomic code found in Deuteronomy 6vs 1-9. Ethical teachings of the Minor and Major Prophets, ethical teachings in the Wisdom literatures such as Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, Song of Solomon, and other historical books such as Samuel, Judges etc.
In the New Testament we have the ethical teachings in the synoptic gospels which has been described as the Jesus ethics. This
is sub divided into Disciple Ethics, religious Ethics, Internal Ethics, Perfectionist Ethics, Relevant Ethics, Exemplified ethics, The Sermon on the Mount Ethics, Ethical writings in the book of John, Paul in 13 Corpus, James, Peter, Jude etc.These points of contact found in the Old and New Testament all play emphasis on principles which Christians must apply to their daily activities as a matter of duty or obligation. Faithfulness, Truthfulness, Honesty, Endurance, Justice, Accountability, Equality, dedication, Righteousness, Kindness, Tolerance, Discipline etc. These constitute the Ethical virtues for all Christians.
Though the Bible is an Important source of Christian ethics, we must note two things: 1) When it comes to how a person should behave, the Bible is not a problem solver per excellence. Take for example Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount about Adultery, War, Divorce, Retaliation, Fasting etc. appears to contradict the Old Testament views for it gives room for divorce while the former is against it. Again we find theologians holding different and diverse views about some crucial moral issues especially in the areas of Medicine like the problem of Abortion, Family Planning, Blood Transfusion, Beer drinking or trading, Smoking, Sex before Marriage, War, Violence, participation in Politics, Suicide, Euthanasia etc. for these and many other issues some people have raised objections to the value and relevance of the Bible as a source of Christian Ethics and a few has the opinion that the Bible has no answer to modern day problems probably because Jesus did not envisage the problems.
While it is difficult to arrive at a world view about the relevance or irrelevance of the bible, it is still certain that it is written by the inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness.
Scholars have argued it out amongst themselves and some are of the view that though Jesus did not live in the kind of modern society that has come to be known to us today, Christian ethics is still relevant and applicable to Social, political and economic aspect of Man’s life.