Studies in Christian Ethics

In his study on the Sermon on the Mount, Hans Dieter Betz remarks that the expression `the poor in spirit' (οί πτωχοί τω πνεύματι) (Mt. 5:3) is unique in the entire New Testament and does not appear at all in the early Christian literature or elsewhere in the Greek language. Considering the profound and veiled meaning of the first Matthean beatitude in the Sermon on the Mount, this article asks whether a patient analysis of the Christian virtue of humility may reveal a way of life worthy of the blessings enjoyed by the `poor in spirit' in the Kingdom of Heaven. As such, it is argued throughout that the virtue of humility is the foundation of Christian discipleship, adducing arguments from the patristic exegesis of the first beatitude, the humility of the incarnate Son, and the Eastern Orthodox practice of spiritual direction.

The claims of Mt. 5:17—20 are often taken to provide the interpretive key to the ethical claims of the Sermon on the Mount as a whole. The theological issue at stake here is the determinative relation between Christ's person and work and his teaching. This article explores the vital role played by the identity of Christ as the `fulfiller of the law' and `bringer of the Kingdom' in the exegesis of the Sermon offered by Eduard Thurneysen and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in their respective works Die Bergpredigt (1936) and Nachfolge (1937). Both readings assert that the force and nature of the claims of the Sermon cannot be understood aright apart from constant attention to the difference made by the fact that Christ is the preacher. Out of this shared conviction, both theologians advance a reading of the Sermon as `the gospel itself' in the light of the eschatological identity of Jesus. Such readings of the Sermon, arising amidst the German Kirchenkampf of the 1930s, represent substantial contributions to the `responsible interpretation' of the Barmen Declaration (1934) whose second article states that, `As Jesus Christ is God's assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so in the same way and with the same seriousness is he also God's mighty claim upon our whole life.'

For all Habermas's remarkable contribution to moral theory, his discourse ethics has left behind some debatable points. In particular, `delinguistified media' such as money and power have been excluded from the domain of moral discourse. The exclusion of money and power from the domain of moral discourse has also motivated Habermas to develop an idea of `colonization of lifeworld by system' by giving us the impression that the delinguistified media are the main culprit of colonizing the lifeworld. In this article, by drawing on Reinhold Niebuhr's theological ethics, I argue that the lifeworld is colonized not by the delinguistified media as such, but, rather, by the people who mismanage money and power. I also develop the argument that in order to `decolonize' the colonized lifeworld, we need the substantive ethical ideals as well as the communicatively established law to guide the moral conduct of these system managers.

Rival paradigms of genetics suggest different perceptions of human life and, correspondingly, of the task of medicine. In dialogue with two paradigmatic heuristics of genetics, I will show that bioethics needs to articulate a narrative that encourages a renewed understanding of the complexity of the phenomena of human life to which molecular medicine must be open. These considerations will be put to the test by discussing the ethical implications of the recent developments in stem cell research and in personal genetics.

In this article Moberly considers in detail the question of how well the translation of Bonhoeffer's Ethics for the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works series represents his thought. While recognizing the difficulties the translators faced, and some successes achieved, Moberly highlights a number of ways in which the translation is flawed through linguistic weaknesses, questionable editorial decisions, and through translations which obscure or distort Bonhoeffer's thought theologically or philosophically. These issues render the translation unreliable for scholarly work, leading the author to question whether for a critical edition there is sufficient warrant to retranslate Bonhoeffer's Ethics.

Consensus among human rights groups and churches in recent years about cluster bombs has culminated in the Convention on Cluster Munitions. While there is apparent agreement that cluster bombs ought to be illegal, no substantive ethical treatment of this issue exists. In statements, references are typically made to the danger cluster munitions pose to civilians; it is alleged that these weapons are inherently immoral, and appeal is given only implicitly or in a cursory fashion to traditional just war reasoning. Taking its cue from Jesuit moral theologian John C. Ford's influential article appearing in 1944 on `The Morality of Obliteration Bombing', and drawing on the more recent work of Oliver O'Donovan on `immoral weapons', this essay offers a critical moral assessment of cluster bombs and their use through attention to the principles of discrimination, proportionality, and the framework of double effect reasoning.