Ethics

Definition

Ethics, in Christian theology, is the study of how human beings ought to live in light of God’s own character and revealed will, grounded not in human convention or subjective preference but in an objective order God himself has established. As Oliver O’Donovan puts it, “the order of things that God has made is there. It is objective, and mankind has a place within it. Christian ethics, therefore, has an objective reference because it is concerned with man’s life in accordance with this order.”¹

Confessional Witness

The Second London Baptist Confession locates the ground and content of that order in God’s own moral law, first written on the human heart at creation and later given at Sinai in written form: “This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables, the four first containing our duty towards God, and the other six, our duty to man.”²

Biblical Basis

Scripture roots moral obligation in God’s own nature rather than in an independent standard he merely announces: Augustus Hopkins Strong quotes the point directly, “the ground of all moral law is the nature of God.”³ The moral law’s abiding force is stated by Christ himself: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt. 5:17), and Paul assumes the same continuing obligation when he grounds concrete ethical instruction in God’s own character and commands throughout his letters (e.g., Eph. 4:24-5:2; 1 Pet. 1:15-16).

Magnuson states the same point as an “objective teleology”: there is real “purpose to human life, established by God,” so that “a good life is one that is aligned with those purposes,” and, specifically for Christian ethics, “God’s commands are purposeful” rather than arbitrary.⁴

Related Doctrines

• Divine command ethics
• Ten Commandments
• Abortion
• Euthanasia
• War

References

1. Ken Magnuson, Invitation to Christian Ethics: Moral Reasoning and Contemporary Issues (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2020), chap. 2, “Ethics and Moral Reasoning,” quoting Oliver O’Donovan. ↩

2. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/1689), chap. 19, “Of the Law of God,” para. 2. ↩

3. Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology: A Compendium and Commonplace-Book Designed for the Use of Theological Students, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: The Griffith & Rowland Press, 1907), quoting Talbot, “Ethical Prolegomena.” ↩

4. Magnuson, Invitation to Christian Ethics, chap. 2, “Ethics and Moral Reasoning.” ↩