The Bible and Ethics

In a comment on connexions � Blog Archive � Justifying the Death Penalty Richard says

What would you giive as the main planks of a *Biblical* argument against the use of the death penalty?

So as a response and a followup to my own 42: Against conservative ethics ...

I started thinking of passages to use but then realised that it would first be useful to consider the more general question of using Scripture for ethics. To do that I have decided to begin with an excellent book on the subject by Richard B Hayes "The Moral Vision of the New Testament". The book is in four parts:

1. "The Descriptive Task: Visions of the Moral Life in the New Testament"
2. "The Synthetic Task: Finding Coherence in the Moral Vision of the New Testament"
3. "The Hermeneutical Task: The Use of the New Testament in Christian Ethics"
4. "The Pragmatic Task: Living Under the Word - Test Cases"

Part 1 is an excellent review of much of the New Testament in respect of Moral Vision with chapters on

1. Paul: The Koinonia of His Sufferrings
2. Developments of the Pauline Tradition
3. The Gospel of Mark: Taking up the Cross
4. The Gospel of Matthew: Training for the Kingdom of God
5. Luke-Acts: Liberation through the Power of the Spirit
6. The Gospel and Epistles of John: Loving One Another
7. Excursus: The Role of the "Historical Jesus" in New Testament Ethics
8. Revelation: Resisting the Beast

His attempt to find a coherent moral vision for the New Testament in Part 2 may be considered controversial. He decides to search for key focal images, his criteria for a suitable image are strict and uncompromising. He considers how widely represented the image is in the text, then whether it is in tension with any of the New Testament and finally does it highlight central and substantial ethical concerns in the texts.

The three key focal images he chooses are:

• Community: "The church is a countercultural community of discipleship, and this community is the primary addressee of God's imperatives."
• Cross: "Jesus' death on a cross is the paradigm for faithfulness to God in the world"
• New Creation: "The church embodies the power of the resurrection in the midst of a not-yet redeemed world."

Then in part 3 chapter 11 we get some extremely useful ways of looking at "How Ethicists Use Scripture" that ends with a very good diagnostic checklist for our own use of scripture. It does not depend on acceptance of his own focal images. It is so good that I am reproducing it in full here:

The Use of Scripture in Ethics (R B Hayes, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (T&T Clark 1998) p212

I. Descriptive

How accurate/adequate is the exegesis of texts used?

II. Synthetic

A. Range: How comprehensive is the scope of the texts employed?
B. Selection: Which biblical texts are used and not used? Is there a canon within a canon? How is selection determined?
C. How does the interpreter handle texts that are in tension with his or her position?
D. What focal images are employed?

III. Hermeneutical

A. What is the mode of appeal to the text? What sort of work does Scripture do? What sorts of proposals does it authorize?

1. Rules
2. Principals
3. Paradigms
4. Symbolic World

a) The human condition
b) The character of God

B. What other sources of authority do the interpreters rely on?

1. Tradition
2. Reason
3. Experience

IV. Pragmatic

The fruits test: How is the vision embodied in a living community? Does the community manifest the fruit of the Spirit (Galations 5:22-23)?

In the middle chapter of section 3 he considers representative strategies from Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth, John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas and Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza. He then comes up with his own 10 guidelines for New Testament Ethics.

In Part 4 he then uses his focal images and guidelines to consider 5 test cases holding his analysis up against his own diagnostic checklist. The cases he considers are

14. Violence in Defense of Justice
15. Divorce and Remarriage
16. Homosexuality
17. Anti-Judaism and Ethnic Conflict
18. Abortion

Conclusion

It seems to me that there are some really useful tools here in evaluating our use of Scripture in debates on Ethics (particularly the Diagnostic Checklist).

However, it also shows how often we fail to follow this through in practice. Using Scripture to resolve Ethical questions is not something you can do in an instant when faced with an issue. Instead it is solid, hard preparative work that we need to be doing in advance so that we are ready when confronted.

So can we take up this challenge to work through ethical issues properly? Once we have done so we then have the next step ahead which is to learn how to apply them in pastoral situations. If it is clear that in debates such as the Death Penalty that we are not taking Scriptural Ethics seriously then it is just as clear that we are not properly separating ethics from pastoral response.