Authority and ethics : an attempt to identify ultimate authority in Christian social ethics

• Main Author: Porter, Ronald Wayne
• Published: University of Aberdeen 1970
• Subjects: 230
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.593299

This thesis represents an attempt to identify the ultimate authority by which, or by whom, we are to be guided in making moral, decisions. It tries to engage this question: Who has the right to determine how man, socially and individually, should behave Following an introductory chapter, we present a description of the foundation, nature, and task of the discipline known as Christian social ethics. In the third chapter, after noting some of the contemporary attitudes regarding authority, we look at the nature of Jesus' moral authority. In the next two chapters we discuss the authority of conscience in terms of its traditional, critical and Creative roles, and then ask whether the Christian understanding of the gift of Holy Spirit is relevant to our present confusion concerning authority. We suggest that the least misleading and most promising Name for our ultimate Authority in Christian ethics is Holy Spirit. That is to say, Christians are free to consider all authorities in making ethical decisions: such guides to conscience as reason, law and love are authoritative for us as they are interpreted in the Spirit of Jesus to whom we are responsible as the ultimate Authority in social ethics as in all of life and who is living and leading, present and personal, powerful and patient, compassionate and holy, Spirit.