عنوان

Jonathan Edwards, The Ethics of Virtue and Public Theology

LA113092

انگلیسی

Jonathan Edwards, The Ethics of Virtue and Public Theology

[Article]

Frederick Guyette

Leiden

Brill

In The Nature of True Virtue, Jonathan Edwards does not deny that common morality is important; benevolence, beauty, conscience, justice, love for family and country are all threads in the fabric of a common morality. Without love for God as their chief end, however, the 'virtues' of common morality do not rise to the level of true virtue. This incommensurability can be problematic for Christian ethics in the public square. Edwards understood his project within the horizon of a commonwealth founded on Christian faith, but modern liberal democracies envision a different relationship between religious discourse and public life. In these contexts, so different from Edwards' setting, pluralism and tolerance are among the keys to a peaceful pursuit of the common good. With these differences in view, then, I explore what contribution Edwards' work on virtue might make to the practice of public theology in the areas of environmental ethics, bioethics and immigration policy. In The Nature of True Virtue, Jonathan Edwards does not deny that common morality is important; benevolence, beauty, conscience, justice, love for family and country are all threads in the fabric of a common morality. Without love for God as their chief end, however, the 'virtues' of common morality do not rise to the level of true virtue. This incommensurability can be problematic for Christian ethics in the public square. Edwards understood his project within the horizon of a commonwealth founded on Christian faith, but modern liberal democracies envision a different relationship between religious discourse and public life. In these contexts, so different from Edwards' setting, pluralism and tolerance are among the keys to a peaceful pursuit of the common good. With these differences in view, then, I explore what contribution Edwards' work on virtue might make to the practice of public theology in the areas of environmental ethics, bioethics and immigration policy.

2010

158-174

International Journal of Public Theology

4/2

1569-7320

bioethics

environmental ethics

immigration

Jonathan Edwards

public theology

virtue ethics

Frederick Guyette

10.1163/156973210X491877

p

[Article]

275578

a

Y