A Christian Form of Ethics
The life of a Christian is never easy. Although we are given the greatest gifts of grace and forgiveness through Jesus Christ, we make a commitment dedicating our lives to obeying God’s commandments and sometimes struggle to follow through. As a Christian, it is sometimes difficult to understand exactly how we should live our lives. There are basic guidelines given to help us through the many gambits in life but there seem to be situations in our modern world that are not clearly explained in the Bible. Sometimes it is hard for us to know how to solve ethical dilemmas with the limited expectations laid out by God centuries ago.
Even though Christians may sometimes feel like they have no help in making difficult decisions, the Bible gives us one simple commandment that is the basis for any and all other laws. Joshua 22:5 states, “But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you: to love the Lord you God, to walk in all his ways, to obey his commands, to hold fast to him and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul.” The greatest commandment of all is simply to love God with all of our hearts. If we do this and look to him in every situation, there is no way we can make an unethical decision as a Christian.
Based on this guiding principle Christians can live their lives fairly simply until an in-depth discussion of ethics is brought up. The concept of ethical relativism doesn’t seem to apply to the Christian lifestyle when we are supposed to be living by God’s rules, and not based on what society tells us. It is difficult to know for sure what is right and wrong when “beliefs about right and wrong vary from society to society” (Murray 378). It is good to say that all ethics are relative because each person holds different views, but for Christians, we have to first embrace what God tells us, and not society, or even ourselves.
Every human on the earth is born with a soul, and most people pay attention to their consciences. Even if they may not follow it, the conscience tells us what is basically wrong and right by what we have learned in our society and as an individual. By our own reason we can determine basic truths for ourselves, but as for the general truths of society, it is difficult to know where to draw the line. For example, for one pregnant woman abortion may be a perfectly acceptable option, while for another, completely unethical.
Ethical subjectivism, also called emotism and individual ethical relativism, is an idea that seems to completely contradict all Christian philosophy. It states that whatever an individual believes is right, is. The theory also endorses any action of the individual based on their feelings [next page]