Discerning Ethics

Racism. Immigration. Gun violence. Sexuality. Health care. The number of ethical issues that demand a response from Christians today is almost dizzying. How can Christians navigate such matters? What are faithful responses to these questions? Edited by two theologians with pastoral experience, this volume invites engagement with these issues and more by drawing on real-life experiences and offering a range of responses to some of the most challenging moral questions confronting the church today. With an unflinching yet irenic approach, this resource can help Christians as they seek to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

James M. Gustafson has been a leading and formative figure in the field of Christian ethics over the past fifty years. His many contributions to theological ethics have helped to define and shape ethical thinking by Christians who reflect on great moral issues. Gustafson's work must be dealt with by all students in this discipline, and his perceptive insights have given clarity and guidance to the process of moral discernment. The essays collected here are ones that have had a significant impact on discussions and debates over recent decades. The Library of Theological Ethics series focuses on what it means to think theologically and ethically. It presents a selection of important and otherwise unavailable texts in easily accessible form. Volumes in this series will enable sustained dialogue with predecessors though reflection on classic works in the field.

A revised, expanded and updated edition with contributions by 325 renowned authorities in the field of ethics. All of the original articles have been newly peer-reviewed and revised, bibliographies have been updated throughout, and the overall design of the work has been enhanced for easier access to cross-references and other reference features.

How did Paul determine ethical and theological truth? Were all believers expected to be able to 'discern the spirits' (1 Corinthians 12.10)? This 2007 study shows that discernment must be understood against the backdrop of an extensive hermeneutic, by which Paul inherently relates ethical and theological knowledge. Understanding the will of God requires noetic and existential transformation, in short, the 'renewal of the mind' (Romans 12.2). Munzinger argues that Paul implies a process of inspiration in which the Spirit sharpens the discerning functions of the mind because the believer is liberated from a value system dominated by status and performance. The love of God enables all believers to learn to interpret reality in a transformed manner and to develop creative solutions to questions facing their communities. For Paul authentic discernment is linked to a comprehensive sense of meaning.

One may argue that the Second Vatican Council simply came too early to address the questions that swept over Christianity and Catholicism with the sexual revolution. There is little doubt, however, that although the popes in the post-conciliar era made marriage and family issues a matter of decision at the highest level, they did not succeed in thwarting the growing discrepancy between the church's moral teaching in these matters and the moral insights of a large portion of the Catholic faithful. The two Synods of Bishops, which Pope Francis called in 2014 and 2015, can be regarded as a new attempt of the magisterium to come to terms with the problems that appeared on the horizon in the 1960's. The present volume addresses some of the major theological and ethical questions at stake and provides perspectives and resources for a renewed discourse of the church on marriage and family. (Series: INTAMS Studies on Marriage and Family / INTAMS-Studien zu Ehe und Familie, Vol. 1) [Subject: Religious Studies]Ã?Â?Ã?Â?

Welcoming the undocumented resident refugee into the life of the polis is a challenge for some communities and a moral imperative for others. This books provides a Christian ethic for church leaders, congregants, and their churches to discern a way of welcoming their neighbors who are refugees residing in the US without authorization. Grounded in political theology and the Presbyterian-Reformed faith tradition, the ethical debates presented here and the legal overview of US immigration and alienage laws applicable to the undocumented resident lead to practices of worship, witness, and welcome for churches that can be tailored to different contexts. When Jesus challenged the sharp lawyer to love his neighbor as himself, the lawyer asked Jesus: "who is my neighbor?" Jesus responded by telling him the parable of the Good Samaritan. Then Jesus asked the lawyer: "who was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" And the crestfallen lawyer answered: "the one who showed him mercy." Jesus told him "to go and do likewise." This book assists faith communities to find mercy for those undocumented refugee neighbors who many would condemn. It points a path towards doing the "likewise" of mercy in ethically defensible ways.

In The Ethics of Discernment, Patrick H. Byrne presents an approach to ethics that builds upon the cognitional theory and the philosophical method of self-appropriation that Bernard Lonergan introduced in his book Insight, as well as upon Lonergan’s later writing on ethics and values. Extending Lonergan’s method into the realm of ethics, Byrne argues that we can use self-appropriation to come to objective judgements of value. The Ethics of Discernment is an introspective analysis of that process, in which sustained ethical inquiry and attentiveness to feelings as “intentions of value” leads to a rich conception of the good. Written both for those with an interest in Lonergan’s philosophy and for those interested in theories of ethics who have only a limited knowledge of Lonergan’s work, Byrne’s book is the first detailed exposition of an ethical theory based on Lonergan’s philosophical method.

Revision of author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Princeton University, 2013.