Reformed Ethics

Herman Bavinck's four-volume Reformed Dogmatics is one of the most important theological works of the 20th century. The English translation was edited by leading Bavinck expert John Bolt, who now brings forth a recently discovered manuscript from Bavinck that is being published for the first time. Serving as a companion to Reformed Dogmatics, Reformed Ethics offers readers Bavinck's mature reflections on ethical issues. This book, the second of three planned volumes, covers the duties of the Christian life and includes Bavinck's exposition of the Ten Commandments.

Herman Bavinck's four-volume Reformed Dogmatics is one of the most important theological works of the twentieth century. Leading Bavinck expert John Bolt edited that work, which has received wide acclaim. Now Bolt brings forth a recently discovered manuscript from Bavinck, in print for the first time, which serves as a companion to Reformed Dogmatics. Reformed Ethics mines the moral teachings of the early church and medieval and Puritan spirituality while addressing a variety of topics, offering readers Bavinck's mature reflections on ethical issues. This book is the first of three planned volumes.

Herman Bavinck's four-volume Reformed Dogmatics is one of the most important theological works of the twentieth century. The English translation was edited by leading Bavinck expert John Bolt, who now brings forth a recently discovered manuscript from Bavinck that is being published for the first time. Serving as a companion to Reformed Dogmatics, Reformed Ethics offers readers Bavinck's mature reflections on ethical issues. This book, the second of three planned volumes, covers the duties of the Christian life and includes Bavinck's exposition of the Ten Commandments.

Is knowledge of right and wrong written on the human heart? Do people know God from the world around them? Does natural knowledge contribute to Christian doctrine? While these questions of natural theology and natural law have historically been part of theological reflection, the radical reliance of twentieth-century Protestant theologians on revelation has eclipsed this historic connection. Stephen Grabill attempts the treacherous task of reintegrating Reformed Protestant theology with natural law by appealing to Reformation-era theologians such as John Calvin, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Johannes Althusius, and Francis Turretin, who carried over and refined the traditional understanding of this key doctrine. Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics calls Christian ethicists, theologians, and laypersons to take another look at this vital element in the history of Christian ethical thought.

In this new book, Tariq Ramadan argues that it is crucial to find theoretical and practical solutions that will enable Western Muslims to remain faithful to Islamic ethics while fully living within their societies and their time. He notes that Muslim scholars often refer to the notion of ijtihad (critical and renewed reading of the foundational texts) as the only way for Muslims to take up these modern challenges. But, Ramadan argues, in practice such readings have effectively reached the limits of their ability to serve the faithful in the West as well as the East. In this book he sets forward a radical new concept of ijtihad, which puts context -- including the knowledge derived from the hard and human sciences, cultures and their geographic and historical contingencies -- on an equal footing with the scriptures as a source of Islamic law.

This provocative work provides a radical reassessment of the emergence and nature of Christian sexual morality, the dominant moral paradigm in Western society since late antiquity. While many scholars, including Michel Foucault, have found the basis of early Christian sexual restrictions in Greek ethics and political philosophy, Kathy L. Gaca demonstrates on compelling new grounds that it is misguided to regard Greek ethics and political theory—with their proposed reforms of eroticism, the family, and civic order—as the foundation of Christian sexual austerity. Rather, in this thoroughly informed and wide-ranging study, Gaca shows that early Christian goals to eradicate fornication were derived from the sexual rules and poetic norms of the Septuagint, or Greek Bible, and that early Christian writers adapted these rules and norms in ways that reveal fascinating insights into the distinctive and largely non-philosophical character of Christian sexual morality. Writing with an authoritative command of both Greek philosophy and early Christian writings, Gaca investigates Plato, the Stoics, the Pythagoreans, Philo of Alexandria, the apostle Paul, and the patristic Christians Clement of Alexandria, Tatian, and Epiphanes, freshly elucidating their ideas on sexual reform with precision, depth, and originality. Early Christian writers, she demonstrates, transformed all that they borrowed from Greek ethics and political philosophy to launch innovative programs against fornication that were inimical to Greek cultural mores, popular and philosophical alike. The Septuagint's mandate to worship the Lord alone among all gods led to a Christian program to revolutionize Gentile sexual practices, only for early Christians to find this virtually impossible to carry out without going to extremes of sexual renunciation. Knowledgeable and wide-ranging, this work of intellectual history and ethics cogently demonstrates why early Christian sexual restrictions took such repressive ascetic forms, and casts sobering light on what Christian sexual morality has meant for religious pluralism in Western culture, especially among women as its bearers.

An introductory text explaining the nature, relevancy, coherency, and structure of the moral law as revealed throughout the Bible, with discussion of the Ten Commandments as a moral rubric and a subsequent application of each commandment to Christian living.

This classic work of Reformed theology is the third of four volumes now available in English.