Virtue Reformed

With its focus on the traditions and communities that form us over the course of a lifetime, virtue ethics has richly expanded our understanding of what the Christian life can look like. Yet its emphasis on human virtues and habits of mind and life seems inconsistent with the Reformed tradition's insistence that sin lies at the heart of the human condition. For this reason, virtue ethics seems out of place in Reformed theology, especially in the company of the Reformed tradition's greatest twentieth-century theologian, Karl Barth. In this new addition to the Columbia Series in Reformed Theology, Kirk Nolan argues that Barth's theology actually proves virtue ethics can be compatible with the Reformed tradition. Rather than see virtue as an inevitable and natural process of growth, Barth helps us understand that development in the Christian life comes through a process of repetition and renewal, and that all virtue comes solely as a gift from God. Nolan establishes an important bridge between Reformed moral teaching and the tradition of virtue ethics.

Drawing on Protestant scholasticism, Puritan “precisionism,” and virtue ethics, Virtue Reformed offers a comprehensive rereading of the ethical position of American philosopher-theologian Jonathan Edwards and his fascinating struggle to be both forwarder of the Reformation and participant in the Enlightenment.

Perhaps no period in Christian history experienced such social tumult and upheaval as the Reformation, as it quickly became apparent that social and political issues, finding deep resonance with the common people, were deeply entwined with religious ones raised by the Reformers. Led by eminent Reformation historian Peter Matheson, this volume of A People's History of Christianity explores such topics as child-bearing, a good death, rural and village piety, and more. Includes 50 illustrations, maps, and an 8-page color gallery.

The question of why people act against their better judgment has always been prominent in philosophy. Risto Saarinen presents the first study of ideas about weakness of the will between 1350 and 1650. He shows how the understanding of human conduct and free will changed in this formative period between medieval times and modernity.

This book provides a unified account of the connection between justice and the good life. It argues that the virtues of character require institutions, while good institutions enable persons to live together virtuously. Although virtue ethics and political philosophy are rich and sophisticated philosophical traditions, there has been an unfortunate divergence, in theory and practice, between the virtues of character and the virtues of institutions. This book has two primary purposes. First, it reorients political philosophy around the concept of the good life. To do so, the author addresses the problem of political authority from a virtue ethics perspective. He also considers whether a political theory oriented around the good life is compatible with Rawls’s notion of reasonable pluralism. Second, the book explains the relationship between the virtues of institutions and the virtues of character. The author shows how institutions support the development and exercise of the virtues of character, while examining specific other-regarding virtues such as justice and friendship. The Authority of Virtue will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in virtue ethics, social and political philosophy, ancient philosophy, and political theory.

An international team of renowned scholars give an oversight of the history and theology of Reformed Orthodoxy (± 1550-1750). The renewed interest in this fascinating period in intellectual history is documented in this Companion.

This book examines the coming of the Protestant Reformation from the viewpoint of eight common people, who were sufficiently disturbed by the events of 1521-5 to write treatises, letters, dialogues, and sermons, which they published. Their works are lively testimony to the interest of laypeople in the affairs of the church, and their willingness to discuss often complex theological training. These works are among the first documents of lay theology and piety, but they are also propaganda: disappointed with the Catholic clergy and with secular authorities, the authors of these pamphlets were called to prophesy, preach, and convert their readers/listeners lest Christ return soon to find his church unprepared. They demanded a new apostolate for laypeople, something the clergy had feared for centuries and something which civic authorities feared as a potential source of radical ideas.