Although interest in the theology of Karl Barth is greater today than at any time since his death, Barth's moral thought continues to be widely misunderstood. This groundbreaking study of the twentieth-century's most important Christian thinker offers the first treatment of Barth's ethics from a Roman Catholic perspective. Focusing particularly on Barth's 'ethics of creation' in the Church Dogmatics, Rose reclaims Barth from a number of misinterpretations and presents Barth's account of the good life within his distinctively Christian metaphysics. Among the most provocative of Rose's claims is that Barth sees the Christian life as guided by reason and nature, an interpretation that finds Barth in conversation with ancient and medieval ethical theories about the nature of human happiness. A significant contribution to Barth studies and current debates in contemporary Christian theology, Ethics with Barth sheds valuable light on the connection between metaphysics and ethics, the trinitarian dimensions of Christian moral thought, the nature of the divine good, the role of Christian philosophy, Barth's conception of moral reasoning, and his views on eudaimonism and the natural law.

This critical study of Karl Barth's Christian theological ethics discusses Barth's controversial and characteristically misunderstood ethics of divine command. The surprising relation of his 'divine command ethics' to contemporary 'narrative theology' and 'virtue ethics' and specific moral themes concerning bonds between parents and children, the nature of truth telling, and the meaning of Christian love of God and neighbour are all discussed. This book reveals Barth's richness, depth and insight, and places his work in constructive connection with salient themes in both Catholic and Protestant ethics.

This book offers a fresh and up-to-date account of the ethical thought of one of the twentieth century's greatest theologians: Karl Barth. The author seeks to recover Barth's ethics from some widespread misunderstandings, and also presents a picture of them as a whole. Drawing on recently published sources, Dr Biggar construes the ethics of the Church Dogmatics as it might have been had Barth lived to complete it - not only separately in each of its three constituent dimensions but also in its dynamic, coinherent integrity. However, The Hastening that Waits is more than apology and description. For it recommends to contemporary Christian ethics the theological rigour with which Barth expounds the good life in terms of the living presence of God-in-Christ to his creatures; his conception of right human action as that which is able to hasten in the service of humanity precisely by waiting prayerfully upon God; and his discriminate openness to moral wisdom outside of the Christian church. Among the particular topics treated are: the concepts of human freedom and of created moral order; moral norms and their relation to individual vocation; the relative ethical roles of the Bible, the Church, philosophy, and empirical science; moral character and its formation; and the problem of war.

In this seminal volume, contemporary theologians revisit the theological ethics of Karl Barth as it bears on such topics as the moral significance of Jesus Christ, the Christian as ethical agent, the just war theory, the relationship between doctrines of the atonement and modern penal justice systems, the virtues and limits of democracy, and the difference between an economy of competition and possession and an economy of grace. Book jacket.

Does theological ethics articulate moral norms with the assistance of moral philosophy? Or does it leave that task to moral philosophy alone while it describes a distinctively Christian way of acting or form of life? These questions lie at the very heart of theological ethics as a discipline. Karl Barth's theological ethics makes a strong case for the first alternative. Karl Barth's Moral Thought follows Barth's efforts to present God's grace as a moral norm in his treatments of divine commands, moral reasoning, responsibility, and agency. It shows how Barth's conviction that grace is the norm of human action generates problems for his ethics at nearly every turn, as it involves a moral good that confronts human beings from outside rather than perfecting them as the kind of creature they are. Yet it defends Barth's insistence on the right of theology to articulate moral norms, and it shows how Barth may lead theological ethics to exercise that right in a more compelling way than he did.

This reader from Karl Barth's multi-volume Church Dogmatics offers an introduction to the whole work, key readings in reasonable portions with introductions and provides helpful hints at secondary material. An ideal textbook for all beginners studying the work of one of the most important theologians of the last century.

What is it about the practice of obedience to God that makes it significant for human happiness and sanctity? And how should the obedience proper to vowed religious life be understood relative to the responsibilities of conscience and personal freedom? In the present day, religious obedience is often viewed either as a negative cramping of personal autonomy by an external authority, or as a positive submission to law that somehow assures one’s fidelity, but the common thread for both perspectives is a distinctly modern approach to obedience characterized by legalism and voluntarism. In Free for Christ, Mother Mary Christa Nutt, R.S.M., proposes a different approach to religious obedience that foregrounds virtue-based moral agency rooted in metaphysics and the mystery of God, examining obedience not simply in relation to commands and laws but as a spiritual, philosophical, and theological reality—one that situates the human person in relation to God, the Church, and those others who share this religious life. Taking her starting point from Thomas Aquinas, Nutt examines obedience as a dimension of prudence and worship, that is, as a way that the human being can become relative to God as first source and final end, and thus as a way that the grace of Christ can take deeper root as a path to authentic freedom and interiority. From this ground of Thomistic metaphysics and ethics emerges a theological anthropology of obedience closely tied to Aquinas’s teaching on providence and religion.

This book offers the first sustained, full-length treatment of the wide-ranging work of major Anglican theologian Oliver O'Donovan. Analyzing such key texts as Resurrection and Moral Order, The Desire of the Nations and Ethics as Theology, Samuel Tranter shows that the relationship between eschatology and ethics is an area of significant tension in O'Donovan's evolving vision of moral theology. Tranter traces this tension as it relates to O'Donovan's writing and contemporary discussion around natural law, divine command and human flourishing, as well as to particular topics such as poverty, marriage and singleness and biotechnology. He also connects it with the broader doctrinal features of O'Donovan's project, such as his accounts of creation, sin and redemption, and his understanding of the relationships between the cross and the resurrection, on one hand, and Christology and pneumatology, on the other. Throughout, Tranter indicates the implications of these themes for our understanding of the Christian life. This volume establishes and evaluates O'Donovan's influence on contemporary Christian ethicists and political theologians (such as Luke Bretherton, Gilbert Meilaender, Jean Porter and Brent Waters), and engages with critical readings of O'Donovan (such as those by Stanley Hauerwas and Gerald McKenny). In conversation with these and other voices from a range of perspectives, Tranter shows how O'Donovan's proposals may be appropriated and amended as a resource for theology and ethics going forward.

This book details the development and contours of Karl Barth's robust and lively vision of Christian and ecclesial life in the early years of his career. In this remarkable work Michael O'Neil investigates Karl Barth's theology in the turbulent and dynamic years of his nascent career, between 1915 and 1922. It focuses on the manner in which this great theologian construed Christian and ecclesial existence. The author argues that Karl Barth developed his theology with an explicit ecclesial and ethical motive in a deliberate attempt to shape the ethical life of the church in the troublesome context within which he lived and worked. O'Neil adopts a chronological and exegetical reading of Barth's work from the initial dispute with his liberal heritage (c.1915) until the publication of the second edition of his commentary on romans. Not only does this work contribute to a broader understanding of Barth's theology both in its early development, and with regard to his ecclesiology and ethics, it also provides a significant framework and material for contemporary ecclesial reflection on Christian identity and mission.

This critical study of Karl Barth's Christian theological ethics discusses Barth's controversial and characteristically misunderstood ethics of divine command. The surprising relation of his 'divine command ethics' to contemporary 'narrative theology' and 'virtue ethics' and specific moral themes concerning bonds between parents and children, the nature of truth telling, and the meaning of Christian love of God and neighbor are all discussed. This book reveals Barth's richness, depth, and insight, and places his work in constructive connection with salient themes in both Catholic and Protestant ethics. Attentive to the fullness of Barth's Christological vision and to the purposes and limits of his reflections on the Christian life in pursuit of the good, William Werpehowski also advances conversations in Christian ethics about the nature of practical deliberation and decision, the orientation and dispositions that embody moral faithfulness, and the question and features of 'natural morality.'