Philosophy and Theology

Volume 7, Issue 4, Summer 1993

The Distinctiveness of Christian Morality
A Dispute Revisited

Theologians differ not merely as to whether, but as to how Christian morality might be distinctive. In this essay, I consider the differing senses of distinctiveness in Christian ethics, i.e., how the predicate “Christian” qualifies the justification of moral judgment; the form, extension, and modal force of moral rules; and the morally relevant description of action in the theological ethics of Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar, and the “autonomy school” of Josef Fuchs and Bruno Schüller. The essay concludes with an assessment of the distinctiveness of Christian ethics in Iight of the foregoing criticism.