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Christian Ethics Vs Divine Law

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Western ethics is vastly influenced by Christian law-based ethics, which in turn gathered its legal ethical code from Judaism. As a result, as society's values have changed, the effectiveness of transcendent entities as rulers within law-based ethics to provide ethical agents with an obligation to obey the moral law has been brought into question. This essay will focus on Christian ethics, where 'transcendent entities' will refer to the Christian God, and 'law-based ethics' is the divine law set down by God within Christian scripture. To prove that God is necessary to provide ethical agents with a duty to follow the divine law, this essay will discuss God and humanity's nature, agents' need for a transcendent law-giver, the role that religion …show more content…
There are some examples in the Old Testament where God commanded people to do the opposite of some of His Ten Commandments. For example, God commanded Abraham to kill his only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice, which goes against the commandment "You shall not murder". Despite this, these inconsistencies have been defended by Christian scholars. Aquinas says that these 'inconsistencies' were due to happen, and are therefore not sins. This means that the Christian divine law and God's role as the law-giver is justified, and therefore ethical agents have good reason to obey the divine …show more content…
Gibbard's emotional ethics is based upon a predetermined set of rules concerned with the emotions of ethical agents. Hare suggests that the unionising factor to emotional ethics within religion is God, who predetermines the emotional norms. This means that, within religious emotional ethics, God prescribes feelings to agents based upon their actions and the actions of those around them. For example, should an agent do a good deed, that agent will feel pride and agents around them will feel gratitude. Emotional ethics fits well with the Christian tradition of atonement. Gibbard recognises that we dwell too much on guilt, and suggests religious atonement as a way to get past guilt without condoning the action(s) that led to the guilt. This combination of emotional ethics and Christian belief provide ethical agents with a strong reasoning to follow the teachings of the Christian God as a means for ethical improvement. Therefore, emotional ethics shows the effect that a belief in transcendent entities have upon ethical agents within law-based

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