Christian Ethics

Morality and ethics are terms used to describe humanity's inner motivations toward justice and truth.  Although these expressions are certainly in play in the fields of legislation and politics, the heart of morality and ethics is human-on-human, horizontal relationships.  If we mine morality and ethics to their cores, we find a commonality in that they are both based on the utter, intrinsic worth and dignity of the individual human.

Reducing morality and ethics, particularly ethics, to the horizontal plane, however, will sever the issue at hand from its roots in the worth and dignity of man, because how we do ethics is intimately tied to where the individual receives his/her worth from.  If the dignity and worth of man stems from merit, work, achievement, etc., then what is considered ethical/unethical will begin with anything that hinders man from asserting his/her worth or dignity.  This means that those who are, by way of disability or whatever, hindered from earning the accruement of worth, then they live outside of ethical considerations.

However, biblical ethics begins from a different perspective altogether.  Biblically, the dignity and worth of man are rooted in mankind's creation as bearing the image of God.  It is the fact that every human being bears God image that the dignity and worth of the human individual is heralded and maintained.  How we engage in ethics must derive from this impetus in order to protect all humans, especially those who, for whatever reason, are unable to earn their worth and dignity.

Thus, biblical ethics overcomes any predisposed prejudice or caste-like hierarchy, be it educational, age, or otherwise, and every ethical agent (aka. every human being) starts from the same presuppositional base to allow for commonality and conversation about ethics.  Let us then always keep this perspective in mind when the issues of ethics arise.