Calvinists Among the Virtues Reformed Theological Contributions to Contemporary Virtue Ethics 1 (original) (raw)
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Many scholars have argued that the Protestant Reformation generally departed from virtue ethics, and this claim is often accepted by Protestant ethicists. This essay argues against such discontinuity by demonstrating John Calvin’s reception of ethical concepts from Augustine and Aristotle. Calvin drew on Augustine’s concept of eudaimonia and many aspects of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics , including concepts of choice, habit, virtue as a mean, and the specific virtues of justice and prudence. Calvin also evaluated the problem of pagan virtue in light of traditional Augustinian texts discussed in the medieval period. He interpreted the Decalogue as teaching virtue, including the cardinal virtues of justice and temperance. Calvin was not the harbinger of an entirely new ethical paradigm, but rather a participant in the mainstream of Christian thinkers who maintained a dual interest in Aristotelian and Augustinian eudaimonist virtue ethics.
"Sin, Grace, and Virtue in Calvin: A Matrix for Dogmatic Consideration"
"In recent years there has been a renewed discussion of virtue in theological perspective. Attempting to capture the classical conception of virtue as an all-encompassing, teleology-centered pursuit, theologians have looked to Augustine and Aquinas to reinvigorate contemporary theological presentations of virtue. Not surprisingly these treatments generally align with a traditional Roman Catholic emphasis on a nature/grace metaphysic. The present undertaking considers virtue within a traditional Reformation-based paradigm. My intent is to offer a dogmatic location for theological virtue in the realm of a Protestant understanding of sanctification. This venture provides a theological description of virtue as dependent upon union with Christ, a theme of which Calvin was especially fond. This inevitably sets the scene for an explication of theological virtue within the triune economy articulated in distinctly Protestant terms. Union with Christ must be the center of this paradigm, for it provides the basis for discussing the Spirit's work in leading believers to theological virtuousness through the cultivation of Christian wisdom. Based upon the objective work of Christ, the Spirit develops a divine wisdom in those whom he unites to Christ. Thus, I wish to demonstrate that the dynamic life of wisdom that subsists specifically in a Reformed understanding of the triune God and his dealings with humanity offers the best theological rendering of virtue."
In response to Alasdair MacIntyre's and Brad Gregory's claim—that the Reformation's concept of morality in terms of obedience to divine commandments has been a major factor in a catastrophic breakdown in modernity of the teleological view of life and the virtues—this essay aims both to correct this criticism and to reread Calvin from the perspective of virtue ethics. Calvin's utterances about the nature of the law, virtue, the self before God, one's calling in the world, natural law and reason appear to be much more in alliance with a teleological, virtue ethical view than MacIntyre suggests. This opens up the possibility of a fruitful interplay between a Reformed account of law and Christian virtue ethics.
Defending ‘Avertive’ Religion: Calvin on the Visio Dei and Moral Theology
Reformed Theological Review, 2023
Against claims that John Calvin repudiated the beatific vision and teleological virtue ethics, this article demonstrates the importance of the visio Dei by examining sections of Calvin’s exegesis and several important sermons. It explores Augustine’s theology of created being and how this might help explain how Christians should rightly relate to ‘lower goods’. These conversations contribute to an explanation of Calvin’s view of Christian moral life in relation to the hope of seeing or contemplating God, including his adoption of some standard themes of virtue ethics.
Ethical Formation: The Theological Virtues
Diane Chandler (ed.). The Holy Spirit and Christian Formation
In the West, virtue emerges as a prominent theme in the Classical Greek World, fi rst with Plato (Republic) and later with Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics). Both philosophers refl ect on the connection between the moral virtues (e.g., justice and prudence), character formation (becoming a morally mature person), and the proper end (telos) of a human being, which Aristotle specifi cally calls happiness (eudaimonia = well-being). Later Christian theologians draw on the insights of the Classical philosophers but also fi nd fault with them. For example, when thirteenth-century theologian Thomas Aquinas states, "[Humankind] is perfected by virtue," he is repeating a point made fi rst by Aristotle. But he goes beyond Aristotle when he says, "Now [humankind's] beatitude or happiness is of two kinds … One is proportioned to human nature, which [human beings] can arrive at by the principles of [their] nature. The other kind is a happiness surpassing [human] nature, which [human beings] can arrive at only by the power of God, by a kind of participation in divinity." 1 This chapter explores the dynamics of what Thomas Aquinas calls "participation in divinity." Specifi cally, it considers three related questions:
THE IDEA OF THE THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES
2017
The traditional doctrine of the theological virtues holds that faith, hope and love are virtues of a special kind. Being divine gifts, and directed towards our supernatural telos, these virtues differ in kind from those on the classical lists, not least the ones Aquinas called ‘cardinal’. This doctrine gives rise prima facie to a dilemma. Either the theological virtues are capable of being exercised through human agency, in which case they do not in this respect differ in kind from those on the classical lists – or they are incapable of being exercised through human agency, in which case they are not really human virtues. In this paper, I chart possible responses to this dilemma and advance what I call a non-theological solution to the problem it articulates. Developing Alasdair MacIntyre’s notion of ‘virtues of acknowledged dependence’, I argue that there is a cogent way of thinking of faith, hope and love as virtues of a kind, without recourse to Aquinas’ account of human teleology or to any special theory of divine agency. On the approach I develop, faith, hope and love are virtues of a kind because of the way in which they express the distinctive kind of agency that is involved in owning up to our human dependence and vulnerability. My overall aim is to show that ethicists still have much to learn from the idea of the theological virtues, even if they do not accept the Thomistic framework in which this idea is traditionally advanced.