In this book, the author's concern is with basic issues in the
relationship between ethics and theology rather than with specific
ethical or moral problems, even though some of the latter are
touched on incidentally. He discusses the relation of Christian
morals to non-Christian morals - i.e., what is common to the two,
and what is proper to each; the broad lines of a theological ethic
(or system of morality) that is appropriate to our time; and the
place of faith in the moral life - that is, the relation between
religion and morality. In each of those three areas, Macquarrie's
conclusions are unusually broad-perhaps too broad to be helpful:
all moral systems, including that of Christianity, are essentially
humanistic; a renewal of a Christian ethic must be based on a new
understanding of "natural law"; there is a positive, but riot
exclusive, relationship between religion and morality. None of this
is particularly new; and none of it is more than tolerably
controversial even the appeal to "natural law" rather than to a
Christocentric principle. Even so, the book serves the purpose of
"pulling together" the three issues discussed into a form readily
accessible to moral philosophers and systematic theologians.
(Kirkus Reviews)
. . The new emphasis on situations and flexibility does not abolish
rules or the task of moral theology, but it does call for a radical
rethinking. It is a platitude to say that man is in the midst of
rapid change, both in himself and in his world. The traditional
moral theology was too strongly tied to the notion of a fixed,
essential human nature, set in the midst of a static hierarchically
ordered universe. Yet its basic method of approaching the problem
of ethics was correct-not through some special Christian concept of
love or whatever it might be, but through the study of man. A
renewed moral theology would not abandon this well-tried path,
which is moreover especially appropriate at a time when the
Christian must co-ordinate his moral strivings with those of
non-Christians. But everything that was hitherto static would beset
in motion, so that the landscape would soon begin to look very
different. The new ethic would begin at precisely the same place as
did the first chapter in any traditional textbook of moral
theology, that is to say, with the question about man and the goal
of his existence. But we would have regard to man as he understands
himself today, not as an entity with a fix.ed essence, but as a
dynamic existent living in a changing world... .
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