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This short, accessible, but theologically substantive volume
unfolds the significance of the Ten Commandments for the Christian
life. Gilbert Meilaender, one of today's leading Christian
ethicists, places the commandments in the larger context of the
biblical history of redemption and invites readers to wrestle with
how human loves should relate to the first commandment: to love God
above all else. As he approaches the Decalogue from this
perspective, Meilaender helps Christians learn what it means to
say, "Thy will be done."
Amid current arguments related to human life and dignity,
Christians must be clear about how their faith speaks to such
concerns and what other outlooks have to say. This book brings
together noted ethicists--Russell DiSilvestro, David P. Gushee, Amy
Laura Hall, John F. Kilner, Gilbert C. Meilaender, Scott B. Rae,
and Patrick T. Smith--to make a Christian case for human dignity.
It offers a robust critique of five influential alternative
positions, including the emerging outlook of transhumanism, showing
how a Christian view supports the crucial idea that people matter
in a way other views cannot.
In Should We Live Forever? Christian ethicist Gilbert Meilaender
puzzles over the implications of the medical advances that have
lengthened the human life span, wrestling with what this quest for
living longer means for our conception of living well and
completely. As he points out in his introduction, -That we often
desire, even greedily desire, longer life is clear; whether what we
desire is truly desirable is harder to say.- The six chapters of
this book take multiple perspectives on issues surrounding aging
and invite readers to consider whether -indefinitely more life- is
something worth pursuing and, if humans are created for life with
God, whether longer life will truly satisfy our underlying hunger.
St. Augustine formulated the classic Christian understanding of
desire, that "our hearts are restless until they rest in God."
Gilbert Meilaender maintains that this frustrated desire lies at
the heart of our existence. In "The Way That Leads There", he takes
Augustine as a "conversation partner" for exploring subjects that
human beings have wrestled with for centuries - desire, duty,
politics, sex, and grief. Deep and carefully reasoned, Meilaender's
work rescues Augustine from many of our misperceptions and
interacts meaningfully with both C. S. Lewis and Catholic moral
theology, generating insights on difficult topics - lying,
contraception, food, and grief, among others. The picture of life
that emerges in these pages is one of incompleteness, of our
inability to perfect and unify our moral lives. Yet, this inability
is not a cause for despair; it is rather a call to look, with
Augustine, to God as the source and object of our greatest desire.
"A deeply meditated study of C.S. Lewis as a social philosopher. It
does him good service. Avoiding unnecesaary biographical data,
Meilaender concentrates rigoursly on Lewis' writings in an attempt
to 'get at the heart of his] vision of human community and his
understanding of morality' . . . A discriminating work with an
intricate structure well suited to the subject." -Modern Language
Review "Meilaender's first-class scholarly study of Lewis's social
and ethical thought is also a fine commentary on his anthropology .
. . A well-written interpretation of the man who has probably had
more influence on the theology of thoughtful Christians in the
twentieth century than all the church's professional theologians."
-Choice "Meilaender is a master exegete and critic of Lewis'
dialectical vision in all its rich concreteness . . . This work
must now stand as our best guide to Lewis's thought." -Christian
Century "A remarkably complete look at Lewis's thought." -New
Oxford Review "Combining solid scholarship with literary
imagination, Meilaender does what Lewis himself does: he fascinates
readers and draws them unawares into serious thought and into
reflection requiring a response. . . . A first-rate study of Lewis
that can serve also as an introduction to a serious study of all of
Lewis's works." -Religious Studies Review "A book that has been
needed for a long time. Meilaender brings to his study not only an
in-depth knowledge of philosophy and theology but also a keen
literary awareness. . . . A gracefully readable, luminously clear
book." -Christianity and Literature GILBERT MEILAENDER is the
Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Professor of Christian Ethics at
Valparaiso University. His most recent book is Bioethics: A Primer
for Christians (Eerdmans).
The Oxford Handbooks series is a major new initiative in academic
publishing. Each volume offers an authoritative and up-to-date
survey of original research in a particular subject area. Specially
commissioned essays from leading figures in the discipline give
critical examinations of the progress and direction of debates.
The Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics offers the most
authoritative and compelling guide to the discipline. Thirty of the
world's most distinguished specialists provide new essays in order
to offer a survey of and analysis of the subject. Ethics is first
placed firmly within the Christian theological tradition, from
which thought and action can never be neatly separated. Four
sections then explore the sources of Christian moral knowledge
(scripture, divine commands, church tradition, reason and natural
law, experience); the structure of the Christian life (vocation,
virtue, rules, responsibility, death); the spirit of the Christian
life (faith, hope, love); and the spheres of the Christian life
(government, family, economy, culture, church). The final section
of the Handbook contains essays discussing and evaluating certain
scholarly works that have in the past influentially offered
(different) visions of how best to structure the field of
theological ethics. Unlike any other book now available, the
Handbook's unrivalled breadth and depth make it the definitive
reference work for all students and academics who want to explore
more fully essential topics in Christian ethics.
Cloning is one of the most hotly debated issues to have hit the
world news in years. The first book of its kind. Flesh of My Flesh
is a collection of articles by today's most-respected scientists,
philosophers, bioethicists, theologians, and law professors about
whether we should allow human cloning. The book includes historical
pieces to provide background for the current debate. Religious,
philosophical, and legal points of view are all represented. Flesh
of My Flesh offers a fascinating and comprehensive look at this
important and complex issue.
Reflecting upon some problems of the moral life, Gilbert
Meilaender considers their difficulties within a vision that
accentuates not only the limits, but also the promise, of the
Christian story. Created by God as finite beings, we make
particular attachments. Redeemed by God for a community
transcending nature and history, our love always carries us beyond
the special bonds of time and place. We live, therefore, with a
sense of permanent tension.
If this tension heightens our sense of the perplexities of life,
it should not free us from the obligation to probe, clarify, and
(where we can) resolve some of those difficulties. The author holds
that theological ethics must clarify the direction for growth and
development within the Christian life. He undertakes such analysis,
emphasizing throughout the limits of the human condition, the
importance of our nature as embodied persons, and the danger and
pretension in some of our attempts to take control of and master
human life. This Christian vision is developed in chapters that
explore a range of moral problems, such as abortion, artificial
reproduction, euthanasia, care for defective infants, provision of
artificial nutrition and hydration, and marital and political
community. These are throughout, however, theological explorations.
Taken together they illumine not only particular problems of the
moral life but a vision of life--classically Christian in its
conception, humane in its care for particular bonds of attachment,
and modest in its recognition of moral limits on our ability to
seek the good.
Meilaender has developed a broad recognition both among scholars
and students of ethics and among interested general readers. He has
the capacity to throw fresh angles of vision on complex problems so
as to help both the sophisticated and the uninitiated reader to
think more penetratingly about moral questions.
The Oxford Handbooks series is a major new initiative in academic
publishing. Each volume offers an authoritative and up-to-date
survey of original research in a particular subject area. Specially
commissioned essays from leading figures in the discipline give
critical examinations of the progress and direction of debates.
The Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics offers the most
authoritative and compelling guide to the discipline. Thirty of the
world's most distinguished specialists provide new essays in order
to offer a survey of and analysis of the subject. Ethics is first
placed firmly within the Christian theological tradition, from
which thought and action can never be neatly separated. Four
sections then explore the sources of Christian moral knowledge
(scripture, divine commands, church tradition, reason and natural
law, experience); the structure of the Christian life (vocation,
virtue, rules, responsibility, death); the spirit of the Christian
life (faith, hope, love); and the spheres of the Christian life
(government, family, economy, culture, church). The final section
of the Handbook contains essays discussing and evaluating certain
scholarly works that have in the past influentially offered
(different) visions of how best to structure the field of
theological ethics. Unlike any other book now available, the
Handbook's unrivalled breadth and depth make it the definitive
reference work for all students and academics who want to explore
more fully essential topics in Christian ethics.
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