Christian Ethics:  

An Essential Guide

by Robin W. Lovin

Abingdon Press: April, 2000.  137 pages.

Reviewed by David R. Larson

One announcement for this book declares that its "author lays claim to a specifically Christian understanding of ethics by beginning with basic Christian convictions. He then weaves these convictions into the fabric of moral concerns that are widely shared in contemporary society."  This is hardly the case.

Robin W. Lovin, Dean of the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University near Dallas, Texas, actually presents Christian ethics the other way around. He starts with themes that are agreeable to most persons regardless of their religious orientations or lack thereof. The first sentence in his first chapter declares that "Everyone wants to have a good life" and the first authority he cites is not Jesus Christ but Aristotle. "Trying to live a good life is something that nearly everybody does," he states. 

Despite the difference between this announcement and its actual starting point, this book is a clear, concise and comprehensive introduction to Christian ethics, a primer that surveys the discipline and makes constructive contributions to it.

As if to highlight its verbal frugality, each of this volume’s six chapters begins with a one-word title. As indicated, the first chapter ("Choices") starts with the reminder that "Everyone wants to have a good life," a theme from Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) and Thomas Aquinas (1125-1174 A.D.) around which Lovin organizes everything else. He defines ethics as "the study of the choices by which we try to live a good life," decisions he describes as sometimes "terribly difficult." The purpose of this book, Lovin writes, is not to make these choices for its readers but to equip them to do so. He says this is so "because living a good life requires making choices for yourself, not learning someone else’s answers."

 The middle three chapters ("Goals," "Rules," "Virtues") explore the primary conceptual resources available to Christians and others who wish to make choices that contribute to a "good life." The first of these is teleology, a study of the ends worthiest of our pursuit and the means most likely to achieve them. The second is deontology, a study of ethical rules, originating from divine commands, natural law or covenants with God or other people, that place ethical limits on what we may do in pursuit of our goals. The third is areteology, a study of the positive traits of character that individuals and groups do well to cultivate as part of a "good life." These include the cardinal virtues of temperance, courage, prudence and justice as well as the theological virtues of faith, hope and love. Traits such as these rescue the moral life, Lovin contends, from the excesses of goal-seeking, on the one hand, and the deficiencies of rule-keeping, on the other.

The final chapters discuss the Christian community of faith and its relationships with the general public. Chapter five ("Church") distinguishes "ecumenical," "confessional," and "missional" understandings of what the church should be and what it should do. Although particular churches or organizations may specialize in any one of these, Lovin implies that the body of Christ as a whole should be all three. Chapter six ("Society") presents Reinhold Niebuhr’s doctrine of "Christian Realism" as a sober interpretation of human life that enables Christians to contend for the common good with wisdom, humility and tenacity.

A postscript entitled "Conclusion: Faith and Ethics" follows these six chapters. After summarizing his book, Lovin writes that the questions and resources of faith emerge not merely at the beginning and end of the moral life but throughout each of its challenging moments. "Only a gracious God," he holds, "keeps our actual moral life from becoming a constant measurement of ourselves against a standard we can never meet, anticipating a judgment we can never escape."

This book’s reconciling tone is one of its greatest strengths. At every point at which inclusive or exclusive responses are possible (revelation and reason, faith and works, rules and virtues, individual and society, Christian and non-Christian, etc.), Lovin takes the more comprehensive and magnanimous course. It is one thing, however, repeatedly to say "both/and" rather than "either/or" and another to show at each juncture how doing so can be plausible and helpful. Lovin does both.

One example of Lovin’s skill in ethical diplomacy is the order in which he presents his discussions of "goals," "rules" and "virtues." This sequence allows him to affirm all three instead of casting his lot with those who champion any one of them. It also permits him to show how all three actually function and require each other in a "good life."

That Lovin’s discussion of "rules" includes no examination of the contributions of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804 A.D.) and his followers is perplexing. The Kantian tradition arguably amounts to the most influential form of deontology. Also, its insistence that we "always treat humanity, whether our own or another’s, as an end and never as a mere means" is one of our most important ethical limits. Most importantly, Kant and his followers have attempted to demonstrate the logical inconsistency of all ethical norms that violate this "categorical imperative" and its other versions. Their emphasis upon logical analysis as a source of the most basic ethical requirement deserves to be included as a distinctive alternative in any survey of options regarding the justification of ethical rules.

What should we do if our understanding of the requirements of rules derived from divine commands, natural law, or covenant commitments (we might add logical analysis) conflict? One unconvincing response is to claim that in real life such tensions never occur. The attempt to develop some permanent and universal hierarchy of concrete ethical rules is another. Lovin may prefer an interactive process that begins by stipulating human fallibility and then uses rules derived from all the sources as guidelines that mutually inform and correct our understanding. Or he may choose to leave us with the counsel to do that which seems most likely to foster a "good life." It would be interesting to know what he actually thinks about this issue, however.

As they have for centuries, debates are likely to continue as to whether portraits of Christian ethics should begin, as this one does, with general accounts of human experience or with particularly Christian interpretations of human life. Yet this question, which is akin to asking whether a pastor should begin his or her sermons with Scripture or with the concerns of the congregation, surely poses a false dilemma. What matters most is not where a presentation begins, but whether by the time it is over it does justice both to that which is generally human and to that which is specifically Christian. 

In this book, Lovin begins with Aristotle and ends with the gracious God embodied in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Although this is not the only way to proceed, he proves it can be beneficial.