Explain The Revelational Christian Ethic

In this essay I will defend the revelational Christian ethic, as the best approach for ethics. My chosen topic is premarital sex. I will apply the revelational Christian ethic to defend the position, that premarital sex is morally wrong. The revelational Christian ethic considers the heart and the conscience, but uses the Bible as its primary source. Heart and conscience can also be referred to as “general revelation” . General revelation comes through nature and the human conscience. It is also the focus of the Theistic Natural Law Theory. This theory accounts for our inherent sense of morality. I is why the revelational Christian ethic includes general revelation as part of its approach. Without this consideration, it would be
General revelation provides a common ground that many of us can agree upon. It also points us to the questions of “How do we know these things?” and “How can we apply them to different life situations?”. Our first question is really a metaphysical question asking about the “source” of moral goodness. We are asking, where did this come from? The second question is a epistemological question that is really asking how can we know what is morally good? The first question focuses more on our “being” as created in the image of God. The second question focuses more on our “doing” as in our response to life situations. Our response to life situations requires more than just general revelation. This is why the revelational Christian ethics uses the bible as it’s primary source. “Special Revelation” is not something we, inherently, know. These are God’s specific truths, revealed to specific people, in specific situations. There are examples of special revelation throughout the bible. Furthermore, the bible is referred to as God’s inspired word making it, also, an example of special revelation. The fact that revelational Christian ethics encompasses “general revelation” as well as special revelation attests to it’s
The bible not only confirms our inherent sense of right and wrong, but adds knowledge to it. Romans 2:14 says “When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven in to the very fabric of our creation”. This is evident in theories from Aristotle and Immanuel Kant, theories that did not come from the bible, but embraced biblical principles. Aristotle states in his virtue ethic that “what we do flows from who we are”. He believed that our ability to respond morally comes from cultivating a virtuous character. This is a biblical principle confirmed by Jesus, in Matthew 12:35 which states “A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart”. Immanuel Kant’s “categorical imperative” states that we should only live our lives by principles that we wouldn’t mind others living by. We should do this regardless of the consequence. Luke 6:31 restates this same principle as “do to