How do we discern ethics in the writings of Paul?
Tim Murray offers this review of Ruben Zimmermann's The Logic of Beloved: Discovering Paul's 'implicit ethics' through i Corinthians (Lexington/Fortress, 2018).
Why care about this book?
It seems to me that any of us who care for the state of the church building and bookish theology (including biblical studies) are likely regularly to find ourselves confronting important questions about ethics and the Bible. Postmodern relativism has been undermining our upstanding confidence for a long time, just culture has shifted to the extent that orthodox Christianity is now considered immoral by many. Most of us seem to have lost the breadbasket for ethical argumentof any substance; all we have is ethical assertionby the aggressive gatekeepers of our 'liberal' popular culture.
1 benefit of the postmodern move, though, has been the questions forced on biblical theologians as to how to responsibly interpret texts that take been taken equally relevant to 'ideals'; we have been forced not only to face how much our own presuppositions influence our estimation, but how the presuppositions of the authors and their cultures (or the implied authors and unsaid audiences, if you're really into postmodern theory…) should touch our use of the Bible for Christian ethics.
I wait those who read this blog, with its special involvement in problems of gender and sexuality, volition be familiar with the key questions:
- When are biblical authors prescriptive and when are they descriptive?
- When are they addressing specific, local problems with a unique solution and when are they offering 'ideals' that take a broader applicability?
- When are they making concessions that practise non represent an ideal?
- Is there a 'hermeneutical trajectory' that allows us to extend their ethics beyond their ain horizons?
This list could keep…
The questions are self-plainly important as even a cursory look at the key bug facing the church today shows: how nosotros read biblical ethics and, to make the stardom clear, how we so use the Bible in forming Christian ideals, are hermeneutical questions nosotros cannot avoid.
Information technology is this context in which I wish to review Ruben Zimmermann's piece of work on New Attestation ideals. His formulation of "implicit ethics" first appeared in a German periodical article in 2007 (Jenseits von Indikativ und Imperativ: Entwurf einer 'Impliziten Ethik' des Paulus am Beispiel des ane. Korintherbriefes,"TLZ132), but was more than essentially outlined in 2009 in his article "The 'Implicit Ethics' of New Testament Writings: A Typhoon on a New Methodology for Analysing New Testament Ideals," (Neotestamentica43) which is now available for free access online at JSTOR. He has continued to refine his thinking over the final decade and his 2022 monograph, reviewed here, is the culmination of that process.
Zimmermann describes ethics as "the reflective consideration of a way of living with a view toward its guiding norms and having as its goal an evaluation" (4); "ethics aims at values and the task of an ethical analysis is to bring the evaluation of a particular behaviour to lite" (5). Ane of the burdens of his book is to point out that if this is what ethics is all about, then it is non just statements that explicitly command or prohibit a behaviour that are 'upstanding'; rather, we need to be circumspect to the many different ways in which 'ideals' appear in the texts – many of which are not explicit but implicit.
The master style Zimmermann does this is by a presenting eight perspectives through which we might 'get at' the ethical content of a text. They are not meant to be a series of steps, but rather "unlike aspects through which "implicit ethics" can be fabricated visible" (31).
The 8 Perspectives of Zimmermann'southward Implicit Ethics
The entire showtime one-half of his book is devoted to describing how each of these perspectives works and giving examples from the NT of where they may apply. A painfully short summary of each perspective would be:
1. The Medium of Ideals: Moral Language
Every bit NT ethics is contained in texts, we must pay attention to the linguistic aspects of ethical communication – indeed, Zimmermann explores the idea both that ideals requires language and that language is e'er, in fact, ethical. For the exegete, the thrust is that we should non think that only a few forms of advice (such every bit imperatives) are 'ethical'; rather, language is the medium of ethics in numerous ways, encompassing "narratival, metaphorical, or lyrical texts" (41) as well as directive forms of spoken communication.
2. Norms every bit Indicators of Ethical Significance
If ethics is fundamentally norm-orientated so this perspective asks us to pay particular attention to which norms are beingness appealed to, assumed or critiqued. For Zimmermann, a norm is anything that justifies the claim to an "ought" (43). Nosotros should exist aware, and then, that norms are not simply explicitly stated, but often implicit in a text. Brief investigation reveals the huge variety of norms that are appealed to in the New Testament.
3. Tradition-History of Individual Norms
"Norms are shaped within a linguistic and cultural community" (48). A norm functions every bit a norm because it is socially embedded – simply this means that if we want to understand the ethics of a text, nosotros not only need to identify the norms it engages, just understand them in their correct context – work most exegetes are familiar with.
4. Ideals as a System of Values
One time nosotros have appropriately understood the norms in play, we can then analyse the way the norms are engaged. Some are classed equally practiced or bad, but oftentimes more complex interactions occur – some norms are relatively skillful, but not absolutely so. Sometimes norms are balanced against 1 another or trumped by a greater value. Different actions can be justified by the same norm and different norms tin justify the same action. Information technology is sometimes possible to reconstruct a 'map' and system of values that a particular author assumes. Picking through these complexities is oft where the rich fruit of 'implicit ethics' begin to be found.
v. Forms of Ethical Reflection
This perspective invites us to come up to terms with the form and procedure of reflection through which ethics is pursued. It is, in some means, a deeper exploration of 1 aspect of the first perspective. Too as covering the well-known 'teleological–deontological' distinction, Zimmermann encourages u.s.a. to pay attention to how goods are weighed, and ethico-poetical forms of ideals. One important emphasis is on 'mimetic ethics', whereby correct conduct depends on role-models, an often-overlooked NT emphasis.
six. The Ethical Bailiwick
Ethics intend to apply to people! How such people are conceived helps us sympathize the ethics. Thus, by attention to aspects of reason, will, censor and emotion, as well as the inter-relationship betwixt private and community, we tin can further mankind out the ethical vision of a text.
7. Ethical and Social Reality: Lived Ethos
To put is simply, ethics is reflection on and evaluation of behaviour; ethos is what'southward actually happening! We must e'er be conscientious that we don't read the ethics of a text and assume that correlates with the ethos of the customs to which it is addressed or from which it arose. Oftentimes, we better understand either by attention to the other. In this case, our grasp of the text'south ethics can be aided if we can become a handle on the conventions of the culture, customs or individuals involved.
eight. The Purview of Ethics
The concluding perspective calls to view the scope and validity of the text. How particular or universal does the author of a given text intend the ethical cloth to be? For whom do they consider their content to exist valid?
The existent value of Zimmermann's piece of work is that his methodology forces y'all to call up clearly and comprehensively nigh the ethics of a text. Although, as I read him, there is non much truly novel in each perspective, the do good is heuristic – it is as y'all study with each of the dissimilar perspectives in mind that you are better able to capeesh the complication and nuance of the 'implicit ethics'. To me information technology seems the master beneficiaries are those who seek to expound the New Testament, whether scholars or pastors – it provides a fertile framework for engaging with the text.
Implicit Ethics in 1 and 2 Thessalonians
Maybe a brief give-and-take of just two aspects of the Thessalonian letters is of value. Both messages address a problem within the community regarding the distribution of food to some who are non working. These 'hell-raising' are addressed most obviously in 2 Thess 3—but if we are attuned to the implicit ideals of the texts, we can see how Paul, Silvanus and Timothy are actually addressing the consequence throughout both letters.
First, we can discover the potent mimetic ideals of the commencement letter. The Thessalonian church are presented with a detailed clarification of Paul and his co-workers carry whilst among them. This is not just to 'defend' his conduct (as per many commentators) simply is also to remind them of the upstanding example he set which he assumes to be normative for the community. They did not come to the Thessalonians for greedy purposes (ii.5), were not demanding (2.six), merely worked difficult to support themselves (2.nine) and then as not to burden others (two.9). This is not nostalgic description, but functions every bit ethical argument. In 1 Thessalonians this is implicit, but information technology becomes explicit in the 2d letter of the alphabet: "you know how you ought to imitate u.s." (3.seven).
Second, Zimmermann's encouragement to evaluate how norms and values are related ensures a more responsible understanding of norms like 'beingness dependent upon no-i' (1 Thess 4.12). This has at times been taken every bit an contained value such that self-sufficiency is seen equally ideal (with further implications, due east.1000., that debt must ever be avoided at all costs and charity accepted simply as a last resort). Under analysis though, we see that this norm, together with the others expressed in 1 Thess. four.10-12 are dominated by the overarching value of philadelphia – brotherly love. This is the telosto which the other norms are recruited; the betoken is that their concrete love-in-activity for one another continues to deepen, and it is this goalthat rules out both the 'taking without giving' of the disorderly and requires attention to independence, work, honourable conduct and self-attending. To disassemble these norms and elevate them beyond this context misunderstands the mode the authors come across these norms as inter-related. The real goal is non independence, merely the inter-dependence of reciprocal love.
In terms of provocative application, nosotros may wonder how many Christian leaders are personally present and bachelor enough to their congregations to exist able to appeal to a mimetic ethics. Every bit a pastor, is my life visible and bachelor enough to serve as a meaningful instance to which I can appeal as I shepherd my church? Am I prepared for the vulnerability that demands? Or, on the second point, to what extent take we bought into the liberal-capitalist view of self-sufficiency – that my own piece of work should secure my ain appurtenances and render me a useful denizen, rather than a truly Christian view of inter-dependence, where it is important to pursue my own work for the benefit of reciprocal dearestrather than detached self-reliance?
The clearest do good and the biggest frustration
To inform responsible exegesis is clearly one of Zimmermann'southward aims and it is in this that he is most successful; the methodology he presents is well worth reading through and working with. The simply alert on this point would be that his volume is hard going – it truly is the work of a High german academic theologian (if one can risk a stereotype!). If yous can get hold of his 2009 article, that does a much quicker task of explaining the eight perspective in a fashion sufficient for virtually; information technology is probably merely swain academics and ethicists who would enjoy the monograph version.
In many ways the review could end at that place, just I can't resist addressing one frustration. In his introductory chapter, Zimmerman surveys moral philosophy, noting that some recent approaches accept "embraced at to the lowest degree the possibility of a partial and context-specific pragmatic ethical rationale. An ethical judgement is limited to a relative validity and is thus freed from the brunt of objectivity and universal applicability" (12). Reading between the lines, Zimmermann highlights this not because he is bully on these systems of moral philosophy per se, just rather because this carves out infinite for 'New Testament ethics' to accept some relevance beyond the church building: "ethical judgements, as they are institute in early Christian texts, can have validity and be institute convincing despite their limited accomplish within a item context" (13).
I recollect we see here the desperate appeal that our work as theologians should somehow be valued as of import by the universities and wider academic discourse. I understand the pressure theology departments face up to justify their beingness in a competitive environment, just I've never constitute these kind of moves convincing. At the stop of the solar day, nosotros tin study New Attestation ideals for purely historical reasons, or to empathise Christian behaviour, past or nowadays, but if we want to assert that New Attestation ethics are important equally idealstoday, this must surely be on the basis that the texts themselves are non simply texts, but have some authority that renders them worthy of attention.
I'm not convinced we will justify our theological studies by an entreatment to relative moral philosophy; much better to admit that their relevance depends on our opinion towards the texts and the claims that they make. Exercise we think this text makes any actual claims upon us, and do nosotros believe that their ethical position should shape our lives?
Dr Tim Murray completed his PhD in New Testament at the University of Nottingham supervised by Professor Roland Deines. He is now a staff elder at Amblecote Christian Center near Stourbridge in the West Midlands.
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