Revising Basic Christian Ethics: Rethinking Paul Ramsey’s Early Contributions to Moral Theology

Despite petitions from friends and critics through much of his career, Paul Ramsey adamantly refused to revise his first book, Basic Christian Ethics. Yet, several pieces of Ramsey’s private correspondence indicate specific changes to Basic Christian Ethics that he felt were necessary. These include...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hollowell, Adam Edward (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sage 2010
In: Studies in Christian ethics
Year: 2010, Volume: 23, Issue: 3, Pages: 267-283
Further subjects:B Paul Ramsey
B Stanley Hauerwas
B Creation
B Christology
B Agape
B John Howard Yoder
B Natural Law
B Basic Christian Ethics
B Eschatology
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:Despite petitions from friends and critics through much of his career, Paul Ramsey adamantly refused to revise his first book, Basic Christian Ethics. Yet, several pieces of Ramsey’s private correspondence indicate specific changes to Basic Christian Ethics that he felt were necessary. These include a desire to distance his use of agape from associations with Anders Nygren’s Agape and Eros, an added emphasis on the importance of the doctrine of creation for his understanding of agape, covenant, and natural law, and a shift from eschatology to Christology as the foundational doctrine for political ethics. Drawing upon personal letters and other disparate comments throughout Ramsey’s published work, this paper explores the impact such proposed revisions might have on contemporary interest (or lack thereof) in Basic Christian Ethics. In so doing it also highlights Ramsey’s ability to rethink central theological concepts in his work and draw his readers’ attention to fundamental questions in the field of moral theology.
ISSN:0953-9468
Contains:Enthalten in: Studies in Christian ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/0953946810368025