Theologian

Key Works on Ethics

Major Emphasis

Paul Althaus

The Ethics of Martin Luther

In addition to law and gospel, Althaus posited a third category-"divine command" as a transforming mandate of personal address to the believer.

Oswald Bayer

"Luther's Ethics as Pastoral Care" in Lutheran Quarterly (Summer 1990), 125-142

"Nature and Institution: Luther's Doctrine of the Three Orders" in LQ (Summer 1998), 125-159

The Christian life is lived from the "bodily word" spoken in Christ. This word frees the Christian for a life of faithfulness and love within the household of creation.

Robert Benne

Ordinary Saints

Ethics has not to do with extraordinary projects but daily life lived in the community of church, family, state, and work place. The church shapes an ethical vision not by mimicking the liberal culture but by faithfully attending to Scripture and worship.

Einar Billing

Our Calling

The Christian life is lived between the twin poles of forgiveness of sins and calling to life in the world.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Cost of Discipleship

The aim of Christian ethics is to deconstruct the adamic knowledge of good and evil. Ethics are seen in light of the radical claims of discipleship.

Werner Elert

Law and Gospel

Sees Christian ethics as the divine judgment of the human quality of existence. Provided a strong critique of Barth's mixing of law .and gospel.

George Forell

"Is There Lutheran Ethical Discourse?" Word & World (Winter 1995), 5-13

Lutheran doctrine of law/gospel and its corollary, the two kingdoms teaching frees Christians for positive ethical involvement in the world in faith and love. Forell sees a realism in the Lutheran approach that is lacking in both fundamentalism and liberalism.

Eberhard Juengel

Justification

Trinitarian ethics centered in justification by faith as grounds for genuine freedom.

Reinhard Huetter

"The Twofold Center of Lutheran Ethics: Christian Freedom and God's Commandments" in The Promise of Lutheran Ethics

Argues that a concrete ecclesial community provides the context for an ethic marked by Christian freedom and obedience to God's commandments.

Adolph Koeberle

The Quest for Holiness

The right distinction between justification and sanctification is the key to evangelical ethics. Ethics must attend to the question of content and energy.

William Lazareth

Christians in Society: Luther, the Bible and Social Ethics

Holds that Luther's "two kingdoms" teaching embrace a twofold use of both law and gospel, that is, the law and gospel have both temporal and spiritual functions. A parenetic use of the gospel replaces the "third use of the law."

Gilbert Meilaender

Things That Count

Influenced by Paul Ramsey and Karl Barth, Meilaender sees ethics as an expression of character shaped by God's grace in Christ.

Anders Nygren

Luther's Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms

Evangelical ethics follows from God's agape-love in Christ rather than from the synthesis of agape and eros resulting in caritas.

Wolfhart Pannenberg

Ethics

Christian ethics are eschatological as they are grounded in the coming of God's Kingdom.

Helmut Thielicke

The Doctor as Judge of Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die

Understands Lutheran ethics as eschatological in the sense that they are lived on the "borderline" between the old and new aeons.

Gustaf Wingren

Creation and Law

The Christian lives in both the earthly and heavenly kingdoms. Vocation is the location for Christian ethics as here the Christian lives under the cross in faith and love.