In 1 Corinthians 13 love is the main issue. All the way through the letter love is mentioned and also the importance of it. ‘Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up; and its faith, hope and patience never fail.’ This paragraph describes love to be a lot of things and there is a lot of explanation about what love is. This part is very long and detailed but it describes love in a way that Christians can understand exactly what love is. In 1 Corinthians 13 love is described as a necessity to live and to be understood and that whatever gifts or powers you have they are worthless without love. In this passage it says how love changes, but never fades and this is how it is different from hope and faith. Love is described to be the most important out of faith, hope and love: ‘Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love.’ There is a similar teaching in Mark 12:28-34: ‘I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains – but if I have no love, I am nothing.’
In all Christian teachings love is said to be a very important thing in a Christians life and that it is not easily acquired it has to be worked on. It is this that separates the religious from the non-religious and those that will be received into the kingdom of God from those that will not. This is thought as very important and significant in a Christian’s life.
- Explain how being a Christian can influence people’s reactions to different moral issues?
Lots of people have different views on different issues. Christians believe that the Ten Commandments are a short set of principles for living.
Strict Christians would take the Ten Commandments literally, so if someone stole a loaf of bread because their children were starving this is wrong no matter what. If someone was to murder, even in self-defence this is wrong and they believe that the person involved should be punished sufficiently. These people are called ‘Deontologists’, because they live by a set of rules, i.e. The Ten Commandments, and if these rules say an action is wrong then it is wrong.
There are some Christians who will look at either the consequences of the action or look at each case individually and then decide what they should do about it. They say that you can not live by a set of rules because every situation is different. These people are called ‘Consequentialists’. They apply a method called Situation Ethics; this is when faced with a decision about what is the right thing to do and they think we should not apply a set of rules to it but act on the basis of love. They believe there is absolutely no right or wrong way to decide what to do, rather that we have to work out each particular situation and then respond in a loving way. This is a more popular way for Christians as the Bible states that love is the most important thing.
The above ways of thinking are known as Ethical Theory. There are many different versions of Deontologist and Consequentialist way of thinking. For example Hedonism is an example of a Deontologist way of thinking. A Hedonist believes that the ‘good’ is pleasant and whatever is pleasant is good. Some people would disagree with this because if rape is pleasant for the rapist to do, then it is right for him to do it in a Hedonist way of thinking. An example of a Consequentialist way of thinking is in Utilitarianism. The Utilitarianism slogan is ‘the greatest good of the greatest number’. This means that all our actions are to be decided upon by finding out which of them produces the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people.
In morality there are two types of wrong actions. There is an absolute action and there is a relative action. An absolute action is something that is right or wrong no matter what, e.g. Rape. A relative action is when whether it is right or wrong depends on the situation, e.g. Homosexuality. The way that people feel about these two ways of thinking will influence how they react to different moral issues. It would be more difficult for a Christian to make these decisions because they also have the Ten Commandments to take into consideration.
- ‘The Church has nothing to teach society’. Do you agree? Give reasons to support your answer and show that you have considered different points of view.
You have to remember that The Bible was written many years ago and even if it were modernised there would still be things in it that would not be relevant to today and may be interpreted differently.
Some people would agree with this statement and say that the Church has nothing to teach society. Their argument for this would be that since there are not that many people who actually believe in God, anything the Church taught them they would just ignore and live their lives the way they want to. These people would agree that The Bible was written many years ago and therefore is not relevant to today.
Some people would disagree and say that The Church does have something to teach society as The Bible is all about love and peace. The Church can then offer advice to members of society about how they should live their lives. The Church knows how to interpret The Bible and therefore can tell interested people what they want to know.
I think the Church does have something to teach society, but it is not that they should believe in God, it is how they should live their life. The Church never once said that the Commandments were to be taken literally, which is how God would have liked them to be understood. The last six commandments are about social issues and are sometimes called the ‘Social Commandments’. For example, in society murder is thought of as wrong and the sixth commandment also says this. The first four commandments are about religion and the Church has never forced people to live by these, even though they were important in the times of Jesus. I think society could learn from the Church if it wanted to that is. Society has a lot to learn and maybe by listening to the Church, but not necessarily believing, then it could be made better.
