The other day, I received in the mail The Sources of Christian Ethics, by the world-renowned Servais Pinckaers.
What do you mean, you’ve never heard of him?
Okay, so I’m more of a nerd than a geek, and I’m big on dudes in ethics circles. Sue me.
Anyway, I’m only about fifty pages in, but I already have so many reasons to love it:
- He puts ethical and moral ideas into historical context – so you get a sense of why different people said the things they did
- He sorts through the relationship between human ethics, which in theory can be known and applied by all people everywhere, and specifically Christian ethics, which is based on the revelation of Jesus Christ; this is a big question for me, since I’m after an ethical approach that can be applied universally
- He takes head on the relationship between Greek philosophical virtue ethics and Judeo-Christian scriptural ethics, and specifically how Thomas Aquinas works with them both
- I just love saying the name “Pinckaers” because it sounds exactly like “pink hairs” and makes me think of some Beverly Hills poodle
More to come on this, of course. But for now, I just want to cite his definition of Christian ethics:
Christian ethics is that branch of theological wisdom that studies human actions so as to direct them to the loving vision of God, which is complete happiness and our final end. This is done under the impulse of the theological and moral virtues, especially charity and justice, with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is effected through experiences of the human condition such as suffering and sin, and is implemented by laws of behavior and commandments, which reveal God’s ways to us.
