More and yet more from David Sytsma demonstrating the pride of place of virtue ethics among the Reformers and Protestant traditions with emphasis on the Reformed in a series of seven lectures starting here. Seriously, folks, this is seriously good (and seriously academic) stuff.
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Many years ago I wrote God's Bridle: John Calvin's Application of Natural Law (download here or here). In brief, I established to my own satisfaction that John Calvin was no theonomist or even a biblicist when it came to framing the laws of a political society. Calvin instead drew on the concepts of natural law and epieikeia/aequitas (equity) as developed by ancients like Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca as well as Christian thinkers of the Patristic era and beyond. The Bible functioned as a warrant for (and framed the limited of goals of) political life and as a corrective for errors of the classical pagans. Since then, much more has been written on the relationship of Calvin and the Reformed Tradition to the larger Western legal tradition (e.g., David VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms (go here to read my review)).
Even more recently David Sytsma, associate professor at Tokyo Christian University, has performed a service to everyone interested in Protestant ethical theories. Over the past year Sytsma has published two pieces that demonstrate that Protestants at the time of the Reformation and the next century and a-half drew significantly on the ancients for their work in ethics and politics. Most recently, in Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and Protestantism, Sytsma establishes that Aristotle's great work provided the form for Protestant ethical thinking about the virtues: "In Protestant ethical systems of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Aristotle typically appears as the foremost authority for method and content, even though many other sources are also used."
In the longer John Calvin and Virtue Ethics, Augustinian and Aristotelian Themes, Sytsma takes on everyone who does not believe that Calvin was an ethicist of virtue. After many closely argued pages he concludes that,
[While] Calvin himself did not write a treatise on ethics ... his theology integrates traditional concepts of virtue and he assumes the usefulness of philosophical ethics for civil society. There is no support in Calvin’s writings to support the supposed “repudiation of teleological virtue ethics” by the magisterial reformers for which [Brad S.] Gregory argues [in The Unintended Reformation] (2012, 265). Instead, Calvin’s theological works provide ample justification for the subsequent development of Reformed virtue ethics, whether in the form of ethical treatises on the virtues or commentaries on the Decalogue, which correlate the commandments with virtues.
Recently I had the opportunity to teach a class at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Raleigh on the commandment forbidding theft. During my preparation I was pleased to see that both the Heidelberg and Westminster Catechisms frame their discussions of the Ten Commandments in terms of virtues (duties) and vices (prohibitions). Heidelberg Q&A 110 and 111 make the point succinctly. Starting with the vices:
Q. 110 What does God forbid in the eighth commandment?
A. God forbids not only outright theft and robbery, punishable by law. But in God’s sight theft also includes all scheming and swindling in order to get our neighbor’s goods for ourselves, whether by force or means that appear legitimate, such as inaccurate measurements of weight, size, or volume; fraudulent merchandising; counterfeit money; excessive interest; or any other means forbidden by God. In addition God forbids all greed and pointless squandering of his gifts. (Emphasis added.)
And concluding with the virtues:
Q. 111 What does God require of you in this commandment?
A. That I do whatever I can for my neighbor’s good, that I treat others as I would like them to treat me, and that I work faithfully so that I may share with those in need.
Not only rules but virtues.
It is regrettable that most Evangelicals nowadays have lost a sense of their historic connection with virtue ethics. On the Left, there is a sloppy sentimentalism and painful-to-watch aping of Progressive elites. On the Right, we often see biblicism and just-as-painful worldview-ism.
Here's hoping that we see a revitalization of serious work with the virtues as guides to ethical and political life with folks like David Sytsma mining the past.
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