Assess the View That Christians Should Obey Moral Commands From the Bible and
Nowhere Else.
There are a multitude of differing views as to what acts as the most important source for
Christian Ethics: the Bible, the Church, agape love, or simply, God. There are ultimately
three approaches that can be taken within Christian ethics, being a heteronomous,
autonomous or theonomous view. This essay will refute the view that Christians should obey
moral commands from the Bible and nowhere else, and rather argue a collective
heteronomous approach works more effectively as it encompasses ethics that are governed
by several sources of law or authority. Moreover this line of argument will include a variety of
scholarly opinions to both challenge and corroborate this stream of thinking.
St Paul and Augustine both corroborate the view that Christians should obey moral
commands from the bible and nowhere else. The scholars assert that as a result of the fall of
man in Genesis chapter 3, human beings are not alone able to judge how to live their lives
as humans inherited original sin from being descendents of Adam and Eve.Therefore within
Christianity, it is of utmost importance that the only way to live a good and proper life must
be revealed through God. For most people within the Christian faith, the most direct and
accurate source of God’s word is found in the Bible, and therefore this introduces the
argument that a theonomous approach has to be taken within Christian ethics and that
Christians should only obey moral commands from the Bible and nowhere else. A
theonomous approach inherits some strengths, with the most compelling line of argument
being that the Bible is said to be infallible and therefore all moral commands are absolute.
Carl Henry corroborates this line of argument to a great extent, arguing there is no ethical
decision in life which Biblical revelation leaves ‘wholly untouched’ and cannot offer some
concrete guidance. The scholar therefore praises the use of a theonomous approach and
argues that the Bible is able to provide guidance for all moral dilemmas, thus arguing there is
no need for Christians to obey moral commands from anywhere else. Moreover the Bible
incorporates propositional revelations, the idea that God reveals himself through ‘truth
statements’ and the Bible is therefore a series of these truth statements which should be
followed directly. The idea of propositional revelation can be corroborated through Timothy
3:16 whereby it states ‘All scripture is divinely inspired and useful for teaching’. Such a
quotation accurately conveys how God is viewed to be the ‘author’ of the Bible and thus the
Bible acts as the only true source of advice and guidance for Christians. This stream of
thinking therefore greatly endorses the view that Christians should obey moral commands
from the Bible and nowhere else as it demonstrates how a theonomous approach is the only
verifiable approach. It is therefore through the arguments of St Paul, Augustine and Henry
that pose some initial strengths to using a theonomous, bible-based approach to Christian
Ethics. Such an approach does, however, need to be evaluated further as it has several
inherent weaknesses.
Contrary to the previous point, some Christians believe that the Bible is not dictated by God,
but rather divinely inspired by him, as previously seen in Timothy 3:16. Their reasoning for
this claim derives from the fact that the Bible consists of many different styles and types of
text which need to be interpreted and understood in different ways. It is therefore clear
through this that the Bible clearly contains human influence, a point which challenges the
notion that the Bible is infallible. Biblicism is ultimately the main weakness when using the
Bible as a sole authoritative source; it calls into question whether Christians need to obey
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