Second and conversely the positive accent which ethics acquires with the distinction can from the very outset prove to be a source of error for the way in which the goodness of human conduct can be a theme in theology. Those who radically distinguish dogmatics and ethics undertake to show how far different inquiries and methodologies really underlie the two. But so far as one can see, the result of this is highly suspect. ⌜I will give some illustrations from the more recent history of theological ethics.⌝
According to Schleiermacher (Chr. Sitte, p. 23)38 dogmatics has to ask what has to be because the religious form of the self-consciousness, the religious frame of mind, is, while ethics has to ask what must become of, and through, the religious self-consciousness because the religious self-consciousness is. We in contrast ask how it is possible in theology to posit the religious self-consciousness as being, as a given entity, as a given methodological starting point. And if this is done, will the description of what should become of and through the religious self-consciousness become theological ethics, the theological determination of the goodness of human conduct, or will it become something entirely different?
⌜According to Christian Palmer (Die Moral d. Chrts., p. 21f.)39 the difference between dogmatics and ethics is simply that between the divine and the human. Doctrine sets before us what God has done and achieved for us by his saving revelation, so that we do not first have to act, to bring offerings, or to do works in order to save our souls, but may simply accept what has already been fully done, placing ourselves and grounding ourselves on the foundation that has already been laid for all eternity. But the kingdom of God is also at the same time the result of human and morally free activity, every true moral act being just as much the work of man as of God. Ethics has to do with the human side of the kingdom of God mediated through the human will, i.e., through free human action. We ask whether the kingdom of God is really manifest to us in this sense as the act of man, or whether the shift of glance from the acts of God to the act of man does not necessarily signify a change to another genre which subsequently raises the question whether doctrine as thus coordinated is really dealing with the acts of God and not in the last resort with the Schleiermacherian analysis of the human self-consciousness.⌝
According to A. Ritschl (Rechtf. u. Vers, III4, p. 14)40 dogmatics covers all the stipulations of Christianity in the schema of God’s work, while ethics, presupposing knowledge of these, embraces the sphere of personal and corporate Christian life in the schema of personal activity. We ask how one can manage to embrace the Christian life as such in theology. We also ask in what sense human activity deserves to be called the theme of a true theological ethics.
According to T. Haering (D. Chr. L., p. 9f.)41 doctrine shows how the kingdom of God as God’s gift becomes a kind of personal possession by faith in Christ, while morals shows us that as this faith is a spur and power enabling us to work at the task enclosed in the gift, the kingdom of God will be realized, coming increasingly to us and through us, “here in time and then eternally.” We ask how it can be “shown” in theology that faith in Christ is a power and spur enabling us to cooperate in the actualization of the kingdom of God. Will not the spur and power which can be “shown” be something quite other than faith, and will not the ethics which confidently thinks it can “show” them be something other than theological ethics? |
According to O. Kirn (Grundr. d. E., p. 1)42 dogmatics looks at the Christian life in terms of its foundation on God’s saving revelation and therefore from the standpoint of “believing receptivity,” while ethics looks at it in terms of its active development and therefore from the standpoint of “believing spontaneity.” We ask how either dogmatics or ethics can look at the Christian life which, according to Colossians 3:3, is hidden in God, and whether a presentation of what we can indeed look at in the form of “believing spontaneity” really deserves to be called theological ethics. ⌜All these conceptions are variations on the old Augustinian theme that we must view together divine and human action in grace as two sides of one and the same event. The possibility of doing this, however, is more problematical than is conceded here.⌝ |
According to Schlatter (p. 30) the relation is as follows. We do dogmatics when we take note of what we have become and of what we perceive in us, while we do ethics when we clarify what we are to become and to make of ourselves. When the dogmatician has shown us God’s work that has taken place for and in us, the ethicist shows us our own work that is apportioned to us because we are God’s work. We ask what it means in theology to take note of, to perceive, to clarify, or to show. Does not the particularity of theological perceiving and showing mean that there can be no question of this kind of binding division of the problem into God’s work and ours, that the perception of what we are to become and to make of ourselves, the displaying of our own work (notwithstanding all the protestations that we ourselves are God’s work) can never lead to a theological ethics? |
According to Carl Stange (Dogm. I, pp. 50ff.)43 dogmatics considers all the detailed statements of the Christian faith and shows that the essence of Christianity established in the symbols corresponds to the ideal that religious philosophy has generally demonstrated to be the nature of religion, thus indicating that Christianity is a religion of revelation. Ethics offers a similar proof in relation to the effect of Christianity on the shaping of historical life. A historical manifestation of a particular form of historical life must always represent the outworking of the nature or essence proper to this form. As ethics describes these outworkings, which can be understood only as outworkings of the essence of Christianity, and as it thus describes the essence of the Christianity that produces them, it, too, shows that Christianity is the religion of revelation. Now even assuming that this demonstration is a meaningful enterprise, and even assuming that it is possible to place oneself with Schleiermacher on the elevated platform from which Christianity can be seen as a specific form of historical life and by means of an ideal concept of religion measured against other such forms of historical life, we ask how one can establish in theology—our objection to Stange is the same as to all the rest—the continuity between the “manifestation” and the “essence” of this particular form of historical life. Does the revelational nature of Christianity transfer itself so naturally to the manifestation, to its historical outworking, that without further ado one can simply read off the former from the latter? How can an ethics which turns truly and honestly to the manifestation establish any claims to be called theological ethics?
We regard all these attempts at a methodological distinction between dogmatics and ethics as ethically suspect because with great regularity there takes place in all of them a suspicious change in direction, a suspicious exchange of subjects, namely, of God and man, as may be seen at its crassest in the formula of Schlatter. This suspicious exchange, however, rests on the suspicious hypothesis that revelation puts theology in a position to speak of God and man in one