The procedure of ethical justification constitutes the focus for the question of how ethics becomes concrete. This very procedure seems also to be the crystallizing focus on an ernerging tradition in theological ethics. lt neither refers to a »good« reality, nor does it presuppose an ethics on unconditional imperatives. Rather, it belongs to an ethics of creatureliness, which is practiced explicitly as an inherent element of our life with God. The crucial marks of a moraljustification in accordance with this practice (...) of >)life with God« can be concretely described. They are the marks of a Christian freedom which is constituted by the very practice this article talked about. (shrink)

The paper describes the biblical understanding of God’s commanded law in its indispensable political form, i.e. the law of God’s people. This is distinct from a confinement of God’s commandments to a moral code independent from that political context as it is present as the ‘political worship’ of God’s people.This worship has to be seen as the ground for ethics. From here follow consequences for human laws and legislation concerning human life forms. That disposition of theological ethics has been elaborated (...) in a particular form by the Lutheran-Reformed tradition especially in its concepts of God’s twofold regiment and the estates. (shrink)

Looking for ‘the future of Christian ethics’ we have to be aware of different paradigms of theological ethics and its different implications for a theologically reflected notion of future. With regard to the Reformation heritage there can be identified a Protestant paradigm of a Christian moral subject, liberated for a universal rational responsibility related to the future of the human condition on the one hand, and—according to a Lutheran grammar—an ethics of Christian practices within a worshipping community, grounded in God’s (...) ongoing creational work. The future of Christian ethics, then, consists of the continuity of this Christian witness as it is rooted in God’s promises and faithfulness. (shrink)