Abstract

The shape of the moral life is determined for Christians at least in part by beliefs peculiar to Christians, and a perennial problem for Christian ethics is relating that peculiar understanding to more general claims about moral knowledge. Since the problem is perennial, I propose not to solve it but to think about it. I do so by considering first the sense in which Christian ethics may be a kind of "insider's" ethic-the shared language of believers. Despite the strengths of such a view, it may too greatly restrict both human and divine freedom. Having considered its difficulties from both those angles, I return to the sense of Christian life as a tradition of conduct in order to illustrate the importance of such a vision in our cultural setting