Few concepts are more central to ethics than love, but none is more subject to false consolation. This 1999 book explores several theological, philosophical and literary accounts of love, focusing on how it relates to matters such as self-interest and self-sacrifice, and invulnerability and immortality. Timothy Jackson first considers key aspects of what the Bible says about love, then he further examines the meaning of love and sacrifice through a close reading of novels by Fitzgerald and Hemingway. Lastly, he evaluates (...) how love constrains, and is constrained by, other traditional moral concepts. Throughout, Jackson defends the moral priority of what the Christian tradition calls 'agape'. He argues that a proper understanding of agapic love rejects both moral relativism and the comfort of believing that good people cannot be harmed, or that God causally necessitates every historical action and event. When love is thus disconsoled, it neither fears death nor despises life. (shrink)

This book explores the relation between agape (or Christian charity) and social justice. Timothy Jackson defines agape as the central virtue in Christian ethical thought and action and applies his insights to three concrete issues: political violence, forgiveness, and abortion. Taking his primary cue from the New Testament while drawing extensively from contemporary theology and philosophy, Jackson identifies three features of Christian charity: unconditional commitment to the good of others, equal regard for others' well-being, and passionate service open to self-sacrifice (...) for the sake of others. Charity, prescribed by Jesus for his disciples and named by Saint Paul as the "greatest" theological virtue, is contrasted with various accounts of justice. Jackson argues that agape is not trumped by justice or other goods. Rather, agape precedes justice: without the work of love, society would not produce persons capable of merit, demerit, and contract, the elements of most modern conceptions of justice. Jackson then considers the implications of his ideas for several questions: the nature of God, the relation between Christian love and political violence, the place of forgiveness, and the morality of abortion. Arguing that agapic love is to be construed as a gift of grace as well as a divine commandment, Jackson concludes that love is the "eternal life" that makes temporal existence possible and thus the "first" Christian virtue. Though foremost a contribution to Christian ethics, Jackson's arguments and the issues he takes up will find a broader readership. (shrink)

In Anger and Forgiveness, Martha Nussbaum offers a magisterial brief against what she calls “retribution” and “garden‐variety anger.” She does not write as a Christian, but there is much for a Christian ethicist to admire in her learned and creative treatment of moral emotion, including her defense of generosity. Professor Nussbaum is not far from the kingdom of God. I argue, nevertheless, that she blurs or erodes four important distinctions, between justice and love, anger and hatred, retribution and revenge, and (...) utility and sanctity. The upshot is that her call for compassion degenerates into injustice. To justify this appraisal, I lay out Nussbaum’s normative case, identify three major theoretical difficulties with that case, examine briefly the teachings of Socrates and Jesus in relation to revolutionary justice, then note an admitted complexity. (shrink)

Philosophy and theology have always been, in some measure, a matter of rewriting the past. This can be done with more or less objectivity, more or less insight, however. Of late, the job has not been done at all well with respect to the work of Søren Kierkegaard. His legacy is in danger of being coopted by modem nihilists. I argue in this paper that Kierkegaard’s understanding of truth, subjectivity, and paradox promises, in reality, a middle way between the metaextremes (...) of foundational ism and nihilism. He is, in this sense, anti-modem. (shrink)

Philosophy and theology have always been, in some measure, a matter of rewriting the past. This can be done with more or less objectivity, more or less insight, however. Of late, the job has not been done at all well with respect to the work of Søren Kierkegaard. His legacy is in danger of being coopted by modem nihilists. I argue in this paper that Kierkegaard’s understanding of truth, subjectivity, and paradox promises, in reality, a middle way between the metaextremes (...) of foundational ism and nihilism. He is, in this sense, anti-modem. (shrink)

As a die-hard supernaturalist, someone "at two with nature" who would be at one with God, the author has mixed feelings about Theodore Nunez's defense of "naturalism." Unlike neopragmatists, the author is not troubled by Nunez's general realism about value; he takes exception not to Nunez's theoretical account of truth, but to his specific axiology. He does not share Nunez's confidence that "projective nature" can provide reliable moral inspiration, suggesting instead that such inspiration can arise only from trust in the (...) holiness of God. (shrink)

I do four things in this essay: (1) briefly rehearse the biographies of Simone Weil and Etty Hillesum, (2) outline and compare some of the key themes in their lives and works, noting interesting (and also troubling) similarities between them, as well as salient differences, (3) use their examples as lenses through which to look at contemporary attitudes toward altruism vs. self-interest, freedom vs. necessity, eating vs. fasting, and acting vs. writing, and (4) highlight both their strengths and their weaknesses (...) as religious witnesses to the truth. An overarching issue throughout the essay is the relation between the soul and the body, but I am especially concerned with the relation between self-sacrifice and self-love—also known as agape and temporal happiness—when confronted by radical evil. When allowed to correct one another, Weil and Hillesum show us, I believe, how Christian agapism can refuse both hatred and false security, even in an era of terrorism and torture. (shrink)

I defend in this essay the seemingly uncontroversial thesis that God is just. By highlighting the kenotic nature of God’s essential goodness, I rebut arguments by Marilyn Adams, Thomas Morris, and William Alston to the effect that God is too sublime to be bound by obligations to creatures. A straightforward acknowledgement that the God who is Love has freely chosen to be (not merely seem) just, is required by fidelity to Scripture as well as by religious experience. Thus is Christianity’s (...) incarnational faith unHellenized... again. (shrink)

As a die-hard supernaturalist, someone "at two with nature" (Woody Allen) who would be at one with God, the author has mixed feelings about Theodore Nunez's defense of "naturalism." Unlike neopragmatists, the author is not troubled by Nunez's general realism about value; he takes exception not to Nunez's theoretical account of truth, but to his specific axiology. He does not share Nunez's confidence that "projective nature" can provide reliable moral inspiration, suggesting instead that such inspiration can arise only from trust (...) in the holiness of God. (shrink)

If the much discussed fragmentation of the West means that we can seldom hold constructive moral conversations with our near neighbors, why imagine that comparative ethics is feasible as a critical enterprise with a coherent method? How, more specifically, do we understand the relative merits of naturalism, formalism, and supernaturalism as ethical orientations? The author addresses these questions first by examining the meaning of the quoted terms, then by criticizing the inordinate optimism of most naturalisms and formalisms. The article ends (...) by briefly elaborating and defending a supernaturalist conception of Christian love. As a fruit of the Spirit, agape leaves one neither heteronomous nor autonomous, but holy. Such holiness can move one to appreciate, judiciously, cultures different from one's own. (shrink)