Biblical history begins in a garden but ends with a garden in the center of a cubic city. The city of God in the book of Revelation is a communal human reflection of the communicating, productive nature of the Godhead, expressed first in the village, then the town, then the city. These progressions of migration and city building we call “urbanization.”
Twentieth-Century Urban Explosion An explosion of megacities in the last century has led to the urban millennium. In the year 2000 there were 433 new megacities with a population over 4 million and 6,600 cities over 100,000. This is largely the result of technological advances in the sanitary and health fields, enabling people to live longer, and of advances in productivity, enabling people to live better.
Pushed from rural land by overpopulation, warfare, deforestation, appropriation of lands, and pulled toward cities by the good life seen on television, education, access to medical care, and the possibility of jobs, more than one billion people have migrated in the last decade. The majority migrate from cohesive tribal or peasant communities via dispossession and poverty into the disorganization of slums and favelas, without rights to land and legal status. They are employed in the “informal sector” with poorly paid part-time jobs. Industrial growth ranges from 1 to 4 percent, whereas population growth ranges from 6 to 12 percent. In the last generation the children of the slums have increasingly become children of the streets, and drug addiction has escalated so that many slums are now controlled by drug gangs. But a global middle class of one billion (out of the three billion people found in cities) has also emerged with their distinctive consumer goods—their jeans, their cars, their iPods.
Urban Theological Approaches Urban background to the early church. The context of the early church was largely urban. Richard Batey describes Sepphoris, a Roman city only four miles from Nazareth, suggesting the potential impact of Greek and Roman urban culture on the earliest Jesus movement. Focusing on the Pauline mission and churches, Wayne Meeks describes first-century urban churches across the empire.
Comprehensive urban theologies. Jacques Ellul’s The Meaning of the City is the most comprehensive urban theology of the last century. Harvie Conn explored historical responses by the church to the city, as it interacted with the cosmopolis of the Roman Empire, the theopolis of Christendom, the megalopolis, and now the global city. His integrated work with Manuel Ortiz includes exegesis of many biblical books in their relationship to the city.
Urban conversational theologies. Most urban practitioners deal with theologies of context, focusing on particular issues rather than urbanization as a whole. Urban theologies tend to be eclectic, crossing theological divides, incarnational in style, based on story (Grigg, “Transformational Conversations”), engaged with oppression that causes poverty, and integrating justice and proclamation.
Urban mission studies and postmodern cities. Church planters on the frontlines of non-Christian religions have developed a stream of responses to urbanization, emphasizing the incarnational and evangelistic formation of holistic churches as a primary goal. Since these responses deal with poverty as a primary context, they draw on urban economic theories (de Soto), focus on the holistic church among the poor (Grigg, Companion to the Poor), and relate urban anthropological studies to church growth (Hiebert and Meneses).
A second stream is essentially British and American, where the institutional church already exists as a significant player in a highly government-funded context of meeting social needs within cities (Bakke).
These perspectives draw on urban studies derived from the comprehensive sociology of Max
Weber in The City (1958) and further developed by the “Chicago School.” They emphasize urbanism as a way of life, migration, family and kinship, class, ethnicity, and urban places and spaces. Urban planners and geographers highlight other issues of infrastructure, transportation, or public services. Newer works related to the emergence of postmodern cities are being produced (Dear).
Some theologians (Linthicum; Tonna) explore these structural issues, but as scores of new cities spring up in the desert sands of the East and a thousand new cities are planned for China, there is little theological engagement with the underlying ethics of urban growth and design represented in urban planning and thinking.
The Nature of God Predicts the Nature of Urbanization
What is the nature of godly urbanization? From the first chapters of Genesis, we can predict the nature of today’s cities. This is because cities grow out of the collective nature of humankind, which itself reflects the very nature of God, as God is described in Gen. 1.
Cities also grow toward the nature of God’s city, as expressed in the apocalyptic visions of the city of God in Revelation. Beginning with Augustine’s City of God, this theme has always been one of defining Christian utopias, of envisioning the “good” city.
The narratives in Gen. 4 and Gen. 11 complement these optimistic themes, with a more somber perspective on the city of collective fallen humanity, for these first cities are built in rebellion against God. Cain, cursed by God to be a wanderer, builds a city in defiance. His heirs later build Babel, a city where humans determine to reach God by their own patterns, a city that God steps in to destroy.
Redemption history has been described as the history of struggle between these two cities, the city of God and the city of humanity. The two cities are symbolized in Revelation by Jerusalem, the city of shalom, where God has set his presence, and by Babylon, the city of opulent oppression, the city against God. The outcome of the ongoing spiritual warfare is the triumph of the city of God with the violent overthrow of Babylon by God himself (Rev. 18). Then the bride of Christ, which is the city of God, is fully revealed in all its glory (Rev. 21).
God of creation: Cities of creativity. The Spirit’s presence before creation lends credence to the importance of prayer and the work of Spirit-filled believers in creation of cities. Humankind also reflects God’s capacity to create something out of nothing. Cities that can innovatively copy and improve on items they import, then reexport them, are cities that grow economically.
God the communicator: Cities as centers of media and academe. In the silence of Gen. 1, we hear a recurrent voice (vv. 3, 6, 9, 14, 20, 24, 26), an ongoing creative process. Here is the basis of a present focus on the incarnate word in the urban church and the preached word of God as source of the creation of the city. Humans seek to communicate, so cities become the center of television, internet, and radio.
God of the aesthetic: City as environment. The city is also to be aesthetically pleasing, just as the garden was good. It is to be ecologically integrated, and humanity is to manage it. Geographers and mathematicians currently utilizing fractal analysis in urban studies perceive a hand outside of humankind generating patterns into which urban growth falls. The end of urban demography is predicted when the Scriptures speak of a cubic city, one thousand stadia high, long, and wide.
God also holds the people of this city accountable for their spatial relationships. A theology of urban planning flows from God’s care and provision, and God’s delegation of managerial responsibility.
The creation of Adam from dust requires our humanness to remain connected to the environment. The disconnection of tribal people from their land, of migrants from basic necessities of life, and of youth from their fathers—these realities help to create the dissonances leading to youth gangs, a neurotic society, and teen suicide. Restoring healthy environments is an essential activity of the Godhead and of followers of Christ.
God as community: City as managed community. The city is also relational. God says, “Let us make.” As in the Godhead, there is the companionship that works itself out in many areas: entertainment, sports, media, family life, and recreational activities.
God structures: City as productive structure. In the first three days recorded in Genesis, God creates form out of formlessness, then fills the form with life. City planning and city management should be a reflection of that godly activity, for cities are centers of structures. For example, the agricultural system is based in rural cities; banking structures built off the production of the land are also based in cities. The mandate given to manage resources leads to issues of efficiency and productivity, patterns of decision-making, and the spatial form and function of the city. God creates things to be fruitful, and from this comes wealth. The city is a center of productive economic growth.
Secularization and urbanization. The godly city in the book of Revelation centers on the King of kings and his light-giving, and it is watered by the river, symbolic of the life-giving Holy Spirit. Thus, one aim of developing a city in which the church is growing (as with its other healthy systems) is that its worshiping nature become centrally illuminating and life-giving to city systems.
There has been significant sociological literature on the increase in secularization during urbanization. It became the basis of Harvey Cox’s urban theology in The Secular City. The expansion of urban fundamentalist and experiential religions is increasingly evident.
Oppression and justice. The prophets speak of justice in the city. Where is there a city that is incrementally just over time and space, where there is a sense of fairness in the distribution of resources?
In highly oppressive cities, where poverty results from exploitation, Christians become active in defending the poor, in seeking justice, and in creating systems of justice. This work in most contexts is incremental and localized as the church expands rapidly among the poor of the slums, and as the rich and middle class seek to transfer wealth to the needy. Christian theologies and practices of community organization result in political processes reaching toward transformation of power relationships (Linthicum).
See also Creation Ethics; Economic Development; Globalization; Humanity; Poverty and Poor; Property and Possessions
Bibliography
Bakke, R. A Theology as Big as the City. InterVarsity, 1997; Batey, R. Jesus and the Forgotten City: New Light on Sepphoris and the Urban World of Jesus. Baker, 1991; Conn, H., and M. Ortiz. Urban Ministry: The Kingdom, the City, and the People of God. InterVarsity, 2001; Cox, H. The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective. Macmillan, 1965; Dear, M. The Postmodern Urban Condition. Blackwell, 2000; de Soto, H. The Other Path: The Economic Answer to Terrorism. Trans. J. Abbott. Harper & Row, 1989; Ellul, J. The Meaning of the City. Trans. D. Pardee. Attic Press, 1997; Greenway, R., and T. Monsma. Cities: Missions’ New Frontier. Baker, 1989; Grigg, V Companion to the Poor. Authentic Media, 2004; idem. “Transformational Conversations.” Pages 20-32 in The Holy Spirit and the Postmodern City: Transformative Revival among Auckland’s Evangelicals and Pentecostals. Urban Leadership Foundation, 2009; Hiebert, P., and E. Meneses. Incarnational Ministry: Planting Churches in Band, Tribal, Peasant and Urban Societies. Baker, 1995; Linthicum, R. City of God, City of Satan: A Biblical Theology of the Urban Church. Zondervan, 1991; Meeks, W The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul. Yale University Press, 1983; Soja, E. Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory. Verso, 1989; Tonna, B. Gospel for the Cities: A Socio-Theology of Urban Ministry. Trans. W. Jerman. Wipf & Stock, 2004; Weber, M. The City. Trans. and ed. D. Martindale and G. Neuwirth. Free Press, 1958.
Viv Grigg
In moral decision-making there are at least two broad approaches: deontology and consequen-tialism. Deontologists judge actions according to their conformity with a particular law or rule. Consequentialists judge actions primarily by the consequences that the act produces or the goals toward which it tends. A consequentialist sometimes is willing to advocate breaking a law for the sake of achieving a greater good.
Utilitarianism is a special kind of consequen-tialism associated with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Contemporary scholars tend to summarize the main principles of utilitarianism in one of two related ways. First, utilitarianism sometimes is associated with seeking the “greatest good for the greatest number,” so that an action is understood to be moral if it benefits more people than it harms. Second, classic utilitarianism sometimes is described in terms of the maximization of happiness (or pleasure): an act is moral when it leads to the most possible happiness for an individual or community. Both of these definitions presume that the goodness of an act is understood in terms of its “utility,” its tendency to produce good outcomes.
Utilitarian Reasoning in Scripture
Many scriptural texts run counter to utilitarian reasoning. The dominant witness of the NT is that all humans are equal and all life is worth preserving. Galatians 3:28 affirms the equality of all persons in Christ, and throughout the Gospels Jesus speaks of God’s care for each individual person. The story of the sheep and goats speaks to God’s concern for and identification with those humans who are part of the “least” significant spheres of society (Matt. 25:31-46). Jesus interacts with social outcasts (Matt. 9:10-13; Mark 2:13-17; Luke 5:27-32; 19:1-10; John 4:7-39), treats children with special care (Matt. 19:13-15; Mark 10:1316; Luke 18:15-17), and praises the actions of a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep in order to find the one that is lost (Matt. 18:10-14; Luke 15:3-7). The idea that the good of some persons can be sacrificed for the sake of a greater number of people is at odds with these texts’ emphasis upon care for all persons. The only exception is in the case of sacrificing one’s own good for others. Jesus commends the self-sacrifice of one’s life for the sake of friends as the greatest love (John 15:13), and such love is exemplified in Christ’s own actions, the actions of a shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep (John 10:14-18).
The witness of Scripture is more complicated, however, when one thinks of utilitarianism in terms of happiness. Certainly, in the Christian understanding, the moral life does not necessarily lead to short-term pleasure or happiness, and it may in fact lead to martyrdom. But Scripture and the tradition simultaneously affirm that a moral life should produce its own kind of fulfillment and happiness consistent with the ends for which God created us; it is expected that Christians will ultimately find joy and contentment in a relationship with God. The Puritan pastor Jonathan Edwards preached his first sermon, “Christian Happiness,” arguing that God loves us so much that God created moral laws to coincide with the things that ultimately will make humans joyful. For this reason, Edwards believed, it is appropriate to speak of Christian morality as leading to happiness. The quality of this happiness, however, is different from the happiness upheld by some forms of utilitarianism. It is perhaps more appropriate to speak of Christian happiness in terms of joy than in terms of pleasure, for pleasure is a quality that may be fleeting or temporary.
Contemporary Application
Several arguments in twentieth-century Christian ethics rely upon a type of consequentialist reasoning. In the 1970s, Roman Catholic theologian Richard McCormick and Protestant theologian Paul Ramsey collaborated on an edited volume called Doing Evil to Achieve Good. This book signified a consensus among many American ethicists that it is impossible to avoid doing evil, on some level, when addressing certain moral dilemmas that arise in healthcare ethics and in the ethics of war and peace. Both Ramsey and McCormick advocated a method for addressing these dilemmas that many scholars call “proportional-ism.” This method allows for the moral permissibility of actions that produce evils in certain circumstances when the evils are outweighed by compelling goods. Many contemporary ethicists continue to advocate proportionalist reasoning, contending that it is the only authentic way to address certain situations in which evil outcomes are unavoidable. However, proportionalism has come under significant critique from other scholars who insist that certain moral norms should never be compromised.
See also Consequentialism; Deontological Theories of Ethics; Double Effect, Principle of; Happiness; Teleological Theories of Ethics
Bibliography
Edwards, J. “Christian Happiness.” Pages 294—307 in Sermons and Discourses 1720—1723, vol. 10 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards, ed. W. Kimmach. Yale University Press, 1992; McCormick, R., and P Ramsey. Doing Evil to Achieve Good: Moral Choice in Conflict Situations. Loyola University Press, 1978.
Elizabeth Agnew Cochran
Values are guiding principles and enduring beliefs within a community about that which is good and desirable and that which is not. Values are ascriptions of worth that emerge from personal, institutional, cultural, and religious norms. As such, values assign worth to an object, a state of being, an action, humans, and so forth. Values include an ethical evaluation pertaining to specific social issues or social conditions. Value judgments are the application of values to pursue identified ends and goals. Value judgments depend on implicit understandings of value theory, a clarification of what possesses worth or value. Thus, values, value judgments, and value theory are interwoven.
Christian Accounts of Values and Value Judgments
Christianity traditionally holds central the values of unconditional love, hope, righteousness, forgiveness, truth, compassion, justice, honoring God, the renunciation of violence, and the rejection of excessive materialism (e.g., Matt. 5:43-45; 22:36-40; Mark 10:21; 12:32-34; Luke 6:26-28). These Christian values correspond to believers’ attempts to follow Jesus’ life and work. Such values, though, also have a context within Christian Scriptures that must be carefully examined. Significant interpretive questions emerge here regarding the religious, historical, and socioeconomic context of the earliest churches in formulating such value judgments and what weight these value judgments should carry for Christians today.
Indeed, the role of the Christian Scriptures in the formation of values is complex. Some scholars see the Scriptures as a source of divine command whereby accounts of what humans should value are clear and distinct (Mouw 32). For other scholars, the Scriptures provide a singular value trajectory—for example, “love”—toward which humans must aim (Fletcher 57). Another argument here is that the Scriptures provide pluralistic accounts of values and as such must be described, contextualized, interpreted, and applied (Hays 4-7). Finally, some scholars contend that the
Scriptures as interpreted and practiced by Christian communities themselves become central in the formation of specific values, such as the practice of nonviolence in the earliest church, and how such values might be properly embodied by Christians today (Yoder 1-7).
Several matrices have emerged within the Christian tradition to adjudicate issues of values and value judgments. Protestant evangelicals widely embrace both the unity and normativity of the Scriptures in articulating values and value judgments. Such accounts emphasize the pervasive impact of sin on human judgment, reason, and cognition and thus the need for divine revelation to make known the values that humans should embrace (Mouw 32). Many Roman Catholic approaches focus on natural-law traditions. Catholic natural-law traditions argue that all rational persons can, with the aid of God, both know and act on universally held values. Other Catholic accounts fuse the natural-law tradition, direct engagement with the Christian Scriptures, and phenomenological insights regarding the human person in order to clarify values and value judgments (John Paul II 3-11).
Narrative theologians argue against both evangelical and natural-law approaches and contend that values are rooted in the Christian narrative and its communal interpretation of Christian Scriptures and practices (Hauerwas 17-28). Postmodernist theologians reject arguments that values can be known through universal reason available to all humans; instead, postmodernist theologians contend that humans know and act on values through linguistically and socially constructed realities (Van-hoozer 166-67). Process theologians have stressed the creativity of both God and humans in constructing emerging accounts of value as a response to the evolutionary and relational nature of the cosmos. Thus, values are by the nature of the cosmos dynamic and subject to change (Suchocki 155). Feminist theologians emphasize the patriarchal construction of values both in the Christian Scriptures and in present societies. As such, both ancient and contemporary values that dehumanize and enslave women and men require critique, reassessment, and enlightened engagement (Ruether 213). Liberation-ist theologians have stressed accounts of values that utilize empirical data to assess unjust social and class formations in contemporary society. Liberationist theologians see values as rooted in the trajectories of Christian Scriptures that point toward God’s hope for the liberation of humans from oppression. As such, personal freedom, community, and solidarity with the outcast of society emerge as central values for liberationist theologians (Gutierrez 193-94). Still other theologians construe values as expressing the relationship of being to being. Here, “value exists in the reciprocal relations which beings realizing potentiality have to other beings. In this situation every good is an end and every good a means” (Niebuhr 105).
Some recent Christian movements have defined “family values” as the promotion and upholding of the nuclear family, sexual abstinence outside of marriage, the rejection of same-sex behavior, prayer in public schools, the rejection of all forms of abortion, the rejection of stem-cell research, and more generally as the conflict between Christian and non-Christian value judgments. Several scholars have challenged such interpretations of values: “Today’s phrase family values connotes a solidarity in family identity that the first Christians found highly suspect, if not condemnable” (Cahill 18).
Other Christian accounts of values and value judgments in the twentieth century have been supplemented, enriched, and challenged by ecumenical engagement with other living religious traditions. Mainline expressions of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism and Islam focus on the values of loving-kindness, learning and wisdom, honoring God, remembrance, repentance and forgiveness, justice, purity, and righteousness. Buddhism generates values based on the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. As such, one’s views, intentions, speech, action, livelihood, efforts, mindfulness, and concentration are focused on the true nature of reality, and as such are dedicated to the eradication of hatred, greed, and falsehood (Dalai Lama 31).
All of these religious approaches to values and value judgments emerged in the twentieth century alongside both the tremendous hopes for the advancement of society (through science, education, human rights, etc.) and the fears associated with the vast destruction of society (through war, genocide, human-rights violations, famine, population explosions, and environmental degradation).
Economic, Sociological, and Other Accounts of Values
Christian notions of values and value judgments interact with and are shaped deeply by nonreligious accounts (and vice versa). Christian theologians were deeply shaped by Stoic, Platonic, and Aristotelian intellectual traditions that played important roles in determining values. Modern secular accounts of values have profoundly shaped these conversations, including the capitalism of Adam Smith, the democratic ideals of
Thomas Jefferson, the utilitarianism of Jeremy
Bentham and John Stuart Mill, the socialism of Karl Marx, the skepticism of Friedrich Nietzsche, the social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer, and the pragmatism of John Dewey. Moreover, more recent notions of economic value in the twentieth century have challenged traditional Christian understandings of value judgments. The economist Gary Becker has argued that values are fully explained by utilizing the economic notions of market equilibrium, stable preferences, and the maximization of behavior (Becker 1-14). Such economic accounts of values and value judgments have shaped modern society pervasively and profoundly.
Sociological interpretations of economic wellbeing (including technological change, improving health and life expectancy, rising incomes, rising educational levels, etc.) also have illuminated significantly both values formation and value judgments. Indeed, improvements in socioeconomic conditions have been linked to a shift from premodern traditional values to the values of industrialized societies that emphasize personal choice, freedom of personal expression, and the democratization of society. Longitudinal data presented in the World Values Survey sheds significant light on contemporary understandings of values and value judgments in light of religious affiliation, economic and social development (or underdevelopment), gender, country of origin, race, and so on (Inglehart and Welzel 135-48).
Finally, evolutionary and naturalistic accounts of value judgments enlighten both the universal nature of certain values (e.g., disgust for “foul” or “foreign” objects) and the progression of certain values (e.g., attitudes toward slavery [Hauser 406, 421]). Likewise, quantitative approaches to value judgments have proved remarkably important in understanding how humans process and form values. Quantitative testing can illuminate the highly subjective nature of value judgments, the cognitive biases that plague the formation and articulation of values, and the universal value codes seemingly present in all human societies (Kahneman and Tversky; Hauser 2-15).
Philosophical Distinctions in Values and Value Judgments
Philosophical qualifications of values and value judgments are important here. Philosophical monism argues that only one supreme value exists. This might refer to a singular ethical or religious approach supplying value or to one supreme value within a system of ethics. Philosophical pluralism, in contrast, argues that multiple values exist. A pluralistic approach might contend that many value systems exist, or that multiple values emerge within a particular ethical system.
Values can also be described as universal (applicable and discernible everywhere) or relative (dependent on cultural or historical realities). Important arguments here on the relativity of values have framed many seminal philosophical exchanges. Other important distinctions in value theory include notions of intrinsic value (things or persons having value “in themselves”) and extrinsic value (value as derivative from something else). Moreover, when two values cannot be compared using a common framework, they are described as incommensurable. For example, the values of fidelity and equality might be incommensurable if no common standard exists for measuring these (Rolston 98-102, 111-15, 151, 186-89).
Value judgments, then, include the act of putting values to work. Value judgments can be epistemic, aesthetic, prudential, moral/ethical, religious, and so forth. A value judgment is a determination of worth and can be clarified by a rigorous examination of the hierarchy of values that emerges as humans affix importance to objects, states of being, humans, and so on. Value judgments may conflict. Thus, a mechanism for sorting and assigning a hierarchy of values is helpful to provide coherence (Rolston 186-87).
See also Comparative Religious Ethics; Cross-Cultural Ethics; Deontological Theories of Ethics; Natural Law
Bibliography
Becker, G. The Economic Approach to Human Behavior. University of Chicago Press, 1976; Cahill, L. Family: A Christian Social Perspective. Fortress, 2000; Dalai Lama. The Essential Dalai Lama: His Important Teachings. Ed. R. Mehrotra. Penguin Books, 2006; Fletcher, J. Situation Ethics: The New Morality. Westminster, 1966; Gutierrez, G. The Power of the Poor in History. SCM, 1979; Hauerwas, S. The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics. University of Notre Dame Press, 1983; Hauser, M. Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong. Ecco, 2006; Hays, R. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, and New Creation; A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics. HarperSanFrancisco, 1996; Inglehart, R., and C. Welzel. Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence. Cambridge University Press, 2005; John Paul II. The Splendor of Truth: Veritatis Splendor, Encyclical Letter. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1993; Kahneman, D., and A. Tversky “Choices, Values, and Frames.” Pages 1—16 in Choices, Values, and Frames, ed. D. Kahneman and A. Tversky Cambridge University Press, 2000; Moore, G. Principia Ethica. Ed. T. Baldwin. Rev. ed. Cambridge University Press, 1993; Mouw, R. “Biblical Imperatives.” Pages 31—33 in From Christ to the World: Introductory Readings in Christian Ethics, ed. W. Bolton, T. Kennedy, and A. Verhey Eerdmans, 1994; Niebuhr, H. “The Center of Value.” Pages 100—113 in Radical Monotheism and Western Culture: With Supplementary Essays, ed. J. Gustafson. Westminster John Knox, 1970; Rolston, H. Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the Natural World. Temple University Press, 1988; Ruether, R. Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. Beacon Press, 1983; Suchocki, M. The End of Evil: Process Eschatology in Historical Context. State University of New York Press, 1988; Vanhoozer, K. Is There a Meaning in This Text? The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge. Zondervan, 1998; Yoder, J. When War Is Unjust: Being Honest in Just-War Thinking. Augsburg, 1984.
Daniel E. McFee
The term vegetarianism was not coined until the nineteenth century, but as a practice, vegetarianism was widespread in the ancient world. The Greek philosopher Pythagoras, who lived in the sixth century BCE, is thought to have been the first Western vegetarian, and esoteric groups associated with his name carried on this dietary practice well into the first several centuries of the Christian era. Several church fathers, including Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria, not only referred to the Pythagorean diet but also developed a Christian version of vegetarianism as an alternative to it.
Church fathers who defended a plant-based diet did so on several grounds. First, they were indebted to Greek medical philosophy that attributed sexual and physical aggression to the consumption of meat, especially the blood in meat. Second, they argued that Adam and Eve were vegetarians in the garden of Eden, since the animals were tame and there was no violence in paradise (Gen. 1:30). Third, they argued that God granted permission for humans to eat meat only after the flood, when Noah and his descendants had to eat animals out of necessity (Gen. 9:1-4). Moreover, this permission was an accommodation to the fallen state of humankind. Fourth, they argued that the Jewish dietary law was evidence of a compromise between the peaceful diet of the garden of Eden and the gluttonous and cruel diet of the fall. Fifth, they argued that the council at Jerusalem, at which Paul and Peter divided their missionary responsibilities, kept in place the ban on consuming blood that was central to the Jewish diet (Acts 15:19-21). Sixth, and finally, they argued that the kingdom that God promised for the end times would include harmonious relations between people and animals, thus implying that vegetarianism was an appropriate way to anticipate the eschaton (Isa. 11:6-9).
Remarkably, all of these arguments were submerged in church history only to reappear in the nineteenth century, when many Christian groups rediscovered vegetarianism and began promoting it for both theological and medical reasons. The modern case for vegetarianism is, thus, rooted in the earliest Christian theologians.
Vegetarianism was never required as the daily diet for believers in the early church for a variety of reasons. First, it was associated with dualistic heretical groups such as gnostics and the Manichae-ans. These groups identified the eating of meat with the consumption of fallen spirits embedded in animals, and they treated a plant-based diet as a work of merit necessary for the cleansing of the soul. They also were influenced by Eastern versions of reincarnation, which might have been one of the rationales behind Pythagoras’s version of vegetarianism. Second, the early church was trying to distance itself from the more legalistic aspects of the Jewish tradition and, as a missionary movement, was not interested in erecting new barriers to fellowship. Third, many theologians argued that Jesus intended to free his followers from the more cumbersome aspects of Jewish legislation.
Nevertheless, vegetarianism remained as a sign of holiness, as demonstrated by two features of early Christianity. First, the church expected believers to fast on Fridays, a practice that slowly permitted the consumption of fish but no other animal flesh. The church also required a meatless diet for the period of Lent. Second, vegetarianism became the common diet of monasticism, with Benedict requiring it for monks in his rule, with the exception of the elderly and the ill.
See also Asceticism Bibliography
Hobgood-Oster, L. Holy Dogs and Asses: Animals in the Christian Tradition. University of Illinois Press, 2008; Linzey, A. Animal Theology. University of Illinois Press, 1995; Webb, S. Good Eating. Brazos, 2001; Young, R. Is God a Vegetarian? Christianity, Vegetarianism, and Animal Rights. Open Court, 1999.
Stephen H. Webb
The concept of vice is best elucidated with reference to the concepts of virtue and sin. The most prominent accounts of virtue in the history of Christian ethics have roots in Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic thought. According to these schools, a virtue (Gk. arete; Lat. virtus) is a good habit of the soul that is acquired over time as one seeks to respond well to the circumstances of life. It is an interior state that disposes one to think, feel, and act in ways that exhibit good human functioning. Ancient philosophers analyze vice in less detail than they do virtue. Vice (Gk. mochtheria or kakia; Lat. vitium) is generally conceived as virtue’s contrary, as a bad habit of the soul. It is a habit that disposes one to think, feel, and act in disordered and dysfunctional ways. Whereas virtue is caused directly by choosing to respond to situations in ways that one judges to be fine, vice is usually caused less directly by consenting to weaknesses and failures within the self. A vice is typically caused by repeatedly avoiding moral knowledge, failing to recollect and apply the knowledge one has, or applying it in a self-deceived and self-serving manner because one is motivated by appetites or emotions that are not governed by reason.
Ancient philosophers reveal that vice is self-defeating. When one is in the grip of a vice, one behaves in ways that are contrary to the laws of nature, most notably the laws of human nature, which determine what is and is not possible for humans and what is necessary for human flourishing. One fails to serve as one’s own master, and one becomes, instead, a slave to objects outside oneself and to the desires and pleasures that these objects evoke. Medical metaphors are prevalent in this ethical literature. Under the influence of a vice, one’s soul becomes sick. The moral philosopher is imaged as a physician whose role is to heal the sick soul, or to help the soul heal itself, through the application of prescribed rational therapies, including critical reflection on what is most important in life.
In Christian ethics, as in Greco-Roman philosophical ethics, vice is conceived relative to virtue. It is conceived also relative to sin. A sin is an act that violates the law of reason, the law of God, or both. The repetition of a sinful act leads predictably to a vice, but a vice is more than a disposition to act badly; it is an interior state that can involve the corruption of every aspect of one’s moral agency. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas have contributed much to Christian thinking about virtue and vice. For Augustine, a virtue is a form of well-ordered love. It is a tendency, made possible by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, to adhere to God as one’s highest good. It is a tendency also to interact with finite goods only as required to help oneself and others to love God. A vice, by contrast, is a form of disordered love. It is a tendency to occupy oneself with attractions of the temporal order and thereby to become conformed to this world. It is a tendency to be subject to things that one ought, through the power of reason and the grace of God, to make subject to oneself (see Augustine, chaps. 11-15).
For Thomas Aquinas, a virtue is a habit of excellent human operation. Some virtues, acquired through the exercise of natural human powers, orient one to function in ways that contribute to natural happiness or flourishing. Other virtues, infused or inspired by God, orient one toward a higher, supernatural happiness or flourishing; they extend the powers of one’s moral agency in ways that allow one to participate more fully in the life of God. Acquired and infused virtues both orient one to think, feel, and act in accordance with the law of reason, which reflects the eternal law, the governing principle of the universe. Infused virtues also dispose one to operate in accordance with laws revealed in Scripture, most notably the law of love. Vices, however, are acquired habits that dispose one to function poorly, in ways that are contrary to one’s true nature, contrary to right reason, contrary to the revealed laws of God, and thus contrary to the well-being of oneself and others, in this life and in the life to come. Following Pope Gregory I, Thomas identifies seven principal vices: pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust (ST II-I, q. 55; qq. 62-63; q. 71; q. 84, a. 4).
Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and other thinkers of the Christian tradition are informed not only by philosophy but also by the Bible. Biblical images or metaphors highlight the personal and social degradation associated with vice. One image involves a tree and its fruit, which calls to mind the story in which Adam and Eve eat of the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden (Gen. 3). This choice of the first humans leads not only to their expulsion from paradise but also to the degeneration of the human race. In the prophetic literature, the image of the tree and its fruit functions in a different, but related, way. Hosea, for example, says that Israel was intended to become a grapevine or a fig tree that bore good and bountiful fruit, but it became instead a barren vine with dried-up roots (Hos. 9:10-17). The people of God had loved what was lifeless, and they had become what they loved. Similarly, Jeremiah says that God planted Israel as a choice vine, but the people had turned their backs on God. In pursuing what was worthless, their lives had become worthless (Jer. 2:5, 20-23). Unless they turned their faces toward God, they would be incapable of life-affirming attitudes and actions.
Agricultural imagery appears in the NT as well. Even before Jesus begins his ministry proper, John the Baptist warns the crowds that an ax stands ready to cut down trees that do not bear fruit (Matt. 3:10; Luke 3:9), a position echoed later by Jesus (Luke 13:5-9). In the Gospel of John, Jesus claims that he is the true vine, and only branches that grow from him will be well cultivated and productive of good fruit (John 15:1-8). In Matthew and Luke, Jesus warns that bad trees can be expected to bear bad fruit (Matt. 7:15-20; 12:33; Luke 6:43-45). In much the same way, bad hearts— those with misplaced attachments or allegiances (Matt. 6:19-20; Luke 12:33-34)—can be expected to yield bad behavior.
Another biblical metaphor for vice concerns servitude or slavery. New Testament literature identifies the problem of spiritual slavery and proclaims J esus’ role as lord and liberator. The image of J esus as liberator is particularly important for Matthew, who draws subtle parallels to the Torah to help his audience understand Jesus as a new Moses who has come to set them free from their slavery to sin (Matt. 5-7). New Testament writings explain that one can be a slave either to God or to things of this world, but not to both (Matt. 6:24; Luke 16:13; Rom. 6:16-22). Anyone who submits to the power of money or sensory pleasure rather than to the power of God becomes trapped by that choice. One’s desires and pleasures become disordered; they distort perceptions, condition reasoning, and lead to the commission of the same error again and again. Paul explains to the gentiles in Rome that they, like others, have had access to the truth of life from the beginning, but they have disregarded it (Rom. 1:18-32). They have turned away from God and toward idols, and God has let them suffer the natural consequence of their choice, which is to become enslaved to their passions.
Paul distinguishes between slavery to Christ and slavery to the elemental powers of the universe (Gal. 4:1-7). Whereas slaves to Christ live according to the Spirit and produce life-giving fruits (Gal. 5:22-24), slaves to the other powers live according to the flesh and produce death-bearing works (Gal. 5:19-21). Probing the moral psychology of vice, Paul suggests that vice is the product of interior conflict and weakness of will: “I can will what is right,” he says, “but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me” (Rom. 7:18-20). As one becomes more accustomed to vice, one cares less about doing what is right; one simply surrenders to one’s strongest impulses.
Finally, the Gospels depict Jesus not only as a lord whom the people are to serve and a savior who sets them free but also as a healer. Jesus heals diseases and disabilities of all kinds (Matt. 15:3031). He casts out evil spirits (Matt. 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39). He brings the dead back to life (John 11:1-44). He depicts tax collectors and other sinners as sick people, and himself as their physician (Matt. 9:10-12; Mark 2:15-17; Luke 5:29-31). With such passages in mind, we could describe a vice as a habit that weakens certain powers of the soul, causing a loss of moral function. It could be described as a spirit-possession in which destructive appetites take over the self and undermine one’s ability to pursue and enjoy what is good. It could be characterized as a state of spiritual deadening or darkness, for anyone who becomes attached to objects that turn out to be harmful, yet feels powerless to overcome these attachments, can fall into despair. Christian ethics can appeal to stories of miraculous healing to dramatize not only the debilitation of vice but also the idea that persons who succumb to vice must rely on a power greater than themselves to return them to a state of well-being.
See also Character; Evil; Habit; Idolatry; Moral Psychology; Seven Deadly Sins; Sin; Vices and Virtues, Lists of; Virtue(s)
Bibliography
Augustine. The Catholic and Manicheaean Ways of Life. Trans. D. Gallagher and I. Gallagher. Catholic University of America Press, 1966; Cicero. Tusculan Disputations. Trans. J. E. King. Rev. ed. LCL. Harvard University Press, 1945; Nussbaum, M. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton University Press, 1994; Seneca. Moral Essays. Vols. 1-2. Trans. J. Basore. Harvard University Press, 1985-90.
Diana Fritz Cates and Jordan Smith
Vice and virtue lists refer to the ancient literary form, adapted by biblical writers, in which authors group together dispositions and/or actions to be avoided or embraced. Thus, when the apostle Paul describes the “fruit of the Spirit” as “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23), this catalog of virtues fits broadly within an established literary form in the Greco-Roman world.
Context
To the extent that any religion or philosophical system focuses on the cultivation of praiseworthy deeds and the avoidance of immoral actions, inventories of acceptable and unacceptable behavior are customary. Antecedents for and parallels to the biblical vice and virtue lists are found in numerous ancient sources. In the Greco-Roman world in particular, a rich tradition of philosophical reflection on the nature and demonstration of virtue (arete) is the context for the development of the distinct literary form of the virtue and/or vice list. Plato’s famous classification of the four cardinal virtues (aretai) as wisdom (phronesis), temperance (sophrosyne), justice (dikaiosyne), and courage (andreia) set the stage for a converse listing of four vices in Hellenistic philosophical writings, particularly in the Stoic tradition (e.g., Plato, Resp. 4.427-445). These cardinal vices are typically identified as folly (aphrosyne), licentiousness (akolasia), injustice (adikia), and cowardice (deilia), although the fourfold scheme of virtues and vices frequently is divided and expanded. Lists of virtues and vices can run into the dozens and even hundreds (see Aristotle, Virtues and Vices; Cicero, Tusc. 4.11-38; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.54). In the Hellenistic world, therefore, virtue and vice catalogs emerged as a literary form that played an important role in moral exhortation and instruction.
Numerous writings from ancient Israel emphasize sin and obedience, yet no precise examples of the fixed literary form of Hellenistic virtue and vice lists are found in the OT. Prophetic denunciations of Judah and Israel’s disobedience in Jer. 7:9 and Hos. 4:1-2 do itemize transgressions against the Decalogue (cf. Prov. 6:16-19; 8:13), but these are catalogs of sinful behavior against the Decalogue and not reflections on virtue and vice as character traits. In Jewish literature of the Second Temple period, however, catalogs of virtue and vice become increasingly common, reflecting the influence of Hellenistic thought and literary patterns on Jewish authors (see, e.g., Wis. 8:7; 14:22-27; 4 Macc. 1:2-4; 5:23-24; T. Reu. 3.3-8; T. Levi. 17.11; Philo, Sacrifices 20-33; Alleg. In-terp. 1.86-87). Related to the virtue and vice lists, though not identical to the literary form, is the “two ways” motif that emphasized the sharp division between the way of life and the way of death (see Deut. 30:19; Prov. 2:12-15; Jer. 21:8; Sir. 21:10; 1QS 3.13-4.26; Did. 1-6; Barn. 18-21).
Biblical Vice and Virtue Lists Formal vice and virtue lists are found throughout the NT, sometimes in polysyndetic form (i.e., repetition of a conjunction [1 Cor. 6:9-10]) and sometimes in asyndetic form (i.e., no conjunction [Gal. 5:22-23]). Although some would include more and some fewer passages, the following texts generally are seen as representatives of this literary form in the NT:
Virtue Lists: 2 Cor. 6:6-7a; Gal. 5:22-23; Eph.
4:2-3, 31-5:2, 9; Phil. 4:8; Col. 3:12; 1 Tim.
3:2-4, 8-10, 11-12; 4:12; 6:11, 18; 2 Tim.
2:22-25; 3:10; Titus 1:8; 2:2-10; Heb. 7:26;
1 Pet. 3:8; 2 Pet. 1:5-7 (cf. Matt. 5:3-11; 1 Cor.
13:4-7; Jas. 3:17)
Vice Lists: Matt. 15:19; Mark 7:21-22; Luke
18:11; Rom. 1:29-31; 13:13; 1 Cor. 5:10-11;
6:9-10; 2 Cor. 12:20-21; Gal. 5:19-21; Eph.
4:31; 5:3-5; Col. 3:5-9; 1 Tim. 1:9-10; 6:4-5;
2 Tim. 3:2-4; Titus 1:7; 3:3; 1 Pet. 2:1; 4:3, 15;
Rev. 9:21; 21:8; 22:15 (cf. Luke 18:11)
These ethical catalogs perform a variety of rhetorical functions in the NT writings. Some vice lists highlight the depravity of humanity in general (Matt. 15:19; Mark 7:21-22; Rom. 1:2931; 1 Tim. 1:9-10), while others emphasize or establish ethical boundaries between inheritors of the kingdom of God and “the immoral of this world,” as Paul puts it in 1 Cor 5:10-11 (cf. Rom. 13:13; 1 Cor. 6:9-10; Eph. 5:3-5; Col. 3:5-9; 1 Pet. 4:3, 15). Several ethical lists serve to encourage virtuous behavior by exhorting readers to exhibit certain general qualities (Phil. 4:8; 1 Pet. 2:1; 3:8) or by reminding believers of the characteristics of their old lives in contrast to the new existence that they have in Christ (2 Cor. 12:20-21; Gal. 5:19-23; Eph. 4:31; Col. 3:12; Titus 3:3; 2 Pet. 1:5-7). Thus, the call to “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Col. 3:12b) is immediately preceded by a reminder of the new identity that God’s chosen saints have received in Christ (Col. 3:11-12a). Particularly in the Pastoral Epistles, which contain the highest concentration of ethical lists in the NT, the focus of virtue and vice catalogs is on identifying qualities appropriate for ecclesiastical leaders (1 Tim. 3:1-12; 4:12; 6:11, 18-19; 2 Tim. 2:22-25; 3:10; Titus 1:7; 2:2-10 [cf. 2 Cor. 6:6-7a]) while at the same time denouncing as immoral the false teachers who are opposed in the letters (1 Tim. 6:3-5; 2 Tim. 3:2-4 [cf. Rev. 9:21; 21:8; 22:15]). The virtue list in Heb. 7:26 (“For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens”) is distinctive in that it is primarily christological in nature.
The biblical vice lists, combined with the continuing influence of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophical reflection on the nature of virtue and vice, led to fertile contemplation of virtue and vice among Christian writers of the patristic and medieval periods. Augustine (354-430), for example, emulated his teacher Ambrose (339-97) in adding to the four cardinal virtues in pagan thought (wisdom, temperance, justice, courage) three distinctively theological virtues taken from 1 Cor. 13:13: faith, hope, and love (see Mor. eccl. 15.25; cf. 1 Thess. 1:3; 5:8). For Augustine, the four classical virtues of Greek philosophy are simply expressions of the highest Christian virtue, namely, love. The Christian tradition of the “seven deadly sins,” well represented in Chaucer’s Parson’s Tale, has its origins in pastoral considerations of vice offered by writers such as John Cassian (ca. 360-435) and Pope Gregory the Great (ca. 540-604). In the modern period, an emphasis on natural law within Catholic theology and the rejection of the stress on virtue among nineteenth-century liberal Protestantism by Karl Barth and other neoorthodox theologians led to a turn away from virtue as a key theme of Christian ethics. Yet, with a renewed awareness of virtue ethics among Protestant theologians after Alasdair MacIntyre’s groundbreaking work and in response to Stanley Hauerwas’s ethical proposals, and with an increased interest in integrating Scripture more deeply into the rich tradition of moral theology among Catholics (especially after Vatican Il’s Op-tatam totius 16), the virtue and vice lists in the NT, along with the philosophical strands on which they draw, should once again spark reflection on the importance of character in the formation of Christian communities.
See also Cardinal Virtues; Faith; Fruit of the Spirit; Seven Deadly Sins; Sin; Vice; Virtue Ethics; Virtue(s)
Bibliography
Aune, D. The New Testament in Its Literary Environment. Westminster, 1987; Charles, J. Virtue amidst Vice: The Catalog of Virtues in 2 Peter 1. JSNTSup 150. Sheffield Academic Press, 1997; Colish, M. The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. 2 vols. SHCT 34-35. Brill, 1990; Harrington, D., and J. Keenan. Jesus and Virtue Ethics: Building Bridges between New Testament Studies and Moral Theology. Sheed & Ward, 2002; MacIntyre, A. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 3rd ed. University of Notre Dame Press, 2007; McEleney, N. “The Vice Lists of the Pastoral Epistles.” CBQ 36 (1974): 203-19.
David J. Downs
Although definitions of violence are controversial, a provisional definition is “a forceful action that intends to cause unwanted injury to another.” This definition is tight enough to exclude some events (a fierce storm, a forceful collision in a football game) while including others (both physical and psychological actions that injure others, violence against nonhumans) and remaining silent on still others (a failed assassination attempt—must an act be successful to be violent?).
Scripture describes a wide range of violent actions beginning with Cain killing Abel (Gen. 4) and ending with the judgment of the dead (Rev. 20). These actions are bookended by visions of a peaceable kingdom: the garden of Eden before sin and the new Jerusalem after the final judgment. Between beginning and ending, violence is sometimes commanded, sometimes permitted, sometimes discouraged, sometimes prohibited, and sometimes absorbed. In general, violence is far less accepted in the NT than in the OT, but as with all generalizations, this one does not hold in all instances. For example, in the NT soldiers are commended, Jesus expels vendors from the temple, Ananias and Sapphira die as a result of their attempt to deceive Peter, and violent judgment is repeatedly threatened.
Given the OT’s long history and range of characters and events, it is no surprise that it speaks with many voices about violence. God acts violently and calls Israel to do so as well, but God also calls for restraint. David is a man of God and a soldier, but because of the blood on David’s hands, God refuses to allow him to build the temple. Jeremiah prophesies violence, and Isaiah prophesies the peaceable kingdom. Building a consistent ethic about violence or nonviolence from OT texts would involve an unsupportable degree of selectivity.
Whether one can build a compelling argument that the NT ethic forbids violence is still a point of debate within Christian ethics. At the very least, there is a strong presumption against violence that not only grows out of Jesus’ and Paul’s teachings (e.g., Matt. 5; Rom. 12-13) but also is evinced by Jesus’ actions, especially leading up to and including his crucifixion, and by the actions of members of the early church, such as Stephen, who endured martyrdom.
As the church became more established, especially after Christianity became a legal religion in the Roman Empire, its theological interpretations of violence and nonviolence grew in complexity. Would not the same arguments about love of neighbor that led Christians to help others lead them to get involved if those others were being attacked? Would not the commandment in Rom. 13:1 that Christians be subject to governing authorities lead them to serve those authorities if necessary, including as members of the military? The church developed increasingly intricate arguments about when violence was justified and when it was not: it is justified in defense of another but not in self-defense; justified if motivated by love but not if motivated by anger or bloodlust; justified if decreed by a ruler but not if pursued for personal reasons; justified for soldiers but not for priests. As these justifications developed, the arguments for and against such justifications developed as well. Fourth-century monastics, medieval Franciscans, participants in the radical Reformation, and present-day peace churches have all developed theological arguments against the use of violence.
In the face of nuclear weapons, terrorism, and genocide, among other horrors, there has been a renewed interest in questions about whether and when violence can be justified. Moreover, the past several decades have seen a growing interest in the relation between religion and violence. Some (e.g., Regina Schwartz) have theorized a tendency toward violence among monotheistic religions; others (e.g., Sudhir Kakar) argue that religions promote in-group identities that make violence toward outsiders more likely. Some (e.g., Bruce Lincoln, Mark Juergensmeyer) argue that religious reasoning used to defend otherwise immoral actions has a “force multiplier” effect: religious violence is more acceptable and its magnitude is greater; still others (e.g., Rene Girard) have argued that religion, or rather a particular understanding of Christianity, reveals and thereby counteracts universal and subconscious tendencies for violence.
See also Abuse; Anabaptist Ethics; Capital Punishment; Cruelty; Enemy, Enemy Love; Force, Use of; Genocide; Government; Holy War; Just-Peacemaking Theory; Just-War Theory; Killing; Military Service; Murder; Pacifism; Rape; Sin; Terrorism; Torture; War
Bibliography
Arendt, H. On Violence. Harcourt, Brace & World, 1970; Ellul, J. Violence: Reflections from a Christian Perspective. Seabury, 1969; Hauerwas, S. The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics. University of Notre Dame Press, 1983; Holmes, R. On War and Morality. Princeton University Press, 1989; King, M. L., Jr. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. Ed. J. Washington. Harper & Row, 1986; Niebuhr, R. Love and Justice: Selections from the Shorter Writings of Reinhold Niebuhr. Ed. D. Robertson. Westminster John Knox, 1992; Ramsey, P. The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility. Littlefield, Adams, 1983; Yoder, J. The Politics of Jesus: Vicit Agnus Noster. 2nd ed. Eerdmans, 1994.
Mark Douglas
The OT contains no explicit discussions of virginity. Whether specific Hebrew terms denote “virgin” or “virginity” is debated. Gordon Wenham’s argument that the Hebrew term betula, traditionally translated as “virgin,” means “girl of marriageable age” is increasingly accepted. Old Testament views of virginity must be inferred from its narratives, poetry, and laws.
The OT depicts human sexuality as integral to God’s good creation, divinely given that humankind might be “fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28), and that persons need not “be alone” (Gen. 2:18). Asceticism, particularly lifelong virginity, is foreign to the OT. The ancient texts do recognize that sexual desire is a powerful force, with the potential to fracture familial, social, national, and even cosmic bonds; numerous biblical laws seek to channel sexuality within the family (Frymer-Ken-sky, “Virginity”). Given the patriarchal structure of ancient Israel, sexual restraint takes the form of male control of female sexuality.
Virginity was both expected and valued in girls prior to marriage (e.g., Gen. 24:16). Deuteronomy 22:20-21 mandates death for a bride whose family fraudulently claimed that she was a virgin. The amount of a bride-price that a groom paid to a girl’s family apparently depended on her virginity (Exod. 22:17). Male control of women’s sexuality was a matter of honor as well as economics (e.g., Gen. 34:31). Priestly legislation reflects yet another set of concerns; laws regulating whom priests and high priests may marry (Lev. 21:7, 13-14) treat virginity as a matter of purity and pollution.
The NT contains few references to virginity. The Greek term parthenos, like the Hebrew betula, is ambiguous, referring to a girl’s age more than stressing her lack of sexual experience. Presumably, the NT authors assume that young women should remain virgins until they marry. The writers do not extol virginity as a lifelong state. Portrayals of Mary’s virginity at the time of Jesus’ birth have to do with the miraculous nature of his conception and his divine nature rather than with Mary’s purity (Matt. 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-35). Paul’s recommendation to remain unmarried (1 Cor. 7:3638) relates to his conviction that Jesus’ return is imminent.
Reflection on the contemporary ethical significance of the relatively scarce biblical references to virginity belongs within the broader discussion of sexual ethics and will vary, depending on one’s views of the Bible, of biblical authority, and of how Scripture relates to other sources. However, such reflection should take account of the wide gap between modern and biblical cultures, including the patriarchal nature of Israelite and early Christian families, the youth of Israelite and early Christian girls at the time of their first marriages, and, in the case of the NT, the expectation of Jesus’ imminent return. At the same time, ethical reflection will benefit from biblical insights that sexuality is God’s good gift, and that faithfulness has to do with all spheres of life, including sex.
See also Celibacy; Sex and Sexuality; Sexual Ethics Bibliography
Frymer-Kensky, T. “Law and Philosophy: The Case of Sex in the Bible.” Pages 3—16 in Jewish Explorations of Sexuality, ed. J. Magonet. Berghahn Books, 1995; idem. “Virginity in the Bible.” Pages 79—96 in Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East, by V. Matthews, B. Levinson, and T. Frymer-Kensky. JSOTSup 262. Sheffield Academic Press, 1998; Nelson, J., and S. Longfellow. Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection. Westminster John Knox, 1994; Wenham, G. “Betulah, ‘A Girl of Marriageable Age.’ ” VT 22 (1972): 326-48.
Carolyn Pressler
In recent decades, Christian ethicists have retrieved the tradition of virtue and the virtues that were somewhat present in the early church, central in the medieval church, and somewhat neglected during the time of the Protestant Reformation and modernity. Within biblical studies, this retrieval is beginning to have some impact but is still in its early stage. Some of the Christian ethicists leading the recovery of the virtue tradition are reading Scripture more attentively, and this promises further cross-fertilization between Christian ethics and biblical studies.
The recovery of the virtue tradition may sometimes be framed as the development of “virtue ethics,” but great care must be taken with this language, because the virtue tradition does not merely add something called “virtue” to the work of Christian ethics. Rather, the virtue tradition reconceives “Christian ethics” to be concerned with our whole way of life as participation in and witness to the gospel.
The virtue tradition comes to us as a contested tradition with many disputes that may illuminate the work of Christian ethics even though they are unresolved. For example, what counts as a virtue? What is the relationship between virtue and the virtues? Can one be truly virtuous without having all the virtues? What is the purpose or telos of a human being that determines what counts as virtue? Which community defines purpose and virtue? What must a community be and how must it live in order to embody its conviction about the human telos and to form people who are virtuous?
Are the virtues unified? Is it always possible for people to act virtuously? If we fail to act virtuously, is it due to weakness on our part? Is it due to a failure of vision, an inability to see what we are to do? Or are there some (tragic) circumstances in which it is simply not possible to act virtuously, to do the good? Should Christians understand the virtues to be produced by an infusion of grace that transforms something already present within us or an impartation to us of something from the outside?
The word virtue translates the Greek arete, which generally denotes excellence that comes from a thing fulfilling its purpose. Thus, a carpenter’s hammer has arete—excellence or “virtue”— when it fulfills its purpose in driving or pulling nails. In regard to humans, to have virtue is to live well as a human being. Virtue, in Christian understanding, is coming to the full maturity for which God made us and redeemed us in Christ.
The recovery of the virtue tradition has been driven in philosophy largely by the work of Alas-dair MacIntyre. The seminal text is his After Virtue, which works within an Aristotelian virtue tradition. In his later book Whose Justice? Which Rationality? MacIntyre returns to Christian faith and locates virtue in the Thomist tradition. In theology, Stanley Hauerwas (Methodist) has been a driving force in the recovery of the virtue tradition, beginning with Character and the Christian Life and developed in numerous essays and collections. He is joined in this work by theological ethicists such as Gilbert Meilaender (Lutheran) and Jean Porter (Roman Catholic).
In the virtue tradition, the virtues describe a perduring way of life that characterizes our actions and our disposition. For example, persons marked by the virtue of truthfulness not only tell the truth but they are also disposed toward the truth, coming even to cherish the truth and truthfulness. They are truthful not out of duty, obedience to a rule, or conformity to social norms; they are truthful because through habituation they have become truthful people or, to put it biblically, because through conformity to Christ they have come to be in the truth and thus they know, love, and act truthfully.
Recent theological development of the virtue tradition draws a number of insights from MacIntyre that illuminate the work of theological ethics and the teaching of Scripture. If we understand the insights of the virtue tradition, then we will know that we are doomed to misunderstanding if we attempt an account of virtue and the virtues apart from all the elements of the tradition. More egregiously, we are doomed to moral frustration and failure if we seek to become virtuous apart from these other realities.
Perhaps the central insight in the virtue tradition is its teleological character. Teleology may be used in a number of ways in ethics. In the virtue tradition, telos identifies the purpose or end for which we are made. This telos may be conceived in different ways. Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas all give different accounts, but in the midst of these different accounts they all have the same understanding of the shape of living. They agree that whatever our telos is, it is given to us and in turn gives shape and meaning to our lives. Our telos is not something that we choose or create; rather, it is given to us, it is our destiny. Either we submit to our destiny and become fully human, or we rebel against our destiny, our telos, and become something other than fully human.
In the virtue tradition, a telos gives us a vision of who we are meant to be. Our way of life, our morality, carries us to where we are meant to be from where we presently are. For Christians, our telos may be identified as “the vision of God” by some theologians and as “conformity to Christ” by others. These and other Christian descriptions of our telos do not necessarily conflict with one another. What they give us, even in their diversity, is a vision of who we are created to be. Knowing ourselves as people saved by grace, we identify the life of discipleship as the way by which we participate now in our telos, which will be fulfilled through Christ’s return, when “we will be like him, for we will see him as he is” (1 John 3:2); when we will know fully, even as we are known fully (1 Cor. 13:12); when we will see God face-to-face and be made fully human. For Christians, this teleological structure is eschatological. That is, our telos is always dependent on God and our relationship to God; our telos is never something that we possess or that is “natural” to us independent of our creaturely dependence on God.
When teleological thinking becomes eschatological, then the questions are not merely who are we now, who are we meant to be, and how do we get from where we are to where we are meant to be. When we recast the questions in eschatological terms, we ask what God is doing and how we are to participate in what God is doing so that by grace we become what we are created to be.
When we think eschatologically while we read Scripture, we find ourselves in the middle of a narrative about this very journey. For the virtue tradition, the narrative is essential for two reasons. First, narrative is essential to the intelligibility of our actions. That is, our lives make sense as they are claimed by God’s work of redemption. This story is not just the narrative of an individual life, but of life within the story of God’s people and all creation. This does not mean that all Scripture can be reduced to narrative. There are, obviously, other genres in Scripture—law, prophecy, poetry, and so forth. As a whole, however, Scripture narrates the work of redemption, within which our lives are meaningful and which gives rise to the virtues that mark people on that journey.
For Christians, the agent of this narrative is God. We become agents when we are caught up in this story through the Holy Spirit. In theological ethics there is considerable controversy over the relationship between human agency and divine agency. Some theologians accuse others of too great an emphasis on human agency. This may easily occur if we place too great an emphasis on the development of moral agency and character that can make us independent of God’s continuing grace in our lives. Others are concerned that we have not rightly elucidated the sanctifying work of the Spirit that conforms us to Christ and makes us moral agents of the gospel.
This narrative of redemption is embodied in a living tradition, which MacIntyre describes as “an historically extended, socially embodied argument” (MacIntyre, After Virtue, 222). For Christians, this living tradition is not only the church but more so the continuing work of redemption through Christ, in which the church is caught up and to which it bears witness. It is this continuing reality that gives meaning to virtue and to the particular virtues that constitute Christian life.
With this recognition of the living tradition, we can then identify the church as the institution or community that is called to participate in the telos of all creation. Thus, the church is an institution called into being and sustained by the agency of God for the purpose of participating in the work of redemption and being a people to glorify God and bear witness to God’s redemptive work.
The church fulfills its calling as an institution when it engages in practices that both participate in this telos and form people whose virtue is conformity to Christ by the work of the Spirit. In the virtue tradition, practices are shaped by an inten-tionality that draws its motivation and aims from the telos of the gospel. These practices also require and strengthen the social relationships that characterize a teleological community. Finally, these practices begin with a conception of the telos and the narrative of the gospel, but as the community engages in these practices, there is a deepening of the community’s understanding of the telos and the narrative in which it participates.
The theological virtues are faith, hope, and love. They are theological because they are formed in us by the grace of God. The cardinal virtues are courage, temperance, justice, and fortitude. In the theological tradition, the cardinal virtues are transformed by the theological virtues so that they enable us to participate in God’s redemptive work by the power of the Holy Spirit. As the Spirit incorporates us in Christ, other virtues appropriate to this work of redemption—such as meekness, mercy, and forgiveness—are formed in us.
In Scripture, there are very few passages where “virtue” is an appropriate translation of the Hebrew or Greek, but there are many biblical passages calling us to the formation of perdur-ing character traits through practices (or habits) directed toward a telos that participates in God’s redemptive work identified by the narrative of the gospel that forms a people.
In the OT, there is no Hebrew word directly equivalent to the Greek arete, and even in the Greek translation of the OT (the LXX), the word arete is used only in reference to the excellence of God. Nevertheless, we may find places in the OT where the virtue tradition illuminates the teaching of the texts. Moreover, we may also find in the OT some correctives to the virtue tradition.
Many narratives in the OT provide examples of the importance of virtues for living as God calls us to live. For example, we may observe that David sinned with Bathsheba and against Uriah not because he was ignorant of adultery and murder as contrary to life, but because he lacked the character, the virtues, that would keep him faithful to what he knew. This failure contrasts sharply with his steadfast faithfulness to God in the time between his anointing as king and his ascendancy to the throne on the occasions that he had opportunity to kill Saul and did not do so.
In the psalms, we have examples of virtue in the psalmist and among God’s people. The practices of praise and lament before God incorporate the psalmist and the people into the work of redemption, form their character for faithful witness, and lead them more deeply into understanding and participating in their telos.
The closest that we come to the virtue tradition in the OT is the wisdom literature, especially Proverbs. In passages such as Prov. 2:1-11, we can see the telos, practices, community, and narrative of God’s redemptive work. The acquisition of wisdom, which marks one’s entire character (Prov. 1:2-6), begins and ends with “the fear of the
Lord” (Prov. 1:7) and sets the virtue of prudence firmly within the life of God’s people and God’s redemptive work.
In the prophets, the practice of covenant-keeping is participation in God’s redemptive work that forms a people who are capable of remaining steadfast because of their vision of the telos for which we have been made. The call of Mic. 6:8 to “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” powerfully encapsulates this teaching.
In the NT Gospels, the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:312; Luke 6:20-23) may be read as descriptions of the character traits of those who are participating in the redemptive work of Christ. So, for example, we are blessed in our spiritual poverty because it is rooted in our knowledge that our only hope of salvation is Christ, not ourselves.
In the letters of the NT we find several lists that characterize the lives of Christians. Four of these lists single out the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love (1 Cor. 13:13; Col. 1:4-5;
1 Thess. 1:3; 5:8). The other lists cover a wide range of virtues (2 Cor. 6:6; Gal. 5:22-23; Eph. 4:23, 32; 5:9; Phil. 4:8; Col. 3:12; 1 Tim. 4:12; 6:11; 2 Tim. 2:22; 3:10; Jas. 3:17; 1 Pet. 3:8;
2 Pet. 1:5-7). There is no suggestion in these passages that there is a comprehensive list that would characterize the whole of Christian living. These “virtue lists” typically are accompanied by “vice lists.”
Together, these lists affirm our growing in goodness not as a path to becoming virtuous in ourselves and independent of God, but as a path to becoming more fully reconciled and more faithful in our witness to God’s redemptive work that enables us to participate now in our telos and be God’s people. The whole of Scripture, illuminated by insights of the virtue tradition, teaches us the necessity of eschatological vision (telos) for our formation in faithfulness and, in doing so, calls us to virtues such as patience in awaiting full redemption and humility in knowing that it is only by God’s grace that we are redeemed and made fully human by conformity to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.
See also Character; Habit; Moral Formation; Narrative Ethics, Biblical; Narrative Ethics, Contemporary; Practices; Teleological Theories of Ethics; Vices and Virtues, Lists of; Virtue Ethics
Bibliography
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. C. Rowe. Oxford University Press, 2002; Burridge, R. Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics. Eerdmans, 2007; Charles, J. Virtue amidst Vice: The Catalog of Virtues in 2 Veter 1. JSNTSup 150. Sheffield Academic Press, 1997; Hauerwas, S. Character and the Christian Life: A Study in Theological Ethics. TUMSR 3. Trinity University Press, 1975; Hauerwas, S., and C. Pinches. Christians among the Virtues: Theological Conversations with Ancient and Modern Ethics. University of Notre Dame Press, 1997; Ken-neson, P. Life on the Vine: Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit in Christian Community. InterVarsity, 1999; MacIntyre, A. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 2nd ed. University of Notre Dame Press, 1984; idem. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? University of Notre Dame Press, 1988; Mei-laender, G. The Theory and Vractice of Virtue. University of Notre Dame Press, 1984; Porter, J. The Recovery of Virtue: The Relevance of Aquinas for Christian Ethics. Westminster John Knox, 1990; Thomas Aquinas. Treatise on Happiness. Trans. J. Oesterle. University of Notre Dame Press, 1983; idem. Treatise on the Virtues. Trans. J. Oesterle. University of Notre Dame Press, 1984.
Jonathan R. Wilson