ADD:
Anscombe, G.E.M. "Modern Moral Philosophy." Philosophy 33 (1958): 1-19.
---------------------------REL 592.01 ETHICS AND THE BIBLE
Department of Religious Studies, University of Dayton
Dr. Brad J. Kallenberg
Office: 329 Humanities
e-mail: brad.kallenberg@notes.udayton.edu
website: http://academic.udayton.edu/BradKallenberg/
Fall 2007
Thurs 3:00-5:50
HUM 344
937/229-4320
DESCRIPTION: "In the beginning was the Word…." The writer of John's Gospel cannot convey
the revelation of God in Christ without using the notion of language. We who name the name of
Christ, and seek to extend the incarnation in our life together in Christian community, are
expected to become fluent in the language that is Christ. This fluency knits together both
conduct and speech. In this sense, ethics and theology are inseparable from each other, even
indistinguishable. By the end of this course, we will be able to assess to what extent this is so.
COURSE FORMAT: A mixture of lecture, small group work, and lively discussion over
sometimes difficult, if not downright controversial, texts to facilitate student fluency in the
language of Christian ethics.
REQUIRED READING: TEXTS
Swartley, William M. Covenant of Peace: The Missing Piece in New Testament Theology
and Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006.
Hauerwas, Stanley. Matthew. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006.
REQUIRED READING: ARTICLES
Aristotle. "Nicomachean Ethics." In The Complete Works of Aristotle; Volume Two, edited by
Jonathon Barnes, 1729-867. Books II & III. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Barth, Karl. "The Strange New World within the Bible." In The Word of God & the Word of
Man, edited by Douglas Horton, 28-50. New York: Harper & Row, 1957
Bowlin, John R. "Nature's Grace: Aquinas and Wittgenstein on Natural Law and Moral
Knowledge." In Grammar and Grace: Reformulations of Aquinas and Wittgenstein, edited by
Jeffrey Stout and Robert MacSwain, 154-74. London: SCM Press, 2004
Burrell, David. "A Proposed Account." In Analogy and Philosophical Language, 215-51. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1973
Colapinto, John. "The Interpreter: Has a Remote Amazonian Tribe Upended Our
Understanding of Language?" The New Yorker, 16 April 2007, 120-39. Accessible from the
following website: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapinto
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D’Costa, Gavin. "On Cultivating the Disciplined Habits of a Love Affair or on How to Do
Theology on Your Knees." New Blackfriars 79, no. 925 (1998): 116-35.
Frei, Hans. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century
Hermeneutics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974.
Hauerwas, Stanley, with David Burrell. "From System to Story: An Alternative Pattern for
Rationality in Ethics." In Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology, edited by Stanley
Hauerwas and L. Gregory Jones, 158-90. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1989
[1977]
Hays, Richard B. "Scripture-Shaped Community; the Problem of Method in New Testament
Ethics." Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 40, no. Jan (1990): 42-55.
Holmer, Paul L. "Learning to Theologise." In Wittgenstein : Attention to Particulars : Essays
in Honour of Rush Rhees (1905- 89), edited by D. Z. Phillips, 194-200. New York and
Frankfurt am Main: St. Martin’s Press and Suhrkamp, 1989
Jones, L. Gregory. "Alasdair MacIntyre on Narrative, Community, and the Moral Life."
Modern Theology 4 (1987): 53-69.
McCabe, Herbert. "Aquinas on Good Sense." New Blackfriars 67, no. 796 (1986): 419-31.
Murdoch, Iris. "Vision and Choice in Morality." In Christian Ethics and Contemporary
Philosophy, edited by Ian T. Ramsey, 195-218. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1966
Murphy, Nancey. "Textual Relativism, Philosophy of Language, and the Baptist Vision." In
Theology without Foundations: Religious Practice and the Future of Theological Truth,
edited by Stanley Hauerwas, Nancey Murphy and Mark Nation, 245-70. Nashville, TN:
Abingdon Press, 1994
Pinches, Charles. Theology and Action: After Theory in Christian Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2002.
Powell, H. Jefferson. "Introduction." In The Moral Tradition of American Constitutionalism: A
Theological Interpretation, 1-47. Durham, NC and London, UK: Duke University Press, 1993
Rikhof, Herwi M. "Thomas at Utrecht." In Contemplating Aquinas on the Varieties of
Interpretation (Faith in Reason) edited by Fergus Kerr, 105-36. London: SCM, 2003
Stringfellow, William. A Keeper of the Word: Selected Writings of William Stringfellow. Edited
Bill Wylie Kellerman. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994.
Waddel, Paul. Friendship and the Moral Life. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame.
RECOMMENDED READING:
Hadot, Pierre. Philosophy as a Way of Life. Translated by Michael Chase. Edited with an
introduction by Arnold I. Davidson. Oxford, UK & Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1995.
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Hauerwas, Stanley, and Samuel Wells, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics,
Blackwell Companions to Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
Hauerwas, Stanley. "Casuistry in Context: The Need for Tradition." In In Good Company:
The Church as Polis, 169-84. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995
Hinman, Lawrence M. Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory. 3rd ed. Fort Worth,
TX: Harcourt Brace, 2003. ISBN 0-15-506294-8
Kallenberg, Brad J. "The Strange New World in the Church." Journal of Religious Ethics 32,
no. 1 (2004): 197-218.
Kallenberg, Brad J. Ethics as Grammar: Changing the Postmodern Subject. Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2001.
Kallenberg, Brad J., and Ethan Smith. "Postmodernisms." In The Global Dictionary of
Theology, edited by Veli-Matti Karkkainen and Bill Dyrness. Downers Grove, IN: InterVarsity
Press, forthcoming
Kelsey, David. The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press,
1979.
Murphy, Nancey, Brad J. Kallenberg, and Mark Thiessen Nation, eds. Virtues and Practices
in the Christian Tradition: Christian Ethics after MacIntyre. Notre Dame, IN: University of
Notre Dame Press, 2003, repr. ISBN 0-268-04360-4
O'Connor, Flannery. "Revelation." In Wise Blood; the Violent Bear It Away; the Complete
Stories, 488-509. New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1992
Pinches, Charles. Theology and Action: After Theory in Christian Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2002. ISBN 0-8028-4886-9
Stassen, Glen H. "The Fourteen Triads of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:21-7:12)."
Journal of Biblical Literature 122, no. 2 (2003): 267-308. Available through JSTOR at
http://www.jstor.org/view/00219231/sp050365/05x6475a/0.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe.
Edited G. E. M. Anscombe and Rush Rhees. Paras. 1-43. New York: Macmillan, 1953.
The following website is maintained by Lawrence Hinman and may or may not be useful:
http://ethics.sandiego.edu/
REQUIREMENTS
1. Literate participation in discussion: It is essential that students review assigned reading
before class and come prepared for discussion. A student's letter grade will be helped
or hurt according to the level of his or her in-class conversation. Subjectively
determined, 20%.
2. Study questions will be provided to guide reading. Thoughtful responses to these
questions will accumulate for 25% of course grade. Since the object of the response
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questions is to get you to read the material en route to rich in-class discussion, no late
submissions of reading questions will be allowed.
3. Midterm. There will be one take-home midterm (yet to be scheduled). 10%.
4. Final Paper. Articulated process (to be explained later) worth 45%. 10-12 pp. on a
variety of options:
a. Comparative book review of 4 authors
b. Pick any author that we've read and read more; synthesize this author's use of
scripture for his/her theological ethics.
c. Pick any book of NT (or minor prophet). Read at least two scholarly commentaries
and, taking Richard Hays' model (either from his article or his Moral Vision of NT),
synthesize this biblical book's moral vision.
d. Pick any lecture topic and do a research paper (with consultation from instructor).
MANUSCRIPT FORM: Students are requested to turn in both hard copy as well as e-copy of all
work.
Hard-copy: All papers are to be typed and should be presented in proper academic form: 1
inch margins, double-spaced, 12 point text font, stapled once in the upper left hand corner.
In the name of stewardship of the earth, please recycle computer paper that has been
already printed on one side whenever possible. Students are expected to document all
ideas, concepts, facts, quotations and present these in a proper academic format
(Turabian/Chicago with full citation footnotes). Lack of proper documentation reduces
grade. Proper format for citing Internet sources can be found online at:
<http://library.udayton.edu/faqs/howto/citation/online.php>.
Electronic copy of your papers must also be submitted to www.turnitin.com. Here's how to
do this:
a.
Go to www.turnitin.com. Click on "create a new user profile" in the upper right
hand corner.
b.
Fill out the profile using your real name (so that I can recognize you) and
preferred e-mail address. Your password is your own secret.
c.
Return to Login page and login.
d.
Click on "Enroll in a class" (or follow the prompts if it is your first time at turnitin).
Use the following Class ID for Winter 2005: 1957436 Password: analogy. Click
on our class name "Ethics and Scripture." Join the class.
INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE: Although English lacks the true generic collective that other
languages may possess (such as anthropos in Greek, etc.), many individuals today do not find
‘man’, ‘men’ and ‘mankind’ acceptable options to fill this void. This being the case, such
exclusive language, though once normative in our speaking and writing, increasingly tends to
alienate a substantial number of people. Therefore, we must challenge patterns of language that
may be doing harm even if inflicted unconsciously and without malice. As supporters of human
equality, the academic community at UD insists on the use of nondiscriminatory language in all
coursework. This may be handled in a variety of ways: (1) structure sentences so that no
second-person pronouns are used; (2) use innocuous “one,” “oneself,” or where necessary, the
plural pronoun “them,” “themselves,” etc.; (3) alternate the gender of examples in written work.
HONOR CODE: We will follow the university policies on academic dishonesty as found in the
student handbook <http://www.udayton.edu/~studev/studenthandbook/index.htm> or pages 3739. In addition to what is stated there, I want to emphasize that each student is required to do
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his or her own work. Study groups and most forms of collaboration are fine. You cross a line,
however, if you base your own written assignments on the notes, highlighting, or outlines of
another student or professional. Moreover, wrongful copying is not limited to word order and
phrases; reproduction of another’s logic and quotation selection must also be properly
acknowledged. Misuse of another’s work will be considered plagiarism and dealt with
accordingly. In other words, in the case of blatant plagiarism, a grade of "F" may be given for
the course. This is, after all, an ethics class. If you are unsure of what plagiarism is, please
check the library website on plagiarism: <http://library.udayton.edu/faqs/howto/plagiarism.php>.
MICROSOFT OFFICE 2007: This course will require the use of Microsoft Office. The new
Office 2007 suite will save files in a format that is not compatible with Office 2003. Please
ensure that if you use Office 2007 that you save files in the 2003 file format (“Compatibility
mode”). Failure to comply with these instructions will impact the validity of your homework
submissions. Details regarding file compatibility can be found at
http://training.udayton.edu/Office2007
ADA NOTICE: Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (1973) and the Americans with Disabilities
Act (1990) provide for equal access to education for all qualified persons regardless of the
presence of any disabling conditions. To request academic accommodations due to disability,
please contact the Office for Students with Disabilities, 002 Albert Emanuel Hall, (937) 2293684. If you have a self-identification form indicating that you have a disability which requires
academic accommodations, please present it to me so we can discuss how to best meet those
needs.
COURSE OUTLINE:
Au 23 Intro
30 Language
Waddell "Worshipping
Dangerously"
Swartley, Intro & chs.1-2
Colapinto "The Interpreter"
http://www.newyorker.com/reportin
g/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapi
nto
Recommended: Wittgenstein, para.
1-43
Se 6 Aspect-seeing, moral vision & character
Swartley, chs. 3-4
Murdoch, "Vision and Choice"
Recommended: O'Connor,
"Revelation"
13 Analogy
Swartley, chs. 5-6
Burrell, "A Proposed Account"
Recommended: Smith and
5
Kallenberg, "Postmodernisms"
20 Virtue and Agency
Swartley, chs. Retro & 7
Aristotle, Nic Ethics books II, III
Recommended: Pinches, Theology
and Action
27 Principalities and Powers
Swartley, chs. 8-9
Stringfellow, Keeper of the Word
pp. 192-222
Oc 4 Narrative I
Swartley, chs. 10-11
Frei, Eclipse of Biblical Narrative,
pp. 17-49
Recommended: Kallenberg (2004);
Barth, "Strange New World"
11 Midterm break—no class
—
18 Narrative II
Swartley, chs. 12-13
Jones, "MacIntyre on Narrative"
25 Authority and Canonicity
Swartley, chs. 14-15 & Summary
Hauerwas & Burrell, "System to
Story"
Recommended: Kelsey, Uses of
Scripture
No 1 Tradition
Hauerwas, Intro & Mt 1-3
Powell, "Introduction"
8 Phronesis and Moral Imperatives
Hauerwas, Mt 4-9
McCabe, "Aquinas on Good Sense"
Recommended: Stassen, "Fourteen
Triads"
15 Phronesis, Discipleship, and Form of Life
Hauerwas, Mt 10-17
D'Costa, "Theology on Knees"
6
Holmer, "Learning to Theologise"
Recommended: Hadot, "Philosophy
as Form of Life"
22 Thanksgiving—no class
—
29 Reading Scripture as a Practice
Hauerwas, Mt 18-23
Murphy, "Textual Relativism"
Hays, "Scripture-shaped
Community"
Recommended: Kallenberg,
"Medicine as a Morally Formative
Practice"
De 6 Natural Law
Hauerwas, Mt 24-28
Bowlin, "Nature's Grace"
Rikhof, "Thomas at Utrecht"
Recommended: Hauerwas,
"Casuistry in Context"
DISCLAIMER: This syllabus may change according to circumstances. Professor will
communicate all changes clearly in class and keep an updated syllabus posted on his
homepage. Last update: 8/21/07.
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