Metaphysical Presuppositions of Christian Ethics

In his book Christian Theistic Ethics, Cornelius Van Til present the metaphysical presuppositions of Christian ethics. He begins and grounded his ethics in God, the "absolute necessary" and absolute epistemology for morality. Van Til call it The God-concept of Christian ethics. This is the clear mark that distinguished between Christian Ethics and non-Christian ethics (The man-concept ethics). In other words, there is a transcendent foundational realm to morality. Van Til also bring the idea of E. Taylor that there is a tension between temporal and eternal, in which ethics is about human (temporal) bound to the highest will of God (eternal). Man as the Image of God, then must set the ideal of man that aligns with the ideal of what God want human to be (Glorifying Him). Van Til could then say, 

"It is therefore of essential importance that we observe how the metaphysical presuppositions of Christian ethics are calculated to furnish a foundation for an ethics in which God’s will is the supreme authority for man..."

However, if we ground ethics in God and His supreme will, then there is a further question that we need to ask, is the philosophical issue that once brought by the Plato. Plato in his writing in his famous dialogue called Euthyphro, a dialogue that focus between the idea of morality and religious obedience. There were two dilemma of what constitutes as good in the conversation. Does something is good because God will it or does something good by itself therefore God will it? These questions brought a confusion because the first will somehow lead to a view of arbitrary God, who can permit everything as long as He command it. This lead to a view often called as Divine command theory. Thinker like Don Scotus believes that since God have absolute power to change the law, including moral law. In this sense, God could will any moral values He want in opposition to the moral that He has established before hand. To translate it into real life, in certain time God can forbid people to steal in other occasion God can permit people to still. The morality of God can revokes special moral law in any given time whatever He likes, according to His will as long as it does not contradict the law of logic. 

The second dilemma of God will something because there is something call good consequently make the idea of good exits apart from God. The morality can come from the process of natural evolution or some kind of Platonist idealist kind of good and not necessarily from God. Apparently, Christian has a different way to see the dilemma. For the first dilemma, morality does not based on what God will but the God will itself is grounded from His character that is Good, loving, benevolence and just. Hence, God will is never an arbitrary will, He could not justify rape as good in any condition and circumstances. Apparently, not a single chance that might happened, if we understand God as a moral being that is perfect in holiness. In addition, Leibniz right in saying that if morality is based on the will of God not in his character, then the idea of God is morally good is meaningless concept, he wrote in Discourse on Metaphysics, 

"In saying...that things are not good according to any standard of goodness, but simply by the will of God, it seems to me that one destroy, without realizing it, all the love of God and all His glory; for why praise Him for what he has done, if he would be equally praiseworthy in doing the contrary?"

Furthermore, the second dilemma is understood in relation of the definition of God Himself. If God is understood as the highest being, The Ultimate concern to which morality and goodness bounded in Him (Summum Bonum), to affirms and say that God exits is to close the possibility of any standard of good exits apart from Himself. Although it can solve the dilemma, the next debate is turn to another direction whether God is limited in some sense, to which there is a moral standard outside of Him. And if yes, then the debate will eventually turn out to be a debate between monotheism or polytheism (Another gods who equally contributed to the moral values). Yet, in Christian conception of God, God is considered as the One. He is the ultimate creator and thus, not originated from prior causes. Josephus describe the oneness dimension of Judeo-Christian God as he says, God who "Created...not with assistants of whom he had no need." Richard Bauckham, a  biblical scholar in his work God Crucified argue on the God’s unique identity as the one relates to four key points, which He summarized as following, 

 1. God has a name, Yahweh, setting him apart from all other gods.

 2. Yahweh is the God who brought Israel out of Egypt.

 3. Yahweh is the sole creator of all things. 

4. Yahweh is the sovereign ruler of all things.

To affirm His monotheistic essence is to say that there is no standard of Good that comes out apart of Him. To this end, Van Til best conclude in his book, "What we mean is that the will of God expresses the nature of God. It is the nature of God as the will of God that is ultimately good. Yet since this nature of God is personal there is no sense in which we can say that the good exists in its own right." In sum, Christian ethics is bounded in God as the foundation and this God cannot be separated from His word and of course Christ, as the focal point and authority in which every ethics need to be examined.