Evil and Christian Ethics

This book interconnects contemporary moral philosophy with recent work in New Testament scholarship.

Gordon Graham (Author)

9780521771092, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 November 2000

260 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.9 cm, 0.48 kg

'… the book is a major addition to the discussion of all the issues with which it concerns itself. It is also, as always with Graham's work, very well written.' Conversations in Religion and Theology

Genocide in Rwanda, multiple murder at Denver or Dunblane, the gruesome activities of serial killers - what makes these great evils, and why do they occur? In addressing such questions this book, unusually, interconnects contemporary moral philosophy with work in New Testament scholarship. The conclusions to emerge are surprising. Gordon Graham argues that the inability of modernist thought to account satisfactorily for evil and its occurrence should not lead us to embrace an eclectic postmodernism, but to take seriously some unfashionable pre-modern conceptions - Satan, demonic possession, spiritual powers, cosmic battles. Precisely because it strives to observe the high standards of clarity and rigour that are the hallmarks of philosophy in the analytical tradition, the book makes a powerful case for the rejection of humanism and naturalism, and for explaining the moral obligation to struggle against evil by reference to the New Testament's cosmic narrative.

Preface
1. Christian ethics or moral theology
2. The real Jesus
3. Evil and action
4. Forces of light and forces of darkness
5. The transformation of evil
6. The theology of hope
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Christian life & practice [HRCV]