CHURCH ETHICS
After the conversion St. Augustine to Christianity in 387, he sought to integrate the Platonic view with
the Christian concept of goodness as an attribute of God and sin as Adam's fall, from the guilt of which a person is redeemed by God's mercy. The Manichaean belief in evil persisted, however, as may be seen in Augustine's conviction of the sinfulness of human nature. This attitude may have reflected his own strong guilt over his youthful indiscretions and may account in part for the emphasis in early Christian moral doctrine on chastity and celibacy.
During the late Middle Ages Aristotle's works, made available through texts and commentaries prepared by Arab scholars, exerted a strong influence on European thinkers. Because it emphasized empirical knowledge as opposed to revelation, Aristotelianism threatened the intellectual
authority of the church. The Christian theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas succeeded in reconciling Aristotelianism with the authority of the church by acknowledging the truth of sense experience but holding it to be complementary to the truth of faith. The great intellectual authority of Aristotle was thus made to serve the authority of the church, and the Aristotelian logic was used to support the Augustinian concepts of original sin and redemption through divine grace. This synthesis is the substance of Aquinas's major work, Summa Theologica (1265-1273).
As the medieval church grew more powerful, a juridical system of ethics evolved, apportioning punishment for sin and reward for virtue in life after death. The most important virtues were humility, continence, benevolence, and obedience; inwardness, or goodness of spirit, was indispensable to morality. The church graded all actions, both good and bad, and a system of temporal penance was instituted as atonement for sins.
The influence of Christian ethical beliefs and practices diminished during the Renaissance. The Protestant Reformation effected a widespread return to basic principles within the Christian tradition, changing the emphasis on certain ideas and introducing new ones. According to Martin Luther, goodness of spirit is the essence of Christian piety. Moral conduct, or good works, is required of the Christian, but justification, or salvation, comes by faith alone. Luther himself married, and celibacy ceased to be required of the Protestant clergy.
The French Protestant theologian and religious reformer John Calvin accepted the theological doctrine that justification is by faith alone, and also upheld the Augustinian doctrine of original sin.
In general, during the Reformation, individual responsibility was considered more important than obedience to authority or tradition. This change of emphasis, which indirectly led to the development of modern secular ethics, is to be seen in the De Jure Belli et Pacis (The Law of War and Peace, 1625) by the Dutch jurist, theologian, and statesman Hugo Grotius. Although the work adheres to some of the doctrines of Saint Thomas Aquinas, it deals with people's political and civil duties in the spirit of ancient Roman law. Grotius argued that natural law is a part of divine law and is based on human nature, which exhibits a desire for peaceful association with others and a tendency to follow general principles in conduct. Therefore, society itself is properly based on natural law.
In his Leviathan (1651), the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes assigned greatest importance to organized society and political power. He argued that human life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, and that it is a war of all against all. Consequently, people seek security by entering into a social
contract in which each person's original power is yielded to a sovereign, who regulates conduct. This conservative position in politics assumes that human beings are evil and need a strong state to repress them. Nonetheless, Hobbes argued that if a sovereign does not provide secund order and is overthrown by the people, they revert to the state of nature and then may make a new contract. Hobbes's doctrine concerning the state and the social contract influenced the thought of the English philosopher John Locke. In his Two Treatises on Civil Government (1690) Locke maintained, however, that the purpose of the social contract is to reduce the absolute power of authority and to promote individual liberty.
The good that people should seek for others is the good they desire for themselves. In addition, reason is needed in order to keep the passions in check and to achieve pleasure and happiness by avoiding pain. The highest human state, according to Spinoza, is the "intellectual love of God" derived from intuitive understanding, a faculty higher than ordinary reason. By the proper use of this faculty a person may contemplate the entire mental and physical universe and view it as comprising an infinite substance, which Spinoza terms God.