Catholic Moral Theology Catholic Moral Theology is centered on natural law. Most basically human actions should align with the divine will of God to be deemed morally good. Therefore, no act of humans can change the will, power and knowledge of God's divine will even if people sin against God. There is an important emphasis on ordering in one's life that must be founded on love, love of God, love of thyself, and love of neighbors. The situation at the time of St. Augustine was a need to create parameters on ethics. St Augustine was a Christian philosopher who lived in the 4th and 5th century AD during the decline of the Roman Empire. He was a bishop in the North African town called hippo for more than thirty years. He …show more content…
Karl Barth’s stance is that we actually do not know anything. We are only able to comprehend based off of the presentation of that thing. Therefore, God, the world, and other people are never fully understood. This new standard was needed due to the skepticism around human reasoning. Karl Barth’s situation is of grave importance to his theological understanding of ethics. In the height of Nazi Germany, he felt that many theologians he looked up to had failed morally by aiding the Nazi State’s mission. He ultimately had to leave Germany after refusing to pledge allegiance to Hitler and the Nazi regime. Barth’s authority is on the bible but more-so the word of God for understanding the divine command. Barth argues that God reveals God’s self as Lord by the way of this command. The divine command given to humans from God is to be and live, thus any action that disrupts another person’s opportunity to life is against God’s divine commandment to …show more content…
Through this lens, we look at the bible not as a manual but as recount of religious stories. Humanity then hears these stories and however an individual is impacted will shape the understanding of ethical behavior. Narrative ethics claims that no knowledge is universal thus every story is contextual. This breeds the freedom to truly evaluate one’s actions are good or bad rather than if it fit a rule that may not be conducive to the experience. Telling stories is also a window into the ways in which the narrator understands concepts of morality outside of the law. This window is especially important due to laws and rules being appropriate for a specific time or location. Stanley Hauerwas’ situation was a myriad of different ideological conflicting times like post liberalism, radical orthodoxy, and narrative theology but his moral discernment comes from the Christian community and its historical