The Principles of Christian Ethics [antikvár]

PREFACEThis book is a systematic and critical exposition of Christian ethics in the light of its history and of present-day thought. Special attention, as its title indicates, is devoted to the fundamental principles of the Christian ethic. But it also contains a general introduction to the more important problems of individual and social ethics, and concludes with a chapter on the validity of Christian ethics. Those who are acquainted with English literature in this field will recognize the need of some such introductory work as this.During the past forty-five years I have been a teacher of theology in several institutions. Thirty-seven of these years have been spent at the university with which I am still connected. So far as my professorial and administrative duties as dean permitted, I have during these years endeavored to put into book form the conclusions I have reached in the three main divisions of systematic theology. In the field of apologetics two books have been written, The Philosophy of Personalism and The Validity of Religious Experience. In the field of Christian doctrine two volumes also have been written, The Doctrine of God and The Doctrine of Redemption, to which The Religious Teaching of the Old Testament and Present Tendencies in Religious Thought may be regarded as introductory. The present volume completes the series by covering the field of Christian ethics. These books as a whole have emphasized the historical and philosophical approaches to the problems of theology and, so far as possible, have sought to solve these problems in the light of a thoroughgoing and consistent Christian personalism. It is the latter fact, if any, that gives a certain distinctiveness to my life work.7