The Command of God as a Moral Norm

Abstract

Barth’s divine command ethics claims that God’s grace to human beings in Jesus Christ is the norm of human action. In Jesus Christ, God both poses and answers the question of the good of human action, which is the question of its conformity to grace. Rather than a norm of a distinctively Christian way of acting or form of life, Barth argues that this is a moral norm that pertains to human action as such. When moral philosophy considers the question of conformity to the good that is posed to human action, it implicitly attests the grace of God which poses this question. And when moral philosophy considers the answers to the question of the good that derive from reason or experience, it implicitly attests the grace of God as the answer to the question. In its explicit attestation of the grace of God as the norm of human action, theological ethics makes use of this implicit attestation in moral philosophy. Barth thus endorses the traditional position according to which theology articulates the moral norm with the assistance of philosophy. However, Barth’s claim that the norm of human action is a revealed norm, and not a rational norm that is clarified, specified, and extended by revelation, qualifies the goodness of the human creature, fails to secure the mutual accountability of those who are inside and outside the circle of revelation, and limits the grounds on which Christians and others cooperate with one another in moral endeavors.