Theological Ethics 1 - RETA5031
Title: TEPV2-Theological Ethics 1
Guaranteed by: Department of Theological Ethics (27-TE)
Faculty: Protestant Theological Faculty
Actual: from 2024
Semester: summer
Points: 4
E-Credits: 4
Examination process: summer s.:
Hours per week, examination: summer s.:2/0, C [HT]
Capacity: unlimited / unknown (unknown)
Min. number of students: unlimited
4EU+: no
Virtual mobility / capacity: no
Key competences:  
State of the course: taught
Language: English
Teaching methods: full-time
Level:  
Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan
enabled for web enrollment
Guarantor: Mgr. Pavel Keřkovský, Dr.
SS schedule   
Annotation
TEPV2 Theological Ethics 1 Ethical thinking in the biblical canon
Natural law and Christianity, democracy,
Development of Democracy in America and Europe
The genesis of religious and human rights


+The first part of the course focuses on the emergence of ethical thinking in the biblical canon. Ethical reflection does not begin in ancient Greece. The biblical canon offers several types of ethical thinking.
+The Fathers of the Church and the Christian theologians of the Middle Ages were more inspired by ancient philosophical reflection, especially by developing an ethic of virtue.
+In the Middle Ages, Marsilio of Padua, Jan Wycliff, Jan Hus renewed their interest in ethical reflection on the biblical canon.
+In modern times they were followed by Martin Luther, Jan Calvin, Jan Amos Comenius, American Puritans (17th-18th centuries) and others in the 20th and 21th centuries: Božena Komárková, Petr Pokorný.
++In the second part we will deal with the topic The genesis of religious and human rights.
++Recent research into the genesis of religious and human rights demonstrates that modern human rights have ancient religious roots and therefore, are not a social invention of the European Enlightenment or eighteenth-century secularization.
++The Washington Declaration (T.G.Masaryk, October 18, 1918), The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts ((1648), Concerning the Rights of Rulers Over Their Subjects and the Duties of Subjects Towards Their Rulers (Theodor Beza, 1574), The Law Code of Alfred the Great (ninth century), and other documents refer to religious terminology and biblical sources.
++Biblical authors built on the Mesopotamian legal culture, and in the spirit of legal rationality, created a casuistic Israelite law with subjective rights, religious reflection on the law, apodictic law, symmetrical theory of justice.
++This ideology is tied to a theology based on the covenant with the Lord in which all of the participants in that agreement – all of God’s people (Israel) – have the right to a dignified life.
+++The prerequisites for understanding this course are therefore elementary knowledge of church history, and elementary familiarity with the biblical canon.
Last update: Gallus Petr, doc., Ph.D. (05.02.2025)
Literature

Barton John, Bowden Julia, The Original Story: God, Israel and the World, Grand Rapids, MI: Erdmans, 2004.

Komárková, Božena,  Human Rights and the Rise of the Secular Age, EMAN, 2003, Heršpice.

Küng, Hans, (ed.) Yes to a Global Etic London: SCM Press, 1996

Küng Hans and Kuschel, Karl-Josef, A global Ethic: The Declaration of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, New York: Continuum, 1993.

Westbrook, Raymond and Wells, Bruce. Everyday Law in Biblical Israel: An Introduction, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2009

Witte, John, Jr. Law and Protestantism, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002.

Witte, John, Jr., Reformation of Rights, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007.

Last update: Gallus Petr, doc., Ph.D. (05.02.2025)