Unit 8- Rights and Responsibilities Notes

RE- Rights and Responsibilities:

Only the Bible should be used for making Moral Decisions:

·         The Bible is the Words of God

·         The Bible contains God’s teachings e.g. Decalogue

·         The Bible contains teachings from Jesus on how to live

·         The Bible contains letters from St Peter, St John, St James and St Paul. They wrote these letters teaching Christians how to behave.

The Bible has Some Authority for Making Moral Decisions

·         Some Christians believe that the Bible was inspired by God

·         Some Christians would say the Church should tell them what to do, putting the authority of the Church over the Bible

·         Other Christians use their conscience as to whether to follow the Bible or not.

Only the Church should be used for making Moral Decisions:

·         The Church is the body of Christ.

·         Most Christians believe that God speaks to the world through the Church; he didn’t stop speaking to people after the last book in the Bible was written.

·         The Church is the community of Christian believers so is guided by God.

·         Catholics Christians believe that now the authority comes from the Pope and Bishops interpreting the Bible for Catholics today.

Your Conscience should be used for making Moral Decisions:

·         Christians believe that God speaks to Christians. The voice of their conscience is God speaking to them.

·         The Church says that Christians should follow their conscience as if it were the voice of God. Christians are expected to follow the Church’s teachings.

·         St Paul and St Thomas Aquinas should use their conscience. Therefore they should follow their conscience even if it tells them the Church’s teaching are wrong

·         The teaching from the Bible and Church don’t often come directly from God, they have been translated/interpreted. However, the conscience speaks to you directly.

Your Conscience shouldn’t be used for making Moral Decisions:

·         People have been mistaken about the voice of God. If you can be mistaken about the voice of God, you can be mistaken about the voice of conscience.

·         If all Christians follow the Bible, they will all do what they believe the Christian thing to do is

·         If Christians follow the teachings of Church, then they know they will do what other Christians think is right.

·         If everyone followed their conscience rather than laws, life would become chaotic and nobody would know what sort of behaviour to expect from one another.

Situation Ethics should be used for making Moral Decisions:

·         Jesus seemed to follow situation ethics because he over-ruled what the Old Testament said when he thought it was unloving.

·         They think it’s wrong to ignore the consequences of your actions.

·         That believe that Jesus’ statement, love your neighbour, means that Christians should always do the most loving thing.

·         They believe that Christianity…