Synthetic biology is a relatively new discipline within the field of biotechnologies. In essence it is the artificial creation of microorganisms. Though similar in principle, it differs from genetic engineering because it creates an organism from scratch, rather than cutting and pasting DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) between existing organisms. This study investigates the ethical aspects (both rational and theological) concerned with synthetic biology through the use of a literature analysis. The study starts by investigating and describing the origins, pioneers, science and uses of synthetic biology. Secondly, it describes and ethically assesses the rational arguments for and against synthetic biology by comparing its benefits and risks. Lastly, the study describes and ethically assesses synthetic biology within the Reformed tradition, mainly by using the creational perspective of Christian ethical evaluations (including concepts such as creatio ex nihilio; creatio continua and imago Dei) and secondary the re-creational and eschatological perspectives. The final conclusion reached shows that synthetic biology is acceptable from a Reformed theological-ethical perspective, because humans as the image of God can create, just as God constantly creates new things and created a new universe from nothing. The rational arguments state that the potential benefits of synthetic biology surpass the risks it poses. Hence, it supports the idea that synthetic biology can be used to fulfil God’s commandment to love one’s neighbour, by improving his circumstances and activating hope. Nevertheless, Christians should always stay vigilant about motives and possible uses when dealing with new technologies. How and for what synthetic biology is used should in the future be constantly reviewed. In this way Christian scientists can still inquire about their work: Does it glorify God? / MA (Ethics), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

In the 20th-century, the advent of Taylorism led to a radical reconceptualisation in the organisation of human work. The formal scientifically-conceived aim of increased “efficiency” behind this project masked the moral and psychological changes which were also inherent in the project which is still ongoing. Now, at the turn of the 21st century, given the profusion of corporate scandals and the complicity of unscrupulous business practice in the current ecological and economic crises, researchers in a number of fields focused on work and its organisation have begun to warm to the possible relevance of religious ethics to social responsibility in business practices, offering some promise for a new rapprochement. In this dissertation, I offer a close study of the biblical texts that have nourished a moral vision of work for Christian and Jewish communities. I seek to nuance my study of these texts in Hebrew and Greek with an agrarian sensibility in order to highlight the moral vision of human / non-human interaction in the forms of work described and the ecological sensibility which undergirds this ancient vision of “good work” which is preserved in these texts. More specifically, I explore the moral relationship between work and worship through a close study of two related themes. In Part 1, I begin with a sustained look at the details of “good work” as narrated in the Tabernacle construction account in Exodus 25-40. This study of Exodus provides a platform upon which to explore work themes of volition, design, tacit knowledge, and interaction between the sociality and agency of work. In subsequent chapters, I go on to analyse subsequent temple construction accounts in 1 Kings, Jeremiah 22, Isaiah 60, Zechariah 14, 1-2 Chronicles, and across the New Testament. In this deliberately intertextual study, I attend to the transformation of the meaning of the Tabernacle/Temple across the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament, as temple building texts in particular assume an eschatological aspect. My study of these subsequent construction accounts also adds nuance and texture to my account of moral making in conversation with several contemporary theorists, particularly with regards to work agency, aesthetics, sociality, skill and wisdom, and the material culture of work. This section culminates with the conclusion that in the New Testament, the church becomes both the product and the site of moral work building a new “temple”. Following this conclusion, in Part 2 of the dissertation, I develop a more detailed account of the relational dynamic between work and worship as it is delineated in Hebrew and Christian offertory practice. For this study, I turn to close readings of offertory practices in the Hebrew Scriptures (with special focus on Leviticus 1-3 and other Pentateuchal offertory texts), the New Testament and early Christian (1-4c.) moral philosophy. I highlight the relationship between worship and work in these liturgies and argue that in their practical logic, work is “drawn into worship.” In particular, I argue that three aspects of offertory practice may provide a framework for rehabilitating contemporary worship so that it may once again draw work into a morally formative dynamic. These three aspects correspond to the material and practised details of specific offerings and include: (1) the relativisation of utility with the burnt offering (2) the engagement of work quality and aesthetics through consecratory firstfruits offerings and (3) the sociality of liturgical work with the shared meal in the peace offering. These texts and the early Christian practices through which their liturgies were deployed hint at possible avenues for a rehabilitation of the moral work life of contemporary Christians. I argue that the proper performance of worship must “draw in” and engage the ordinary work of the people of God, and that a rehabilitation of offertory practice, particularly in light of the rich range of practices demonstrated in the Christian tradition offers a promising place for the reconceptualisation of work.

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Thesis (M. Div.)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this thesis the focus will be on the challenges that our modern society presents to the church and her understanding of sexuality. Certain “traditional” values are questioned on a continual basis. Many people argue that a new era represents new challenges and therefore new answers are needed – “traditional” values has nothing more to say in this new world. A “traditional” sex-ethic that believes sex should be kept for marriage, is one of the casualties. This thesis attempts to show that such a “traditional” sex-ethic is still relevant in this world, today. This can only be done by taking serious notice of the current state of a modern society, & by respecting the Christian tradition, as well as the Word of God. By bringing the Word of God into a critical dialogue with the modern world and the challenges that it represents, it will be possible to show that a “traditional” sex-ethic is still relevant in this modern world. The Word of God gives us no systematic theory on human sexuality. It is therefore important that we take the central theme of the bible as our point of departure. Love and justice should guide every decision people make: if we want to obey God’s central command of loving our neighbors, we need to approach others with love and justice. By keeping sex for marriage we stay true to what God expects of us. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie studie word daar gefokus op die uitdagings wat ons moderne samelewing aan die kerk en haar verstaan van seksualiteit stel. Sekere “tradisionele” waardes word bevraagteken, dikwels in die naam van ‘n nuwe konteks. ‘n Nuwe era bied nuwe uitdagings en daarom word baie van dit wat as “tradisioneel” beskou word verwerp as iets wat vandag geen waarde meer het nie. ‘n “Tradisionele” seks-etiek wat sê dat seks slegs in die huwelik hoort, is een van hierdie slagoffers. Hierdie tesis probeer dus aantoon dat só ‘n tradisionele seks-etiek vandag, in ‘n veranderende wêreld, steeds relevant is. Dit kan slegs aangetoon word deur deeglik kennis te neem van die stand van die moderne samelewing, ‘n waardering van die Christelike tradisie, en die Woord van God. Deur die Woord van God krities in gesprek te bring met ‘n moderne samelewing en die uitdagings wat dit bied, kan daar aangetoon word dat seks steeds in die huwelik hoort – nie voor die huwelik nie, ook nie buite die huwelik nie. Die Woord van God bied aan ons geen sistematiese teorie oor die mens se seksualiteit nie. Om hierdie rede is dit belangrik dat ons die sentrale tema van die Woord as ons vertrekpunt sal neem vir ons bestudering van die mens se seksualiteit. Die basis van dit alles is liefde en geregtigheid – God se opdrag om ons naaste lief te hê kan slegs deur hierdie twee riglyne ‘n realiteit word. Deur seks slegs in die huwelik te beoefen, is ons getrou aan hierdie opdrag van God.

The original publication is available at http://www.ve.org.za / Reconciliation in a divided society, like the South African one, is in dire need of a new moral discourse and praxis. This article argues that this moral discourse must also be conducted on an often forgotten level, namely in the worshipping praxis of the Church. The article describes the renewed interest of ethicists and liturgists in the relationship between liturgy and ethics and especially the role of rituals. The article then focuses on the renewal of basic Christian rituals like preaching and sacraments, prayer and praise to serve this much needed moral discourse. / Publishers' Version

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From the time of the early church to the present century, Christian assumptions about and theological responses to sport have been problematic. In the present century, evangelicals in North America lack a developed theological ethic about how Christians should regard modern sport--the practices, purposes, and values. What little theology there is, is an uninformed folk theology of muscular Christianity in which the primary means of evaluating sport is in terms of its instrumental utility with no recognition of goods that might be internal to sport. In this thesis, I formulate a modest Christian ethic for sport as a way toward reimagining sport in the Christian life as an embodied, penultimate good. I have chosen Augustine, John Paul II, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer as the three primary interlocutors with whom to shape a theological discourse about and construct for modern sport. Together, they assist in exploring fundamental convictions of the Christian tradition and determining what bearing these should have on Christian moral reflection and deliberation on this cultural activity. In chapter one, Augustine‘s ethic is organized around three integral motifs: God and happiness, ordered and disordered loves, and the use and enjoyment of goods. By beginning here, a Christian ethic addresses the charges against Augustine‘s idealism set in the historical context of ancient Rome where the Christian tradition first engaged sport extra-biblically. These motifs lay the groundwork for how a Christian might relate to sport. In chapter two, I examine an exemplary modern attempt—by the American philosopher Paul Weiss—to give a moral and philosophical account of sport. Weiss develops a philosophy of sport around themes derived from classical Greek literature, including bodily excellence, anthropology, and teleology. Weiss‘s Greek ideals and philosophical categories function as heuristic tools because many issues of modern sport are connected in a variety of ways to these ancient Greek ideals. Weiss forms a bridge historically and philosophically to thicken our description of modern sport, to refine this thesis‘s analysis of some important categories native to modern sport, and to focus on what this phenomenon entails for a Christian ethic today. In chapter three, I engage with John Paul II's complex and rich account of the internal moral and theological goods of sport. John Paul II's personalism provides a much stronger basis for analyzing the goods intrinsic to sport than does Weiss--one that is, moreover, consistent with (while building on) the Augustinian foundation laid in chapter one. I demonstrate that in John Paul II's theology of sport, sportive actions find a significant analogue in the Christian doctrine of creation in relation to the body of the athlete, in which perspective sport may be seen as sign and gift shared with other embodied sportspersons. I propose that sport is an ontic-embodied good and gift that is only properly conceptualized in a Christian ethic, an ethic in which the pursuit of excellence is an objective that fulfils the dignity and worth of the whole human person. By contrast, Paul Weiss' philosophy of sport instrumentalizes embodied pursuits, such as sport. In chapter four, Dietrich Bonhoeffer‘s Christological basis for Christian ethics serves to repair the persistent problem of dualism—two-sphere thinking—for modern muscular Christianity. Bonhoeffer‘s comprehensive vision of reality places Christ at the center of life and existence so that the question of the good becomes the realization of the reality of God in Christ. Therefore, a Christian ethic does not justify how the reality of God in Christ relates to sportive culture by appealing either to the sacred or secular, but justification is in Christ, since He has drawn and holds it all together. In chapter five, I continue with the problem of modern muscular Christianity in order to constructively reimagine how to relate the reality of Christ as the ultimate to sportive reality, the penultimate. This eschatological paradigm further organizes the final chapter in two important ways. First, the logic of sport is often governed by alien ends and loves. Augustine‘s ethic refines this problem as a matter of how the practice of sport can educate our desires according to competing teloi. Second, I elucidate the importance of St. Paul‘s sport metaphor (1 Cor 9:24-27) as another angle for interpreting and ethically engaging the complex lived experience of sport itself. This sport metaphor functions eschatologically to integrate sport and the Christian life and to ennoble this activity as a practice for moral and spiritual formation.

This thesis seeks to expand the self-critical resources of contemporary theological economic ethics by bringing the method of a pre-modern theologian and social commentator, Martin Luther (1483-1546), into interaction with that of a modern contribution to social ethics, the Swiss theologian Arthur Rich (1910-92). This thesis is the first substantial treatment in English of Rich’s magnum opus, Wirtschaftsethik. The demonstration of the thesis is undertaken by a close engagement with a selected publication of Luther (his 1519/20 Großer Sermon von dem Wucher) and of Rich (his masterwork, Wirtschaftsethik, published in two volumes in 1984 and 1990 respectively). The thesis does not simply describe Luther’s and Rich’s economic ethics, but demonstrates the way in which they operate, that is, their method. An introduction sets out the thesis, and defends its method. Chapter 1 introduces Luther’s sermon on usury, and situates it in its context. It then gives a commentary on Luther’s method, discussing its genre, the way in which Luther deploys Scripture and exploits doctrines with respect to ethics, and his concept of the twofold government of God. It analyses how Luther brings these theological motifs to bear on a particular economic question. Chapter 2 sketches Arthur Rich’s life and work, and presents Rich’s method as set out in Wirtschaftsethik. It discusses his understanding of ethics, his approach to Scripture, and his adoption of the thought of Max Weber and John Rawls. Chapter 3 brings our study of Luther to bear on Rich’s approach, noting strengths and weaknesses of Rich’s method. It questions some of Rich’s assumptions, and notes ways in which a more self-critical approach could have made his project more successful. A conclusion then summarises the argument, and makes tentative suggestions as to the wider applicability of the critical questions posed to Rich’s method by the analysis of Luther.

In this thesis I argue for the centrality of moral discernment in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s vision of Christian ethics. I contend that a close reading of his understudied Ethics manuscript, ‘God’s Love and the Disintegration of the World’, not only reveals the importance of discernment, but also exposes a tension in his thinking between a simple, unreflective approach to God’s will and a rational, reflective mode of moral deliberation. At several points in the 1930s and early 1940s, his emphasis on simplicity seems to preclude the very idea of moral reflection; however, a closer inspection reveals that the two are not mutually exclusive. I argue that Bonhoeffer’s theology contains the necessary resources to incorporate, on Christological grounds, both simplicity and reflective moral deliberation into a coherent vision of moral discernment. Furthermore, I contend that this conceptual unity, premised on the relationship between Christ’s two natures, becomes efficacious in the lives of Christians through a process of conformation to the form of Christ, which includes as an essential element the disciplined practice of spiritual exercises. Finally, drawing on Bonhoeffer's entire corpus, I investigate the theme of God’s commandment, focusing in particular on simple obedience, and the concept of natural life, paying special attention to the shape of the created order. I conclude that simple obedience, while precluding self-centred moral reflection, nevertheless creates space for meditative reflection that understands reality through a Christological lens. In so doing, this meditative reflection finds its orientation in the natural, penultimate world, which serves as a crucial context and guide for those who want to become simple and wise.

One of the fundamental issues at the core of evangelical ethical debates involves the use of Scripture. Rejecting historical-critical methods on the one hand, and simplistic prooftexting on the other. Richard Hays wrote The Moral Vision of the New Testament in order to deal with this very problem. By most accounts, Hays's approach succeeds. This dissertation explores the method proposed by Hays in The Moral Vision , seeking to locate the strengths of his approach while noting its primary weaknesses. Upon finding Hays's method wanting, the dissertation posits a constructive proposal, in conversation with Hays, for using Scripture in ethics. The first chapter of the dissertation introduces the problem and suggests The Moral Vision as an ethical text which has garnered sufficient accolades as to make it worthy of examination. Chapter 2 seeks to describe in detail the major lines of argument, giving specific attention to the method Hays proposes to use Scripture in ethics. Chapter 3 offers a critique of The Moral Vision , beginning with several strengths. The thrust of the chapter, however centers on the following four weaknesses of Hays's method: first, Hays's program of appropriating Scripture is built on his view that Scripture speaks in disunity; second, that view of the canon necessitates that Hays identify three focal images to locate a coherent moral voice. The focal images serve to develop, despite Hays insistence to the contrary, a canon within the canon; third, Hays gives priority to narrative in his system, which opens his method up to greater subjectivity and personal bias; and lastly, Hays's approach provides no criteria for judging whether an appropriation is faithful, it unwittingly relies on transcendent ethical principles, and it fails to distinguish between interpretation and application. After offering a critique of The Moral Vision , chapter 4 proposes an original method for appropriating Scripture in ethics. That proposal seeks first to establish foundational convictions regarding Scripture and ethics. Building on those presuppositions, the dissertation prescribes how one might rightly read the ancient text of Scripture and from there draw conclusions about how the Bible gives ethical instructions today. At every turn, the dissertation's interest is concerned primarily with methodology rather than specific ethical conclusions. The chapter closes by drawing conclusions about one contemporary ethical issue ( in vitro fertilization) in order to test the method prescribed and help the reader see how such a proposal might proceed. The final chapter proposes application for the church that arises from the method proposed by this dissertation. The chapter also raises tensions for further research which lay outside the scope of this dissertation's purposes. / This item is only available to students and faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. If you are not associated with SBTS, this dissertation may be purchased from <a href="http://disexpress.umi.com/dxweb">http://disexpress.umi.com/dxweb</a> or downloaded through ProQuest's Dissertation and Theses database if your institution subscribes to that service.