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dc.contributor.advisorBaise, Bryan
dc.contributor.authorMoon, David
dc.date.accessioned2023-01-03T21:04:44Z
dc.date.available2023-01-03T21:04:44Z
dc.date.issued2022-11-30
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10392/6967
dc.description.abstractThere is a distinct reluctance in the Reformed tradition to engage with natural theology and scholarship in the study of, among other things, virtue ethics. This thesis attempts to demonstrate that Herman Bavinck’s four pillars of reformed dogmatics allows reformed ethicists to robustly engage in the study of virtue ethics. In chapter 1, I describe the nature and impact of the widening philosophical rift between specific and general revelation in the Reformed camp which can be traced to nineteenth-century Barthian dialectics, Van Tillian presuppositionalism, and Neo-Calvinism which served to bifurcate, and not integrate, general and special revelation. As a result, ethicists are discouraged from the use of evidences, natural theology, and secular scholarship (i.e., Aristotelian-Eudaimonist virtue) in constructing a Biblical system of ethics. In chapter 2, I demonstrate how Herman Bavinck utilized a reformed framework of theology and ethics to robustly engage with the culture, politics, and science of his day. Chapter 3 analyzes the first of four pillars of Herman Bavinck’s ethical thought, namely Bavinck’s doctrine of Revelation, to demonstrate the classical reformed understanding of special and general revelation. Chapter 4 examines Bavinck’s Biblical anthropology to show prescribed ethical outlooks based upon a tiered understanding of humanity’s condition. Chapter 5 looks to Bavinck’s doctrine of Imitatio Incarnatus Christi to argue that the imitation of Christ bridges mystical and practical ethics. Chapter 6 addresses the last of the four pillars—the Kingdom of God—as a converging ethical paradigm. In chapter 7, I conclude by discussing the ramifications of applying Bavinck’s four pillars to the study of ethics for the purpose of encouraging ethicists to rigorously pursue the study of virtue not despite, but due to their Reformed heritage.en_US
dc.subject.lcshBavinck, Herman, 1854-1921en_US
dc.subject.lcshChristian ethicsen_US
dc.subject.lcshReformed Church--Doctrinesen_US
dc.subject.lcshRevelation--Reformed Churchen_US
dc.subject.lcshVirtue--Religious aspects--Christianityen_US
dc.titleReforming Virtue: Bavinck's Method of Engaging with Virtue Ethics from a Reformed Perspectiveen_US
dc.typeElectronic thesisen_US
dc.typeText
dc.type.qualificationnameTh.M.en_US
dc.publisher.institutionSouthern Baptist Theological Seminaryen_US
dc.publisher.departmentSchool of Theology


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