Revelatory Texts and Moral Lives: Reinterpreting the Specificity of Christian Morality Through a Ricoeurian Hermeneutic

This thesis will attempt to show how the work of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur can help to move discussions about the specificity of Christian morality beyond the search for specifically Christian norms and principles to emphasise the importance of the biblical narrative in answering the ‘Who?’ of personal identity. It will also show how Ricoeur’s work is useful in determining how the Bible can help to deepen our understanding of the virtues by providing us with paradigmatic examples of what virtuous behaviour looks like. It will be argued that the similarities between a Ricoeurian interpretation of the Glaubensethik/Autonomy debate and currents trends in virtue ethics and spirituality make it an attractive alternative to the search for specifically Christian norms and values. The key to understanding Christian morality is not to be found in a search for norms and principles but in the particular way the Christian community understands itself. Stories and practices supplement ethics with the kind of personalism that was lacking in traditional moral theology. The study will further demonstrate that Ricoeur’s understanding of history and tradition can provide a way of answering to the respective concerns of the Autonomy and Glaubensethik schools vis-à-vis tradition without showing a bias towards one or the other. Later sections will show how Ricoeur’s work can provide us with a model for understanding how Christians can dialogue with the rest of world without being forced to abandon the narrative that continues to shape their lives