Teaching Philosophy

Volume 19, Issue 3, September 1996

Morality and Scripture

This paper offers insights into various methods and approaches to teaching an entry level ethics courses to students who adhere to a biblical morality. Such students tend to take on the view that morality is not to be reasoned because all morality is derived from an authoritative source, scripture. Biblical morality holds a false perception of morality in general. Moral reasoning is essential to the creation of a foundation for the interpretation, extraction, and derivation of moral laws and morality from the Bible. The author suggests the use of the Euthyphro dilemma to introduce students to various ways to reason through religious moral issues and to realize its metaphysical value. The author encourages educators to familiarize themselves with scripture so they are able to engage with students of a biblical morality. The goal is not to change students’ views concerning morality, but only to show them that it is not opposed to rationality.