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5 A Creedal Framework A Proposal for the Reclamation of Ethics within Lutheranism A directing premise of this brief study has been the desirability of being able to locate within Lutheran theology a place for the concerns, insights, and even practices of an ethics of virtue, thereby making possible the work of intentional character formation. The present chapter will endeavor to synthesize what has gone before and offer what fruit this investigation has to yield. In other words, the time has come to develop and defend a viable framework that opens working space for the practice of an ethics of virtue within Lutheranism while maintaining doctrinal positions distinctive to Lutheranism. A significant element of the proposed framework, the three kinds of righteousness, was introduced in the previous chapter. That aspect of the overall paradigm will be elaborated and supplemented as it is grounded in the fundamental framework provided by the church’s creed, whether confessed as the Nicene Creed or the Apostles’ Creed. The Creedal Frame The quest for a framework within which to proclaim the truths of the gospel and to address seriously the needs of Christian living, while at the same time taking into account the interrelationship between both, has proven to be a greater challenge than most might have expected. The hope, of course, is that such a frame will serve the rejuvenation and development of Lutheran ethics and allow for a concerted effort at character formation among the people of today’s church. Sadly and—at least from the perspective of the church’s vitality—tragically, typical and well-known Lutheran frames (gospel motivation, law and gospel, and spontaneous production of good works, and 135 even some aspects of two kinds of righteousness) have been found, in varying degrees, not entirely satisfactory. An acceptable frame worthy of use and promulgation must be equal to the needs of contemporary Lutheranism while at the same time relatively familiar and so readily accessible to all Christians. In addition to the framework of three kinds of righteousness, the complementary component of this study’s suggested framework is discovered by considering some of the most basic features of the theological landscape. A theological frame that can accommodate the scope of Lutheran theology along with the significant practical concerns of virtue ethics is founded upon and shaped within what is perhaps the most expansive yet inclusive of all possible frameworks: the fundamental form of the church’s creed. After considering the benefits of thinking of the creed in terms of a paradigm, I will then describe a single guiding frame that adopts the three-kinds-ofrighteousness framework and then roots that framework within the basic creedal paradigm. As the argument unfolds, it should become clear that this newly described framework is able to receive, accommodate, and make sense of the sometimes disparate data that are encountered in Scripture, the Confessions, and Christian experience. For the sake of convenience, this framework of three kinds of righteousness grounded in a creedal paradigm will be designated simply as the creedal framework. This means that references to a creedal framework should not be construed as another competing frame over against the three-kinds-of-righteousness framework. Rather, the three kinds of righteousness frame is grounded within and drawn from the creedal frame. Taken together, the depth and richness of the creedal basis and the precision and ready application of the three kinds of righteousness offer a potent and helpful framework within which to think and live faithfully as a disciple. Unencumbered by the propensity toward polarization inherent in all dualities, nor beguiled by the errant attempt to make motivation say everything of interest about the Christian life, and making use of language and concepts immediately recognizable to all Christians, a creedal framework offers much to commend its adoption as the fundamental and norming frame for faithful Christian reflection and action. The church’s creed, whether expressed as the Nicene Creed or the Apostles’ Creed, provides a view comprehensive enough to encompass all of theology and all of life. Justification coram Deo and the Christian’s life in the world coram mundo are not placed in polarity to one another, nor are they collapsed into a unity. Both are rightly understood as aspects of God’s larger work of creating, redeeming, and restoring. The great strength and advantage of this frame is that it is founded upon and reflects the work of the Trinity itself—not the ineffable, transcendent intra-trinitarian 136 | A Case for Character [3...

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