Who said this?

[mvdm]

Ran across this quote and wondered if anyone could guess the author? {Ben Glaser, Randy Snyder, and Bryan Peters know the answer, so no fair jumping in guys

"What we need today is an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without: a secular ethics."

 

[baron]

Is it from the Dalai Lamas book Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World?

 

[ChristianTrader]

Isn't he calling for natural law under the name of secular ethics?

CT

 

[MW]

These questions don't really work when Google is just a button away.

 

[mvdm]

I should have stipulated "no google". Yes, it was the Lama, and yes, it is virtually indistinguishable from some modern natural law arguments.

 

[rookie]

Almost sounds like something Brian Mclaren when he said "we need to move to a non theological view of God".....

Still can't figure that one out....

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Whomever it is (I have my own guess) uses the philosophical term, "ethics," probably in its philosophical sense.
Would this be the ineradicable knowledge of the (moral) Law in the universal human constitution?

He also uses the term "religion," which seems to be stated (deliberately) in very broad terms.
Is he appealing to the superficial, law-like qualities found (and sometimes shared) in so many religions?

He also uses the term "secular," which has both a pop-Christian reference, as well as an historic meaning contrasted to "sacred," which simply means "of or pertaining to the material world or a generation."

The quote is contextless, and so we are left wondering in what way, or for what purpose a statement of "secular [natural law?] ethics" has an appeal to this person.

 

[SRoper]

I should have stipulated "no google". Yes, it was the Lama, and yes, it is virtually indistinguishable from some modern natural law arguments.

Thanks for clearing that up. I was wondering how this particular post of yours would lead to "Kline/WSC/2K/natural law is bad."

 

[J. Dean]

Dolly the Llama?

(Sorry, couldn't resist)

Seriously, though, this is a point I've been driving home to my Sunday School class: it is more often than not the motive of morality that causes heresy within the church. A good example of that is Pietism, a movement that found its roots within the Lutheran church and eventually paved the way for Socinianism/Unitarianism and Modernism to fill the pulpits, because people became more concerned about good works than they did the doctrinal underpinings of those works.

 

[mvdm]

Bruce, here is a broader context of the quote:

'Beyond Religion': The Dalai Lama's Secular Ethics (EXCERPT)