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Le vouloir et le faire: Une critique théologique de la morale
Comment articuler la critique de l’idée que vouloir connaître le Bien est le péché, à la réflexion théologique et philosophique sur le Bien ? C’est la question dont traite cet ouvrage classique de Jacques Ellul, enfin réédité. L’auteur montre d’abord que la morale ne saurait prétendre dériver de la connaissance de la volonté de Dieu. Du coup, la morale naturelle ou philosophique s’oppose à la révélation du Bien. Le caractère fondamentalement athée de la morale naturelle (ou morale du monde) débouche sur le dévoiement techniciste de la morale, que Jacques Ellul fut l’un des premiers à diagnostiquer et à critiquer. Ce qui pose la question du statut d’une éthique chrétienne, démarche certes impossible, mais néanmoins nécessaire pour éviter le triple risque du piétisme spirituel, de l’indifférentisme et de l’adaptation sans critique aux normes technicistes du monde moderne.
- GenresReligionPhilosophy
303 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1969
1 person is currently reading
46 people want to read
About the author
Jacques Ellul
119 books446 followersBaptised Catholic, Ellul became an atheist and Marxist at 19, and a Christian of the Reformed Church at 22. During his Marxist days, he was a member of the French Communist Party. During World War II, he fought with the French Underground against the Nazi occupation of France.
Educated at the Universities of Bordeaux and Paris, he taught Sociology and the History of Law at the Universities of Strausbourg and Montpellier. In 1946 he returned to Bordeaux where he lived, wrote, served as Mayor, and taught until his death in 1994.
In the 40 books and hundreds of articles Ellul wrote in his lifetime, his dominant theme was always the threat to human freedom posed by modern technology. His tenor and methodology is objective and scholarly, and the perspective is a sociological one. Few of his books are overtly political -- even though they deal directly with political phenomena -- and several of his books, including "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes" and "The Technological Society" are required reading in many graduate communication curricula.
Ellul was also a respected and serious Christian theologian whose 1948 work, "The Presence of the Kingdom," makes explicit a dual theme inherent, though subtly stated, in all of his writing, a sort of yin and yang of modern technological society: sin and sacramentality.
Educated at the Universities of Bordeaux and Paris, he taught Sociology and the History of Law at the Universities of Strausbourg and Montpellier. In 1946 he returned to Bordeaux where he lived, wrote, served as Mayor, and taught until his death in 1994.
In the 40 books and hundreds of articles Ellul wrote in his lifetime, his dominant theme was always the threat to human freedom posed by modern technology. His tenor and methodology is objective and scholarly, and the perspective is a sociological one. Few of his books are overtly political -- even though they deal directly with political phenomena -- and several of his books, including "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes" and "The Technological Society" are required reading in many graduate communication curricula.
Ellul was also a respected and serious Christian theologian whose 1948 work, "The Presence of the Kingdom," makes explicit a dual theme inherent, though subtly stated, in all of his writing, a sort of yin and yang of modern technological society: sin and sacramentality.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 26, 2020
Ellul seems to be very Christ-centered in his teaching on ethics yet his writing style is hard to follow. This may be due to his book being translated from french to english.
January 13, 2018
How did the reformation, with all its heart and all its soul, fall so quickly into godless authoritarianism? Because, answers Ellul, despite the richness of its theology it forgot to describe the richness of ethics. Here is the forgotten answer to the question of what is a Christian ethic in the modern world.
Ellul rocked my world with The Technological Society. Much of this book, as I come to it at 40+ years old and having read some philosophy and theology, I had already arrived at. Still, why has it so rarely been formulated completely? This, this is the Christian ethic I believe.
The book is very complex and written to a high reading level. It is written in the old fashioned way where the argument is built through the book and the conclusion is reached at the end, rather than the opposite, the pyramid, as is in fashion now. Consequently the book takes some dedication to read, and to get to the point one must actually read it from the beginning through to the end.
Ellul rocked my world with The Technological Society. Much of this book, as I come to it at 40+ years old and having read some philosophy and theology, I had already arrived at. Still, why has it so rarely been formulated completely? This, this is the Christian ethic I believe.
The book is very complex and written to a high reading level. It is written in the old fashioned way where the argument is built through the book and the conclusion is reached at the end, rather than the opposite, the pyramid, as is in fashion now. Consequently the book takes some dedication to read, and to get to the point one must actually read it from the beginning through to the end.
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January 10, 2025To Will and To Do is French lay theologian Jacques Ellul’s introduction to ethics. While that is a true summary of the book, it is also liable to be misleading. This is not a book of ethics which will provide any practical ethical answers. You should look elsewhere if you are wanting to find answers to today’s hot questions such as: is abortion against the will of God? Is marriage only between a man and a woman? Can we participate in corporate structures of evil? Instead, this book functions more as a prolegomena towards the concrete ethical considerations. It clears the ground for future discussions of what the Christian “ethic” is on certain concrete questions.
The choice of quotations around “ethics” in the last sentence is an intentional one. On the one hand, it is appropriate to call this a book of Christian ethics. On the other hand, this book is a resolute argument against the existence and validity of Christian ethics. It is a book against ethics. If this dual affirmation makes you confused, then I welcome you to the world of dialectical thinking and the experience that is reading Jacques Ellul.
Ellul argues via a dialectic. He wants to argue strongly against ethics and also argue for the necessity for ethics. This dual argument is laid out most clearly in his chapter “The Double Morality”. In that chapter, which is the longest of the book, Ellul summarizes the dialectic by arguing first that there is no such thing as ethics, morality, or moralism. These all belong to the order of the fall. On the other hand, there must be a Christian ethic, for the faith must be lived out. Lest the reader get up their hopes that Ellul will spend much of the rest of the book describing the Christian ethic, they will be disappointed. It is only in the last chapter that Ellul speaks positively about the Christian ethic in the world.
Understanding that Ellul is arguing via a dialectic can help the impatient reader (which includes me). Ellul is waiting to provide his positive argument for what a Christian ethic is until the end of the book, and there he only spends one chapter on the positive case. That means that many of my questions and objections were unanswered until either the end of the book or were simply not in the scope of this book.
Writing all that does not mean that Ellul’s argument is correct. I leave the discernment of the validity of Ellul’s argument up to you, discerning reader. But hopefully this short review can help you better understand what Ellul is doing in this book, in order to read him more carefully, sympathetically, and critically in the best sense of the word. This review lays out what I wish I had known before reading the book. I hope it helps you as well.
The choice of quotations around “ethics” in the last sentence is an intentional one. On the one hand, it is appropriate to call this a book of Christian ethics. On the other hand, this book is a resolute argument against the existence and validity of Christian ethics. It is a book against ethics. If this dual affirmation makes you confused, then I welcome you to the world of dialectical thinking and the experience that is reading Jacques Ellul.
Ellul argues via a dialectic. He wants to argue strongly against ethics and also argue for the necessity for ethics. This dual argument is laid out most clearly in his chapter “The Double Morality”. In that chapter, which is the longest of the book, Ellul summarizes the dialectic by arguing first that there is no such thing as ethics, morality, or moralism. These all belong to the order of the fall. On the other hand, there must be a Christian ethic, for the faith must be lived out. Lest the reader get up their hopes that Ellul will spend much of the rest of the book describing the Christian ethic, they will be disappointed. It is only in the last chapter that Ellul speaks positively about the Christian ethic in the world.
Understanding that Ellul is arguing via a dialectic can help the impatient reader (which includes me). Ellul is waiting to provide his positive argument for what a Christian ethic is until the end of the book, and there he only spends one chapter on the positive case. That means that many of my questions and objections were unanswered until either the end of the book or were simply not in the scope of this book.
Writing all that does not mean that Ellul’s argument is correct. I leave the discernment of the validity of Ellul’s argument up to you, discerning reader. But hopefully this short review can help you better understand what Ellul is doing in this book, in order to read him more carefully, sympathetically, and critically in the best sense of the word. This review lays out what I wish I had known before reading the book. I hope it helps you as well.
November 29, 2018
Overall an interesting and, at times, controversial thesis but one that perhaps hasn't aged well with all of the advances in neuroscience since its publication.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews