The International Ethics Of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Theological Politics

Reinhold Niebuhr is one of the most influential theologian and political philosopher in twentieth century America. His theological politics is still of great value in twenty-first century. This article mainly concentrates on Niebuhr’s theological, political and ethical theories, with ethics as the foremost research center, so as to investigate the construction of his international political ethics. It suggests that Niebuhr’s ethical theory is the link between his theology and political philosophy, and it’s also the final value among the three. His international political ethics on the other hand is constructed on the basis of his analysis on individual and social ethics.Reinhold Niebuhr’s theology, political philosophy and ethics basically originated from the Christian Reformation, Renaissance, and Prophetic Movement. Theology is the basis of Niebuhr’s work. His theology was classified to be the "Neo-orthodoxy Theology" which aims to go back to God’s orthodox and the Reformation orthodox. It’s the reclamation theology in the crisis age. Politics is Niebuhr’s most favorite field in practice. He worked hard to bring theology into politics so as to construct his political theory which value power and moral impartially, and aims to realize Love and Justice, and ethics being the link of the two, because ethics provides ways to solve the modem moral and political problems by using Christian theology.As for the characteristics, Niebuhr’s theological politics was grounded on the basis of Christian faith of Original Sin and God’s Grace, perfected with the changing of the time, and it paved his own way of ethics with love and justice by his special paradoxical discussion.During the construction process of his international political ethics, the individual ethics and the social ethics were differentiated in the first place. According to Niebuhr s Moral Man and Immoral Society, individual moral standard should not be compared with group moral, hence the difference between the individual ethics and the social ethics. Individual ethics, according to Niebuhr, with its highest Love ethic is far more advanced than the Justice Ethic which is the highest for social ethics, and the later one is the "impossible possibility" of the former one. Besides, Love in individual ethics consists of two forms, the unconditional sacrificial Agape (God’s Love), and the conditional individual mutual love. For social ethics, Justice is not the situation with a definite meaning, but is the mutual effect of reason, religion and social enforcement, with three important principles:equality, freedom, and order. From the combination of the individual and social ethics, the article came about the structure of international ethics, which has the main string of Love and Justice, theme of power and moral, and lastly the ideal of democracy in international society.Finally, Nieburian theological politics has a huge comeback after the9-11terrorist attack in2011America, and it also places great influence on American political elite, which makes the study of it more and more significant.