What Are this „Christian values”?

Abstract

Since the concept of value was introduced in XVIII c. in economics it made a rapid career in other social sciences, philosophy, religion and everyday life too. Nowadays, it is used as a popular and fashionable word in many possible meanings probably filling some semantic vacuum. There is no clear, exact and commonly accepted definition of values and none of the philosophical − objective or subjective − theories of values is free from objections. The concept of Christian values inherits in present political and constitutional discussions in Poland all the vagueness and ambiguity of values themselves. The paper tries to clarify the general meaning of value in its philosophical history (Begriffsgeschichte) and to explain its ontological and epistemological status. By Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy values do not have their own existence but are attributes (modi essendi) of objective things. This holds somehow for Christian values too. The discussions upon the rational justification of the normativeness of Christian values have to include their embedment in Christian culture. Trying to identify and characterize the Christian values one has first to look at their genesis: the New Testament, Christian tradition and the religious behavior of the Christian believers themselves.