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ETHICS
directing an ethical imperative to the individual, an unthematic experience of a divine imperative issued to the individual. And the man who responds to the demand in absolute fidelity to his conscience opens his individuality to the Absolute's address to him and unthematically enters as an individual, in the depths of his being, into lived, personal dialogue with God. God addresses men not only as the God of the human race; he also calls each one by name. Individuality has many faces: uniqueness, transcendence, freedom, creativity and self-disposability are some of them. rresponsibility is still another. llfan not only can dispose of himself as an individual; he also has the duty to do so meaningfully. Duty is rooted in a man's individuality as well as in his "essence." A person must do not only what is required of everybody; he also must do what nobody else has to do and what he alone can do or is "called" to do. A man has the duty to act like a man; he also has the duty to act like himself, to be and to become himself in relation to the rest of reality. Creativity is. duty as well power.
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ESSENTIAL AND PERSONAL ETHICS
To retum now to Curran's proposition that "the Christian and the explicitly non-Christian can and do arrive at the same ethical conclusions [the same ethical decisions about pat1:icular matters (115)] and can and do share the same general ethical attitudes, dispositions and goals" (114). The proposition, as seen earlier, means that "there is not a strict dichotomy between Christian ethics and non-Christian ethics," or more simply, that there is no "distinctively Christian ethic." Curran, then, is maintaining that all men of good will can and do arrive at the same ethical decisions about particular matters. But this position can have validity only within the limits that Curran has in view, namely, "essential ethics." As soon as the terms "ethics " j'ethic" and "ethical" are seen as ' referred not only to "essence but also to individuality, it must be maintained that all men of good will cannot and do not arrive at the same ethical decision about pm1:icular matters. Such ethical consensus can exist only in what pet1:ains to man's "essence."