St. Augustine is quoted, perhaps apocryphally, as having said that ethical behavior is to be determined by this single assertion: “We are to love God and do whatever we please”—in other words, we cannot go wrong if love of God is at the heart of every decision we make and every action we take. Will that work? Not unless we define very carefully what it means to love God, but perhaps in this statement, we can find a new starting point for ethical conversations. At least we must try.
