Tim L. Jacobs

I am a teaching fellow at The Davenant Institute, a ministry dedicated to renewing Christian wisdom for the Church. I am a PhD candidate in philosophy at the University of St. Thomas, TX and formerly earned my MDiv and ThM from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I specialize in ancient and medieval philosophy, virtue, natural law, metaphysics, and classical logic, and I’ve published several articles as well as contributing to the Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia and the Lexham Bible Dictionary. My lifelong aim is to invest in the health of the church by reviving the unity between philosophy and theology. I Live with my wife and three kids in California.

Dissertation

“Virtue for the Common Good: Against Egoism in Contemporary Virtue Ethics”

The modern virtue ethics movement (and modern ethics in general) propagates “the individualist assumption.” This is the assumption in action theory that goods are only privately possessed. When someone does something good, it is ultimately for the good of either themselves or someone else. This makes all actions either egoistic or altruistic. Egoism violates the need to care for others for their sake, while altruism does not explain why I should care about others in the first place. This dichotomy can’t sufficiently answer “Why be moral?” In this view, any talk of the “common good” is a modernist social contract used as a means for individualism.

The shared common good, as understood in the classical Christin & Aristotelian tradition, sees things differently. Think of it this way. A team victory is possessed by a team, not individuals as individual. They are parts of a whole. Teammates don’t (shouldn’t) simply use each other as instruments for personal gain. If they do, we think of them as selfish and not having good sportsmanship. A husband and wife don’t possess two marriages, but together possess one. A family of five does not possess five families but together possess one. Likewise, a society (should) pursue the classical shared common good as a team victory for all. Instead of seeing society as a social contract and means for pursuing individualistic goals, the shared common good fulfills us more than individual goods. We can accomplish and possess more flourishing together than we can apart. The ultimate common good is knowledge of God in relationship with him. Just as it’s a natural joy to share flourishing with others, it’s a supernatural joy to share God, as one whole and united body, the church, together possessing union with Christ.

Beliefs: Nicene Creed; Apostle’s Creed; The Second London Baptist Confession (1689) (see my comments); Baptist Faith and Message 2000; The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy; Nashville Statement.