Levi Checketts

LEVI CHECKETTS {[email protected]} holds a PhD in Ethics and Social Theory from the Graduate Theological Union and is an adjunct professor at both the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University and Holy Names University. His primary research involves theological ethics of new technologies and the intersection of theology, social sciences, and continental philosophy.

Thomas Aquinas Meets Joseph Smith: Toward a Mormon Ethics of Natural Law

Articles/Essays – Volume 51, No. 1

In opposition to Christian traditions that teach human guilt as a result of original sin, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that humans “will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.”Unlike the Lutheran simul justus et peccator, wherein human beings are thoroughly sinful and saved only by God’s mercy, Mormons believe that human agency is responsible for human sinfulness and that the same agency is required to do good works for which we are ultimately judged.