‘Ethics does not … teach us what we should do, but rather what we may do. It measures the scope of freedom. In the light of exemplary situations it reflects … upon the question of what it means to live in freedom and with the gift of forgiveness in the midst of all the entangling autonomisms, all the conflicts of values and constellations of interests, and all the actual circumstances of this aeon that seek to determine us. It shows us how the prodigal son lives after he has forsaken the servitude of the far country and after he has outgrown the virtuous legalism of the brother who remained at home.’ – Helmut Thielicke, The Freedom of the Christian Man: A Christian confrontation with the Secular Gods (trans. J. W. Doberstein; New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 157.