The Moral Quest

Stanley J. Grenz, writing in his book, The Moral Quest:

"...despite the human-centeredness of all general ethics, the human moral quest is essentially the search for the will of God, and therefore the Christian ethic marks the transformation of general ethics. More specifically, naturalism, with its appeal to creation, reemerges at this point as an appropriate bridge to the Christian moral vision, rooted as it is in the new creation."

"Viewed from the biblical perspective, therefore, existence and ethics are not two separate concerns. Instead they are integrally connected. The ethical life involves living according to the divine will that provides the foundation of our very being as God's creatures populating God's universe.
On this basis we can conclude that the sense of moral obligation lying behind all human ethical systems is nothing less than the impact of the divine will upon human life. The sense of moral conditionedness arises because we exist by the will of God. And this divine will--the divine preference--forms the foundation for morality."

"This connection forges the link between Christian ethics and general ethics. Their common genesis in the divine will means that the revealed ethic of the Christian faith and the general ethic of the philosophers occupy the same ground and traverse the same territory. The Christian ethicist and the philosopher are ultimately concerned about the same thing, namely, the proper human response to God's claim on our lives or the determination of what constitutes living according to the divine will. Whether or not they are consciously aware of it, whenever people engage in ethical reflection they are in fact seeking to determine God's intention for human life and conduct. They are ultimately searching for the answer to the fundamental questions of theological ethics: What does God will that we be and do? And how should we live as those who exist by God's own will?" 
Stanley J. Grenz, The Moral Quest