Catholic Moral Theology Initial Week Conversations

Introduction

Catholic Moral Theology is the branch of study which seeks to know the goodness and evil of human actions (and the person who performs them) through the gifts of faith and reason. (1) It is a branch of study which enables a person to grow in moral discernment; to know and do the will of God while being confronted with complex moral decisions.

Humans are Acting Persons

Humans are acting persons according to John Paul II. What a person does (object; what is done) identifies his or her own relation to truth, virtue, freedom, and ultimately one’s relation with God and one’s neighbor. Human act is manifested when the human person is the principle source of the act; the power of the human will is the source of the act with the intellect giving an account of the act (knowing the end of the act). Acts which are simply a movement of nature are known as “man acts.” Catholic Moral Theology helps the student discover more deeply the understanding of human freedom as being founded upon truth and being ordered towards “the good” and towards man’s supernatural end which is Beatific Vision. True freedom exists authentically when the human person is spiritually healed so as to know the good, will the good, do the good, and persevere in the good (all the fruit of God’s grace). Human freedom is the fruit of abiding in Christ Jesus, who is Truth, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly My disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (Jn 8:31) Christian moral life of virtue is the fruit of abiding in Jesus Christ. “I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” (Jn 5:15) In Christ, one is called to be free. The call to freedom which is rooted in truth is an integral part of the gospel; an integral part of the new evangelization. Beatific Vision is the state of absolute human freedom. The person is no longer in a potential state towards absolute truth and absolute goodness. Freedom moves in grace and leads to virtue (good habit). What is the relationship between faith and reason and the human act?

Why Faith and Reason?

Faith and Reason are like two wings of the human soul. (Opening lines of John Paul II's encyclical Fides et Ratio) Catholic Moral Theology collects that which can be known by natural reason illuminated by divine revelation; thereby articulating what has been received in faith. Faith is the assent of the human intellect to First Truth as moved by the human will in response to God’s Grace. God is First Truth; His Essence is Truth (His nature is Truth). Faith is according to Sacred Scripture identified as, “the certainty [substance] of things hoped for, a proof of things not seen.” (Heb 11:1) Without faith it is not possible to please God (cf. Heb 11:6) Faith is a theological virtue?(along with hope and charity) which unites the human person with God’s divine life. Rational beings are capable of faith; since the human intellect is ordered towards truth and God is truth.?Reason is the power of the human intellect to know, think, and understand in a logical manner. Reason rooted in truth moves the human will to choose the good. Reason illuminated by faith moves the human will to choose the good with greater certainty; removing false images formed by such things as materialism, gnosticism, pantheism, and atheism. Reason is used in support of making law, development in philosophy and theology, judgement of human conscience, performance of human acts, and the work of prudence. Reason is illuminated by Faith assenting (accepting) to Truth as revealed by God. As such, faith and reason together are employed as a means of measuring the nature of human acts with greater certainty.

Catholic Moral Theology Wider Role in the Church

Catholic Moral Theology seeks to serve the whole Church to fulfill its mission of a new evangelization to the world, to form the conscience of all men especially the members of the Body of Christ, while shepherding them through complex moral issues, and remaining faithful to the task of guarding the Deposit of Faith with the help of the Holy Spirit (Cf. 2 Timothy 1:13-15).?Complex moral issues include but are not limited to such things as experimental vaccinations, capital punishment, just-war, interrogation procedures, birth control, abortion, human egg donation, in-vitro fertilization, embryonic and adult stem cell research, organ donation, gender confusion, same-sex activity, surrogacy, and euthanasia. These issues are complex because the Catholic Church must faithfully and objectively discern the object, intent, means, and results of both individual and collective human actions. The Church must also effectively, clearly, and patiently confront the widespread spirit of agnosticism and relativism, which has cast doubt on reason's ability to know the truth -- the truth which alone satisfies the human heart's restless quest for meaning. (2) ?

Reality of Man’s Final End Resting in God?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1730) states, “God created man a rational being, conferring upon him the dignity of person who can initiate and control his own actions.” Man desires the good. All creation desires the good. Man desires happiness as an end. Happiness is a manifestation of the person resting in the good; possessing the good, a state of completion, a state of perfection. All these things reflect the understanding of the word “the good.” God’s essence is truth. God’s essence is good. In fact, God essence is the source of all being, truth, goodness, beauty and unity. God as such is man’s absolute end and man’s absolute happiness. God is not only man's final end, His eternal law is the first standard measuring all human acts (formed conscience being the proximate measure); which are either towards or away from man's final end. Laws rooted in truth and goodness demonstrate a participation in the eternal law. Each human person is a moral being in the absolute sense and human acts are moral acts since they are ordered (chosen as means) either towards or away from man’s final end. The thoughts, the words, and the deeds of the human person have an eternal destination.

Moral Life Rooted in Truth in Goodness?

Moral life is rooted in the knowledge of truth and the willed pursuit of goodness. A life not rooted in truth and goodness leads to slavery and not authentic freedom, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin (misses the mark) is the slave of sin.” (Jn 8:34) The moral life of the Christian is not something opposed to the commandments of God. “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill” (Matt 5:17). While the Christian is no longer under the old juridical and ceremonial laws, the moral law as found in the ten commandments remain. The dialogue between Jesus and the Rich Man captures the significance of the ten commandments as a starting point.?

Then a certain ruler asked Him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call Me good?” Jesus replied. “No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother. “All these I have kept from my youth,” he said. On hearing this, Jesus told him, “You still lack one thing: Sell everything you own and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” But when the ruler heard this, he became very sad, because he was extremely wealthy. Seeing the man’s sadness Jesus said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Lk 18:18-25; Matt 19:16–30; Mk 10:17–31).?

Moral Life Perfected by Love?

God loves each human person into being and invests him with the vocation to love that allows him to return back to the source of all being, namely God, “who is Love.” (1 Jn 4:16)?(3) To love is a movement towards the good, which is perfecting the human person as evidenced by his increase in the theological, intellectual, and moral virtues. For the human person, true love requires the personal integration of every power in the human soul towards the good. Within each person there exists various appetites ordered towards the good: “natural, sensitive -- which in animals is irrational -- but in man shares in rational or intellectual appetite which is the human free will.” Only the formed intellect and free will can know and choose the objective good. As a result, there is a struggle within the person over “which good?” This struggle is real especially as a result of original sin. “But I see a different law in the parts of my body waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, the law which is in my body’s parts” (Rom 7:23). While the human person loves, “not all love is true love.” As such, it is the person who is responsible for the manner in which he loves: what is done, in what circumstances, and with what intentions. The person is accountable for each human act. All must be good for the willed act to be good.?(4) The notions of totality, proportion, or consequences of acts are not adequate measures on their own. This is due to the fact that the person is a rational being with free will and he is the principle source of each act.?

Truth, Goodness and Human Conscience?

The person possesses by nature and grace the ability “to know” the truth and thereby has the obligation to live and love in truth; which can be known by reason illumined by faith: “Because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (Rom 1:19,20). ?The person possesses by grace the power “to will” the good and thereby choose and act towards an absolute good end (Greek | telos), which includes the virtue of divine love. The ability “to know” and “to will” brings with it not only the power to act but also the power to reflect upon each act. As such, the person is both “actor” and “audience” as well as “prosecutor, defender, and jury.” This self-reflection represents the interior life of the human person.?(5) With each human act, there exists both the subjective and the objective. “For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush” (Lk 6:44). Love as a human act, cannot be separated from the dictates of human conscience formed by revealed truth. “I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (Jn 13:34) and again. “If you love me you will keep my commandments” (Jn 14:15).?

Human love is shaped by the human will adhering to the objective will of God; which is revealed, transmitted, and persevered as a sacred deposit within the life of the Catholic Church; taught and guarded by the Church's Magisterium. The person’s experience of anything outside of himself is always associated with the experience of himself and he never experiences anything external without having at the same time the experience of himself.?(6) The person by reflecting upon such inner experience of self, discovers a voice which speaks either on behalf of virtue or on behalf of vice. One is the condition of freedom and the other is slavery. But if one does not reflect, then one is bound to repeat the same act with the same consequences; such is the case of a conscience malformed by wounded emotions. The human person with these opposite choices cannot escape their own personal dignity and vulnerability. “What is man that You think of him, And a son of man that You are concerned about him?” (Ps 8:4). God is concerned about the whole human person who acts as well as those things which influence him. This is why God gave man the gifts of reason, grace, faith, divine revelation, and the Church. “I write so that you will know how one should act in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth” (Cf. 1 Tim 3:15). It is both this dignity and vulnerability that compels each human person to seek friendships built upon truth and goodness. The objective formation of “Catholic” conscience requires the person to receive in charity Catholic Magisterial Teaching, which speaks on human nature and sexuality, grace, virtue and moral goodness, salvation and so forth. It is the fruit receiving Catholic Moral Teaching, Divine Revelation (Observing the Words and Deeds of Jesus Christ), prayer and meditation, examination of conscience, and spiritual direction which brings objectivity.

Notes:

1. Cf. Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Veritatis Splendor, no. 29. For additional context reference text by Romanus Cessario, O.P., Introduction to Moral Theology (Washington DC: Catholic University Press, 2001), 6. Also Reference John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason) of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Relationship between Faith and Reason (1998), Internet, available from https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et- ratio_en.html, (accessed April 10-20, 2020).?
2. Address of Pope John Paul II to the Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Provinces of Indianapolis, Chicago, and Milwaukee on their Ad Limina Visit no 2. Internet, available from https://www.adoremus.org/AdLimina052804.html, (accessed April 10-20, 2020).?
3. The definition of “person” would be an “individual substance of rational nature.” Reference St. Thomas Aquinas Summa (Sth. I, Q29, a1) Internet, available from https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1029.htm#article1 (accessed May 4, 2020). Thomas is referencing Boethius’s Liber de Persona et Duabus Naturis, ch. 3. The principle of “hylomorphism” is found in the Aristotle’s Concerning the Soul (Peri tes Psyches) 402a-435b. Hylomorphism is the teaching that the soul is the non-material animating principle and form of the body. Aristotle’s contribution to the understanding of the human soul was perfected by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa (Sth. I, Q76-79) arguing (among many such things) that the human soul is spirit (non-matter), subsisting (created to be immortal), individuating, form of the body, unity with the body, and remaining in relation with the human body even after separation. From the Catholic Catechism (CCC 27) “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.”?
4. St. Thomas Aquinas Summa (Sth. I-IIae, Q18, a4). “Accordingly a fourfold goodness may be considered in a human action. First, that which, as an action, it derives from its genus; because as much as it has of action and being so much has it of goodness, as stated above (Article 1). Secondly, it has goodness according to its species; which is derived from its suitable object. Thirdly, it has goodness from its circumstances, in respect, as it were, of its accidents. Fourthly, it has goodness from its end, to which it is compared as to the cause of its goodness.”?
5. Cf. Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, trans endnotes, and forward by Grzegorz Ignatik (Boston: Pauline Press Books and Media 2013), 5.?
6. Cf. Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person, trans Andrzej Ptocki (Dordrecht Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company, original Polish 1902 translated 1969), 3.?