“They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved.” ~ 2 Peter 2:19 (RSV)
The question of making sense of our lives has practically been removed from the sphere of public debate as the truths of freedom and faith are rejected and morality is reduced to politicized ideologies. Our major cultural crisis is rooted in a disordered moral reasoning, disguised as open-minded dialog which tries to silence those who follow strong morals rooted in faith and reason. The battle has reach the highest priority for those concerned with the common good, as the current powers of our secular civil authorities have begun directly clashing with the Church and her ecclesiastical authority. What many modern ideologists of the relativistic and socialistic right fail to recognize is that the question of making sense of our lives is embedded within the depths of the human heart which can only be copiously realized within the discipline of moral theology.
This question is of the utmost primacy of those who work for the common good because they fully acknowledge that the loss of the sense of the transcendental, rejection of absolute truth, and denial of moral norms puts all of humanity in grave danger. For this treacherous direction of society will only enslave man to moral anarchy and state sanctioned tyranny. These very morals that secular relativists and socialists reject are the very “values that protect man in his deepest needs.” (Ratzinger 1985)
These human “needs” can only be found within the proper understanding of the theology of conscience in relationship with the freedom for excellence and the culture of life. Modern man must look to moral theology as a means for all mankind to live in true freedom and harmony. As history has repeated itself before, the Church’s moral teachings will always clatter against the culture of the world. She must always engage the ideologies that are rooted in the original temptations faced by our primordial parents in the Garden of Eve. No matter how much modern man wishes, he can never “play” God without great peril to all of humanity. For in actuality, in doing so he chooses death, corruption, and enslavement for all.
The theology of conscience is a synthesis of our motives, actions, and norms guided by the Holy Spirit within our hearts which assists humanity to become true images of Christ within in the world. St. Thomas Aquinas a great teacher in moral reasoning saw the will as the human “faculty of love and desires” which is central to recognize the interior motives of the human heart. The interior motives of the human heart where the conscience has been properly formed do not result in enslavement but gives the person the power to “love in the purest and strongest sense of the word.” (Pinckaers, 387-391)
A person with a properly formed conscience is living in the totality of integration of body and soul in complete harmony with the image of Christ within them. A properly formed Christian conscience is known “to act not alone, but under the enlightenment and the impulse derived from revelation and grace in a strictly supernatural order.” (Rickaby 2007)
"Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths." (CCC, 1776)
This voice or Holy Spirit witnesses to the human soul ordaining the heart to follow the moral law, not to restrict man but to give him the complete freedom needed to live the fullness of his being. “A well-formed conscience will never contradict the objective moral law, as taught by Christ and his Church.” (CCC, 1783-5)
Modern man engulfed within the culture of death, has rejected this reality by embracing relativism, thereby corrupting his heart and violating his own conscience. These improperly formed consciences enslave man to reduce other human beings to objects whose only usefulness is the selfish pleasures of men. In light of rampant materialism, humanity is reduced to an object of utilitarian needs to meet scientific, economic and political ends. Society is threatened with self-destruction when the idea of freedom of choice without any moral compass becomes the norm. These twisted consciences perpetuates a false freedom based on choice which “becomes the moral norm that justifies everything else, including – if necessary – violence, homicide, mendacity… and what looks like ‘liberation’ turns into its opposite and shows its diabolic visage in deeds.” (Ratzinger 1985)
Why are improperly formed consciences dangerous for society and the individual? These ideologies of moral relativism, eclipses of conscience, materialism, and freedom of choice at all cost are opening the door to a diabolical culture with a “fundamental disrespect and contempt for the embodied nature of the human person.” (Torraco n.d., 1-15) The reality of the culture of death is that humanity rejects the image of God within them, thereby violating their consciences and giving away their humanity. The secular view of conscience rejects the deepest needs of the human person by enslaving them to follow their feelings and opinions, basically to act without really using their moral reasoning – nearby rejecting the dignity of conscience in its totality.
By following a malformed conscience, individuals condition themselves to be attracted to evil acts. With each evil act, it becomes harder to do the good. The influence of improperly formed conscience attacks the very essence of the person not just affecting what they do but what they become. They will no longer be good, but enslaved to a lifestyle that leads to perpetual sin and evil – ultimately to the mortal death of the soul. Imagine a world where all humanity has a dead soul? Doesn’t sound like heaven, does it? A society with no moral compass is a culture whose corporate soul is dead, for it becomes a society “more humanitarianism in the abstract” and looses its “humanity in the concrete.” (Herberg Fall 1986)
“The moral sense of conscience must be molded, not developed simply by feelings, opinions, circumstance, intentions or movements, but by the deep moral sense in which we participate by being human and capable of reason. Conscience does not simply decide for happy or sad, but for good or evil.” (Bransfield) Conscience needs to be properly formed through the practice of a virtuous life, where each act aids the person to grow more and more like the image of Christ. To reject that reality means that an individual will become enslaved to depravity, which is not actualized freedom.
An exploration of the proper ideal of freedom must be explored in order to understand its relationship with the theology of conscience. Within the culture of death, freedom has a very different meaning then from the Christian perspective. The culture of death proclaims a false freedom that emphasizes the autonomy of the human person. Just like John Donne once said, “No man is an island, entire of itself,” (Doone 1624) Human beings are social beings where their actions influence all those around them; emotionally, physically, and spiritually. To reject that idea is to live in a false reality. Humanity does not create their own realities that are mandated by the whims of emotions and opinions. Humanity is not omnipotent; humanity has been created by one who created a single universe guided by absolute truth grounded in the objective realities of eternal, natural, and moral laws. These laws can not be rejected by “realists” because to do so, rejects living in the objective reality. Relativists, who live the actuality of their poor moral reasoning, launch themselves into a life enslaved by addictions, depression, hopelessness and other forms of psychosis and degeneracy.
True human freedom allows a person to strive to live in the fullness of their humanity. This Christian perspective of freedom is the source of the founding of our Bill of Rights. Man was created with inalienable rights. These inalienable rights are given not by the state but by the one who created us all. To reject the moral reality that is the source of the founding of a Nation dedicated to the protection of the inalienable rights of the human person is to force the culture into despotism.
Actualized human freedom is not a freedom “from” mentality, but a form of freedom that commands a person to guard their dignity of conscience. A culture that truly wants humans to live in true freedom must also protect the dignity of their citizen’s conscience and give them the freedom to follow their conscience without coercion.
“The notion and actualization of freedom” flow from one’s love and capacity for living a life steeped in the virtues. (Spitzer, 209) The idea of liberty as a freedom “from”, freedom of choice, or even a freedom of indifference does not give the human person emancipation but violates their human dignity at all levels. Fr. Pinckaers speaks of a freedom for excellence which is grounded in the human potentiality and capacity for truth and goodness. The essence of this freedom becomes “a spontaneous attraction for the highest truth and goodness.” (Pinckaers, 387)
“True freedom consists in proceeding along the way of truth according to one's vocation” (Benedict, 2007) where the human person experiences the freedom to become what God created them to be. Being fully human, gives a person the freedom of excellence to become more then just pure existence but also turns their very personhood into a living gift for others. True freedom allows for human relationships to be based on virtue – instead of how the secular world directs relationships into the fleeting pleasures and usefulness of an egotistical reality. Living in true human freedom, our lives become an offer of our very selves freely given to the demands of love “by learning the ways of holiness so that we might be able to relate to God for all eternity.” (Keating 2008)
The call of personal holiness is not a new one and is at the core to constructing an authentic culture of life. This was the call to the new evangelization that Pope John Paul II always spoke about – a personal call to live human life in its fullness. “With a spirit of generous self-giving, recognize that you are directly involved in the new evangelization, which demands the involvement of all of us. Proclaim Christ, who ‘died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who for their sakes died and was raised up.’ (2 Cor 5:15).” (Letter to Youth, 1993) Those who live for him also live for the love of their brother, sister, and the least amongst themselves, which protects the common good for all peoples.
The new evangelization, lived within the context of relationships with the other, is rooted in the family and the actualization of SPICE within a person’s life. The forming of proper conscience is central to the duty of family life – the domestic church. For it is within the family that a person first learns how to relate to themselves and others in a proper moral way. Family life is the primary source of the school for a life of virtue. Just as families are the sacred seed for all of culture, so to the family is the primary place where one learns morality. Even secular science, especially those within the education profession, have known that the ability to learn the basics of right and wrong happen within the first formative years of human development, which means that all the basics of morality is learned by the age of six.
That critical information contained within the most basic of child development courses, only further validates why the Church emphasizes the sacredness and importance of family life for all of society. Just turning on the local news will confirm material evidence that family life is under attack and endangered by moral ambiguity, state policies and societal pressures that are oppressive and unfriendly to family life. Restrict a healthy, and dare we say holy family life, and society restricts human freedom for all. If a person has a hard time reaching their full potential in a troubled family life; it is even harder to achieve SPICE in their adult life which helps a person reach their full capacity for goodness and perfect charity. The foundations of a person’s fullness of humanity are laid down in their formative years.
Family life and the proper formation of the conscience remain essential to the edifice of a culture of life. Fr. Spitzer states very urgently to the need for a cultural revolution of the interior kind in his striking book Healing the Culture. With his dynamic synthesis of the cultural war taking place in society he talks about a disease that is infesting our culture at its foundation.
If we are moved beyond the more insidious effects of the agent [culture of death], we must begin to understand it. We must learn how to see it for what it really is. Rather than content ourselves with cataloguing its every effect, we must get to the nature of the beast. I would submit that the beast’s identity is reflected in the minimalistic way we see ourselves. More precisely, it is a radically incomplete cultural attitude about what it means to be a human person. (Spitzer, 17)
A moral theology of conscience’s main concern and expertise is the only authentic way to explore what it means to be a human person. To deny this truth in society attacks all of humanity at the core of man’s essence. "Conscience is man's most secret core, and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths" (GS 16). Our forefathers recognized this reality and strived to form a more perfect union of people. In order to protect the inalienable right of all persons to strive for that interior relationship with their creator, they guaranteed the protections within that union to require the legitimate governmental protections of those rights.
Without proper formed consciences the citizens of this union are being led down a dicey incline that threatens their inalienable rights that so many throughout it’s brief history have died to protect. In order to save this beautiful union we must raise our voices and defend those rights to properly shape our consciences and use them for the common good. Our secular brothers and sisters must be informed of the joy and freedom that is apprehended through the appreciative authenticity of what it means to be a human person. Failure to do so, will lead our culture to self destruction.
A properly formed conscience has an interior “orientation to the highest” which leads the soul to excellence in moral life. (Pinckaers, 387) A culture that rejects excellence in moral life cannot help but to decline into complete moral chaos and totalitarianism for all of its citizens. Those of the secular elite that proclaim that faith based ideologies are domineering and will thwart the further development of human society are dead wrong – literally.
Our society needs moral theology and proper formation of consciences to give mutual people living within a civilized culture the compass they need to prosper and live in true freedom. Pope Benedict stated in his first encyclical, “Faith liberates reason from its blind spots and therefore helps it to be ever more fully itself. Faith enables reason to do its work more effectively and to see its proper object more clearly.” (DCE, II, 28a) Faith balanced with proper and sound moral reasoning will only help a society to grow and develop. The cultural context on how that reality is unsurpassed is one that protects and guards the dignity of the human person in all states of life and the true meaning of human life – which is a culture of life.
WORKS CITED
Bransfield, Brian. "Voting by Conscience." Faithful Citizenship. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. 2007 - 2009. http://www.faithfulcitizenship.org/media/article/bransfield (accessed March 31, 2009).
Catholic Biblical Association of Great Britian. The Holy Bible, RSV, 2nd Edition. San Fransico: Ignatius Press, 2006.
Doone, John. "Devotions Upon Emergent Occassions: Meditation XVI." Indianna State University Online Library. 1624. http://isu.indstate.edu/ilnprof/ENG451/ISLAND/ (accessed April 3, 2009).
Herberg, Will. "What is the Moral Crisis?" The Intercollegiate Review, Fall 1986: 7-12.
II, John Paul. "Letter to the Youth of the World." World Youth Day VIII. Denver, 1993. 6.
Keating, James. "When You Wrestle with Your Conscience, Who Wins?" Catholic Culture. Edited by Envoy Magazine. March/April 2008. http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=8367&repos=1&subrepos=0&searchid=443075 (accessed Mar 31, 2009).
Pinckaers, Servais. The Sources of Christian Ethics. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995.
Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal (Pope Benedict XVI) and Vittorio Messori. The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985.
Rickaby, John. "Conscience." The Original Catholic Encyclopedia. Edited by Catholic Answers. The Appleton Company. 2007. http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Conscience (accessed Mar 31, 2009).
Spitzer, Robert J. Healing the Culture: A Commonsense Philosophy of Happiness, Freedom and the Life Issues. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000.
Torraco, Stephen F. "The Incarnation and the Politics of the Family: The Alternative to the Path of Least Resistance." 1-15.
XVI, Benedict. "Formation of Conscience in Fundamental Values." Catholic Culture. Edited by Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Feb 10, 2007. http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=7447&repos1&subrepos=0&searchid=440448 (accessed Mar 31, 2009).
XVI, Benedict. Deus Caritas Est. Vatican City: Pauline Books & Media, 2006.
Copyright February 2009 by Janelle Wingert
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Delivered from Slavery
“You show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” ~ 2 Cor 3: 3
Christ has delivered us from the slavery of the law through his life, death, and resurrection, having completed the law of the Old Testament by transcending the old law with the Evangelical Law. This New Law can only be understood with the proper illumination in regards to its relationship between human natural inclinations and the Ten Commandments. God, our creator promulgated the eternal law in the most perfect of designs that encompasses all of the natural laws, primary precepts and moral law.
Through His great wisdom and design maturing in a moral life would be completely possible for us through natural means, where using human reasoning we can discover the universal truths and norms found within the primary precepts of divine law. “Nature provides a purposive design discoverable by one who would make the effort to contemplate, receive, or ‘listen’ to” the Old law. (Torraco, Listening to Nature, August 1993) The natural law and the primary precepts are a means to help civilize ourselves from working in denying and failing to follow the natural inclinations of every human heart. “Even in most difficult situations man must respect the norm of morality so that he can be obedient to God’s holy commandment and consistent with his own dignity as a person.” (VS, 102)
These natural inclinations of the heart are the good desires of self-preservation, procreation and the raising of children, and to know the truth of God and live in society. All goods unto themselves these inclinations are totally identical with the primary precepts in the Decalogue that safeguard and contain the natural law within them. “Only God, the Supreme Good, constitutes the unshakable foundation and essential condition of morality, and thus of the commandments, particularly those negative commandments which always and in every case prohibit behavior and actions incompatible with the personal dignity of every man.” (VS, 99) In God’s great merciful and omnipotent understanding of human nature to thwart natural inclinations through original sin, he gave us the Old Law to control our disordered passions that threaten our physical, mental, and spiritual lives. Through His loving gift our Lord impresses upon us our duties to Him and each other by instructing us on what to do and what not to do, so we would know without a doubt the effect of sin in ourselves.
Bar, we must guard from looking at the Ten Commandments as just a list of rules to follow. By living these primary precepts like children, we are nurtured to grow into the New Law that Christ gave us, for when we understand the true beauty of the Old Law and recognize we need more we are able to say “in the depths of my soul I delight in your law and know that your commands are good, just and holy.” (A' Kempis 1989)
For St. Paul explained, “Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” (Gal 3: 23 – 27) He is referring to the New Evangelical law that doesn’t bind us but sets us free.
The evangelical law is a law of love, grace, and freedom because we are freed from being a slave to the law because the evangelical law completes us in utmost maturity where we are prepared to receive our heritance in Christ. The more we work in union with the divine law we move beyond just being friends of God by being transformed into the actual daughters and sons of the Most High. (Denzi 1922 - 1939)
The divine law works within the hearts of individuals, who freely stop and listen to the divine inclinations that work in union with the natural human inclinations for a specific good. Jesus Christ completes this new law, bringing its fullness in order to help us to mature to the Ultimate Good and share in the interior Trinitarian life of God. For the evangelical law give us the divine tools to follow a way of perfection with utmost Christian maturity in all things moral and spiritual in life.
Therefore, comes the most imperative task at hand, to explain why it is vital for us to think aright in order for our personal maturity and the responsibility of civilization to be actualized. Let’s first look to the role of proper moral reasoning to help in the individual maturing of an adult person. God created man in his own image for us to live in utmost freedom in harmony with each other, ourselves, creation and him. Failure to think aright in moral reasoning opens the individual to make decisions that are physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually dangerous to their full development into a free human being living in the full truth of their dignity.
“The person who acts of his own accord following a natural instinct that has been perfected by virtue can be said to act with full freedom.” (Pinckaers, 186) The freedom and charity that is infused into us by the evangelical law furnishes us with what we require to freely choose the inclinations of our heart, for they are trinified in Christ. St. Augustine once said, “Do what you want.” He was not stating a hedonistic view point of morality, but was explaining how the Christian who has been perfected in the Evangelical Law is free to follow their heart, for their heart is inclined not just to follow natural law, but divine law. This natural instinct that St. Thomas explains in his Summa Theologica, does not just talk about a natural way of live, but an instinct that is supernatural through the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Why then again is this so important for us to renew our aright thinking not just as individuals but as a culture, at this particular time and place in our civilization’s history? The sudden tyrannical growth of the “culture of death” within all aspects of public life only intensifies the battle for our very humanity, which is in danger of being completely denied and suppressed. A relativistic society renounces all sound moral reasoning and thereby makes it impossible to find true meaning for human life. This view point is void of all veracity and rational thought. If we are human beings living in this world we are participating in the eternal law even if we deny that it exists, like all relativists do.
The argument in our secular society that tries to say that morality is a private matter is void in truth. “Civilization depends on the civilized imposing their standards on the uncivilized. ... If you can’t accept that, you are against civilization.” (Canavan 1989) God’s truth and divine law does not run in contradiction against the true development and maturing of human civilization. To deny our true humanity and the true meaning of human life is to reduce ourselves back to barbarianism. Repudiating moral reasoning in the public sphere is to open our civilization to a schizophrenic personality that threatens our very culture at its core being. Basically it will spiral civilization into to pure chaos which will destroy itself from within and deny the unalienable rights of all humanity, thereby opening the door to pure tyranny.
The best illustration of this reality is to look at the most controversial battle taking place between the culture of life and the culture of death – abortion. We can first gaze upon the interior reality of the abortionist and the role he plays in attacking the humanity in all of us. Through the vary nature of his trade, he redefines what morality is. “His goal becomes to graft the goals of public health onto his techniques for establishing a new culture with individual autonomy as its major premise and which can be efficiently hedonist with minimal adverse consequences. Under this system, techniques and those who wield them become the measure of the new 'morality'—really the old immorality.” (Marshall and Donovan Winter 1992) Abortion denies the humanity of the smallest and weakest among us.
The whole “culture of death” that frequently puts those is most risk in mortal peril, spoils the development of a society overall. “The assumption that abortion and euthanasia are human rights … is seen … as a contradiction which amounts to a denial of the human dignity and freedom which the law is supposed to protect. A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members; and among the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying. A materialistic view of the human person will concede little value and dignity to either. What is then claimed as a victory for human rights is really the sanctioning of a freedom sundered from truth.” (John Paul II 25 May 2000) Moral reasoning is necessary to protect civilization from a cruel reality that will destroy humanity from within itself.
These collective pressures from the “culture of death” threaten human life and attack the innate dignity of all humanity. “At the root of such a culture is the "mother" of all its contradictions: on the one hand, the strong tendency to deny the concrete reality of human nature, and the other, the desire to destroy it (thereby admitting its existence), specifically by ripping apart the intimate unity between body and soul.” (Torraco, Campaign Update Winter 1994) These types of inconsistencies attest to the irrationality of amoral thought that defends the materialistic view of the human person.
Not only does this twisted view of the dignity of the human person damage civilization, it also grievously harms the individual in their ability to mature into a human person at a moral and spiritual level. The premise for the defense of abortion and other anti-life legislation is often argued by proclaiming a right to privacy. First off, it is irrational to argue for the right to privacy over another human beings right to life, which obliviously super cedes the prior. By proclaiming a right to privacy, the humanity of the individual is destroyed and their own rights and dignity are violated. “This privacy rests on the assumption that human freedom is freedom from being in relation to others because the very presence of others compromises my freedom and my selfhood… To be free, the other who calls me into relation and responsibility must be annihilated.” (Miller November 1991)
Humanity only fully develops and matures with the sincere gift of self for the other. In other words, “no man is an island.” We were created to be in relationship and in “agape” with each other and with God in the Trinitarian life of the Holy Trinity. To fail to live this way, is to fail to live in our actuality of our humanity.
Through Christ and the Evangelical Law we are called to live “better angels of our nature." Though the path to renewing moral theology to the “right” notion may seem daunting and like a loosing battle. We can take courage in the fact that Christ will overcome all. Ethics without the divine law is actually leads to moral and spiritual death, because a person and a culture can only attain true humanity and civilization with divine help. For to be anything less then how God created us to be is to frustrate our very development as adults grounded in authentic morality and leading a fruitful and blessed spiritual life. For the only way to be our best is to be our best, which requires the free movement and grace of the Holy Spirit within the heart of individuals and the corporate soul of a society. “…The salvation of our race was accomplished by the mystery of the Cross, and since the Church, dispenser of that salvation after the triumph of Christ, was founded upon earth and instituted, Providence established a new order for a new people.” (Leo XIII September 22, 1891)
We have a great hope to renew our morality as a civilization and a people with the renewal of moral theology. Though “the natural law is a participation in us of the eternal law: while human law falls short of the eternal law.” (Aquinas 1989, Q96, 2) St. Thomas was explaining that we all participate in the eternal law though we always fall short. We can find great hope in the knowledge that God realizes the true difficulty we have in living in our true humanity.
God through Christ has given us the tools necessary to develop morally and spiritually in evangelical truth and freedom. As St. Thomas explained latter in his Treatise of the Law, “There are two ways in which a thing may be instilled into man. First, through being part of his nature, and thus the natural law is instilled into man. Secondly, a thing is instilled into man by being, as it were, added on to his nature by a gift of grace. In this way the New Law is instilled into man, not only by indicating to him what he should do, but also by helping him to accomplish it.” (Aquinas 1989, Q166, 1) Through the evangelical law, which is the Holy Spirit, we have the ultimate guild to help us navigate the difficult waters of our present culture with truth and freedom by cooperating with the divine law that has transfigured our hearts into Christ.
WORKS CITED
A' Kempis, Thomas, trans. by William C. Creasy. The Imitation of Christ. Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, Inc., 1989.
Aquinas, Thomas. The Summa Theological of Saint Thomas Aquinas. 2nd Revised. Prima Secundae Partis. 1989.
Canavan, Francis. "Commentary." Catholic Eye, 1989.
Catholic Biblical Association of Great Britian. The Holy Bible, RSV, 2nd Edition. San Fransico: Ignatius Press, 2006.
Denzi. "Pius XI 1922 - 1939." Sources of Catholic Dogma, 1922 - 1939: #2231.
John Paul II, Pope. "Address to the New Ambassador of New Zealand." Vatican, 25 May 2000.
—. "Veritatis Splendor." Encyclical, August 15, 1993.
Leo XIII, Pope. "Octobri Mense." Apostolic Letter. Rome, September 22, 1891. #4.
Marshall, Robert G., and Charles A. Donovan. "Will Birth Control Prevent Abortion?" Human Life Review (Ignatius Press) 18, no. 1 (Winter 1992): 41-49.
Miller, Monica Migliorino. "Severed Ties: How Abortion Dissolves Feminine Authority." Crisis 9, no. 10 (November 1991): 21-26.
Pinckaers, Servais. The Sources of Christian Ethics. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995.
Torraco, Stephen F. "Listening to Nature: The Significance of Leon Kass of Catholic Moral Theology." Linarce Quarterly, August 1993.
Torraco, Stephen F. "The Better Angels of Our Nature." The Catholic Campaign for America, Winter 1994: 3.
Copyright March 2009 by Janelle Wingert
Christ has delivered us from the slavery of the law through his life, death, and resurrection, having completed the law of the Old Testament by transcending the old law with the Evangelical Law. This New Law can only be understood with the proper illumination in regards to its relationship between human natural inclinations and the Ten Commandments. God, our creator promulgated the eternal law in the most perfect of designs that encompasses all of the natural laws, primary precepts and moral law.
Through His great wisdom and design maturing in a moral life would be completely possible for us through natural means, where using human reasoning we can discover the universal truths and norms found within the primary precepts of divine law. “Nature provides a purposive design discoverable by one who would make the effort to contemplate, receive, or ‘listen’ to” the Old law. (Torraco, Listening to Nature, August 1993) The natural law and the primary precepts are a means to help civilize ourselves from working in denying and failing to follow the natural inclinations of every human heart. “Even in most difficult situations man must respect the norm of morality so that he can be obedient to God’s holy commandment and consistent with his own dignity as a person.” (VS, 102)
These natural inclinations of the heart are the good desires of self-preservation, procreation and the raising of children, and to know the truth of God and live in society. All goods unto themselves these inclinations are totally identical with the primary precepts in the Decalogue that safeguard and contain the natural law within them. “Only God, the Supreme Good, constitutes the unshakable foundation and essential condition of morality, and thus of the commandments, particularly those negative commandments which always and in every case prohibit behavior and actions incompatible with the personal dignity of every man.” (VS, 99) In God’s great merciful and omnipotent understanding of human nature to thwart natural inclinations through original sin, he gave us the Old Law to control our disordered passions that threaten our physical, mental, and spiritual lives. Through His loving gift our Lord impresses upon us our duties to Him and each other by instructing us on what to do and what not to do, so we would know without a doubt the effect of sin in ourselves.
Bar, we must guard from looking at the Ten Commandments as just a list of rules to follow. By living these primary precepts like children, we are nurtured to grow into the New Law that Christ gave us, for when we understand the true beauty of the Old Law and recognize we need more we are able to say “in the depths of my soul I delight in your law and know that your commands are good, just and holy.” (A' Kempis 1989)
For St. Paul explained, “Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” (Gal 3: 23 – 27) He is referring to the New Evangelical law that doesn’t bind us but sets us free.
The evangelical law is a law of love, grace, and freedom because we are freed from being a slave to the law because the evangelical law completes us in utmost maturity where we are prepared to receive our heritance in Christ. The more we work in union with the divine law we move beyond just being friends of God by being transformed into the actual daughters and sons of the Most High. (Denzi 1922 - 1939)
The divine law works within the hearts of individuals, who freely stop and listen to the divine inclinations that work in union with the natural human inclinations for a specific good. Jesus Christ completes this new law, bringing its fullness in order to help us to mature to the Ultimate Good and share in the interior Trinitarian life of God. For the evangelical law give us the divine tools to follow a way of perfection with utmost Christian maturity in all things moral and spiritual in life.
Therefore, comes the most imperative task at hand, to explain why it is vital for us to think aright in order for our personal maturity and the responsibility of civilization to be actualized. Let’s first look to the role of proper moral reasoning to help in the individual maturing of an adult person. God created man in his own image for us to live in utmost freedom in harmony with each other, ourselves, creation and him. Failure to think aright in moral reasoning opens the individual to make decisions that are physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually dangerous to their full development into a free human being living in the full truth of their dignity.
“The person who acts of his own accord following a natural instinct that has been perfected by virtue can be said to act with full freedom.” (Pinckaers, 186) The freedom and charity that is infused into us by the evangelical law furnishes us with what we require to freely choose the inclinations of our heart, for they are trinified in Christ. St. Augustine once said, “Do what you want.” He was not stating a hedonistic view point of morality, but was explaining how the Christian who has been perfected in the Evangelical Law is free to follow their heart, for their heart is inclined not just to follow natural law, but divine law. This natural instinct that St. Thomas explains in his Summa Theologica, does not just talk about a natural way of live, but an instinct that is supernatural through the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Why then again is this so important for us to renew our aright thinking not just as individuals but as a culture, at this particular time and place in our civilization’s history? The sudden tyrannical growth of the “culture of death” within all aspects of public life only intensifies the battle for our very humanity, which is in danger of being completely denied and suppressed. A relativistic society renounces all sound moral reasoning and thereby makes it impossible to find true meaning for human life. This view point is void of all veracity and rational thought. If we are human beings living in this world we are participating in the eternal law even if we deny that it exists, like all relativists do.
The argument in our secular society that tries to say that morality is a private matter is void in truth. “Civilization depends on the civilized imposing their standards on the uncivilized. ... If you can’t accept that, you are against civilization.” (Canavan 1989) God’s truth and divine law does not run in contradiction against the true development and maturing of human civilization. To deny our true humanity and the true meaning of human life is to reduce ourselves back to barbarianism. Repudiating moral reasoning in the public sphere is to open our civilization to a schizophrenic personality that threatens our very culture at its core being. Basically it will spiral civilization into to pure chaos which will destroy itself from within and deny the unalienable rights of all humanity, thereby opening the door to pure tyranny.
The best illustration of this reality is to look at the most controversial battle taking place between the culture of life and the culture of death – abortion. We can first gaze upon the interior reality of the abortionist and the role he plays in attacking the humanity in all of us. Through the vary nature of his trade, he redefines what morality is. “His goal becomes to graft the goals of public health onto his techniques for establishing a new culture with individual autonomy as its major premise and which can be efficiently hedonist with minimal adverse consequences. Under this system, techniques and those who wield them become the measure of the new 'morality'—really the old immorality.” (Marshall and Donovan Winter 1992) Abortion denies the humanity of the smallest and weakest among us.
The whole “culture of death” that frequently puts those is most risk in mortal peril, spoils the development of a society overall. “The assumption that abortion and euthanasia are human rights … is seen … as a contradiction which amounts to a denial of the human dignity and freedom which the law is supposed to protect. A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members; and among the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying. A materialistic view of the human person will concede little value and dignity to either. What is then claimed as a victory for human rights is really the sanctioning of a freedom sundered from truth.” (John Paul II 25 May 2000) Moral reasoning is necessary to protect civilization from a cruel reality that will destroy humanity from within itself.
These collective pressures from the “culture of death” threaten human life and attack the innate dignity of all humanity. “At the root of such a culture is the "mother" of all its contradictions: on the one hand, the strong tendency to deny the concrete reality of human nature, and the other, the desire to destroy it (thereby admitting its existence), specifically by ripping apart the intimate unity between body and soul.” (Torraco, Campaign Update Winter 1994) These types of inconsistencies attest to the irrationality of amoral thought that defends the materialistic view of the human person.
Not only does this twisted view of the dignity of the human person damage civilization, it also grievously harms the individual in their ability to mature into a human person at a moral and spiritual level. The premise for the defense of abortion and other anti-life legislation is often argued by proclaiming a right to privacy. First off, it is irrational to argue for the right to privacy over another human beings right to life, which obliviously super cedes the prior. By proclaiming a right to privacy, the humanity of the individual is destroyed and their own rights and dignity are violated. “This privacy rests on the assumption that human freedom is freedom from being in relation to others because the very presence of others compromises my freedom and my selfhood… To be free, the other who calls me into relation and responsibility must be annihilated.” (Miller November 1991)
Humanity only fully develops and matures with the sincere gift of self for the other. In other words, “no man is an island.” We were created to be in relationship and in “agape” with each other and with God in the Trinitarian life of the Holy Trinity. To fail to live this way, is to fail to live in our actuality of our humanity.
Through Christ and the Evangelical Law we are called to live “better angels of our nature." Though the path to renewing moral theology to the “right” notion may seem daunting and like a loosing battle. We can take courage in the fact that Christ will overcome all. Ethics without the divine law is actually leads to moral and spiritual death, because a person and a culture can only attain true humanity and civilization with divine help. For to be anything less then how God created us to be is to frustrate our very development as adults grounded in authentic morality and leading a fruitful and blessed spiritual life. For the only way to be our best is to be our best, which requires the free movement and grace of the Holy Spirit within the heart of individuals and the corporate soul of a society. “…The salvation of our race was accomplished by the mystery of the Cross, and since the Church, dispenser of that salvation after the triumph of Christ, was founded upon earth and instituted, Providence established a new order for a new people.” (Leo XIII September 22, 1891)
We have a great hope to renew our morality as a civilization and a people with the renewal of moral theology. Though “the natural law is a participation in us of the eternal law: while human law falls short of the eternal law.” (Aquinas 1989, Q96, 2) St. Thomas was explaining that we all participate in the eternal law though we always fall short. We can find great hope in the knowledge that God realizes the true difficulty we have in living in our true humanity.
God through Christ has given us the tools necessary to develop morally and spiritually in evangelical truth and freedom. As St. Thomas explained latter in his Treatise of the Law, “There are two ways in which a thing may be instilled into man. First, through being part of his nature, and thus the natural law is instilled into man. Secondly, a thing is instilled into man by being, as it were, added on to his nature by a gift of grace. In this way the New Law is instilled into man, not only by indicating to him what he should do, but also by helping him to accomplish it.” (Aquinas 1989, Q166, 1) Through the evangelical law, which is the Holy Spirit, we have the ultimate guild to help us navigate the difficult waters of our present culture with truth and freedom by cooperating with the divine law that has transfigured our hearts into Christ.
WORKS CITED
A' Kempis, Thomas, trans. by William C. Creasy. The Imitation of Christ. Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, Inc., 1989.
Aquinas, Thomas. The Summa Theological of Saint Thomas Aquinas. 2nd Revised. Prima Secundae Partis. 1989.
Canavan, Francis. "Commentary." Catholic Eye, 1989.
Catholic Biblical Association of Great Britian. The Holy Bible, RSV, 2nd Edition. San Fransico: Ignatius Press, 2006.
Denzi. "Pius XI 1922 - 1939." Sources of Catholic Dogma, 1922 - 1939: #2231.
John Paul II, Pope. "Address to the New Ambassador of New Zealand." Vatican, 25 May 2000.
—. "Veritatis Splendor." Encyclical, August 15, 1993.
Leo XIII, Pope. "Octobri Mense." Apostolic Letter. Rome, September 22, 1891. #4.
Marshall, Robert G., and Charles A. Donovan. "Will Birth Control Prevent Abortion?" Human Life Review (Ignatius Press) 18, no. 1 (Winter 1992): 41-49.
Miller, Monica Migliorino. "Severed Ties: How Abortion Dissolves Feminine Authority." Crisis 9, no. 10 (November 1991): 21-26.
Pinckaers, Servais. The Sources of Christian Ethics. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995.
Torraco, Stephen F. "Listening to Nature: The Significance of Leon Kass of Catholic Moral Theology." Linarce Quarterly, August 1993.
Torraco, Stephen F. "The Better Angels of Our Nature." The Catholic Campaign for America, Winter 1994: 3.
Copyright March 2009 by Janelle Wingert
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Putting on the New Man of Christ
“Put on the new man, created after the
likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Eph 4:24)
The call of Jesus to be His disciples is a mandate to live the fullness of the kerygma. This kerygma is not abstract thoughts or ideologies, but a way of life that originates in the Living Word – a divine person- Jesus Christ. Moral Theology is part of this dynamic organism that transforms the very heart and life of the disciple beyond just mere human potential. For the Christian person is transfigured in Christ and truly made a new creature as he or she grows closer in personal holiness and their ultimate goal of eternal life and happiness.
Understanding this fundamental key to living a life in Christ is central to understanding Fr. Pinckaer’s distinction between fragmented and total approaches to Scripture. How can a moral person live and imitate Christ if they are not fully infused with the Living Word? Moral Theology is not an island that can stand alone from the rest of the kerygma, it must be soaked in the whole truth to be authentically lived.
For years modern ethicists have been picking apart the Living Word to prove certain norms for the moral life. This view of reducing the Word into human understanding at the most nominalist level can not but help to lead to a moral theology of obligation. Obligation only leads a person down the road of least resistance to living the moral life. Moral obligation does not challenge the believer to live fully in Christ which bears more abundant fruit beyond all human capacity.
This fragmented approach has many within the ecclesia concerned for its ramifications of the properly forming of the conscience of Christians. “In his apostolic exhortation Evandelii nuntiandi (1975), Pope Paul VI mentioned the split between the gospel and culture as “a drama of our time.” (Dulles 2004) Through the minimalist approach to moral theology there has been a wide gap formed between abstract ideologies and the reality of living a true moral life in a postmodern world.
As Monsignor Melina said, “Fragmentation means having a very deep interest in particular issues without having a vision of the whole reality… Church’s moral theology must focus on the integral liberation of the human person, not just on norms, in order to respond to the crisis of modernity.” (Melina 2004) Most recently our Holy Father spoke about this major issue facing all theology when addressing Catholic Educators he stated, “Intellectual charity upholds the essential unity of knowledge against fragmentation which ensues when reason is detached from the pursuit of truth.” (B. XVI 2008)
An ethicist that only uses the fragmented approach to scripture to explain moral theology greatly reduces the capacity for humans to truly live freely in the Truth. The ethicist using the fragmented approach to scripture seeks just the bits and pieces of the Word that are removed from any other religious or ethical traditions, thereby divorcing the Living Word from Himself. Anyone with common sense would know that fragmentation takes scripture completely out of context, which only brings moral confusion. Morality is much more complex in the fullness expressed through the Gospels and St. Paul’s teachings on the moral life. The fragmented approach has great limitations in shedding light on moral truths, because it only has part of the whole package. The truth is lost in the fragmented approach to scripture for its translations only offer shallow insights that lead to basic obligations and a nominalist approach to morality.
Fr. Picknaer explains that the Church Fathers and St. Paul had a much deeper, picture of the Scriptures and how it relates to the moral life. Their approach did not separate the deep truths to the practicalities of living a moral life in Christ.
“St. Paul’s moral teaching united dogma and morality closely and made no distinction between morality and spirituality, or even exhortation. Nor did it endorse the separation of transcendent and categorical levels. Those distinctions, as we know them, stem from a concept of morality focusing on obligation- a concept that had never occurred to St. Paul.” (Pinckaer, 133)
For these deep truths united with dogma and morality “are not simply dogmatic abstract statements; for St. Paul they are directly operative and effect profound change in the personality and life of the Christian.” (Pinckaer, 117) As our Catechism says, “Truth becomes visible in the mirror of God’s essence, because man can be rightly understood only in relation to God.” (CCC, 2052-82) Only by infusing itself with the Living Word can moral theology begin to grasp how the Truth relates to man and his actions.
“Saint Paul’s basic moral emphasis is not obligation, but happiness and salvation. Saint Paul reflects on the virtues leading to God, but he doesn’t give us a systematic lecture on morals. He’s referring to moral problems as they arise in his moral work. If the teaching of morals consists in moral imperatives, we will search for them in the Bible exclusive of faith, etc. To read Saint Paul, we should set aside modern moral categories. We also won’t discover New Testament morality by divorcing it from what is common with the Old Testament and what is obvious in Greek thought.” (Giertych 2003)
St. Paul had a deep understanding of the power of Christ to transform the very lives and personalities of the Christian person, for he had experienced it first hand. This reality poses an important question for ourselves. Do we as modern people truly experience the transformation of Christ in our lives if we are only concerned with moral obligation?
Repeatedly St. Paul taught that we are made into new creatures in Christ. Through this transformation the human virtues we naturally have are divinely altered. As Picknaer explains love “deepens and strengthens [human virtues], even enhancing them with a divine dimension.” (Pinckaer, 123) This leads to a person whose interiority is divinely informed with a Christ-like morality that is active in love and charity. Because of this transformation when a Christian is empowered by Christ to be the best, they are led to a total approach of understanding the scriptures where their moral lives and spirituality are united in the Living Word.
That is why St. Paul taught morality as he went, because the Gospel is for all peoples and all times. The scriptures have something new to say to us even today, for when the Word comes in contact with the reality of modern life, it has something to say in the now. This doesn’t mean that the divine truths behind those scriptures are changed but that they are the Living Word, that breaths and lives within us. As Fr. Picknaer states best, “St. Paul’s moral theory [is a] theory of action-with-Christ, or again, action-in-Christ.” (Pinckaer, 128)
Under just obligation moral life will fail for “no rules can be made that will apply perfectly to all situations, and in any case people can be remarkably cunning in complying with the letter of the law while undermining its spirit.” (Anderson, 92) The Patristic Tradition has the full truth that we all need the divine infusion of scripture into our moral fiber to lead truly Christian Moral lives. For only in a faith infused by the Living Word can the moral life “lead the Christian to see life as a service to Christ and devotion to neighbor” (Pinckaer, 122) thereby leading them to their ultimate end of happiness fully united in Christ in the kingdom to come.
Works Cited
Anderson, Carl. A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World. New York: Harper One, 2008.
Dulles, Cardinal Avery S.J. "Challenges to Moral and Cultural Renewal." Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. September 28, 2004. http://ethicscenter.nd.edu/archives/dulles.shtml (accessed November 24, 2008).
Giertych, Fr. Wojciech, OP. "Fundamental Moral Theology." Catholic Books Online Library. 2003. http://www.cfpeople.org/Boks/Moral/moral.htm (accessed November 24, 2008).
II, John Paul. Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2nd. Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997.
Melina, Monsignor Livio. "A Look at Catholic Higher Education and the Future of Moral Theology." EWTN Online Library. March 18, 2004. http://www.ewtn.com/library/Theology/ZEDUMOR.HTM (accessed November 24, 2008).
Pinckaer, Servais. The Sources of Christian Ethics. 3rd. Washinton, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995.
XVI, Benedict. "Meeting with Catholic Educators." Libreria Editrice Vaticana. April 17, 2008. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_XVI/speaches/2008/april/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spec_20080417_cath-univ-washington_en.htm/ (accessed November 24, 2008).
Copyrighted December 2008 by Janelle M Wingert
likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Eph 4:24)
The call of Jesus to be His disciples is a mandate to live the fullness of the kerygma. This kerygma is not abstract thoughts or ideologies, but a way of life that originates in the Living Word – a divine person- Jesus Christ. Moral Theology is part of this dynamic organism that transforms the very heart and life of the disciple beyond just mere human potential. For the Christian person is transfigured in Christ and truly made a new creature as he or she grows closer in personal holiness and their ultimate goal of eternal life and happiness.
Understanding this fundamental key to living a life in Christ is central to understanding Fr. Pinckaer’s distinction between fragmented and total approaches to Scripture. How can a moral person live and imitate Christ if they are not fully infused with the Living Word? Moral Theology is not an island that can stand alone from the rest of the kerygma, it must be soaked in the whole truth to be authentically lived.
For years modern ethicists have been picking apart the Living Word to prove certain norms for the moral life. This view of reducing the Word into human understanding at the most nominalist level can not but help to lead to a moral theology of obligation. Obligation only leads a person down the road of least resistance to living the moral life. Moral obligation does not challenge the believer to live fully in Christ which bears more abundant fruit beyond all human capacity.
This fragmented approach has many within the ecclesia concerned for its ramifications of the properly forming of the conscience of Christians. “In his apostolic exhortation Evandelii nuntiandi (1975), Pope Paul VI mentioned the split between the gospel and culture as “a drama of our time.” (Dulles 2004) Through the minimalist approach to moral theology there has been a wide gap formed between abstract ideologies and the reality of living a true moral life in a postmodern world.
As Monsignor Melina said, “Fragmentation means having a very deep interest in particular issues without having a vision of the whole reality… Church’s moral theology must focus on the integral liberation of the human person, not just on norms, in order to respond to the crisis of modernity.” (Melina 2004) Most recently our Holy Father spoke about this major issue facing all theology when addressing Catholic Educators he stated, “Intellectual charity upholds the essential unity of knowledge against fragmentation which ensues when reason is detached from the pursuit of truth.” (B. XVI 2008)
An ethicist that only uses the fragmented approach to scripture to explain moral theology greatly reduces the capacity for humans to truly live freely in the Truth. The ethicist using the fragmented approach to scripture seeks just the bits and pieces of the Word that are removed from any other religious or ethical traditions, thereby divorcing the Living Word from Himself. Anyone with common sense would know that fragmentation takes scripture completely out of context, which only brings moral confusion. Morality is much more complex in the fullness expressed through the Gospels and St. Paul’s teachings on the moral life. The fragmented approach has great limitations in shedding light on moral truths, because it only has part of the whole package. The truth is lost in the fragmented approach to scripture for its translations only offer shallow insights that lead to basic obligations and a nominalist approach to morality.
Fr. Picknaer explains that the Church Fathers and St. Paul had a much deeper, picture of the Scriptures and how it relates to the moral life. Their approach did not separate the deep truths to the practicalities of living a moral life in Christ.
“St. Paul’s moral teaching united dogma and morality closely and made no distinction between morality and spirituality, or even exhortation. Nor did it endorse the separation of transcendent and categorical levels. Those distinctions, as we know them, stem from a concept of morality focusing on obligation- a concept that had never occurred to St. Paul.” (Pinckaer, 133)
For these deep truths united with dogma and morality “are not simply dogmatic abstract statements; for St. Paul they are directly operative and effect profound change in the personality and life of the Christian.” (Pinckaer, 117) As our Catechism says, “Truth becomes visible in the mirror of God’s essence, because man can be rightly understood only in relation to God.” (CCC, 2052-82) Only by infusing itself with the Living Word can moral theology begin to grasp how the Truth relates to man and his actions.
“Saint Paul’s basic moral emphasis is not obligation, but happiness and salvation. Saint Paul reflects on the virtues leading to God, but he doesn’t give us a systematic lecture on morals. He’s referring to moral problems as they arise in his moral work. If the teaching of morals consists in moral imperatives, we will search for them in the Bible exclusive of faith, etc. To read Saint Paul, we should set aside modern moral categories. We also won’t discover New Testament morality by divorcing it from what is common with the Old Testament and what is obvious in Greek thought.” (Giertych 2003)
St. Paul had a deep understanding of the power of Christ to transform the very lives and personalities of the Christian person, for he had experienced it first hand. This reality poses an important question for ourselves. Do we as modern people truly experience the transformation of Christ in our lives if we are only concerned with moral obligation?
Repeatedly St. Paul taught that we are made into new creatures in Christ. Through this transformation the human virtues we naturally have are divinely altered. As Picknaer explains love “deepens and strengthens [human virtues], even enhancing them with a divine dimension.” (Pinckaer, 123) This leads to a person whose interiority is divinely informed with a Christ-like morality that is active in love and charity. Because of this transformation when a Christian is empowered by Christ to be the best, they are led to a total approach of understanding the scriptures where their moral lives and spirituality are united in the Living Word.
That is why St. Paul taught morality as he went, because the Gospel is for all peoples and all times. The scriptures have something new to say to us even today, for when the Word comes in contact with the reality of modern life, it has something to say in the now. This doesn’t mean that the divine truths behind those scriptures are changed but that they are the Living Word, that breaths and lives within us. As Fr. Picknaer states best, “St. Paul’s moral theory [is a] theory of action-with-Christ, or again, action-in-Christ.” (Pinckaer, 128)
Under just obligation moral life will fail for “no rules can be made that will apply perfectly to all situations, and in any case people can be remarkably cunning in complying with the letter of the law while undermining its spirit.” (Anderson, 92) The Patristic Tradition has the full truth that we all need the divine infusion of scripture into our moral fiber to lead truly Christian Moral lives. For only in a faith infused by the Living Word can the moral life “lead the Christian to see life as a service to Christ and devotion to neighbor” (Pinckaer, 122) thereby leading them to their ultimate end of happiness fully united in Christ in the kingdom to come.
Works Cited
Anderson, Carl. A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World. New York: Harper One, 2008.
Dulles, Cardinal Avery S.J. "Challenges to Moral and Cultural Renewal." Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. September 28, 2004. http://ethicscenter.nd.edu/archives/dulles.shtml (accessed November 24, 2008).
Giertych, Fr. Wojciech, OP. "Fundamental Moral Theology." Catholic Books Online Library. 2003. http://www.cfpeople.org/Boks/Moral/moral.htm (accessed November 24, 2008).
II, John Paul. Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2nd. Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997.
Melina, Monsignor Livio. "A Look at Catholic Higher Education and the Future of Moral Theology." EWTN Online Library. March 18, 2004. http://www.ewtn.com/library/Theology/ZEDUMOR.HTM (accessed November 24, 2008).
Pinckaer, Servais. The Sources of Christian Ethics. 3rd. Washinton, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995.
XVI, Benedict. "Meeting with Catholic Educators." Libreria Editrice Vaticana. April 17, 2008. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_XVI/speaches/2008/april/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spec_20080417_cath-univ-washington_en.htm/ (accessed November 24, 2008).
Copyrighted December 2008 by Janelle M Wingert
The secret is to do with Great Love
“It is not the greatness of our actions that matters
but the amount of love that we put into them.” ~Mother Teresa
A moral theology of happiness gives humanity the opportunity to live the most authentic human life possible because of the transforming power of charity. Through charity all discussion of evil, sin, suffering, and free-will is given the potential to be transfigured into the highest good, thereby pointing the way to the ultimate end of eternal happiness. Modern ethicists diminish the role of charity within moral life to the greatest peril of mankind. For a moral theology of obligation will only collapse unto itself, for without the full truth what it means to be human within the moral framework, modern morality fails to give meaning to human life.
The modern school of a moral theology of obligation reduces the definitive meaning and purpose to the most pressing questions that all humanity confronts. What is the true meaning of evil, sin, suffering, and free-will within the mystery of human life? Modern ethicists, according to Fr. Pinckaer do not even attempt to find the essential meaning of these questions and often exclude those questions all together, for their theology of moral obligation reduces the human heart to less than it is meant to be. Through this reduction of the fullest potential of a human life, modern thought leaves a great emptiness for all humanity. For instead of seeking what Man truly longs for in the depth of his heart, man looks to pleasure, power, money, or any “god” to fill the void, what Fr. Picnkaer calls the “the chasm of meaningless.”
By failing to address the deep need to have true meaning in life modern ethics open the human person to become a slave to sin and obligation. Without true understanding of the innate dignity that the Lord has given to man in the gift of free-will, man gives himself away when ever he misuses the gift. Thereby through the disordered use of free-will, man becoming less human. Free-will is the gift that God gave uniquely to mankind and in its truest sense, where the human heart is truly free – free-will is the gift to choose goodness, beauty, and truth. Eve eating from the tree of knowledge was her misusing her free-will to supersede the Lord’s divine authority and understanding of good. From this single act man could see that which is not good within him and others. Concupiscence, the disorder of the human passions, is where the fallen heart brought death and suffering into the world. By rejecting the true meaning of free-will man gives himself away in a disordered manner which is sin. Through the choice to sin the human heart rejects its highest good and embraces the actuality of evil. Sin becomes the lack of anything good, beautiful, or true within a person’s action or evil acts.
By rejecting the highest meaning of human free-will, the definitive goal for happiness becomes impossible to be reached. For humanity can not cross the great chasm that has grown through his actions between his extreme good and his dehumanized self. The elemental struggle between the light and darkness of the human soul is undertaken within the deficient will.
Because of sins entrance within the world, evil has found the potentiality to dwell within creation and the human heart. Evil being the absence of all that is good, beauty, and true in its fullest significance. There are several forms of evil that manifest themselves within human life. Physical evil, the deprivation of anything good, can be human suffering from the lack of good, such as physical sickness or spiritual pain. Moral evil is caused by the free-will choosing against the will of God in any context.
Ultimately that which is worst is moral evil, for it does the most harm to the human soul. Physical evil can open the human heart to turn towards God with more ease, in contrast to the moral evil that turns the heart away from the divine will of God. Physical evil can befall the innocent and malicious equally, but the heart who freely chooses an intrinsic moral evil is acting freely with offensive cunning. So moral evil is the worst a human being can do in life and leads to the mortal death of the soul. Simply put those who do evil suffer the most harm then those who suffer from their evil actions. “Forgive them Lord, for they do not know what they do.”
Human suffering is caused as stated before by physical evil. Without a definitive understanding of human life and its meaning suffering becomes unbearable and can lead to despair-- the death of the soul. Just witnessing a funeral of those who do not have any faith is excruciating for death has no meaning, no purpose. To their minds and hearts it is the final end, and pointless. The grief is overwhelming to the human heart and thereby oppresses and crushes the spirit under its weight. Going to a non-Catholic funeral can be an intense experience of deprivation and darkness. Hope ceases to be.
But Christian morality has the supreme answer to all these deep abiding questions to life. For a moral theology of happiness has the answers every heart longs for, because it directs the heart to its supreme end and good. Every suffering the human soul experiences develops “meaning, value, and wholeness.”
Moral theology geared towards the eternal happiness allows charity to manifest itself in the most distressed events and places within human life. Suffering is the opposite of happiness. But it is only in suffering that a person is able to truly recognize true happiness. Through the deprivation of happiness most people are too busy within the confines of modern life and fail to recognize it before suffering visits them. In the midst of suffering they can not help but see that it is missing in their life. Suffering opens the door for genuine desire for the ultimate good and end of eternal happiness.
Also through charity suffering actually becomes a means to enter the Kingdom of God as Christ described in his Beatitudes. Through suffering a person is given the opportunity to love in a new way, to carry their cross per say. Suffering turns the human heart upside down and causes it to concentrate on those things that really matter in life. For in suffering the distractions of life are not as freely experienced as before. Through suffering a person is given the chance to look deeply within the self. If the suffering is then seen in light of the cross of Christ the soul can allow the suffering to be offered for the supreme good of not just themselves but for others. For suffering births hope and opens the heart to be cleansed and filled with divine charity of the Lord. Through suffering the human heart grows in its capacity for love, compassion, and solidarity. Suffering opens up the possibility of looking beyond the self to the greatest good of the other.
Charity in its essential consequence is sacrificial in its essence and true nature. Through charity the human heart is able to see the radiant beauty of the persons they are relating to through out their lives. Christian charity opens the heart to recognize the divine nature and beauty within all. This opens up major possibilities in transforming the very nature of morality. For no longer are moral actions just obligations, but they are actions to draw out the greatest good for others out of love. The ultimate end of the action taken is for the ultimate good, not just because someone is obligated to do something. “God sees the heart of man.” An action maybe good and moral, but it is the root of the heart that motivates the action taken and if that root is lifeless and done without love, it is not a fertile authentic moral action. The moral action of obligation is fake and superficial. Self-love even in the act of generosity is still self-seeking and not an act of love. For true generosity does not seek any award of any kind. Christian love and charity is a call to die unto the self. A moral action should be a gift of self to the other, either to God or another person, completed out of love.
The one who is truly living a moral life focused on the ultimate eternal good is a person who will bare the fruit of the Holy Spirit within their Life. Through humility the human heart can manifest the perfect self-love that truly acts in true charity towards another.
The supreme meaning of charity with moral theology is the perfect Charity, God who is love. For within the divine nature of God to be love, he can take any situation in human life and work it towards the ultimate good of man. That means evil does not have the final say in all things. God is infinite and knows and understands all things. Through His eternal self, he constantly lives within the divine moment, where everything that ever was, and ever will be is completely presence within the divine moment. He knew that in allowing free-will he was allowing the potentially of evil to be present in the world and human life. God is fully aware of every choice a human will make before they make it. Which raises a big fundamental question in regards to moral theology? If God in his divine and perfect will thought it of the utmost importance to give man free-will, then the choice man makes to do good or evil is so vital the relationship between man and the divine. God did not want automatic robots that would always do his divine will. He wanted his creatures made in his image and likeness to truly freely love him wholly and entirely through an act of free-will.
So the moral theology of happiness that is discussed within Fr. Picknaer’s book is crucial to embracing the fullness of the meaning of human life. For through God’s divine revelation within the beginning of creation -- the universal the foundation for the proper understanding of the moral life was set down and is seen within the context of charity for the ultimate goal and end of complete union with God. Mother Teresa said it best, “There are no great things, only small things with great love. Happy are those.”
Copyrighted October 2008 by Janelle M Wingert
but the amount of love that we put into them.” ~Mother Teresa
A moral theology of happiness gives humanity the opportunity to live the most authentic human life possible because of the transforming power of charity. Through charity all discussion of evil, sin, suffering, and free-will is given the potential to be transfigured into the highest good, thereby pointing the way to the ultimate end of eternal happiness. Modern ethicists diminish the role of charity within moral life to the greatest peril of mankind. For a moral theology of obligation will only collapse unto itself, for without the full truth what it means to be human within the moral framework, modern morality fails to give meaning to human life.
The modern school of a moral theology of obligation reduces the definitive meaning and purpose to the most pressing questions that all humanity confronts. What is the true meaning of evil, sin, suffering, and free-will within the mystery of human life? Modern ethicists, according to Fr. Pinckaer do not even attempt to find the essential meaning of these questions and often exclude those questions all together, for their theology of moral obligation reduces the human heart to less than it is meant to be. Through this reduction of the fullest potential of a human life, modern thought leaves a great emptiness for all humanity. For instead of seeking what Man truly longs for in the depth of his heart, man looks to pleasure, power, money, or any “god” to fill the void, what Fr. Picnkaer calls the “the chasm of meaningless.”
By failing to address the deep need to have true meaning in life modern ethics open the human person to become a slave to sin and obligation. Without true understanding of the innate dignity that the Lord has given to man in the gift of free-will, man gives himself away when ever he misuses the gift. Thereby through the disordered use of free-will, man becoming less human. Free-will is the gift that God gave uniquely to mankind and in its truest sense, where the human heart is truly free – free-will is the gift to choose goodness, beauty, and truth. Eve eating from the tree of knowledge was her misusing her free-will to supersede the Lord’s divine authority and understanding of good. From this single act man could see that which is not good within him and others. Concupiscence, the disorder of the human passions, is where the fallen heart brought death and suffering into the world. By rejecting the true meaning of free-will man gives himself away in a disordered manner which is sin. Through the choice to sin the human heart rejects its highest good and embraces the actuality of evil. Sin becomes the lack of anything good, beautiful, or true within a person’s action or evil acts.
By rejecting the highest meaning of human free-will, the definitive goal for happiness becomes impossible to be reached. For humanity can not cross the great chasm that has grown through his actions between his extreme good and his dehumanized self. The elemental struggle between the light and darkness of the human soul is undertaken within the deficient will.
Because of sins entrance within the world, evil has found the potentiality to dwell within creation and the human heart. Evil being the absence of all that is good, beauty, and true in its fullest significance. There are several forms of evil that manifest themselves within human life. Physical evil, the deprivation of anything good, can be human suffering from the lack of good, such as physical sickness or spiritual pain. Moral evil is caused by the free-will choosing against the will of God in any context.
Ultimately that which is worst is moral evil, for it does the most harm to the human soul. Physical evil can open the human heart to turn towards God with more ease, in contrast to the moral evil that turns the heart away from the divine will of God. Physical evil can befall the innocent and malicious equally, but the heart who freely chooses an intrinsic moral evil is acting freely with offensive cunning. So moral evil is the worst a human being can do in life and leads to the mortal death of the soul. Simply put those who do evil suffer the most harm then those who suffer from their evil actions. “Forgive them Lord, for they do not know what they do.”
Human suffering is caused as stated before by physical evil. Without a definitive understanding of human life and its meaning suffering becomes unbearable and can lead to despair-- the death of the soul. Just witnessing a funeral of those who do not have any faith is excruciating for death has no meaning, no purpose. To their minds and hearts it is the final end, and pointless. The grief is overwhelming to the human heart and thereby oppresses and crushes the spirit under its weight. Going to a non-Catholic funeral can be an intense experience of deprivation and darkness. Hope ceases to be.
But Christian morality has the supreme answer to all these deep abiding questions to life. For a moral theology of happiness has the answers every heart longs for, because it directs the heart to its supreme end and good. Every suffering the human soul experiences develops “meaning, value, and wholeness.”
Moral theology geared towards the eternal happiness allows charity to manifest itself in the most distressed events and places within human life. Suffering is the opposite of happiness. But it is only in suffering that a person is able to truly recognize true happiness. Through the deprivation of happiness most people are too busy within the confines of modern life and fail to recognize it before suffering visits them. In the midst of suffering they can not help but see that it is missing in their life. Suffering opens the door for genuine desire for the ultimate good and end of eternal happiness.
Also through charity suffering actually becomes a means to enter the Kingdom of God as Christ described in his Beatitudes. Through suffering a person is given the opportunity to love in a new way, to carry their cross per say. Suffering turns the human heart upside down and causes it to concentrate on those things that really matter in life. For in suffering the distractions of life are not as freely experienced as before. Through suffering a person is given the chance to look deeply within the self. If the suffering is then seen in light of the cross of Christ the soul can allow the suffering to be offered for the supreme good of not just themselves but for others. For suffering births hope and opens the heart to be cleansed and filled with divine charity of the Lord. Through suffering the human heart grows in its capacity for love, compassion, and solidarity. Suffering opens up the possibility of looking beyond the self to the greatest good of the other.
Charity in its essential consequence is sacrificial in its essence and true nature. Through charity the human heart is able to see the radiant beauty of the persons they are relating to through out their lives. Christian charity opens the heart to recognize the divine nature and beauty within all. This opens up major possibilities in transforming the very nature of morality. For no longer are moral actions just obligations, but they are actions to draw out the greatest good for others out of love. The ultimate end of the action taken is for the ultimate good, not just because someone is obligated to do something. “God sees the heart of man.” An action maybe good and moral, but it is the root of the heart that motivates the action taken and if that root is lifeless and done without love, it is not a fertile authentic moral action. The moral action of obligation is fake and superficial. Self-love even in the act of generosity is still self-seeking and not an act of love. For true generosity does not seek any award of any kind. Christian love and charity is a call to die unto the self. A moral action should be a gift of self to the other, either to God or another person, completed out of love.
The one who is truly living a moral life focused on the ultimate eternal good is a person who will bare the fruit of the Holy Spirit within their Life. Through humility the human heart can manifest the perfect self-love that truly acts in true charity towards another.
The supreme meaning of charity with moral theology is the perfect Charity, God who is love. For within the divine nature of God to be love, he can take any situation in human life and work it towards the ultimate good of man. That means evil does not have the final say in all things. God is infinite and knows and understands all things. Through His eternal self, he constantly lives within the divine moment, where everything that ever was, and ever will be is completely presence within the divine moment. He knew that in allowing free-will he was allowing the potentially of evil to be present in the world and human life. God is fully aware of every choice a human will make before they make it. Which raises a big fundamental question in regards to moral theology? If God in his divine and perfect will thought it of the utmost importance to give man free-will, then the choice man makes to do good or evil is so vital the relationship between man and the divine. God did not want automatic robots that would always do his divine will. He wanted his creatures made in his image and likeness to truly freely love him wholly and entirely through an act of free-will.
So the moral theology of happiness that is discussed within Fr. Picknaer’s book is crucial to embracing the fullness of the meaning of human life. For through God’s divine revelation within the beginning of creation -- the universal the foundation for the proper understanding of the moral life was set down and is seen within the context of charity for the ultimate goal and end of complete union with God. Mother Teresa said it best, “There are no great things, only small things with great love. Happy are those.”
Copyrighted October 2008 by Janelle M Wingert
The "Truth" will set us free!
"You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (Jn. 8:32).
As Saint Paul confirmed in his letter to the Romans, “what the law requires is written in their hearts,” true morality is a movement within the heart of man enlightened through faith and reason. For all who are on the straight and narrow path of a Christian moral life have the deep abiding moral knowledge required to reach eternal happiness or finality. Any moral argument that negates this truth threatens the intrinsic nature and dignity of the human person. The interior fontal knowledge that Fr. Picknaer upholds in his book “The Sources of Christian Ethics” is a truth we must continue to defend for it is our birthright the Creator has given to all mankind created in His image and likeness.
Fr. Picknaer’s discussion within his book is a perfect fit for building a foundational understanding of the definition of ethics and moral theology. The lesson defines ethics as “the science of human conduct as known by natural reason; the activity of moral reasoning.” Moral theology is defined as “the science of human actions insofar as they are directed by natural reason and divine faith to the attainment of supernatural destiny.”
Human ethics asks the question “what should man do?” Most modern ethicists according to Picknaer only look at this question at a very shallow level which he calls positivist knowledge. Positivist sciences have a general method of analyzing behavioral actions in a way that looses the human person completely through its apersonal focus. Humanistic ethics concentrates on external actions through a rigorous observation of facts that can only be perceived by the senses—in other words only seen by the observer. Through these observations the ethicist is able to formulate laws around the actions observed. This is to be done with complete objectivity. For any human being this complete objectivity is impossible, because all humans are influenced by deeper realities then just those that are “observable facts.”
Ethics can not stand on its own if in the name of modernism it rejects the idea of truth in the fullest context. Moral theology has a more complete view of the human person and the moral actions that an individual takes. The human heart is a very deep reality and can not be negated when it comes to the influence it plays in the daily actions of human beings. Human beings can not be placed within the narrow box of just scientific knowledge, because there is an element of the human life that can not be explained through scientific or positivist knowledge.
Ethics or moral reasoning asks the single question “What should man do?” We must know “what man is?” first to truly comprehend how man should behave. Just judging morality through the lenses of moral obligation without love and full discernment endangers the human person to become a lost sheep to the world of impulses or “observable facts.” To search for just quantitative information in order to judge the moral obligations within the given context of a human life is to miss a whole other capacity of the human experience. Living a moral life within the murky waters full of the currents of relativism and “broadmindedness” in this post-modern age with this narrow minded view threatens the true freedom of the human spirit.
John Paul II explained the struggle between human based ethics and God centered moral theology within his encyclical, Veritatis Splendor (84), “Pilate’s question: ‘What is truth’ reflects the distressing perplexity of a man who often no longer knows who he is, whence he comes and where he is going…man is no longer convinced that only in the truth can he find salvation. The saving power of the truth is contested, and freedom alone, uprooted from any objectivity, is left to decide by itself what is good and what is evil. This relativism becomes … a lack of trust in the wisdom of God, who guides man with moral law…when all is said and done, the law of God is always the one true good of man.” The danger of some post-modern thought within the field of ethics is that anything goes in the name of “freedom” which threatens morality at its core-- for then there is no true freedom—“freedom” meaning the full potential of the human person to do the good, thereby becoming the truest good.
Human beings are spiritual beings and moral theology takes the spiritual nature of the human person into perspective. This view of the moral life is explained thoroughly within Fr. Picknaer’s discussion of Christian morality and gives a strong foundation for the true intellectual and spiritual capacity of moral theology.
Moral Theology asks deep questions when looking at the actions or behaviors of the human person. As Fr. Picknaer explains that moral knowledge “comes into being through dynamic reflection on human actions.” Moral theology goes to the origin of human actions, or what could be called the heart of the matter. Moral theology is theological because it focuses on how faith enlightened by revelation and the Holy Spirit pierces the depths of the human soul. These deep internal movements of the heart have no quantitative means of measure, for these inspirations are subjective to the unique heart in relationship with the divine and their previous life experiences.
Fr. Picknaer so eloquently reveals a special type of knowledge which must be recognized by the ethicist if the source of human actions is to be fully appreciated. This knowledge he calls fontal knowledge. Fontal knowledge is that innate gift that the Lord planted in all human hearts, His “law written in our hearts.” Through this knowledge the human being is able to recognize truth, goodness, happiness, and moral reality. This fontal knowledge Fr. Picknaer says isn’t even our subconscious, he calls it “superconscious.” It is very difficult to adequately explain this knowledge because everything infinite is difficult to put into finite words. Every human being has this innate part or grace within themselves that pierces the deepest part of their being.
The simplest way to illustrate this is to watch children play a board game and then reflect upon the reaction when someone is caught cheating. They are so quick to point out that cheating is wrong and that it is not fair. They innately know when something is good or something is bad, they just can’t explain how they know. As human beings dealing with much harder decisions at times, the best thing to do is to allow our fontal knowledge direct our actions. If a person has to stop and think if they should do something, it probably means they shouldn’t. The Lord’s divine influence on the soul is giving a little warning or caution to think something through before taking an action. This fontal knowledge also comes into play in crisis situations. As in those heroic actions humans take in helping someone else in need, even when saving the other may put them into grave danger.
This fontal knowledge is rejected by Ockham and others who see human actions as being separated from any outside influences or divine interventions. Moral theology is a science of the divine in relationship with human life. This is a divine science that is enlightened by truth, beauty, goodness, and moral reality. Fontal knowledge is the source of all our moral or immoral actions is so far as the human heart can choose to follow the divine inspiration within the heart or reject it. That is where free will comes to play within the complex and dynamic movements of the heart that lead to human action.
Moral theology needs to look at all of the influences that come to play in the actions that a human being makes. Even behavioral sciences have something to offer for the full understanding of morality. For everything within a human person’s experience influences the choices they make. The harm that behavioral sciences can cause to morality is the denial of the spiritual dimension to human life. For those who follow the just the positivist knowledge of the moral reality around them, see only part of the picture.
Those who live their life based on moral obligations and “going with the flow” risks the very real danger of conditioning their hearts to stop recognizing the fontal knowledge that the Lord has planted within their hearts. Ethical relativism removes all moral reference point for mankind to follow. It rejects truth. This danger is not just for the individual but for society as a whole, for society is loosing its soul as well.
As John Paul stated “morality – founded upon truth and open in truth to authentic freedom – renders a primordial, indispensable and immensely valuable service not only for the individual person and his growth in the good, but also for society and its genuine development” (VS, 101.) If relativistic morality continues to take hold on all of society then the very moral fiber of society and true freedom with collapse. Moral theology has what all science and mankind need. Through moral theology mankind finds a focus and center that embraces the whole of human experience which doesn’t run contrary to human freedom and life.
Moral knowledge is enlightened and “supermoral” when united in love for God and for the other. Moral reality is a choice or a commitment for a person or a society who chooses to live in the Spirit, to grow in virtue and personal holiness. Moral theology looks at the choices that persons make through out their lives and becomes a living testament to the interior live within their hearts and their divine destiny. Moral theology is a necessity for all humans and all society to truly understand what it means to be a human being. If the world would look to moral theology and practiced it at its deepest sense it would find –Truth—the only reality that will set us free.
Copyrighted September 22, 2008 by Janelle M. Wingert
As Saint Paul confirmed in his letter to the Romans, “what the law requires is written in their hearts,” true morality is a movement within the heart of man enlightened through faith and reason. For all who are on the straight and narrow path of a Christian moral life have the deep abiding moral knowledge required to reach eternal happiness or finality. Any moral argument that negates this truth threatens the intrinsic nature and dignity of the human person. The interior fontal knowledge that Fr. Picknaer upholds in his book “The Sources of Christian Ethics” is a truth we must continue to defend for it is our birthright the Creator has given to all mankind created in His image and likeness.
Fr. Picknaer’s discussion within his book is a perfect fit for building a foundational understanding of the definition of ethics and moral theology. The lesson defines ethics as “the science of human conduct as known by natural reason; the activity of moral reasoning.” Moral theology is defined as “the science of human actions insofar as they are directed by natural reason and divine faith to the attainment of supernatural destiny.”
Human ethics asks the question “what should man do?” Most modern ethicists according to Picknaer only look at this question at a very shallow level which he calls positivist knowledge. Positivist sciences have a general method of analyzing behavioral actions in a way that looses the human person completely through its apersonal focus. Humanistic ethics concentrates on external actions through a rigorous observation of facts that can only be perceived by the senses—in other words only seen by the observer. Through these observations the ethicist is able to formulate laws around the actions observed. This is to be done with complete objectivity. For any human being this complete objectivity is impossible, because all humans are influenced by deeper realities then just those that are “observable facts.”
Ethics can not stand on its own if in the name of modernism it rejects the idea of truth in the fullest context. Moral theology has a more complete view of the human person and the moral actions that an individual takes. The human heart is a very deep reality and can not be negated when it comes to the influence it plays in the daily actions of human beings. Human beings can not be placed within the narrow box of just scientific knowledge, because there is an element of the human life that can not be explained through scientific or positivist knowledge.
Ethics or moral reasoning asks the single question “What should man do?” We must know “what man is?” first to truly comprehend how man should behave. Just judging morality through the lenses of moral obligation without love and full discernment endangers the human person to become a lost sheep to the world of impulses or “observable facts.” To search for just quantitative information in order to judge the moral obligations within the given context of a human life is to miss a whole other capacity of the human experience. Living a moral life within the murky waters full of the currents of relativism and “broadmindedness” in this post-modern age with this narrow minded view threatens the true freedom of the human spirit.
John Paul II explained the struggle between human based ethics and God centered moral theology within his encyclical, Veritatis Splendor (84), “Pilate’s question: ‘What is truth’ reflects the distressing perplexity of a man who often no longer knows who he is, whence he comes and where he is going…man is no longer convinced that only in the truth can he find salvation. The saving power of the truth is contested, and freedom alone, uprooted from any objectivity, is left to decide by itself what is good and what is evil. This relativism becomes … a lack of trust in the wisdom of God, who guides man with moral law…when all is said and done, the law of God is always the one true good of man.” The danger of some post-modern thought within the field of ethics is that anything goes in the name of “freedom” which threatens morality at its core-- for then there is no true freedom—“freedom” meaning the full potential of the human person to do the good, thereby becoming the truest good.
Human beings are spiritual beings and moral theology takes the spiritual nature of the human person into perspective. This view of the moral life is explained thoroughly within Fr. Picknaer’s discussion of Christian morality and gives a strong foundation for the true intellectual and spiritual capacity of moral theology.
Moral Theology asks deep questions when looking at the actions or behaviors of the human person. As Fr. Picknaer explains that moral knowledge “comes into being through dynamic reflection on human actions.” Moral theology goes to the origin of human actions, or what could be called the heart of the matter. Moral theology is theological because it focuses on how faith enlightened by revelation and the Holy Spirit pierces the depths of the human soul. These deep internal movements of the heart have no quantitative means of measure, for these inspirations are subjective to the unique heart in relationship with the divine and their previous life experiences.
Fr. Picknaer so eloquently reveals a special type of knowledge which must be recognized by the ethicist if the source of human actions is to be fully appreciated. This knowledge he calls fontal knowledge. Fontal knowledge is that innate gift that the Lord planted in all human hearts, His “law written in our hearts.” Through this knowledge the human being is able to recognize truth, goodness, happiness, and moral reality. This fontal knowledge Fr. Picknaer says isn’t even our subconscious, he calls it “superconscious.” It is very difficult to adequately explain this knowledge because everything infinite is difficult to put into finite words. Every human being has this innate part or grace within themselves that pierces the deepest part of their being.
The simplest way to illustrate this is to watch children play a board game and then reflect upon the reaction when someone is caught cheating. They are so quick to point out that cheating is wrong and that it is not fair. They innately know when something is good or something is bad, they just can’t explain how they know. As human beings dealing with much harder decisions at times, the best thing to do is to allow our fontal knowledge direct our actions. If a person has to stop and think if they should do something, it probably means they shouldn’t. The Lord’s divine influence on the soul is giving a little warning or caution to think something through before taking an action. This fontal knowledge also comes into play in crisis situations. As in those heroic actions humans take in helping someone else in need, even when saving the other may put them into grave danger.
This fontal knowledge is rejected by Ockham and others who see human actions as being separated from any outside influences or divine interventions. Moral theology is a science of the divine in relationship with human life. This is a divine science that is enlightened by truth, beauty, goodness, and moral reality. Fontal knowledge is the source of all our moral or immoral actions is so far as the human heart can choose to follow the divine inspiration within the heart or reject it. That is where free will comes to play within the complex and dynamic movements of the heart that lead to human action.
Moral theology needs to look at all of the influences that come to play in the actions that a human being makes. Even behavioral sciences have something to offer for the full understanding of morality. For everything within a human person’s experience influences the choices they make. The harm that behavioral sciences can cause to morality is the denial of the spiritual dimension to human life. For those who follow the just the positivist knowledge of the moral reality around them, see only part of the picture.
Those who live their life based on moral obligations and “going with the flow” risks the very real danger of conditioning their hearts to stop recognizing the fontal knowledge that the Lord has planted within their hearts. Ethical relativism removes all moral reference point for mankind to follow. It rejects truth. This danger is not just for the individual but for society as a whole, for society is loosing its soul as well.
As John Paul stated “morality – founded upon truth and open in truth to authentic freedom – renders a primordial, indispensable and immensely valuable service not only for the individual person and his growth in the good, but also for society and its genuine development” (VS, 101.) If relativistic morality continues to take hold on all of society then the very moral fiber of society and true freedom with collapse. Moral theology has what all science and mankind need. Through moral theology mankind finds a focus and center that embraces the whole of human experience which doesn’t run contrary to human freedom and life.
Moral knowledge is enlightened and “supermoral” when united in love for God and for the other. Moral reality is a choice or a commitment for a person or a society who chooses to live in the Spirit, to grow in virtue and personal holiness. Moral theology looks at the choices that persons make through out their lives and becomes a living testament to the interior live within their hearts and their divine destiny. Moral theology is a necessity for all humans and all society to truly understand what it means to be a human being. If the world would look to moral theology and practiced it at its deepest sense it would find –Truth—the only reality that will set us free.
Copyrighted September 22, 2008 by Janelle M. Wingert
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)