ENCYCLICAL LETTER VERITATIS SPLENDOR
Second Part
Chapter II
"Do
not be conformed to this world"
(Rom 12:2)
THE
CHURCH AND THE DISCERNMENT OF CERTAIN TENDENCIES IN PRESENT-DAY
MORAL THEOLOGY
Teaching what befits sound doctrine (cf. Tit 2:1)
28.
Our meditation on the dialogue between Jesus and the rich young
man has enabled us to bring together the essential elements of
revelation in the Old and New Testament with regard to moral
action. These are: the subordination of man and his activity
to God, the One who "alone is good"; the relationship
between the moral good of human acts and eternal life;
Christian discipleship, which opens up before man the
perspective of perfect love; and finally the gift of the Holy
Spirit, source and means of the moral life of the "new
creation" (cf. 2 Cor 5:17).
In
her reflection on morality, the Church has always kept in
mind the words of Jesus to the rich young man. Indeed, Sacred
Scripture remains the living and fruitful source of the Church's
moral doctrine; as the Second Vatican Council recalled, the
Gospel is "the source of all saving truth and moral
teaching".[43] The Church has faithfully preserved what the word
of God teaches, not only about truths which must be believed but
also about moral action, action pleasing to God (cf. 1 Th 4:1));
she has achieved a doctrinal development analogous to
that which has taken place in the realm of the truths of faith.
Assisted by the Holy Spirit who leads her into all the truth
(cf. Jn 16:13), the Church has not ceased, nor can she ever
cease, to contemplate the "mystery of the Word Incarnate", in
whom "light is shed on the mystery of man".[44]
29.
The Church's moral reflection, always conducted in the light of
Christ, the "Good Teacher", has also developed in the specific
form of the theological science called moral theology, a science
which accepts and examines Divine Revelation while at the same
time responding to the demands of human reason. Moral theology
is a reflection concerned with "morality", with the good and the
evil of human acts and of the person who performs them; in this
sense it is accessible to all people. But it is also "theology",
inasmuch as it acknowledges that the origin and end of moral
action are found in the One who "alone is good" and who, by
giving himself to man in Christ, offers him the happiness of
divine life.
The
Second Vatican Council invited scholars to take "special care
for the renewal of moral theology," in such a way that "its
scientific presentation, increasingly based on the teaching of
Scripture, will cast light on the exalted vocation of the
faithful in Christ and on their obligation to bear fruit in
charity for the life of the world".[45] The Council also
encouraged theologians, "while respecting the methods and
requirements of theological science, to look for a more
appropriate way of communicating doctrine to the people of
their time; since there is a difference between the deposit or
the truths of faith and the manner in which they are expressed,
keeping the same meaning and the same judgment".[46] This led to
a further invitation, one extended to all the faithful, but
addressed to theologians in particular: "The faithful should
live in the closest contact with others of their time, and
should work for a perfect understanding of their modes of
thought and feelings as expressed in their culture".[47]
The
work of many theologians who found support in the Council's
encouragement has already borne fruit in interesting and helpful
reflections about the truths of faith to be believed and applied
in life, reflections offered in a form better suited to the
sensitivities and questions of our contemporaries. The Church,
and particularly the Bishops, to whom Jesus Christ primarily
entrusted the ministry of teaching, are deeply appreciative of
this work, and encourage theologians to continue their efforts,
inspired by that profound and authentic "fear of the Lord, which
is the beginning of wisdom" (cf. Prov 1:7).
At
the same time, however, within the context of the theological
debates which followed the Council, there have developed
certain interpretations of Christian morality which are not
consistent with "sound teaching" (2 Tm 4:3). Certainly the
Church's Magisterium does not intend to impose upon the faithful
any particular theological system, still less a philosophical
one. Nevertheless, in order to "reverently preserve and
faithfully expound" the word of God,[48] the Magisterium has the
duty to state that some trends of theological thinking and
certain philosophical affirmations are incompatible with
revealed truth.[49]
30.
In addressing this Encyclical to you, my Brother Bishops, it is
my intention to state the principles necessary for discerning
what is contrary to "sound doctrine", drawing attention to those
elements of the Church's moral teaching which today appear
particularly exposed to error, ambiguity or neglect. Yet these
are the very elements on which there depends "the answer to the
obscure riddles of the human condition which today also, as in
the past, profoundly disturb the human heart. What is man? What
is the meaning and purpose of our life? What is good and what is
sin? What origin and purpose do sufferings have? What is the way
to attaining true happiness? What are death, judgment and
retribution after death? Lastly, what is that final, unutterable
mystery which embraces our lives and from which we take our
origin and towards which we tend?"[50] These and other
questions, such as: what is freedom and what is its relationship
to the truth contained in God's law? what is the role of
conscience in man's moral development? how do we determine, in
accordance with the truth about the good, the specific rights
and duties of the human person?—can all be summed up in the
fundamental question which the young man in the Gospel put to
Jesus: "Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?"
Because the Church has been sent by Jesus to preach the Gospel
and to "make disciples of all nations..., teaching them to
observe all" that he has commanded (cf. Mt 28:19-20), she
today once more puts forward the Master's reply, a reply
that possesses a light and a power capable of answering even the
most controversial and complex questions. This light and power
also impel the Church constantly to carry out not only her
dogmatic but also her moral reflection within an
interdisciplinary context, which is especially necessary in
facing new issues.[51]
It
is in the same light and power that the Church's Magisterium
continues to carry out its task of discernment, accepting
and living out the admonition addressed by the Apostle Paul to
Timothy: "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ
Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his
appearing and his kingdom: preach the word, be urgent in season
and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in
patience and in teaching. For the time will come when people
will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they
will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own
likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and
wander into myths. As for you, always be steady, endure
suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry"
(2 Tim 4:1-5; cf. Tit 1:10,13-14).
You
will know the truth, and the truth will make you free
(Jn 8:32)
31.
The human issues most frequently debated and differently
resolved in contemporary moral reflection are all closely
related, albeit in various ways, to a crucial issue: human
freedom.
Certainly people today have a particularly strong sense of
freedom. As the Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom
Dignitatis Humanae had already observed, "the dignity of the
human person is a concern of which people of our time are
becoming increasingly more aware".[52] Hence the insistent
demand that people be permitted to "enjoy the use of their own
responsible judgment and freedom, and decide on their actions on
grounds of duty and conscience, without external pressure or
coercion".[53] In particular, the right to religious freedom and
to respect for conscience on its journey towards the truth is
increasingly perceived as the foundation of the cumulative
rights of the person.[54]
This
heightened sense of the dignity of the human person and of his
or her uniqueness, and of the respect due to the journey of
conscience, certainly represents one of the positive
achievements of modern culture. This perception, authentic as it
is, has been expressed in a number of more or less adequate
ways, some of which however diverge from the truth about man as
a creature and the image of God, and thus need to be corrected
and purified in the light of faith.[55]
32.
Certain currents of modern thought have gone so far as to
exalt freedom to such an extent that it becomes an absolute,
which would then be the source of values. This is the
direction taken by doctrines which have lost the sense of the
transcendent which are explicitly atheist. The individual
conscience is accorded the status of a supreme tribunal of moral
judgment which hands down categorical and infallible decisions
about good and evil. To the affirmation that one has a duty to
follow one's conscience is unduly added the affirmation that
one's moral judgment is true merely by the fact that it has its
origin in the conscience. But in this way the inescapable claims
of truth disappear, yielding their place to a criterion of
sincerity, authenticity and "being at peace with oneself", so
much so that some have come to adopt a radically subjectivistic
conception of moral judgment.
As
is immediately evident, the crisis of truth is not
unconnected with this development. Once the idea of a universal
truth about the good, knowable by human reason, is lost,
inevitably the notion of conscience also changes. Conscience is
no longer considered in its primordial reality as an act of a
person's intelligence, the function of which is to apply the
universal knowledge of the good in a specific situation and thus
to express a judgment about the right conduct to be chosen here
and now. Instead, there is a tendency to grant to the individual
conscience the prerogative of independently determining the
criteria of good and evil and then acting accordingly. Such an
outlook is quite congenial to an individualist ethic, wherein
each individual is faced with his own truth, different from the
truth of others. Taken to its extreme consequences, this
individualism leads to a denial of the very idea of human
nature.
These different notions are at the origin of currents of thought
which posit a radical opposition between moral law and
conscience, and between nature and freedom.
33.
Side by side with its exaltation of freedom, yet oddly in
contrast with it, modern culture radically questions the very
existence of this freedom. A number of disciplines, grouped
under the name of the "behavioural sciences", have rightly drawn
attention to the many kinds of psychological and social
conditioning which influence the exercise of human freedom.
Knowledge of these conditionings and the study they have
received represent important achievements which have found
application in various areas, for example in pedagogy or the
administration of justice. But some people, going beyond the
conclusions which can be legitimately drawn from these
observations, have come to question or even deny the very
reality of human freedom.
Mention should also be made here of theories which misuse
scientific research about the human person. Arguing from the
great variety of customs, behaviour patterns and institutions
present in humanity, these theories end up, if not with an
outright denial of universal human values, at least with a
relativistic conception of morality.
34.
"Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?" The
question of morality, to which Christ provides the answer,
cannot prescind from the issue of freedom. Indeed, it
considers that issue central, for there can be no morality
without freedom: "It is only in freedom that man can turn to
what is good".[56] But what sort of freedom? The Council,
considering our contemporaries who "highly regard" freedom and
"assiduously pursue" it, but who "often cultivate it in wrong
ways as a licence to do anything they please, even evil", speaks
of "genuine" freedom: "Genuine freedom is an outstanding
manifestation of the divine image in man. For God willed to
leave man 'in the power of his own counsel' (cf. Sir 15:14), so
that he would seek his Creator of his own accord and would
freely arrive at full and blessed perfection by cleaving to
God".[57] Although each individual has a right to be respected
in his own journey in search of the truth, there exists a prior
moral obligation, and a grave one at that, to seek the truth and
to adhere to it once it is known.[58] As Cardinal John Henry
Newman, that outstanding defender of the rights of conscience,
forcefully put it: "Conscience has rights because it has
duties".[59]
Certain tendencies in contemporary moral theology, under the
influence of the currents of subjectivism and individualism just
mentioned, involve novel interpretations of the relationship of
freedom to the moral law, human nature and conscience, and
propose novel criteria for the moral evaluation of acts. Despite
their variety, these tendencies are at one in lessening or even
denying the dependence of freedom on truth.
If
we wish to undertake a critical discernment of these
tendencies—a discernment capable of acknowledging what is
legitimate, useful and of value in them, while at the same time
pointing out their ambiguities, dangers and errors--we must
examine them in the light of the fundamental dependence of
freedom upon truth, a dependence which has found its clearest
and most authoritative expression in the words of Christ: "You
will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (Jn 8:32).
I.
Freedom and Law
Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not
eat (Gen 2:17)
35.
In the Book of Genesis we read: "The Lord God commanded the man,
saying, 'You may eat freely of every tree of the garden; but of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,
for in the day that you eat of it you shall die"' (Gen 2:
16-17).
With
this imagery, Revelation teaches that the power to decide
what is good and what is evil does not belong to man, but to God
alone. The man is certainly free, inasmuch as he can
understand and accept God's commands. And he possesses an
extremely far-reaching freedom, since he can eat "of every tree
of the garden". But his freedom is not unlimited: it must halt
before the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil", for it is
called to accept the moral law given by God. In fact, human
freedom finds its authentic and complete fulfilment precisely in
the acceptance of that law. God, who alone is good, knows
perfectly what is good for man, and by virtue of his very love
proposes this good to man in the commandments.
God's law does not reduce, much less do away with human freedom;
rather, it protects and promotes that freedom. In contrast,
however, some present-day cultural tendencies have given rise to
several currents of thought in ethics which centre upon an
alleged conflict between freedom and law. These doctrines
would grant to individuals or social groups the right to
determine what is good or evil. Human freedom would thus be
able to "create values" and would enjoy a primacy over truth, to
the point that truth itself would be considered a creation of
freedom. Freedom would thus lay claim to a moral autonomy
which would actually amount to an absolute sovereignty.
36.
The modern concern for the claims of autonomy has not failed to
exercise an influence also in the sphere of Catholic
moral theology. While the latter has certainly never
attempted to set human freedom against the divine law or to
question the existence of an ultimate religious foundation for
moral norms, it has, nonetheless, been led to undertake a
profound rethinking about the role of reason and of faith in
identifying moral norms with reference to specific
"inner-worldly" kinds of behaviour involving oneself, others and
the material world.
It
must be acknowledged that underlying this work of rethinking
there are certain positive concerns which to a great
extent belong to the best tradition of Catholic thought. In
response to the encouragement of the Second Vatican Council,[60]
there has been a desire to foster dialogue with modern culture,
emphasizing the rational--and thus universally understandable
and communicable character of moral norms belonging to the
sphere of the natural moral law.[61] There has also been an
attempt to reaffirm the interior character of the ethical
requirements deriving from that law, requirements which create
an obligation for the will only because such an obligation was
previously acknowledged by human reason and, concretely, by
personal conscience.
Some
people, however, disregarding the dependence of human reason on
Divine Wisdom and the need, given the present state of fallen
nature, for Divine Revelation as an effective means for knowing
moral truths, even those of the natural order,[62] have actually
posited a complete sovereignty of reason in the domain of
moral norms regarding the right ordering of life in this world.
Such norms would constitute the boundaries for a merely "human"
morality; they would be the expression of a law which man in an
autonomous manner lays down for himself and which has its source
exclusively in human reason. In no way could God be considered
the Author of this law, except in the sense that human reason
exercises its autonomy in setting down laws by virtue of a
primordial and total mandate given to man by God. These trends
of thought have led to a denial, in opposition to Sacred
Scripture (cf. Mt 15:3-6) and the Church's constant teaching, of
the fact that the natural moral law has God as its author, and
that man, by the use of reason, participates in the eternal law,
which it is not for him to establish.
37.
In their desire, however, to keep the moral life in a Christian
context, certain moral theologians have introduced a sharp
distinction, contrary to Catholic doctrine.[63] between an
ethical order. which would be human in origin and of value
for this world alone, and an order of salvation
for which only certain intentions and interior attitudes
regarding God and neighbor would be significant. This has then
led to an actual denial that there exists, in Divine Revelation,
a specific and determined moral content, universally valid and
permanent. The word of God would be limited to proposing an
exhortation, a generic paraenesis, which the autonomous reason
alone would then have the task of completing with normative
directives which are truly "objective", that is, adapted to the
concrete historical situation. Naturally, an autonomy conceived
in this way also involves the denial of a specific doctrinal
competence on the part of the Church and her Magisterium with
regard to particular moral norms which deal with the so-called
"human good". Such norms would not be part of the proper content
of Revelation, and would not in themselves be relevant for
salvation.
No
one can fail to see that such an interpretation of the autonomy
of human reason involves positions incompatible with Catholic
teaching.
In
such a context it is absolutely necessary to clarify, in the
light of the word of God and the living Tradition of the Church,
the fundamental notions of human freedom and of the moral law,
as well as their profound and intimate relationship. Only thus
will it be possible to respond to the rightful claims of human
reason in a way which accepts the valid elements present in
certain currents of contemporary moral theology without
compromising the Church's heritage of moral teaching with ideas
derived from an erroneous concept of autonomy.
God
left man in the power of his own counsel
(Sir 15:14)
38.
Taking up the words of Sirach, the Second Vatican Council
explains the meaning of that "genuine freedom" which is "an
outstanding manifestation of the divine image" in man: "God
willed to leave man in the power of his own counsel, so that he
would seek his Creator of his own accord and would freely arrive
at full and blessed perfection by cleaving to God".[64] These
words indicate the wonderful depth of the sharing in God's
dominion to which man has been called: they indicate that
man's dominion extends in a certain sense over man himself. This
has been a constantly recurring theme in theological reflection
on human freedom, which is described as a form of kingship. For
example, Saint Gregory of Nyssa writes: "The soul shows its
royal and exalted character... in that it is free and
self-governed, swayed autonomously by its own will. Of whom else
can this be said, save a king?... Thus human nature, created to
rule other creatures, was by its likeness to the King of the
universe made as it were a living image, partaking with the
Archetype both in dignity and in name".[65]
The
exercise of dominion over the world
represents a great and responsible task for man, one which
involves his freedom in obedience to the Creator's command:
"Fill the earth and subdue it" (Gen 1:28). In view of this, a
rightful autonomy is due to every man, as well as to the human
community, a fact to which the Council's Constitution Gaudium
et Spes calls special attention. This is the autonomy of
earthly realities, which means that "created things have their
own laws and values which are to be gradually discovered,
utilized and ordered by man".[66]
39.
Not only the world, however, but also man himself has
been entrusted to his own care and responsibility. God
left man "in the power of his own counsel" (Sir 15:14), that he
might seek his Creator and freely attain perfection. Attaining
such perfection means personally building up that perfection
in himself. Indeed, just as man in exercising his dominion
over the world shapes it in accordance with his own intelligence
and will, so too in performing morally good acts, man
strengthens, develops and consolidates within himself his
likeness to God.
Even
so, the Council warns against a false concept of the autonomy of
earthly realities, one which would maintain that "created things
are not dependent on God and that man can use them without
reference to their Creator".[67] With regard to man himself,
such a concept of autonomy produces particularly baneful
effects, and eventually leads to atheism: "Without its Creator
the creature simply disappears... If God is ignored the creature
itself is impoverished".[68]
40.
The teaching of the Council emphasizes, on the one hand, the
role of human reason in discovering and applying the moral
law: the moral life calls for that creativity and originality
typical of the person, the source and cause of his own
deliberate acts. On the other hand, reason draws its own truth
and authority from the eternal law, which is none other than
divine wisdom itself.[69] At the heart of the moral life we thus
find the principle of a "rightful autonomy"[70] of man, the
personal subject of his actions. The moral law has its origin
in God and always finds its source in him: at the same time,
by virtue of natural reason, which derives from divine wisdom,
it is a properly human law. Indeed, as we have seen, the
natural law "is nothing other than the light of understanding
infused in us by God, whereby we understand what must be done
and what must be avoided. God gave this light and this law to
man at creation".[71] The rightful autonomy of the practical
reason means that man possesses in himself his own law, received
from the Creator. Nevertheless, the autonomy of reason cannot
mean that reason itself creates values and moral norms.[72]
Were this autonomy to imply a denial of the participation of the
practical reason in the wisdom of the divine Creator and
Lawgiver, or were it to suggest a freedom which creates moral
norms, on the basis of historical contingencies or the diversity
of societies and cultures, this sort of alleged autonomy would
contradict the Church's teaching on the truth about man.[73] It
would be the death of true freedom: "But of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day
that you eat of it you shall die" (Gen 2:17).
41.
Man's genuine moral autonomy in no way means the
rejection but rather the acceptance of the moral law, of God's
command: "The Lord God gave this command to the man. . . " (Gen
2:16). Human freedom and God's law meet and are called to
intersect, in the sense of man's free obedience to God and
of God's completely gratuitous benevolence towards man. Hence
obedience to God is not, as some would believe, a heteronomy,
as if the moral life were subject to the will of something
all-powerful, absolute, extraneous to man and intolerant of his
freedom. If in fact a heteronomy of morality were to mean a
denial of man's self-determination or the imposition of norms
unrelated to his good, this would be in contradiction to the
Revelation of the Covenant and of the redemptive Incarnation.
Such a heteronomy would be nothing but a form of alienation,
contrary to divine wisdom and to the dignity of the human
person.
Others speak, and rightly so, of theonomy, or
participated theonomy, since man's free obedience to God's
law effectively implies that human reason and human will
participate in God's wisdom and providence. By forbidding man to
"eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil", God makes
it clear that man does not originally possess such "knowledge"
as something properly his own, but only participates in it by
the light of natural reason and of Divine Revelation, which
manifest to him the requirements and the promptings of eternal
wisdom. Law must therefore be considered an expression of divine
wisdom: by submitting to the law, freedom submits to the truth
of creation. Consequently one must acknowledge in the freedom of
the human person the image and the nearness of God, who is
present in all (cf. Eph 4:6). But one must likewise acknowledge
the majesty of the God of the universe and revere the holiness
of the law of God, who is infinitely transcendent: Deus
semper maior.[74]
Blessed is the man who takes delight in the law of the Lord
(cf. Ps 1:1-2)
42.
Patterned on God's freedom, man's freedom is not negated by his
obedience to the divine law; indeed, only through this obedience
does it abide in the truth and conform to human dignity. This is
clearly stated by the Council: "Human dignity requires man to
act through conscious and free choice, as motivated and prompted
personally from within, and not through blind internal impulse
or merely external pressure. Man achieves such dignity when he
frees himself from all subservience to his feelings, and in a
free choice of the good, pursues his own end by effectively and
assiduously marshaling the appropriate means".[75]
In
his journey towards God, the One who "alone is good", man must
freely do good and avoid evil. But in order to accomplish this
he must be able to distinguish good from evil. And this
takes place above all thanks to the light of natural reason,
the reflection in man of the splendour of God's countenance.
Thus Saint Thomas, commenting on a verse of Psalm 4, writes:
"After saying: Offer right sacrifices (Ps 4:5), as if some had
then asked him what right works were, the Psalmist adds:
There are many who say: Who will make us see good? And in
reply to the question he says: The light of your face, Lord,
is signed upon us, thereby implying that the light of
natural reason whereby we discern good from evil, which is the
function of the natural law, is nothing else but an imprint on
us of the divine light".[76] It also becomes clear why this law
is called the natural law: it receives this name not because it
refers to the nature of irrational beings but because the reason
which promulgates it is proper to human nature.[77]
43.
The Second Vatican Council points out that the "supreme rule of
life is the divine law itself, the eternal, objective and
universal law by which God out of his wisdom and love arranges,
directs and governs the whole world and the paths of the human
community. God has enabled man to share in this divine law, and
hence man is able under the gentle guidance of God's providence
increasingly to recognize the unchanging truth".[78]
The
Council refers back to the classic teaching on God's eternal
law. Saint Augustine defines this as "the reason or the will
of God, who commands us to respect the natural order and forbids
us to disturb it".[79] Saint Thomas identifies it with "the type
of the divine wisdom as moving all things to their due end".[80]
And God's wisdom is providence, a love which cares. God himself
loves and cares, in the most literal and basic sense, for all
creation (cf. Wis 7:22; 8:11). But God provides for man
differently from the way in which he provides for beings which
are not persons. He cares for man not "from without", through
the laws of physical nature, but "from within", through reason,
which, by its natural knowledge of God's eternal law, is
consequently able to show man the right direction to take in his
free actions.[81] In this way God calls man to participate in
his own providence, since he desires to guide the world--not
only the world of nature but also the world of human
persons--through man himself, through man's reasonable and
responsible care. The natural law enters here as the
human expression of God's eternal law. Saint Thomas writes:
"Among all others, the rational creature is subject to divine
providence in the most excellent way, insofar as it partakes of
a share of providence, being provident both for itself and for
others. Thus it has a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it
has a natural inclination to its proper act and end. This
participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is
called natural law".[82]
44.
The Church has often made reference to the Thomistic doctrine of
natural law, including it in her own teaching on morality. Thus
my Venerable Predecessor Leo XIII emphasized the essential
subordination of reason and human law to the Wisdom of God and
to his law. After stating that "the natural law is
written and engraved in the heart of each and every man, since
it is none other than human reason itself which commands us to
do good and counsels us not to sin", Leo XIII appealed to the
"higher reason" of the divine Lawgiver: "But this prescription
of human reason could not have the force of law unless it were
the voice and the interpreter of some higher reason to which our
spirit and our freedom must be subject". Indeed, the force of
law consists in its authority to impose duties, to confer rights
and to sanction certain behaviour: "Now all of this, clearly,
could not exist in man if, as his own supreme legislator, he
gave himself the rule of his own actions". And he concluded: "It
follows that the natural law is itself the eternal law,
implanted in beings endowed with reason, and inclining them
towards their right action and end, it is none other than
the eternal reason of the Creator and Ruler of the
universe".[83]
Man
is able to recognize good and evil thanks to that discernment of
good from evil which he himself carries out by his reason, in
particular by his reason enlightened by Divine Revelation and by
faith, through the law which God gave to the Chosen People,
beginning with the commandments on Sinai. Israel was called to
accept and to live out God's law as a particular gift
and sign of its election and of the divine Covenant, and
also as a pledge of God's blessing. Thus Moses could address the
children of Israel and ask them: "What great nation is that that
has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever
we call upon him? And what great nation is there that has
statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law which I set
before you this day?" (Dt 4:7-8). In the Psalms we encounter the
sentiments of praise, gratitude and veneration which the Chosen
People is called to show towards God's law, together with an
exhortation to know it, ponder it and translate it into life.
"Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of
scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his
law he meditates day and night" (Ps 1:1-2). "The law of the Lord
is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is
sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are
right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes" (Ps 18/19:8-9).
45.
The Church gratefully accepts and lovingly preserves the entire
deposit of Revelation, treating it with religious respect and
fulfilling her mission of authentically interpreting God's law
in the light of the Gospel. In addition, the Church receives the
gift of the New Law, which is the "fulfilment" of God's law in
Jesus Christ and in his Spirit. This is an "interior" law (cf.
Jer 3 1:3 1-33), "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); a law of perfection and of freedom (cf. 2
Cor 3:17); "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" (Rom
8:2). Saint Thomas writes that this law "can be called law in
two ways. First, the law of the spirit is the Holy Spirit...
who, dwelling in the soul, not only teaches what it is necessary
to do by enlightening the intellect on the things to be done,
but also inclines the affections to act with uprightness...
Second, the law of the spirit can be called the proper effect of
the Holy Spirit, and thus faith working through love (cf. Gal
5:6), which teaches inwardly about the things to be done... and
inclines the affections to act".[84]
Even
if moral-theological reflection usually distinguishes between
the positive or revealed law of God and the natural law, and,
within the economy of salvation, between the "old" and the "new"
law, it must not be forgotten that these and other useful
distinctions always refer to that law whose author is the one
and the same God and which is always meant for man. The
different ways in which God, acting in history, cares for the
world and for mankind are not mutually exclusive; on the
contrary, they support each other and intersect. They have their
origin and goal in the eternal, wise and loving counsel whereby
God predestines men and women "to be conformed to the image of
his Son" (Rom 8:29). God's plan poses no threat to man's genuine
freedom; on the contrary, the acceptance of God's plan is the
only way to affirm that freedom.
What
the law requires is written on their hearts
(Rom 2:15)
46.
The alleged conflict between freedom and law is forcefully
brought up once again today with regard to the natural law, and
particularly with regard to nature. Debates about nature and
freedom have always marked the history of moral reflection;
they grew especially heated at the time of the Renaissance and
the Reformation, as can be seen from the teaching of the Council
of Trent.[85] Our own age is marked, though in a different
sense, by a similar tension. The penchant for empirical
observation, the procedures of scientific objectification,
technological progress and certain forms of liberalism have led
to these two terms being set in opposition, as if a dialectic,
if not an absolute conflict, between freedom and nature were
characteristic of the structure of human history. At other
periods, it seemed that "nature" subjected man totally to its
own dynamics and even its own unbreakable laws. Today too, the
situation of the world of the senses within space and time,
physio-chemical constants, bodily processes, psychological
impulses and forms of social conditioning seem to many people
the only really decisive factors of human reality. In this
context even moral facts, despite their specificity, are
frequently treated as if they were statistically verifiable
data, patterns of behaviour which can be subject to observation
or explained exclusively in categories of psychosocial
processes. As a result, some ethicists, professionally
engaged in the study of human realities and behaviour, can be
tempted to take as the standard for their discipline and even
for its operative norms the results of a statistical study of
concrete human behaviour patterns and the opinions about
morality encountered in the majority of people.
Other moralists,
however, in their concern to stress the importance of values,
remain sensitive to the dignity of freedom, but they frequently
conceive of freedom as somehow in opposition to or in conflict
with material and biological nature, over which it must
progressively assert itself. Here various approaches are at one
in overlooking the created dimension of nature and in
misunderstanding its integrity. For some, "nature"
becomes reduced to raw material for human activity and for its
power: thus nature needs to be profoundly transformed, and
indeed overcome by freedom, inasmuch as it represents a
limitation and denial of freedom. For others, it is in
the untrammelled advancement of man's power, or of his freedom,
that economic, cultural, social and even moral values are
established: nature would thus come to mean everything found in
man and the world apart from freedom. In such an understanding,
nature would include in the first place the human body, its
make-up and its processes: against this physical datum would be
opposed whatever is "constructed", in other words "culture",
seen as the product and result of freedom. Human nature,
understood in this way, could be reduced to and treated as a
readily available biological or social material. This ultimately
means making freedom self-defining and a phenomenon creative of
itself and its values. Indeed, when all is said and done man
would not even have a nature; he would be his own personal
life-project. Man would be nothing more than his own freedom!
47.
In this context, objections of physicalism and naturalism
have been leveled against the traditional conception of the
natural law, which is accused of presenting as moral laws
what are in themselves mere biological laws. Consequently, in
too superficial a way, a permanent and unchanging character
would be attributed to certain kinds of human behaviour, and, on
the basis of this, an attempt would be made to formulate
universally valid moral norms. According to certain theologians,
this kind of "biologistic or naturalistic argumentation" would
even be present in certain documents of the Church's
Magisterium, particularly those dealing with the area of sexual
and conjugal ethics. It was, they maintain, on the basis of a
naturalistic understanding of the sexual act that contraception,
direct sterilization, autoeroticism, pre-marital sexual
relations, homosexual relations and artificial insemination were
condemned as morally unacceptable. In the opinion of these same
theologians, a morally negative evaluation of such acts fails to
take into adequate consideration both man's character as a
rational and free being and the cultural conditioning of all
moral norms. In their view, man, as a rational being, not only
can but actually must freely determine the meaning of his
behaviour. This process of "determining the meaning" would
obviously have to take into account the many limitations of the
human being, as existing in a body and in history. Furthermore,
it would have to take into consideration the behavioural models
and the meanings which the latter acquire in any given culture.
Above all, it would have to respect the fundamental commandment
of love of God and neighbour. Still, they continue, God made man
as a rationally free being; he left him "in the power of his own
counsel" and he expects him to shape his life in a personal and
rational way. Love of neighbour would mean above all and even
exclusively respect for his freedom to make his own decisions.
The workings of typically human behaviour, as well as the
so-called "natural inclinations", would establish at the most so
they say--a general orientation towards correct behaviour, but
they cannot determine the moral assessment of individual human
acts, so complex from the viewpoint of situations.
48.
Faced with this theory, one has to consider carefully the
correct relationship existing between freedom and human nature,
and in particular the place of the human body in questions of
natural law.
A
freedom which claims to be absolute ends up treating the human
body as a raw datum, devoid of any meaning and moral values
until freedom has shaped it in accordance with its design.
Consequently, human nature and the body appear as
presuppositions or preambles, materially necessary
for freedom to make its choice, yet extrinsic to the person, the
subject and the human act. Their functions would not be able to
constitute reference points for moral decisions, because the
finalities of these inclinations would be merely physical
goods, called by some "pre-moral". To refer to them, in order to
find in them rational indications with regard to the order of
morality, would be to expose oneself to the accusation of
physicalism or biologism. In this way of thinking, the tension
between freedom and a nature conceived of in a reductive way is
resolved by a division within man himself.
This
moral theory does not correspond to the truth about man and his
freedom. It contradicts the Church's teachings on the unity
of the human person, whose rational soul is per se et
essentialiter the form of his body.[86] The spiritual and
immortal soul is the principle of unity of the human being,
whereby it exists as a whole--corpore et anima unus[87]--
as a person. These definitions not only point out that the body,
which has been promised the resurrection, will also share in
glory. They also remind us that reason and free will are linked
with all the bodily and sense faculties. The person,
including the body, is completely entrusted to himself, and it
is in the unity of body and soul that the person is the subject
of his own moral acts. The person, by the light of reason
and the support of virtue, discovers in the body the
anticipatory signs, the expression and the promise of the gift
of self, in conformity with the wise plan of the Creator. It is
in the light of the dignity of the human person--a dignity which
must be affirmed for its own sake--that reason grasps the
specific moral value of certain goods towards which the person
is naturally inclined. And since the human person cannot be
reduced to a freedom which is self-designing, but entails a
particular spiritual and bodily structure, the primordial moral
requirement of loving and respecting the person as an end and
never as a mere means also implies, by its very nature, respect
for certain fundamental goods, without which one would fall into
relativism and arbitrariness.
49.
A doctrine which dissociates the moral act from the bodily
dimensions of its exercise is contrary to the teaching of
Scripture and Tradition. Such a doctrine revives, in new
forms, certain ancient errors which have always been opposed by
the Church, inasmuch as they reduce the human person to a
"spiritual" and purely formal freedom. This reduction
misunderstands the moral meaning of the body and of kinds of
behaviour involving it (cf. 1 Cor 6:19). Saint Paul declares
that "the immoral, idolaters, adulterers, sexual perverts,
thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers" are excluded
from the Kingdom of God (cf. 1 Cor 6:9). This
condemnation--repeated by the Council of Trent"[88]--lists as
"mortal sins" or "immoral practices" certain specific kinds of
behaviour the willful acceptance of which prevents believers
from sharing in the inheritance promised to them. In fact,
body and soul are inseparable: in the person, in the willing
agent and in the deliberate act, they stand or fall together.
50.
At this point the true meaning of the natural law can be
understood: it refers to man's proper and primordial nature, the
"nature of the human person",[89] which is the person himself
in the unity of soul and body, in the unity of his spiritual
and biological inclinations and of all the other specific
characteristics necessary for the pursuit of his end. "The
natural moral law expresses and lays down the purposes, rights
and duties which are based upon the bodily and spiritual nature
of the human person. Therefore this law cannot be thought of as
simply a set of norms on the biological level; rather it must be
defined as the rational order whereby man is called by the
Creator to direct and regulate his life and actions and in
particular to make use of his own body".[90] To give an example,
the origin and the foundation of the duty of absolute respect
for human life are to be found in the dignity proper to the
person and not simply in the natural inclination to preserve
one's own physical life. Human life, even though it is a
fundamental good of man, thus acquires a moral significance in
reference to the good of the person, who must always be affirmed
for his own sake. While it is always morally illicit to kill an
innocent human being, it can be licit, praiseworthy or even
imperative to give up one's own life (cf. Jn 15:13) out of love
of neighbour or as a witness to the truth. Only in reference to
the human person in his "unified totality", that is, as "a soul
which expresses itself in a body and a body informed by an
immortal spirit",[91] can the specifically human meaning of the
body be grasped. Indeed, natural inclinations take on moral
relevance only insofar as they refer to the human person and his
authentic fulfilment, a fulfilment which for that matter can
take place always and only in human nature. By rejecting all
manipulations of corporeity which alter its human meaning, the
Church serves man and shows him the path of true love, the only
path on which he can find the true God.
The
natural law thus understood does not allow for any division
between freedom and nature. Indeed, these two realities are
harmoniously bound together, and each is intimately linked to
the other.
From
the beginning it was not so
(Mt 19:8)
51.
The alleged conflict between freedom and nature also has
repercussions on the interpretation of certain specific aspects
of the natural law, especially its universality and
immutability. "Where then are these rules written", Saint
Augustine wondered, "except in the book of that light which is
called truth? From thence every just law is transcribed and
transferred to the heart of the man who works justice, not by
wandering but by being, as it were, impressed upon it, just as
the image from the ring passes over to the wax, and yet does not
leave the ring".[92]
Precisely because of this "truth" the natural law involves
universality. Inasmuch as it is inscribed in the rational
nature of the person, it makes itself felt to all beings endowed
with reason and living in history. In order to perfect himself
in his specific order, the person must do good and avoid evil,
be concerned for the transmission and preservation of life,
refine and develop the riches of the material world, cultivate
social life, seek truth, practise good and contemplate
beauty.[93]
The
separation which some have posited between the freedom of
individuals and the nature which all have in common, as it
emerges from certain philosophical theories which are highly
influential in present-day culture, obscures the perception of
the universality of the moral law on the part of reason. But
inasmuch as the natural law expresses the dignity of the human
person and lays the foundation for his fundamental rights and
duties, it is universal in its precepts and its authority
extends to all mankind. This universality does not ignore the
individuality of human beings, nor is it opposed to the
absolute uniqueness of each person. On the contrary, it embraces
at its root each of the person's free acts, which are meant to
bear witness to the universality of the true good. By submitting
to the common law, our acts build up the true communion of
persons and, by God's grace, practise charity, "which binds
everything together in perfect harmony" (Col 3:14). When on the
contrary they disregard the law, or even are merely ignorant of
it, whether culpably or not, our acts damage the communion of
persons, to the detriment of each.
52.
It is right and just, always and for everyone, to serve God, to
render him the worship which is his due and to honour one's
parents as they deserve. Positive precepts such as these, which
order us to perform certain actions and to cultivate certain
dispositions, are universally binding; they are
"unchanging".[94] They unite in the same common good all people
of every period of history, created for "the same divine calling
and destiny".[95] These universal and permanent laws correspond
to things known by the practical reason and are applied to
particular acts through the judgment of conscience. The acting
subject personally assimilates the truth contained in the law.
He appropriates this truth of his being and makes it his own by
his acts and the corresponding virtues. The negative precepts
of the natural law are universally valid. They oblige each and
every individual, always and in every circumstance. It is a
matter of prohibitions which forbid a given action semper et
pro semper, without exception, because the choice of this
kind of behaviour is in no case compatible with the goodness of
the will of the acting person, with his vocation to life with
God and to communion with his neighbour. It is prohibited--to
everyone and in every case--to violate these precepts. They
oblige everyone, regardless of the cost, never to offend in
anyone, beginning with oneself, the personal dignity common to
all.
On
the other hand, the fact that only the negative commandments
oblige always and under all circumstances does not mean that in
the moral life prohibitions are more important than the
obligation to do good indicated by the positive commandments.
The reason is this: the commandment of love of God and neighbour
does not have in its dynamic any higher limit, but it does have
a lower limit, beneath which the commandment is broken.
Furthermore, what must be done in any given situation depends on
the circumstances, not all of which can be foreseen; on the
other hand there are kinds of behaviour which can never, in any
situation, be a proper response a response which is in
conformity with the dignity of the person. Finally, it is always
possible that man, as the result of coercion or other
circumstances, can be hindered from doing certain good actions;
but he can never be hindered from not doing certain actions,
especially if he is prepared to die rather than to do evil.
The
Church has always taught that one may never choose kinds of
behaviour prohibited by the moral commandments expressed in
negative form in the Old and New Testaments. As we have seen,
Jesus himself reaffirms that these prohibitions allow no
exceptions: "If you wish to enter into life, keep the
commandments ... You shall not murder, You shall not commit
adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness"
(Mt 19: 17-18).
53.
The great concern of our contemporaries for historicity and for
culture has led some to call into question the immutability
of the natural law itself, and thus the existence of
"objective norms of morality"[96] valid for all people of the
present and the future, as for those of the past. Is it ever
possible, they ask, to consider as universally valid and always
binding certain rational determinations established in the past,
when no one knew the progress humanity would make in the future?
It
must certainly be admitted that man always exists in a
particular culture, but it must also be admitted that man is not
exhaustively defined by that same culture. Moreover, the very
progress of cultures demonstrates that there is something in man
which transcends those cultures. This "something" is precisely
human nature: this nature is itself the measure of culture and
the condition ensuring that man does not become the prisoner of
any of his cultures, but asserts his personal dignity by living
in accordance with the profound truth of his being. To call into
question the permanent structural elements of man which are
connected with his own bodily dimension would not only conflict
with common experience, but would render meaningless Jesus'
reference to the "beginning," precisely where the social and
cultural context of the time had distorted the primordial
meaning and the role of certain moral norms (cf. Mt 19:1-9).
This is the reason why "the Church affirms that underlying so
many changes there are some things which do not change and are
ultimately founded upon Christ, who is the same yesterday
and today and for ever."[97] Christ is the "Beginning" who,
having taken on human nature, definitively illumines it in its
constitutive elements and in its dynamism of charity towards God
and neighbour.[98]
Certainly there is a need to seek out and to discover the
most adequate formulation for universal and permanent moral
norms in the light of different cultural contexts, a formulation
most capable of ceaselessly expressing their historical
relevance, of making them understood and of authentically
interpreting their truth. This truth of the moral law--like that
of the "deposit of faith"--unfolds down the centuries: the norms
expressing that truth remain valid in their substance, but must
be specified and determined "eodem sensu eademque sententia"[99]
in the light of historical circumstances by the Church's
Magisterium, whose decision is preceded and accompanied by the
work of interpretation and formulation characteristic of the
reason of individual believers and of theological
reflection.[100]
II.
Conscience and Truth
Man's sanctuary
54.
The relationship between man's freedom and God's law is most
deeply lived out in the "heart" of the person, in his moral
conscience. As the Second Vatican Council observed: "In the
depths of his conscience man detects a law which he does not
impose on himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always
summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of
conscience can when necessary speak to his heart more
specifically: 'do this, shun that'. For man has in his heart a
law written by God. To obey it is the very dignity of man;
according to it he will be judged (cf. Rom 2:14-16)".[101]
The
way in which one conceives the relationship between freedom and
law is thus intimately bound up with one's understanding of the
moral conscience. Here the cultural tendencies referred to above
in which freedom and law are set in opposition to each another
and kept apart, and freedom is exalted almost to the point of
idolatry--lead to a "creative" understanding of moral
conscience, which diverges from the teaching of the Church's
tradition and her Magisterium.
55.
According to the opinion of some theologians, the function of
conscience had been reduced, at least at a certain period in the
past, to a simple application of general moral norms to
individual cases in the life of the person. But those norms,
they continue, cannot be expected to foresee and to respect all
the individual concrete acts of the person in all their
uniqueness and particularity. While such norms might somehow be
useful for a correct assessment of the situation, they
cannot replace the individual personal decision on how to
act in particular cases. The critique already mentioned of the
traditional understanding of human nature and of its importance
for the moral life has even led certain authors to state that
these norms are not so much a binding objective criterion for
judgments of conscience, but a general perspective which
helps man tentatively to put order into his personal and social
life. These authors also stress the complexity typical of
the phenomenon of conscience, a complexity profoundly related to
the whole sphere of psychology and the emotions, and to the
numerous influences exerted by the individual's social and
cultural environment. On the other hand, they give maximum
attention to the value of conscience, which the Council itself
defined as "the sanctuary of man, where he is alone with God
whose voice echoes within him".[102] This voice, it is said,
leads man not so much to a meticulous observance of universal
norms as to a creative and responsible acceptance of the
personal tasks entrusted to him by God.
In
their desire to emphasize the "creative" character of
conscience, certain authors no longer call its actions
"judgments" but "decisions": only by making these decisions
"autonomously" would man be able to attain moral maturity. Some
even hold that this process of maturing is inhibited by the
excessively categorical position adopted by the Church's
Magisterium in many moral questions; for them, the Church's
interventions are the cause of unnecessary conflicts of
conscience.
56.
In order to justify these positions, some authors have proposed
a kind of double status of moral truth. Beyond the doctrinal and
abstract level, one would have to acknowledge the priority of a
certain more concrete existential consideration. The latter, by
taking account of circumstances and the situation, could
legitimately be the basis of certain exceptions to the
general rule and thus permit one to do in practice and in
good conscience what is qualified as intrinsically evil by the
moral law. A separation, or even an opposition, is thus
established in some cases between the teaching of the precept,
which is valid in general, and the norm of the individual
conscience, which would in fact make the final decision about
what is good and what is evil. On this basis, an attempt is made
to legitimize so-called "pastoral" solutions contrary to the
teaching of the Magisterium, and to justify a "creative"
hermeneutic according to which the moral conscience is in no way
obliged, in every case, by a particular negative precept.
No
one can fail to realize that these approaches pose a challenge
to the very identity of the moral conscience in relation
to human freedom and God's law. Only the clarification made
earlier with regard to the relationship, based on truth, between
freedom and law makes possible a discernment concerning
this "creative" understanding of conscience.
The
judgment of conscience
57.
The text of the Letter to the Romans which has helped us to
grasp the essence of the natural law also indicates the
biblical understanding of conscience, especially in its
specific connection with the law: "When Gentiles who have
not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law
unto themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show
that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while
their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting
thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them" (Rom 2:14-15).
According to Saint Paul, conscience in a certain sense confronts
man with the law, and thus becomes a "witness" for man: a
witness of his own faithfulness or unfaithfulness with regard to
the law, of his essential moral rectitude or iniquity.
Conscience is the only witness, since what takes place in
the heart of the person is hidden from the eyes of everyone
outside. Conscience makes its witness known only to the person
himself. And, in turn, only the person himself knows what his
own response is to the voice of conscience.
58.
The importance of this interior dialogue of man with himself
can never be adequately appreciated. But it is also a
dialogue of man with God, the author of the law, the
primordial image and final end of man. Saint Bonaventure teaches
that "conscience is like God's herald and messenger; it does not
command things on its own authority, but commands them as coming
from God's authority, like a herald when he proclaims the edict
of the king. This is why conscience has binding force".[103]
Thus it can be said that conscience bears witness to man's own
rectitude or iniquity to man himself but, together with this and
indeed even beforehand, conscience is the witness of God
himself; whose voice and judgment penetrate the depths of
man's soul, calling him fortiler et suaviter to
obedience. "Moral conscience does not close man within an
insurmountable and impenetrable solitude, but opens him to the
call, to the voice of God. In this, and not in anything else,
lies the entire mystery and the dignity of the moral conscience:
in being the place, the sacred place where God speaks to
man".[104]
59.
Saint Paul does not merely acknowledge that conscience acts as a
"witness"; he also reveals the way in which conscience performs
that function. He speaks of "conflicting thoughts" which accuse
or excuse the Gentiles with regard to their behaviour (cf. Rom
2:15). The term "conflicting thoughts" clarifies the precise
nature of conscience: it is a moral judgment about man and
his actions, a judgment either of acquittal or of
condemnation, according as human acts are in conformity or not
with the law of God written on the heart. In the same text the
Apostle clearly speaks of the judgment of actions, the judgment
of their author and the moment when that judgment will be
definitively rendered: "(This will take place) on that day when,
according to my Gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ
Jesus" (Rom 2:16).
The
judgment of conscience is a practical judgment, a
judgment which makes known what man must do or not do, or which
assesses an act already performed by him. It is a judgment which
applies to a concrete situation the rational conviction that one
must love and do good and avoid evil. This first principle of
practical reason is part of the natural law; indeed it
constitutes the very foundation of the natural law, inasmuch as
it expresses that primordial insight about good and evil, that
reflection of God's creative wisdom which, like an imperishable
spark (scintilla animae), shines in the heart of every
man. But whereas the natural law discloses the objective and
universal demands of the moral good, conscience is the
application of the law to a particular case; this application of
the law thus becomes an inner dictate for the individual, a
summons to do what is good in this particular situation.
Conscience thus formulates moral obligation in the light
of the natural law: it is the obligation to do what the
individual, through the workings of his conscience, knows
to be a good he is called to do here and now. The
universality of the law and its obligation are acknowledged, not
suppressed, once reason has established the law's application in
concrete present circumstances. The judgment of conscience
states "in an ultimate way" whether a certain particular kind of
behaviour is in conformity with the law; it formulates the
proximate norm of the morality of a voluntary act, "applying the
objective law to a particular case".[105]
60.
Like the natural law itself and all practical knowledge, the
judgment of conscience also has an imperative character: man
must act in accordance with it. If man acts against this
judgment or, in a case where he lacks certainty about the
rightness and goodness of a determined act, still performs that
act, he stands condemned by his own conscience, the proximate
norm of personal morality. The dignity of this rational
forum and the authority of its voice and judgments derive from
the truth about moral good and evil, which it is called
to listen to and to express. This truth is indicated by the
"divine law", the universal and objective norm of morality.
The judgment of conscience does not establish the law; rather it
bears witness to the authority of the natural law and of the
practical reason with reference to the supreme good, whose
attractiveness the human person perceives and whose commandments
he accepts. "Conscience is not an independent and exclusive
capacity to decide what is good and what is evil. Rather there
is profoundly imprinted upon it a principle of obedience
vis-a-vis the objective norm which establishes and conditions
the correspondence of its decisions with the commands and
prohibitions which are at the basis of human behaviour".[106]
61.
The truth about moral good, as that truth is declared in the law
of reason, is practically and concretely recognized by the
judgment of conscience, which leads one to take responsibility
for the good or the evil one has done. If man does evil, the
just judgment of his conscience remains within him as a witness
to the universal truth of the good, as well as to the malice of
his particular choice. But the verdict of conscience remains in
him also as a pledge of hope and mercy: while bearing witness to
the evil he has done, it also reminds him of his need, with the
help of God's grace, to ask forgiveness, to do good and to
cultivate virtue constantly.
Consequently in the practical judgment of conscience,
which imposes on the person the obligation to perform a given
act, the link between freedom and truth is made manifest.
Precisely for this reason conscience expresses itself in acts of
"judgment" which reflect the truth about the good, and not in
arbitrary "decisions". The maturity and responsibility of these
judgments--and, when all is said and done, of the individual who
is their subject--are not measured by the liberation of the
conscience from objective truth, in favour of an alleged
autonomy in personal decisions, but, on the contrary, by an
insistent search for truth and by allowing oneself to be guided
by that truth in one's actions.
Seeking what is true and good
62.
Conscience, as the judgment of an act, is not exempt from the
possibility of error. As the Council puts it, "not infrequently
conscience can be mistaken as a result of invincible ignorance,
although it does not on that account forfeit its dignity; but
this cannot be said when a man shows little concern for seeking
what is true and good, and conscience gradually becomes almost
blind from being accustomed to sin".[107] In these brief words
the Council sums up the doctrine which the Church down the
centuries has developed with regard to the erroneous
conscience.
Certainly, in order to have a "good conscience" (1 Tim 1:5), man
must seek the truth and must make judgments in accordance with
that same truth. As the Apostle Paul says, the conscience must
be "confirmed by the Holy Spirit" (cf. Rom 9:1); it must be
"clear" (2 Tim 1:3); it must not "practise cunning and tamper
with God's word", but "openly state the truth" (cf. 2 Cor 4:2).
On the other hand, the Apostle also warns Christians: "Do not be
conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of
your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is
good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom 12:2).
Paul's admonition urges us to be watchful, warning us that in
the judgments of our conscience the possibility of error is
always present. Conscience is not an infallible judge; it
can make mistakes. However, error of conscience can be the
result of an invincible ignorance, an ignorance of which
the subject is not aware and which he is unable to overcome by
himself.
The
Council reminds us that in cases where such invincible ignorance
is not culpable, conscience does not lose its dignity, because
even when it directs us to act in a way not in conformity with
the objective moral order, it continues to speak in the name of
that truth about the good which the subject is called to seek
sincerely.
63.
In any event, it is always from the truth that the dignity of
conscience derives. In the case of the correct conscience, it is
a question of the objective truth received by man; in the
case of the erroneous conscience, it is a question of what man,
mistakenly, subjectively considers to be true. It is
never acceptable to confuse a "subjective" error about moral
good with the "objective" truth rationally proposed to man in
virtue of his end, or to make the moral value of an act
performed with a true and correct conscience equivalent to the
moral value of an act performed by following the judgment of an
erroneous conscience.[108] It is possible that the evil done as
the result of invincible ignorance or a non-culpable error of
judgment may not be imputable to the agent; but even in this
case it does not cease to be an evil, a disorder in relation to
the truth about the good. Furthermore, a good act which is not
recognized as such does not contribute to the moral growth of
the person who performs it; it does not perfect him and it does
not help to dispose him for the supreme good. Thus, before
feeling easily justified in the name of our conscience, we
should reflect on the words of the Psalm: "Who can discern his
errors? Clear me from hidden faults" (Ps 19:12). There are
faults which we fail to see but which nevertheless remain
faults, because we have refused to walk towards the light (cf.
Jn 9:39-41).
Conscience, as the ultimate concrete judgment, compromises its
dignity when it is culpably erroneous, that is to say,
"when man shows little concern for seeking what is true and
good, and conscience gradually becomes almost blind from being
accustomed to sin".[109] Jesus alludes to the danger of the
conscience being deformed when he warns: "The eye is the lamp of
the body. So if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full
of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be
full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how
great is the darkness!" (Mt 6:22-23).
64.
The words of Jesus just quoted also represent a call to form
our conscience, to make it the object of a continuous
conversion to what is true and to what is good. In the same
vein, Saint Paul exhorts us not to be conformed to the mentality
of this world, but to be transformed by the renewal of our mind
(cf. Rom 12:2). It is the "heart" converted to the Lord and to
the love of what is good which is really the source of true
judgments of conscience. Indeed, in order to "prove what is the
will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom
12:2), knowledge of God's law in general is certainly necessary,
but it is not sufficient: what is essential is a sort of "connaturality"
between man and the true good.[110] Such a connaturality is
rooted in and develops through the virtuous attitudes of the
individual himself: prudence and the other cardinal virtues, and
even before these the theological virtues of faith, hope and
charity. This is the meaning of Jesus' saying: "He who does what
is true comes to the light" (Jn 3:21).
Christians have a great help for the formation of conscience
in the Church and her Magisterium. As the Council affirms:
"In forming their consciences the Christian faithful must give
careful attention to the sacred and certain teaching of the
Church. For the Catholic Church is by the will of Christ the
teacher of truth. Her charge is to announce and teach
authentically that truth which is Christ, and at the same time
with her authority to declare and confirm the principles of the
moral order which derive from human nature itself".[111] It
follows that the authority of the Church, when she pronounces on
moral questions, in no way undermines the freedom of conscience
of Christians. This is so not only because freedom of conscience
is never freedom "from" the truth but always and only freedom
"in" the truth, but also because the Magisterium does not bring
to the Christian conscience truths which are extraneous to it;
rather it brings to light the truths which it ought already to
possess, developing them from the starting point of the
primordial act of faith. The Church puts herself always and only
at the service of conscience, helping it to avoid being
tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine proposed by human
deceit (cf. Eph 4:14), and helping it not to swerve from the
truth about the good of man, but rather, especially in more
difficult questions, to attain the truth with certainty and to
abide in it.
III.
Fundamental Choice and Specific Kinds of Behavior
Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh
(Gal 5:13)
65.
The heightened concern for freedom in our own day has led many
students of the behavioural and the theological sciences to
develop a more penetrating analysis of its nature and of its
dynamics. It has been rightly pointed out that freedom is not
only the choice for one or another particular action; it is
also, within that choice, a decision about oneself and a
setting of one's own life for or against the Good, for or
against the Truth, and ultimately for or against God. Emphasis
has rightly been placed on the importance of certain choices
which "shape" a person's entire moral life, and which serve as
bounds within which other particular everyday choices can be
situated and allowed to develop.
Some
authors, however, have proposed an even more radical revision of
the relationship between person and acts. They speak of a
"fundamental freedom", deeper than and different from freedom of
choice, which needs to be considered if human actions are to be
correctly understood and evaluated. According to these authors,
the key role in the moral life is to be attributed to a
"fundamental option", brought about by that fundamental freedom
whereby the person makes an overall self-determination, not
through a specific and conscious decision on the level of
reflection, but in a "transcendental" and "athematic" way.
Particular acts which flow from this option would constitute
only partial and never definitive attempts to give it
expression; they would only be its "signs" or symptoms. The
immediate object of such acts would not be absolute Good (before
which the freedom of the person would be expressed on a
transcendental level), but particular (also termed
"categorical") goods. In the opinion of some theologians, none
of these goods, which by their nature are partial, could
determine the freedom of man as a person in his totality, even
though it is only by bringing them about or refusing to do so
that man is able to express his own fundamental option.
A
distinction thus comes to be introduced between the
fundamental option and deliberate choices of a concrete kind of
behaviour. In some authors this division tends to become a
separation, when they expressly limit moral "good" and
"evil" to the transcendental dimension proper to the fundamental
option, and describe as "right" or "wrong" the choices of
particular "innerworldly" kinds of behaviour: those, in other
words, concerning man's relationship with himself, with others
and with the material world. There thus appears to be
established within human acting a clear disjunction between two
levels of morality: on the one hand the order of good and evil,
which is dependent on the will, and on the other hand specific
kinds of behaviour, which are judged to be morally right or
wrong only on the basis of a technical calculation of the
proportion between the "premoral" or "physical" goods and evils
which actually result from the action. This is pushed to the
point where a concrete kind of behaviour, even one freely
chosen, comes to be considered as a merely physical process, and
not according to the criteria proper to a human act. The
conclusion to which this eventually leads is that the properly
moral assessment of the person is reserved to his fundamental
option, prescinding in whole or in part from his choice of
particular actions, of concrete kinds of behaviour.
66.
There is no doubt that Christian moral teaching, even in its
Biblical roots, acknowledges the specific importance of a
fundamental choice which qualifies the moral life and engages
freedom on a radical level before God. It is a question of the
decision of faith, of the obedience of faith (cf. Rom
16:26) "by which man makes a total and free self-commitment to
God, offering 'the full submission of intellect and will to God
as he reveals'"[112] This faith, which works through love (cf.
Gal 5:6), comes from the core of man, from his "heart" (cf. Rom
10:10), whence it is called to bear fruit in works (cf. Mt
12:33-35; Lk 6:43-45; Rom 8:5-10; Gal 5:22). In the Decalogue
one finds, as an introduction to the various commandments, the
basic clause: "I am the Lord your God..." (Ex 20:2), which, by
impressing upon the numerous and varied particular prescriptions
their primordial meaning, gives the morality of the Covenant its
aspect of completeness, unity and profundity. Israel's
fundamental decision, then, is about the fundamental commandment
(cf. Jos 24:14-25; Ex 19:3-8; Mic 6:8). The morality of the New
Covenant is similarly dominated by the fundamental call of Jesus
to follow him--thus he also says to the young man: "If you wish
to be perfect... then come, follow me" (Mt 19:21); to this call
the disciple must respond with a radical decision and choice.
The Gospel parables of the treasure and the pearl of great
price, for which one sells all one's possessions, are eloquent
and effective images of the radical and unconditional nature of
the decision demanded by the Kingdom of God. The radical nature
of the decision to follow Jesus is admirably expressed in his
own words: "Whoever would save his life will lose it; and
whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel's will save
it" (Mk 8:35).
Jesus' call to "come, follow me" marks the greatest possible
exaltation of human freedom, yet at the same time it witnesses
to the truth and to the obligation of acts of faith and of
decisions which can be described as involving a fundamental
option. We find a similar exaltation of human freedom in the
words of Saint Paul: "You were called to freedom, brethren" (Gal
5:13). But the Apostle immediately adds a grave warning: "Only
do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh". This
warning echoes his earlier words: "For freedom Christ has set us
free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of
slavery" (Gal 5:1). Paul encourages us to be watchful, because
freedom is always threatened by slavery. And this is precisely
the case when an act of faith--in the sense of a fundamental
option--becomes separated from the choice of particular acts, as
in the tendencies mentioned above.
67.
These tendencies are therefore contrary to the teaching of
Scripture itself, which sees the fundamental option as a genuine
choice of freedom and links that choice profoundly to particular
acts. By his fundamental choice, man is capable of giving his
life direction and of progressing, with the help of grace,
towards his end, following God's call. But this capacity is
actually exercised in the particular choices of specific
actions, through which man deliberately conforms himself to
God's will, wisdom and law. It thus needs to be stated that
the so-called fundamental option, to the extent that it is
distinct from a generic intention and hence one not yet
determined in such a way that freedom is obligated, is always
brought into play through conscious and free decisions.
Precisely for this reason, it is revoked when man engages his
freedom in conscious decisions to the contrary, with regard to
morally grave matter.
To
separate the fundamental option from concrete kinds of behaviour
means to contradict the substantial integrity or personal unity
of the moral agent in his body and in his soul. A fundamental
option understood without explicit consideration of the
potentialities which it puts into effect and the determinations
which express it does not do justice to the rational finality
immanent in man's acting and in each of his deliberate
decisions. In point of fact, the morality of human acts is not
deduced only from one's intention, orientation or fundamental
option, understood as an intention devoid of a clearly
determined binding content or as an intention with no
corresponding positive effort to fulfil the different
obligations of the moral life. Judgments about morality cannot
be made without taking into consideration whether or not the
deliberate choice of a specific kind of behaviour is in
conformity with the dignity and integral vocation of the human
person. Every choice always implies a reference by the
deliberate will to the goods and evils indicated by the natural
law as goods to be pursued and evils to be avoided. In the case
of the positive moral precepts, prudence always has the task of
verifying that they apply in a specific situation, for example,
in view of other duties which may be more important or urgent.
But the negative moral precepts, those prohibiting certain
concrete actions or kinds of behaviour as intrinsically evil, do
not allow for any legitimate exception. They do not leave room,
in any morally acceptable way, for the "creativity" of any
contrary determination whatsoever. Once the moral species of an
action prohibited by a universal rule is concretely recognized,
the only morally good act is that of obeying the moral law and
of refraining from the action which it forbids.
68.
Here an important pastoral consideration must be added.
According to the logic of the positions mentioned above, an
individual could, by virtue of a fundamental option, remain
faithful to God independently of whether or not certain of his
choices and his acts are in conformity with specific moral norms
or rules. By virtue of a primordial option for charity, that
individual could continue to be morally good, persevere in God's
grace and attain salvation, even if certain of his specific
kinds of behaviour were deliberately and gravely contrary to
God's commandments as set forth by the Church.
In
point of fact, man does not suffer perdition only by being
unfaithful to that fundamental option whereby he has made "a
free self-commitment to God".[113] With every freely committed
mortal sin, he offends God as the giver of the law and as a
result becomes guilty with regard to the entire law (cf. Jas
2:8-11); even if he perseveres in faith, he loses "sanctifying
grace", "charity" and "eternal happiness".[114] As the Council
of Trent teaches, "the grace of justification once received is
lost not only by apostasy, by which faith itself is lost, but
also by any other mortal sin".[115]
Mortal and venial sin
69.
As we have just seen, reflection on the fundamental option has
also led some theologians to undertake a basic revision of the
traditional distinction between mortal sins and venial
sins. They insist that the opposition to God's law which causes
the loss of sanctifying grace and eternal damnation, when one
dies in such a state of sin--could only be the result of an act
which engages the person in his totality: in other words, an act
of fundamental option. According to these theologians, mortal
sin, which separates man from God, only exists in the rejection
of God, carried out at a level of freedom which is neither to be
identified with an act of choice nor capable of becoming the
object of conscious awareness. Consequently, they go on to say,
it is difficult, at least psychologically, to accept the fact
that a Christian, who wishes to remain united to Jesus Christ
and to his Church, could so easily and repeatedly commit mortal
sins, as the "matter" itself of his actions would sometimes
indicate. Likewise, it would be hard to accept that man is able,
in a brief lapse of time, to sever radically the bond of
communion with God and afterwards be converted to him by sincere
repentance. The gravity of sin, they maintain, ought to be
measured by the degree of engagement of the freedom of the
person performing an act, rather than by the matter of that act.
70.
The Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et
Paentientia reaffirmed the importance and permanent validity
of the distinction between mortal and venial sins, in accordance
with the Church's tradition. And the 1983 Synod of Bishops, from
which that Exhortation emerged, "not only reaffirmed the
teaching of the Council of Trent concerning the existence and
nature of mortal and venial sins, but it also recalled that
mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also
committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent."[116]
The
statement of the Council of Trent does not only consider the
"grave matter" of mortal sin; it also recalls that its necessary
condition is "full awareness and deliberate consent". In any
event, both in moral theology and in pastoral practice one is
familiar with cases in which an act which is grave by reason of
its matter does not constitute a mortal sin because of a lack of
full awareness or deliberate consent on the part of the person
performing it. Even so, "care will have to be taken not to
reduce mortal sin to an act of 'fundamental option'--as
is commonly said today--against God", seen either as an explicit
and formal rejection of God and neighbour or as an implicit and
unconscious rejection of love. "For mortal sin exists also when
a person knowingly and willingly, for whatever reason, chooses
something gravely disordered. In fact, such a choice already
includes contempt for the divine law, a rejection of God's love
for humanity and the whole of creation: the person turns away
from God and loses charity. Consequently, the fundamental
orientation can be radically changed by particular acts.
Clearly, situations can occur which are very complex and obscure
from a psychological viewpoint, and which influence the sinner's
subjective imputability. But from a consideration of the
psychological sphere one cannot proceed to create a theological
category, which is precisely what the 'fundamental option' is,
understanding it in such a way that it objectively changes or
casts doubt upon the traditional concept of mortal sin".[117]
The
separation of fundamental option from deliberate choices of
particular kinds of behaviour, disordered in themselves or in
their circumstances, which would not engage that option, thus
involves a denial of Catholic doctrine on mortal sin:
"With the whole tradition of the Church, we call mortal sin the
act by which man freely and consciously rejects God, his law,
the covenant of love that God offers, preferring to turn in on
himself or to some created and finite reality, something
contrary to the divine will (conversto ad creaturam).
This can occur in a direct and formal way, in the sins of
idolatry, apostasy and atheism; or in an equivalent way, as in
every act of disobedience to God's commandments in a grave
matter".[118]
IV.
The Moral Act
Teleology and teleologism
71.
The relationship between man's freedom and God's law, which has
its intimate and living centre in the moral conscience, is
manifested and realized in human acts. It is precisely through
his acts that man attains perfection as man, as one who is
called to seek his Creator of his own accord and freely to
arrive at full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him.[119]
Human acts are moral acts because they express and determine the
goodness or evil of the individual who performs them.[120] They
do not produce a change merely in the state of affairs outside
of man but, to the extent that they are deliberate choices, they
give moral definition to the very person who performs them,
determining his profound spiritual traits. This was
perceptively noted by Saint Gregory of Nyssa: "All things
subject to change and to becoming never remain constant, but
continually pass from one state to another, for better or
worse... Now, human life is always subject to change; it needs
to be born ever anew... But here birth does not come about by a
foreign intervention, as is the case with bodily beings...; it
is the result of a free choice. Thus we are in a certain
way our own parents, creating ourselves as we will, by our
decisions".[121]
72.
The morality of acts is defined by the relationship of
man's freedom with the authentic good. This good is established,
as the eternal law, by Divine Wisdom which orders every being
towards its end: this eternal law is known both by man's natural
reason (hence it is "natural law"), and--in an integral and
perfect way--by God's supernatural Revelation (hence it is
called "divine law"). Acting is morally good when the choices of
freedom are in conformity with man's true good and thus
express the voluntary ordering of the person towards his
ultimate end: God himself, the supreme good in whom man finds
his full and perfect happiness. The first question in the young
man's conversation with Jesus: "What good must I do to have
eternal life?" (Mt 19:6) immediately brings out the essential
connection between the moral value of an act and man's final end.
Jesus, in his reply, confirms the young man's conviction: the
performance of good acts, commanded by the One who "alone is
good", constitutes the indispensable condition of and path to
eternal blessedness: "If you wish to enter into life, keep the
commandments" (Mt 19:17). Jesus' answer and his reference to the
commandments also make it clear that the path to that end is
marked by respect for the divine laws which safeguard human
good. Only the act in conformity with the good can be a path
that leads to life.
The
rational ordering of the human act to the good in its truth and
the voluntary pursuit of that good, known by reason, constitute
morality. Hence human activity cannot be judged as morally good
merely because it is a means for attaining one or another of its
goals, or simply because the subject's intention is good.[122]
Activity is morally good when it attests to and expresses the
voluntary ordering of the person to his ultimate end and the
conformity of a concrete action with the human good as it is
acknowledged in its truth by reason. If the object of the
concrete action is not in harmony with the true good of the
person, the choice of that action makes our will and ourselves
morally evil, thus putting us in conflict with our ultimate end,
the supreme good, God himself.
73.
The Christian, thanks to God's Revelation and to faith, is aware
of the "newness" which characterizes the morality of his
actions: these actions are called to show either consistency or
inconsistency with that dignity and vocation which have been
bestowed on him by grace. In Jesus Christ and in his Spirit, the
Christian is a "new creation", a child of God; by his actions he
shows his likeness or unlikeness to the image of the Son who is
the first-born among many brethren (cf. Rom 8:29), he lives out
his fidelity or infidelity to the gift of the Spirit, and he
opens or closes himself to eternal life, to the communion of
vision, love and happiness with God the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit.[123] As Saint Cyril of Alexandria writes, Christ "forms
us according to his image, in such a way that the traits of his
divine nature shine forth in us through sanctification and
justice and the life which is good and in conformity with
virtue... The beauty of this image shines forth in us who are in
Christ, when we show ourselves to be good in our works".[124]
Consequently the moral life has an essential "teleological"
character, since it consists in the deliberate ordering of
human acts to God, the supreme good and ultimate end (telos)
of man. This is attested to once more by the question posed by
the young man to Jesus: "What good must I do to have eternal
life?". But this ordering to one's ultimate end is not something
subjective, dependent solely upon one's intention. It
presupposes that such acts are in themselves capable of being
ordered to this end, insofar as they are in conformity with the
authentic moral good of man, safeguarded by the commandments.
This is what Jesus himself points out in his reply to the young
man: "If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments" (Mt
19:17).
Clearly such an ordering must be rational and free, conscious
and deliberate, by virtue of which man is "responsible" for his
actions and subject to the judgment of God, the just and good
judge who, as the Apostle Paul reminds us, rewards good and
punishes evil: "We must all appear before the judgment seat of
Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to
what he has done in the body" (2 Cor 5:10).
74.
But on what does the moral assessment of man's free acts depend?
What is it that ensures this ordering of human acts to God?
Is it the intention of the acting subject, the
circumstances--and in particular the consequences--of his
action, or the object itself of his act?
This
is what is traditionally called the problem of the "sources of
morality". Precisely with regard to this problem there have
emerged in the last few decades new or newly-revived theological
and cultural trends which call for careful discernment on the
part of the Church's Magisterium.
Certain ethical theories, called "teleological,"
claim to be concerned for the conformity of human acts with the
ends pursued by the agent and with the values intended by him.
The criteria for evaluating the moral rightness of an action are
drawn from the weighing of the non-moral or pre-moral goods
to be gained and the corresponding non-moral or pre-moral values
to be respected. For some, concrete behaviour would be right or
wrong according as whether or not it is capable of producing a
better state of affairs for all concerned. Right conduct would
be the one capable of "maximizing" goods and "minimizing" evils.
Many
of the Catholic moralists who follow in this direction seek to
distance themselves from utilitarianism and pragmatism, where
the morality of human acts would be judged without any reference
to the man's true ultimate end. They rightly recognize the need
to find ever more consistent rational arguments in order to
justify the requirements and to provide a foundation for the
norms of the moral life. This kind of investigation is
legitimate and necessary, since the moral order, as established
by the natural law, is in principle accessible to human reason.
Furthermore, such investigation is well-suited to meeting the
demands of dialogue and cooperation with non-Catholics and
non-believers, especially in pluralistic societies.
75.
But as part of the effort to work out such a rational morality
(for this reason it is sometimes called an "autonomous
morality") there exist false solutions, linked in particular
to an inadequate understanding of the object of moral action.
Some authors do not take into sufficient consideration the
fact that the will is involved in the concrete choices which it
makes: these choices are a condition of its moral goodness and
its being ordered to the ultimate end of the person. Others
are inspired by a notion of freedom which prescinds from the
actual conditions of its exercise, from its objective reference
to the truth about the good, and from its determination through
choices of concrete kinds of behaviour. According to these
theories, free will would neither be morally subjected to
specific obligations nor shaped by its choices, while
nonetheless still remaining responsible for its own acts and for
their consequences. This "teleologism", as a method for
discovering the moral norm, can thus be called--according to
terminology and approaches imported from different currents of
thought--"consequentialism" or "proportionalism."
The former claims to draw the criteria of the rightness of a
given way of acting solely from a calculation of foreseeable
consequences deriving from a given choice. The latter, by
weighing the various values and goods being sought, focuses
rather on the proportion acknowledged between the good and bad
effects of that choice, with a view to the "greater good" or
"lesser evil" actually possible in a particular situation.
The
teleological ethical theories (proportionalism,
consequentialism),
while acknowledging that moral values are indicated by reason
and by Revelation, maintain that it is never possible to
formulate an absolute prohibition of particular kinds of
behaviour which would be in conflict, in every circumstance and
in every culture, with those values. The acting subject would
indeed be responsible for attaining the values pursued, but in
two ways: the values or goods involved in a human act would be,
from one viewpoint, of the moral order (in relation to
properly moral values, such as love of God and neighbour,
justice, etc.) and, from another viewpoint, of the pre-moral
order, which some term non-moral, physical or ontic (in
relation to the advantages and disadvantages accruing both to
the agent and to all other persons possibly involved, such as,
for example, health or its endangerment, physical integrity,
life, death, loss of material goods, etc.). In a world where
goodness is always mixed with evil, and every good effect linked
to other evil effects, the morality of an act would be judged in
two different ways: its moral "goodness" would be judged on the
basis of the subject's intention in reference to moral goods,
and its "rightness" on the basis of a consideration of its
foreseeable effects or consequences and of their proportion.
Consequently, concrete kinds of behaviour could be described as
"right" or "wrong", without it being thereby possible to judge
as morally "good" or "bad" the will of the person choosing them.
In this way, an act which, by contradicting a universal negative
norm, directly violates goods considered as "pre-moral" could be
qualified as morally acceptable if the intention of the subject
is focused, in accordance with a "responsible" assessment of the
goods involved in the concrete action, on the moral value judged
to be decisive in the situation.
The
evaluation of the consequences of the action, based on the
proportion between the act and its effects and between the
effects themselves, would regard only the pre-moral order. The
moral specificity of acts, that is their goodness or evil, would
be determined exclusively by the faithfulness of the person to
the highest values of charity and prudence, without this
faithfulness necessarily being incompatible with choices
contrary to certain particular moral precepts. Even when grave
matter is concerned, these precepts should be considered as
operative norms which are always relative and open to
exceptions.
In
this view, deliberate consent to certain kinds of behaviour
declared illicit by traditional moral theology would not imply
an objective moral evil.
The
object of the deliberate act
76.
These theories can gain a certain persuasive force from their
affinity to the scientific mentality, which is rightly concerned
with ordering technical and economic activities on the basis of
a calculation of resources and profits, procedures and their
effects. They seek to provide liberation from the constraints of
a voluntaristic and arbitrary morality of obligation which would
ultimately be dehumanizing.
Such
theories however are not faithful to the Church's teaching, when
they believe they can justify, as morally good, deliberate
choices of kinds of behaviour contrary to the commandments of
the divine and natural law. These theories cannot claim to be
grounded in the Catholic moral tradition. Although the latter
did witness the development of a casuistry which tried to assess
the best ways to achieve the good in certain concrete
situations, it is nonetheless true that this casuistry concerned
only cases in which the law was uncertain, and thus the absolute
validity of negative moral precepts, which oblige without
exception, was not called into question. The faithful are
obliged to acknowledge and respect the specific moral precepts
declared and taught by the Church in the name of God, the
Creator and Lord.[125] When the Apostle Paul sums up the
fulfilment of the law in the precept of love of neighbour as
oneself (cf. Rom 13:8-10), he is not weakening the commandments
but reinforcing them, since he is revealing their requirements
and their gravity. Love of God and of one's neighbour cannot
be separated from the observance of the commandments of the
Covenant renewed in the blood of Jesus Christ and in the
gift of the Spirit. It is an honour characteristic of Christians
to obey God rather than men (cf. Acts 4:19; 5:29) and accept
even martyrdom as a consequence, like the holy men and women of
the Old and New Testaments, who are considered such because they
gave their lives rather than perform this or that particular act
contrary to faith or virtue.
77.
In order to offer rational criteria for a right moral decision,
the theories mentioned above take account of the intention and
consequences of human action. Certainly there is need to
take into account both the intention--as Jesus forcefully
insisted in clear disagreement with the scribes and Pharisees,
who prescribed in great detail certain outward practices without
paying attention to the heart (cf. Mk 7:20-21; Mt 15:19)- -and
the goods obtained and the evils avoided as a result of a
particular act. Responsibility demands as much. But the
consideration of these consequences, and also of intentions, is
not sufficient for judging the moral quality of a concrete
choice. The weighing of the goods and evils foreseeable as the
consequence of an action is not an adequate method for
determining whether the choice of that concrete kind of
behaviour is "according to its species", or "in itself", morally
good or bad, licit or illicit. The foreseeable consequences are
part of those circumstances of the act, which, while capable of
lessening the gravity of an evil act, nonetheless cannot alter
its moral species.
Moreover, everyone recognizes the difficulty, or rather the
impossibility, of evaluating all the good and evil consequences
and effects--defined as pre-moral--of one's own acts: an
exhaustive rational calculation is not possible. How then can
one go about establishing proportions which depend on a
measuring, the criteria of which remain obscure? How could an
absolute obligation be justified on the basis of such debatable
calculations?
78.
The morality of the human act depends primarily and
fundamentally on the "object" rationally chosen by the
deliberate will, as is borne out by the insightful analysis,
still valid today, made by Saint Thomas.[126] In order to be
able to grasp the object of an act which specifies that act
morally, it is therefore necessary to place oneself in the
perspective of the acting person. The object of the act of
willing is in fact a freely chosen kind of behaviour. To the
extent that it is in conformity with the order of reason, it is
the cause of the goodness of the will; it perfects us morally,
and disposes us to recognize our ultimate end in the perfect
good, primordial love. By the object of a given moral act, then,
one cannot mean a process or an event of the merely physical
order, to be assessed on the basis of its ability to bring about
a given state of affairs in the outside world. Rather, that
object is the proximate end of a deliberate decision which
determines the act of willing on the part of the acting person.
Consequently, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church
teaches, "there are certain specific kinds of behaviour that are
always wrong to choose, because choosing them involves a
disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil".[127] And Saint
Thomas observes that "it often happens that man acts with a good
intention, but without spiritual gain, because he lacks a good
will. Let us say that someone robs in order to feed the poor: in
this case, even though the intention is good, the uprightness of
the will is lacking. Consequently, no evil done with a good
intention can be excused. 'There are those who say: And why not
do evil that good may come? Their condemnation is just' (Rom
3:8)".[128]
The
reason why a good intention is not itself sufficient, but a
correct choice of actions is also needed, is that the human act
depends on its object, whether that object is capable or not
of being ordered to God, to the One who "alone is good", and
thus brings about the perfection of the person. An act is
therefore good if its object is in conformity with the good of
the person with respect for the goods morally relevant for him.
Christian ethics, which pays particular attention to the moral
object, does not refuse to consider the inner "teleology" of
acting, inasmuch as it is directed to promoting the true good of
the person; but it recognizes that it is really pursued only
when the essential elements of human nature are respected. The
human act, good according to its object, is also capable of
being ordered to its ultimate end. That same act then
attains its ultimate and decisive perfection when the will
actually does order it to God through charity. As the Patron
of moral theologians and confessors teaches: "It is not enough
to do good works; they need to be done well. For our works to be
good and perfect, they must be done for the sole purpose of
pleasing God."[129]
"Intrinsic evil": it is not licit to do evil that good may come
of it
(cf. Rom 3:8)
79.
One must therefore reject the thesis, characteristic of
teleological and proportionalist theories, which holds that
it is impossible to qualify as morally evil according to its
species--its "object"--the deliberate choice of certain
kinds of behaviour or specific acts, apart from a consideration
of the intention for which the choice is made or the totality of
the foreseeable consequences of that act for all persons
concerned.
The
primary and decisive element for moral judgment is the object of
the human act, which establishes whether it is capable of
being ordered to the good and to the ultimate end, which is God.
This capability is grasped by reason in the very being of man,
considered in his integral truth, and therefore in his natural
inclinations, his motivations and his finalities, which always
have a spiritual dimension as well. It is precisely these which
are the contents of the natural law and hence that ordered
complex of "personal goods" which serve the "good of the
person": the good which is the person himself and his
perfection. These are the goods safeguarded by the commandments,
which, according to Saint Thomas, contain the whole natural
law.[130]
80.
Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are
by their nature "incapable of being ordered" to God, because
they radically contradict the good of the person made in his
image. These are the acts which, in the Church's moral
tradition, have been termed "intrinsically evil" (intrinsece
malum): they are such always and per se, in other
words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the
ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances.
Consequently, without in the least denying the influence on
morality exercised by circumstances and especially by
intentions, the Church teaches that "there exist acts which
per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances,
are always seriously wrong by reason of their object".[131] The
Second Vatican Council itself, in discussing the respect due to
the human person, gives a number of examples of such acts:
"Whatever is hostile to life itself, such as any kind of
homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide;
whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as
mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce
the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as
subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation,
slavery, prostitution and trafficking in women and children;
degrading conditions of work which treat labourers as mere
instruments of profit, and not as free responsible persons: all
these and the like are a disgrace, and so long as they infect
human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more
than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the
honour due to the Creator".[132]
With
regard to intrinsically evil acts, and in reference to
contraceptive practices whereby the conjugal act is
intentionally rendered infertile, Pope Paul VI teaches: "Though
it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser
moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to
promote a greater good, it is never lawful, even for the gravest
reasons, to do evil that good may come of it (cf. Rom 3:8)--in
other words, to intend directly something which of its very
nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be
judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect
or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of
society in general".[133]
81.
In teaching the existence of intrinsically evil acts, the Church
accepts the teaching of Sacred Scripture. The Apostle Paul
emphatically states: "Do not be deceived: neither the immoral,
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves,
nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will
inherit the Kingdom of God" (1 Cor 6:9-10).
If
acts are intrinsically evil, a good intention or particular
circumstances can diminish their evil, but they cannot remove
it. They remain "irremediably" evil acts; per se and in
themselves they are not capable of being ordered to God and to
the good of the person. "As for acts which are themselves sins (cum
iam opera ipsa peccata sunt), Saint Augustine writes, like
theft, fornication, blasphemy, who would dare affirm that, by
doing them for good motives (causis bonis), they would no
longer be sins, or, what is even more absurd, that they would be
sins that are justified?".[134]
Consequently, circumstances or intentions can never transform an
act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object into an act
"subjectively" good or defensible as a choice.
82.
Furthermore, an intention is good when it has as its aim the
true good of the person in view of his ultimate end. But acts
whose object is "not capable of being ordered" to God and
"unworthy of the human person" are always and in every case in
conflict with that good. Consequently, respect for norms which
prohibit such acts and oblige semper et pro semper, that
is, without any exception, not only does not inhibit a good
intention, but actually represents its basic expression.
The
doctrine of the object as a source of morality represents an
authentic explicitation of the Biblical morality of the Covenant
and of the commandments, of charity and of the virtues. The
moral quality of human acting is dependent on this fidelity to
the commandments, as an expression of obedience and of love. For
this reason--we repeat--the opinion must be rejected as
erroneous which maintains that it is impossible to qualify as
morally evil according to its species the deliberate choice of
certain kinds of behaviour or specific acts, without taking into
account the intention for which the choice was made or the
totality of the foreseeable consequences of that act for all
persons concerned. Without the rational determination of the
morality of human acting as stated above, it would be
impossible to affirm the existence of an "objective moral
order"[135] and to establish any particular norm the content of
which would be binding without exception. This would be to the
detriment of human fraternity and the truth about the good, and
would be injurious to ecclesial communion as well.
83.
As is evident, in the question of the morality of human acts,
and in particular the question of whether there exist
intrinsically evil acts, we find ourselves faced with the
question of man himself, of his truth and of the
moral consequences flowing from that truth. By acknowledging and
teaching the existence of intrinsic evil in given human acts,
the Church remains faithful to the integral truth about man; she
thus respects and promotes man in his dignity and vocation.
Consequently, she must reject the theories set forth above,
which contradict this truth.
Dear
Brothers in the Episcopate, we must not be content merely to
warn the faithful about the errors and dangers of certain
ethical theories. We must first of all show the inviting
splendour of that truth which is Jesus Christ himself. In him,
who is the Truth (cf. Jn 14:6), man can understand fully and
live perfectly, through his good actions, his vocation to
freedom in obedience to the divine law summarized in the
commandment of love of God and neighbour. And this is what takes
place through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth,
of freedom and of love: in him we are enabled to interiorize the
law, to receive it and to live it as the motivating force of
true personal freedom: "the perfect law, the law of liberty"
(Jas 1:25).
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
Copyright © 2006 SCTJM
