Texts that help us understand how moral theology differs from moral philosophy, even though moral philosophy can be put at the service of moral theology:

"Sacra doctrina can borrow from the others sciences, not from any need to beg from them, but for the greater clarification of things it conveys. . . . That it turns to them so is not from any lack or insufficiency within itself, but because our understanding is wanting, which is the more readily guided into the world above reason, set forth in the sacra doctrina, through the world of natural reason from which the other sciences take their course" (Summa theologiae Ia q. 1, a. 5, ad 2).

"Moral theology has perhaps an even greater need [than other theological disciplines] of philosophy's contribution. In the New Testament, human life is much less governed by prescriptions than in the Old testament. Life in the Spirit leads believers to a freedom and responsibility which surpass the law. Yet the Gospel and the apostolic writings still set forth general principles of Christian conduct and specific teachings and precepts. In order to apply these to the particular circumstances of individual and communal life, Christians must be able to fully to engage their reason. In other words, moral theology requires a sound philosophical vision of human nature and human society as well as of the general principles of ethical decision making" (See Fides et ratio 68).

In this lesson you will learn about the ends or purposes that God ordained for the human creature. The Greek word telos stands at the origin of our English word, teleology, and describes the outlook of Catholic moral theology. But teleology entered the vocabulary of moral theology only during the late modern period. Because he required a term to distinguish the branch of natural philosophy which treats of final causes from that which treats of efficient causes. Christian Wolff, it seems, devised the term "teleology" as a way to talk about finality in nature. The usually accepted etymological root for the 18th-century neologism comes from telos, the Greek word for "end." The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, edited by James Hastings in 1912, apportions 33 columns to the entry on "Teleology," but we find only a single paragraph devoted to how the concept is used in ethics. The author of the article, who significantly subalternates ethics under sociology, presents ethical teleology as the case when "the moral standard is represented by the idea of good or value" (see William Fulton, "Teleology," in Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, volume 12, edited by James Hastings (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912), p. 228). On the basis of this blurry characterization, he concludes that the teleological standpoint is to be distinguished from the abstract and transcendental principles associated with Kantian formalism and that "their value consists not in defining but in their power of promoting the ethical end." Because the term had only entered the vocabulary of ethics in the 19th century, Hasting's Encyclopedia provides a much briefer entry for "Deontology." The author of this article identifies deontology with the science of ethics. On his account, the term seems to have been used first by Jeremy Bentham, who "had in mind the principles of duty as distinct from those of prudence and interest." These popular dictionary accounts of teleology and deontology reflect secular notions of moral philosophy, and are not very helpful to understand what the Church means when she teaches that moral theology enjoys a distinct teleology. Read Veritatis splendor, chap. 2, to discover the richness of the Church's use of teleology.

Moral realism, which describes the perspective of this course, operates within the framework of a highly refined teleology. I would describe a Christian moral teleology as one which explains and evaluates human behavior on the basis of whether or not a given human action properly and opportunely attains a good which conduces to the complete perfection of the agent. For the moral theologian, end then refers to those goods which perfect the human person; broadly speaking, good moral action develops out of a proper love of those goods which constitute human flourishing. Aquinas expresses this truth directly and simply when he inquires whether the emotion of love as a basic element of human psychology does harm to the lover: "The love of a fitting good makes the lover more perfect and better, but love for a good that is unfitting for the lover wounds the lover and makes the lover worse. Hence we are especially perfected and made better through love of God, but are wounded and made worse through love of sin" (Summa theologiae Ia-IIae q. 28, a. 5). Sometimes philosophers in their ambition to examine the human powers of the soul often ignore this aspect of Aquinas's existentialism, with the result that not enough emphasis is given to the basic conviction of moral realism, namely, that the good we seek and embrace in love inescapably affects our personal being and goodness.

Reading Assignments

Benedict Ashley, O.P., "What is the End of the Human Person? The Vision of God and integral Human Fulfillment" in Moral Truth and Moral Tradition: Essays in Honour of Peter Geach and Elizabeth Anscombe, ed. Luke Gormally (Four Courts Press, 1994): 68-96.

Introduction to Moral Theology, chap. 1.

Writing Assignment

Write a three-page paper in which you explain to a friend why it is perfectly reasonable to accept moral guidance from the Church.

In this lesson you will learn about the human person and its essential constitution as a moral being. It is axiomatic that the real goods which perfect the human person exist independently of anyone's actually choosing them as moral goods. It remains, however, a disputed question as to whether or not one should regard basic human goods in themselves as good in the strictly moral sense. Some thinkers argue that the basic human goods remain pre-moral until the moment when practical reasonableness goes to work on them in the living out of the moral life, whereas others take strong exception to this opinion on the basis that the position appears to eviscerate the transcendental goodness resident in the basic human goods, thereby threatening to render unintelligible the Aristotelian notion that the good-as-end draws. This difference of opinion ultimately reflects the dissimilarities between the perspectives of a moral realism which views ethics in continuity with a larger metaphysical description of the world and of a moral theory which considers ethics principally a matter of directing right choices in life.

Moral realism, which is the outlook represented in this course, centers its reflections on a contemplation of the highest wisdom. The Christian moral realist approaches the moral life as part of the larger contemplative life which "consists principally in contemplation of God under the impetus of divine love" (Summa theologiae IIa-IIae q. 180, a. 7). Within this outlook, all Christian moral theology is fueled by the splendid intuition of Thérèse of Lisieux who came to understand that Love alone enables the Church's members to act. What might be described as moral decisionism centers its reflections on the interior dynamics of the acting person. From this point of view, the moral life is the equivalent of an examined life, much as St Augustine advocates when he writes: "Let each one of you consider himself: let him enter into himself, ascend the judgment seat of his own mind, set himself in order before his conscience, compel himself to confess. For it knows who he is: 'for what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within' (I Cor 2: 11)" (St Augustine,Commentary on John VIII, 9). Both positions, moral realism and moral decisionism, possess their distinguishing set of moral categories and both purport to maintain a form of moral objectivism.

To cast an irenic light on the discussion about metaphysics and ethics, it is possible to recognize in the moral realists' insistence that the goods which conduce to integral human perfection themselves form part of our moral universe a continuation of Roman Catholic insistence on the sacramentality of nature. Each morally good action which includes the human person's embrace of the basic human good incarnates a moment of divine love in the world, so that to insist that such goods are pre-moral seems to rupture the unity of the sacra doctrina. On the other hand, one must admit that neither modern moral philosophy nor--and perhaps because of the then-prevailing categories employed in moral discourse--the documents of the Second Vatican Council exhibit strong affinities for the relationship of moral philosophy to metaphysics. It should be pointed out that the Second Vatican Council did not produce a document on moral theory, and that Veritatis splendor completes the conciliar project as far as moral theology is concerned. On the contrary, the categories of law, the moral conscience, and human responsibility strongly characterize the ethical discourse in the second half of the 20th-century, and the Church continues to adapt these to her own purposes of moral instruction. In any event, the Christian tradition provides ample warrant for speaking about the moral life in terms of a well-formed conscience, due attention to legitimate moral norms and precepts, and the obligation to choose well in the course of one's life. At the same time, both Veritatis splendor and Fides et ratio have complemented the predominantly pastoral formulations found in the conciliar documents themselves by drawing our attention once again to the intimate relation that exists between moral action and the metaphysics of being.

Reading Assignments

Servais Pinckaers, O.P., The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Sr Mary Thomas Noble (Washington, 1995) ix-46.

Romanus Cessario, O.P., "The Reason for Reason: Fides et Ratio," Crisis 17 (January 1999): 16-19.

Virtue, chap. one.

Questions

1) Why is knowledge of the nature of the human person required for understanding of the ends to which the human person is ordered in nature and by grace?

2) Explain the relationship between anthropology on the one side, and ethics and moral theology on the other: why do both ethics and moral theology require, build on, and point toward truths about human nature? How does moral theology both presuppose and go beyond anthropology?

3) Why does Fides et ratio (#83) say of "a philosophy of genuinely metaphysical range" that it is "implicit in sapiential and analytical knowledge alike; and in particular it is a requirement for knowing the moral good, which has its ultimate foundation in the Supreme Good, God himself."?

4) Can you list some examples of ethical claims that are advanced, even in political discourse, that take no or very little account of the "good of the human person"?

Because moral theology properly considers God as our first cause (origin) and final end (destiny), we must understand what it means that the every human person exist as Imago Dei. In this lesson you will learn about the universal character of moral theology, based on the good of the human person which is the same for every human being.

In the Ia-IIae of his Summa theologiae, Aquinas introduces the Trinitarian theme as a guiding one for moral theology. Everything that exists depends on the creative action of God. Theological anthropology points to creation. It is impossible for the Christian to carve out a world of freedom that remains independent from God's creative and sustaining providence. The scholastic philosophers coined the phrase "being precedes actions" (agere sequitur esse) to remind us that human actions are dependent upon the human creature.

Natural desire for God represents a theological interpretation of our common psychology: The distinction between image of representation & image of conformity deepens our understanding of how the human person images God. For further development, see my Christian Faith and the Theological Life (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996), chap. 1.

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The distinction between reason and appetite is central to the notion of the human person as imago Dei. In his Summa theologiae, Aquinas discusses the distinction between the sense appetites and the intellectual appetite. The text is found in Summa theologiae, Ia q. 80, a. 2. It is characteristic of Christian anthropology to recognize a difference between the urges of sense and the desires of the heart. Because of the importance of this view of man for Aquinas's discussion of the moral life, I should like to reflect on the distinction between the sense appetites and the intellectual or rational appetite. Among other important themes in moral theology, this distinction helps us understand the relationship of the theological virtues, in particular hope, to the moral virtues, especially those ones which are circa passiones, that is, which shape the emotional life of the human person.

The arguments against the thesis of Summa theologiae, Ia q. 80, a. 2 offer reasons for thinking that appetite remains undifferentiated in man. An assumption of this kind would lead to the conclusion that no real difference exists between what sense perception produces in man's appetite and what an individual could really be said to "will" or want. Aquinas replies by recalling what Aristotle says in the De Anima, Book 3, chaps. 9 & 10. There, the Philosopher not only distinguishes the two powers of appetite but also asserts that the higher appetite is ordered to control the lower. Since so many people experience the apparent inability of the higher power (the will) to control the desires of sense, Aristotle's assumption should be read as a statement about the structure of human nature, not as a commentary on the statistically frequent. Of course, a philosopher is not held to formulate a universal doctrine of salvation. Aristotle can rest content to describe what happens in the best of men. The Christian believer knows that the truth of Aristotle's intuition about how human nature should function will be fully realized only through the preaching of the New Law of Grace.

In the body of article 2, Aquinas accepts the Aristotelian doctrine that the appetitive in man "is born to be moved as a result of apprehension." In scholastic parlance, appetite is a passive power. An object of appetite is one that possesses the power to move the appetite, even though the object itself remains unaffected by discharging this role. At the same time, human appetite moves the person toward some action even while it is being moved. In this way, the initial object of attraction becomes the ultimate term of love.

Aquinas explains the existence of two distinct appetites in man by the fact that two kinds of objects can exercise a "pull" on the human person. In order to account for the way specific kinds of objects affect the human person, we need to distinguish between sense and intelligence. This assumes that a personal agent must "fit" or be suited for those things which cause its motion. The sensitive and intellectual appetites interact with sense objects and intellectual objects respectively. So the existence of the two appetitive powers explains the range of appetite that the human person is capable of experiencing.

But there is a difference in the way that objects of sense and objects of meaning move a person to action. Take the example of fleeing from a dangerous circumstance, whether it be a burning building or a government hostile to Christian faith and practice. The sense appetite can be moved to flee a life-threatening danger, e.g. excessive heat, but only the rational appetite can discover and love the principle, or "object," that a particular threat, e.g. a Roman judge, should be withstood for the sake of the Gospel or for some virtue such as chastity. Again, the sense appetite can be drawn to some illicit sexual gratification, e.g. adultery, but only the rational appetite can discover, love, and depend upon the truth, or "object," that a rectified love of friendship excludes a specific form of carnal communication, e.g. sexual congress with the spouse of another.

In fact, as the reply to the first argument points out, there is an essential difference ("per se") between what the intellectual appetite wants and the sense appetites want. On the basis of this distinction, the Christian faith holds that authentic personal choosing can occur even in the presence of overwhelming sense desire. When this happens, Aquinas recognizes the exercise of the infused virtues which ensure that the Christian believer makes the right moral choice, even if it happens that his or her emotional state does not reflect the state of the acquired virtues.

Sense desire is indiscriminate. By this we mean that there is nothing in either the irascible or concupiscible appetites that allows them to discriminate morally a good-to-be-sought or an evil-to-be-avoided. Only the intellectual virtue of prudence can discern the good-as-meant, or how this sense good or sense evil should be virtuously embraced or avoided. Prudence makes this determination on the basis of how a particular moral object conforms to the end of the human person.

A Pastoral Reflection

In the same question of the Summa theologiae, Aquinas says that the "intellect penetrates the will with its act and object the way it does any other particular objects of understanding, like stone or wood, which all fall within the field of being and truth" (Ia q. 82, a. 4 ad 1). The same intellect not only discriminates moral truths, for example, flesh to be cherished from flesh as abused, but it also penetrates faith truths, for example, God loves us because He is good, not because we are, Jesus saves us by his death on the cross, Mary is immaculately conceived, the sacraments are efficacious for our salvation, etc. Hence the Christian believer is able to choose, rationally, the truth of God's goodness, the power of the blood of Christ, the mediation of the Blessed Virgin Mary--in short, the whole economy of salvation--because faith penetrates the rational appetite with these good things.

Although the virtue of faith perfects the intellect, it motivates the virtue of hope whereby the believer clings to God's omnipotent mercy as the source of salvation. This spiritual clinging forms the basis for the whole Christian life and is easily interpreted as fulfilling the meaning of the many places in the New Testament where Jesus encourages his disciples to stay closely united with him and his Heavenly Father. Furthermore, the believer can make this efficacious choice through the intellectual appetite even in the face of a whole range of disordered sense appetites which may, depending on his state of personal growth and development, overwhelm his sense powers, internal and external, at a given moment.

To react in this way first requires being instructed in how to make an act of faith. This in turn requires being practically convinced that God loves you because He is good and not because you are. Otherwise, at this point, a person would most likely give up in despair because he would falsely conclude that even if salvation were promised, it is not possible for him since he has not achieved that state of holiness wherein God loves one enough to grant it. But with a spiritual mentality of this kind, a person would never achieve holiness since he would always be seeking to break out of sin by himself. Many people, desirous of loving God, are blackmailed by this very false understanding of how God's love works.

Existentially, the doctrine of the distinction between the two kinds of appetites serves an extremely important function in Aquinas's theology as well as in the practice of Christian life. In short, it allows Aquinas to affirm the ultimate triumph of God's power over fallen nature. Later in the tract Aquinas asks whether the irascible and concupiscible appetites obey reason. He concludes that the sense appetites obey reason because particular truths can both calm wrath and fear or arouse them and, furthermore, that they obey the will since human action requires the "consensus" of the higher appetite. The teaching could appear naive were it not understood that the ultimate truths which control the appetites are the incarnational truths derived from the person and teaching of Jesus, i.e. the whole economy of salvation, and that the "consensus" of the will for choosing the good is given to the Christian because of the union that he enjoys with Jesus, the one Son, in the Church of faith and sacraments.

Further Readings

Suitable background for speaking about the moral life includes a basic knowledge of the human person and the operative capacities (powers) that enable each person to act for an end (see Veritatis splendor, no. 72). The relationship between the rational self ("logos") and the appetitive self ("amor") stands at the heart of a realist psychology. For those students who may wish to review this material, the following texts provide a helpful summary of the standard accounts:

Summa theologiae Ia qq. 75-83. This tract on the nature and abilities (capacities) of the soul is available in volume 11 (edited by Timothy Sutton) of the 61-volume Blackfriars Summa. Also, see Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992): 207-226.

Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part Two, chapters 4,5,6, & 8. This secondary source by a recognized scholar (see Fides et ratio) provides a good survey of the material and in some detail.

W.A. Wallace, O.P., The Elements of Philosophy, pp. 71 - 84 offers a very concise treatment of the required material, but he also provides references to the pertinent articles in the New Catholic Encyclopedia (cf. p. x). See also his, The Modeling of Nature (Washington, D.C., 1996), pp. 159ff; p.419ff for a more scientific treatment.

B. M. Ashley, O.P., Theologies of the Body also considers this material, but more diffusely, even though in a way that takes account of the modern categories.

Pierre-Marie Emonet, The Greatest Marvel of Nature. An Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person (New York, 2000) provides a brief account for beginners.

Questions

1) What are the implications of the doctrine of the imago Dei (image of God) for moral theology?

2) Why is it important to distinguish between the substance, the powers, and the actions of the human soul?

3) To what does the phrase, "the good of the human person" refer?

4) How does the intellect's impetration of the will help to explain the motivation of hope by faith? What objective truths given to the intellect through the habit of faith by their nature serve to strengthen hope?

In this lesson you will learn about Catholic teaching on natural law. Natural law, however, is not the only resource needed for a complete theory of Christian morality. A realist moral theologian recognizes that natural law provides a starting point for discovering the concrete forms of moral goodness. Further, since every end exists as an end only because it is ordered to the ultimate end (finis ultimus), the explanation of moral normativity that is offered by natural law must relate in a definitive way this normativity to the ultimate end. Because only God truly is absolute good, God alone obligates through promulgating the whole order of subordinate ends and acts via creation. Hence the natural, and therefore obligatory, is that which is necessary in order to attain the final end. This rooting of moral normativity in the absolute divine good does not locate natural law within a voluntarist framework, that is, one that makes divine will rather than intellect the whole source of moral obligation, because as established by God the order of ends flows from his will as informed by his Truth.

Natural law respects freedom. Rooting moral normativity within the divine good does not entail a denial of secondary causality. No end can be an end at all if it is not further ordered to the only end that can be sought purely for its own sake: the absolute good of the ultimate end. Similarly no created act is other than a natural but ontologically deficient imitation of God who is self-subsisting pure act. It may be argued that were there no divinely established order of ends, secondary agency would be impossible, because, without a final cause why action should be of one determinate character rather than another, action would be either unceasing or uninitiable. In any case, the order of ends--like the order of acts proportioned to them--is constituted in accordance with the divine wisdom and goodness, and this order participates the good of its transcendent source.

By maintaining the legitimacy of the natural law in theological ethics, moral realism does not therefore secretly champion a covert form of autonomous ethics. For instance, consider the argument that since natural law represents a participation in the divine law, the moral welfare of the human race requires no other divinely revealed law. To this argument, Aquinas answers that the human person participates in the eternal law in two ways. The first way presupposes a proportion with the capacity of human nature and, therefore, remains consonant with the natural end of the human creature. The second way, however, assumes the existence of a higher order, by which we are directed to our ultimate supernatural end, and to embrace this order, God's wisdom provides a divinely revealed law by which we also participate in the eternal law. While it is incumbent upon realist moral theology to demonstrate that its view of the Christian moral life neither presupposes nor generates a dual conception of the moral universe, the fact remains that the eternal law represents the single divine plan for the salvation of the world. The unity of the eternal law is not compromised by the twofold manner in which human persons participate it.

In the Summa theologiae, Aquinas provides a straightforward, uncluttered explanation of natural law. He says that "natural law embodies nothing other than a participation of the eternal law in the rational creature" (Summa theologiae Ia-IIae q. 91, a. 2). Natural law, then, derives from the eternal law, although, since the eternal law remains identical with the divine nature itself, natural law does not exhaust the eternal law. Because he held the conviction that the ontological priority of nature provides the necessary condition for maintaining the gratuitous gift of divine grace, Aquinas argues for an intrinsic relationship between natural and eternal law on philosophical grounds. This means that our understanding of human nature comprises something more than a deficient abstraction, or a "remainder concept." If it be the case that human nature is merely such a "remainder concept" or deficient abstraction, it is difficult to see how such a view does not compel its proponents towards holding one of two inadmissable positions concerning the nature and gratuity of God's creative action: either divine wisdom has produced an intrinsically deficient human being, that is, with something lacking in its bare essentials, or God is somehow obliged to bestow something which is not due to human nature in order to complete his creation in a basic way. These two alternatives logically precede any discussion of the hypothesis of "pure nature" and the thorny question about what human nature can accomplish without divine grace or on the supposition that Adam was created outside of original justice.

The key term in Aquinas's definition of natural law is "participation," or the human creature's share in the eternal law. Aquinas's use of the notion of participation in his definition of natural law possesses its own history. Some authors for instance have argued that Aquinas's deployment of the notion of participation in connection with natural law exhibits Platonic influences on the Thomist doctrine. For our purposes, it is also possible to translate Aquinas's "participatio" by the English word "share." The view that human nature shares or participates in the divine pattern of all that exists forms a central thesis of a realist anthropology. Jacques Maritain, in his The Person and the Common Good, recognizes in the natural law the foundation not only for the dignity of the human person, but also for the establishment of the common good.

The deepest layer of the human person's dignity consists in its property of resembling God--not in a general way after the manner of all creatures, but in proper way. It is the image of God. For God is spirit and the human person proceeds from Him as having a principle of life, a spiritual soul capable of knowing, loving and of being uplifted by grace to participation in the very life of God that, in the end, it might know and love Him as He knows and loves Himself. (Jacques Maritain, The Person and the Common Good, trans. John J. Fitzgerald (New York: Scribner's, 1947), p. 32).

It is important to observe that Maritain speaks about our being capable of "being uplifted by grace." Natural law enjoys a central place in the development of moral theology, but it does not provide a substitute for the economy of salvation which comes always as a free and gracious outpouring from God and which alone makes it possible for the creature to enjoy a communication with God that exceeds the perfections of nature.

Reading Assignments

Introduction to Moral Theology, chap. 2

Benedict Ashley, "Scriptural Grounds for Concrete Moral Norms," The Thomist 52 (1988): 1-22.

Russell Hittinger, "Veritatis Splendor and the Theology of Natural Law," in Veritatis Splendor and the Renewal of Moral Theology. Studies by Ten Outstanding Scholars. Edited with J. A. DiNoia, O.P. (Chicago: Midwest Theological Forum, 1999).

Questions

1) Explain the relationship of natural law to Eternal law. Include in your answer some specific reference to the Blessed Trinity.

2) Why is the biblical doctrine of the imago Dei indispensable for elaborating a moral theology? (See CCC 1702: "The divine image is present in every man. It shines forth in the communion of persons, in the likeness of the unity of the divine persons among themselves.")

3) How is the ontological priority of nature a condition for maintaining the gratuity of supernatural grace? What difficulties would be implied by derogating nature to the status of a mere "remainder concept"?

4) What is the relationship between God--as absolute good and promulgator of all lesser goods or ends in creation--and these lesser goods?

How does natural law command? This is a question that occupies contemporary Catholic moral theology. In English usage, the language is awkward. In ancient Roman usage, however, it is accurate. For the Roman jurists, justice equaled ius suum cuique tribuere. Justice is the giving of a "ius." Technically, law or "lex" is the command to give it. So, the Christian jurists conceive of natural law as something more than a collection of iura. These natural iura stem from divine providence, and lex naturalis is not a metaphorical template laid over ius naturale. It represents instead a participation in the eternal law, God's very own wisdom.

That's the scholarly, philosophical answer. But one might want to say that actions are "required by" instead of commanded. Today, everyone seems to think (erroneously) the commands are chiefly acts of the will. There are commands which flow from how God knows the world to be, from how God has established the human order of existence.

One more thing. There is nothing especially odd about the idea that human law can command someone to give a natural "ius" to someone. Presumably, that's what we do when we require the government to give due process of law before taking someone's life, liberty, or property (5th and 14th amendments). Basically, the positive law requires the state or its agent to satisfy natural justice.

Back to natural law, think of the Decalogue which consists of iura to be given to God and neighbor. There is the ius to be given and the precept to give it. Moderns tend to conflate the two, sometimes for reasons of ideology (subjective rights), but more often for the sake of convenience. It gets cumbersome to speak of natural law, natural rights, human law, and legal rights. Too many moving parts for the modern mind to cope with. So we hive off what makes natural law "law," and begin with a moral norm grounded in something "in" or "about" the person. This is convenient for ordinary law, but it suggests a static picture of natural justice in which God no longer governs. It is enough for God to create natural values and goods. All the action, then, comes from human practical reason which supplies the motion -- viz. the leges.

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Students who wish to do advanced work may find the debates among orthodox Catholic scholars about how to interpret natural law interesting. One must not misportray the most central elements of St. Thomas's doctrine of natural law. Some authors tend to superimpose two sets of presuppositions upon the doctrine of Aquinas that alter its character. The first set of presuppositions is drawn from contemporary Anglo-American analytic philosophy, and comprises notions not only alien, but contrary, to St. Thomas's teaching. These largely determine the form of such an interpretation, and distort St. Thomas's teachings regarding the relation of the speculative and practical intellect; the nature of the first precept of law ("primum princeptis legis"); the unified natural teleology of the moral life (i.e. the morally significant hierarchy of ends); and the analysis of moral object, end, and intention. The second set of presuppositions--which colors the end to which the earlier errors conduce--consists in a classically liberal reduction of the nature of the common good and of the role of religion in public life (and a negation of the very public character of revelation), as well as a denial of the practical significance of the theistic root of natural law doctrine.

As St. Thomas instructs us, a thing acts and moves toward its end by reason of its form. Some readings miscast both the form, and the end, of St. Thomas's doctrine of natural law. It is not an accident that on all these issues, the interpretation offered by certain authors is virtually always not only alien, but actually opposed, to the work of the Dominican commentatorial tradition from the 13th century to the present. The teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas is not an object of mere archeological interest, and for this reason it is important to distinguish his work from the exigencies of what--at the end of the day, and with due deference to the context--must nonetheless count as a transsignification of St. Thomas's natural law teaching to the requisites of analytic philosophic tenets starkly opposed to his own.

Reading Assignments

Introduction to Moral Theology, chap. two

Catechism of the Catholic Church nos. 1949-2016.

Russell Hittinger, "Natural Law as 'Law.' Reflections on the occasion of `Veritatis splendor," The American Journal of Juris Prudence 39 (1994): 1-32.

Summa theologiae Ia-IIae q. 93, aa. 1-6. Blackfriars Summa theologiae, vol. 28, pp. 162-164 (appendix 2).

Writing Assignment

Write a three-page paper that explains the place natural law holds in present day Church teaching. Consult Veritatis Splendor.

Question

If law is the command bestowing a "right", explain the relation between natural law and the wisdom and providence of God?

In this lesson you will be introduced to the large question of the Christian virtues. According to realist moral theory, the entire subject matter of morals revolves around instruction on the virtues and growth in a virtuous life. In order to deal with the requirements of catechetical instruction, the Christian tradition customarily reduces the large number of virtues that distinguish the practice of the Christian life into two categories: the theological virtues and the cardinal moral virtues, sometimes called the human virtues. The theological virtues include faith, hope, and charity; the cardinal moral virtues, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Aquinas, a principal exponent of virtue-centered ethics, asserts that the virtues accomplish more than provide convenient categories for moralists or catechists to organize their instruction about the moral life. Virtue, in other words, supplies more than a description of moral goodness. As developed within the Thomist tradition, the virtues comprise real sources of human action, working both in the line of efficient and final causality. They are true dispositions for action, operative habits (habitus) that energize both the quest and the attainment of a happy life. See the introduction at Summa theologiae Ia-IIae q. 49: "Having discussed action and feeling we now turn to the sources of human action within and without the agent. The sources of action within the agent are capacities habitus; capacities were considered in the prima pars, but habitus remain to be discussed [in the prima-secundae]. We shall deal first with habitus in general; and then turn to those particular habitus such as virtues and vices, which are sources of human action." To return to the subject of Christian freedom, only the exercise of free choice shaped by virtue guarantees that a person reaches the goal of complete happiness.

Since the virtues serve as real sources of human action, their operation observes the basic dynamic that governs all human action. The practice of the theological and moral virtues enables a person to both pursue with intelligence and embrace with discrimination the real goods of supernature and nature that are intended by God to perfect human existence. The effect of virtue on human behavior is best displayed in those moral virtues that regulate the movements of both the rational and sense appetites: justice in the will, fortitude in the contending emotions, and temperance in the impulse emotions.

Moral behavior means intelligent behavior; no virtuous behavior exists apart from conformity with a measure of moral truth. To put moral truth into human behavior is the work of the first cardinal virtue, prudence. This virtue in fact embodies a kind of knowing, as a long-standing intuition of the Christian tradition testifies. For example, the seventh-century Iberian theologian Isidore of Seville (d. 636) fittingly associates in his Etymologies the origin of the word prudentia with knowledge about provident conduct. Prudent persons look ahead in order to ensure that what they do achieves the good; put otherwise, prudence is knowing what to want and what not to want. The cardinal virtue of prudence shapes human deliberation with respect to the proper means for reaching an end, and what is equally important ensures that the person in fact embraces the end. From the perspectives of moral realism, the adjective prudential applies to every good moral action performed.

Reading Assignments

The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics, chap. 4.

Introduction to Moral Theology, chap. 3.

Writing Assignment

Write a three-page essay that explains the central place that prudence holds in shaping the exercise of human freedom.

The forgoing account of prudence informs the teaching of the Church. Veritatis splendor teaches that "in every sphere of personal, family, social and political life, morality--founded upon truth and open in truth to authentic freedom--renders a primordial, indispensable and immensely valuable service not only for the individual person and his growth in the good, but also for society and its genuine development" (Veritatis splendor no 101, but see as well the preceding paragraphs in nos. 96-101). Aquinas comments on the various forms of prudence which correspond not only to the good of the individual, but also to that of the family and of the state; these are monastic or individual, domestic, and political respectively. In the Church, we see the ultimate realization of prudence when the members heed St Paul's exhortation: "In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus" (Phil 2: 5).

With few exceptions, modern moral philosophy follows one of two directions: first, schools of emotivism propose sincere feelings as the ultimate moral criterion, and second, schools of moral cognitivism propose a variety of ways for the intellect to dictate a course of action. Various factors in the history of moral philosophy account for the fact that few theories recognize two crucial truths: first, that rational principles no matter how well defined cannot adequately ensure that a particular human action really instantiates moral goodness; secondly, that the appetites in themselves lack the ability to develop a full moral measure, even though one may allow that they contain the germ of virtue. Authentic prudence cultivates an intelligence measured by moral knowledge and capable of shaping human behavior towards virtuous ends as these are grasped by a rectified appetite.

Prudence belongs to the development of the moral life. As an infused and an acquired virtue, it depends on both the revealed and rational sources of moral wisdom. Through prudence and the moral virtues, our activity corresponds to the authentic ends or goods of human nature--this is called conformity with the "thing" or res. Such conformity with the complete number of good human ends shapes the character of a virtuous person who, because of the psychological power contained in the habitus, easily and surely achieves the goals of human life. Unlike the good musician who may "learn" how to play a false note, the prudent person cannot voluntarily act imprudently. In other words, he can never act against his own good. Because prudence integrates moral knowledge and rectified appetites in order to provide concrete and particular norms for human behavior, prudence remains a key virtue for the formation of a person's moral character. All of the moral virtues require prudence because this moral virtue guarantees the production of a virtuous action in the practical order. Insofar as correct moral reasoning combines with rectified appetite for good ends, a virtuous action infallibly results. But this state of affairs defines the saint, whose prudence always remains genuine, not sham or motivated by carnal ends, general, not restricted to a limited field of human endeavor, and complete, not favoring one or another acts of prudence. Since prudence is synonymous with those who have done the will of God throughout the ages, then the saints best represent those people who have taken good counsel, made good judgments, and, above all, remained resolutely effective in commanding a virtuous life.

Reading Assignments

Avery Dulles, S.J., "The Truth about Freedom: A Theme from John Paul II," in Veritatis Splendor and the Renewal of Moral Theology. Studies by Ten Outstanding Scholars. Edited with J. A. DiNoia, O.P. (Chicago: Midwest Theological Forum, 1999).

Servais Pinckaers, "Conscience, Truth, and Prudence" and Ralph McInerny, "Conscience and the Object of the Moral Act" in Crisis of Conscience, ed. John M. Haas (Crossroad Publishing Company, 1996): 79-110.

For a discussion of how prudence influences even in exceptional circumstances, see my "Epieikeia and the Accomplishment of the Just" in Aquinas and Empowerment: Classical Ethics for Ordinary Lives, ed. G. Simon Harak (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1996): 170-205.

Questions

1) Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the virtues of the moral life, nos. 1803-1845. How would you explain the Christian life in terms of the virtues? How do the theological virtues relate to the moral virtues?

2) Specifically, how does prudence relate to all the virtues?

3) What does it mean to say that charity is the form of every good?

In this lesson you will hear an introduction to the complex question of how to evaluate a moral action. The following text offers a sample analysis to show how one may arrive at an authentic judgment about proceeding with a proposed surgical procedure. The question has been raised: Given that actions are specified by their objects, what makes the snipping of a cancerous vas deferens morally different from the snipping of a non-cancerous vas deferens? The way that the standard casuists would have replied to this question is as follows:

(1) Some circumstances of a moral action are of such an aggravating nature that they actually alter the moral object itself, for which the scholastic Latin used the phrase "transit in rationem objecti," viz., the circumstance passes over into the definition (ratio) of the object.

(2) Therefore, strictly speaking the question does not enquire about doing something when (quando) it is a case of a cancerous organ (quid),

(3) but whether the circumstances "when cancerous" and "a cancerous organ" together so modify the moral object that it is possible to discover adequate grounds for a new moral meaning.

(4) On this basis, the action of snipping the diseased vas deferens is judged good, i.e. therapeutic, even though there also occurs a sterilization.

(5) However, this approach requires careful consideration, for some theorists will argue by analogy that sterilization in an over-populated country (ubi) and on a psychologically worn out 35 year-old father of ten (quis) also constitute circumstances that pass over into the definition of the moral object. Moreover, they will use such "proportional" arguments to justify actions that remain bad moral actions.

In the judgment of experienced moralists, it is required to know how the moral theologian constructs the objective borderlines for moral conduct before one can reasonably discuss the exceptional cases. Remember Veritatis splendor urges us to pursue a good end, not to discover reasons to justify objectively bad actions.

Recall that the old casuists were legalists at heart, but they had the consolation of knowing that the "exceptional cases" remained firmly in their, i.e. the "consulted authors," control. The new moral theology of Veritatis splendor warns against situationalism pure and simple and outright intentionalism. The Church does not envision that every circumstance become the opportunity for the individual to decide about how his or her historical circumstances and personal intentions can determine the basic moral goodness or badness of every action.

To be sure, more ecclesially-minded theorists will argue that the Church's teaching is a factor to be considered, even seriously, in making a moral choice, but they will still leave matters on the slippery slope of supposing the neutrality of moral objects. It remains for contemporary moral realists to show that moral objects are the only way that one can make virtue the accepted currency of moral theology. And we all know from Alasdair MacIntyre how important getting the intellectual, moral, and theological virtues straight is.

The virtue of prudence is one of the four cardinal virtues that shape human actions; it ensures that our activity achieves an end perfective of the human person. The other moral virtues, justice, fortitude, and temperance, each influences a particular appetite of the human person. As the rounding off of natural law inclinations in us, prudence develops a recta ratio for making a complete and happy human life. The teaching reaches back to the earliest centuries of Christian teaching. For example, Saint Ambrose observes: "first comes that which I may call the foundation of all, namely, that our passions should obey our reason" (See his De officiis ministrorum I, XXIV, 106). In Christian practice, moral truth always coexists with the moral virtues.

In a complete Christian life, all the virtues work towards the perfection of human flourishing and, if we consider the theological and infused virtues, beatitudo. To include nature and natural law in Christian ethics does not make life-in-Christ an after-thought for Roman Catholic moral instruction. On the contrary, Jesus stands at the center of every Christian life. To those who remain united in friendship with him, Christ shows the Way, teaches the Truth, and communicates Life itself. These promises cash out into a life of virtue, which in turn gives the virtuous person a fuller comprehension of what the scriptures teach about the moral life.

Moral virtue forms a good action according to reason in a given circumstance of one's life. Most immediately reason connotes human intelligence as the principle whereby we measure things, i.e. apprehend them according to a certain ratio. But is our intelligence, which measures things, itself independent of measure? Plainly not, since it in turn is measured by the reason, or reasons, in things, as when one asks, "What is the reason for the sun's coming up in the morning?" In response one posits some real cause, something in the nature of things, e.g. "The rotation of the earth on its axis is the reason, or cause, why the sun 'rises' daily." So for something to be "according to reason," it must be grasped as being ultimately according to the reason in things, in the nature of things. Conversely, when something is spoken of as against reason, one means, not only against the human capacity of that name, but fundamentally against the reason in nature and reality, i.e. the objective order, or reason, in nature which the mind grasps. Our human reason operates as a "measured measure" not only in speculative matters, but also, and especially, in practical reasoning.

Reading Assignments

Introduction to Moral Theology, Chapter Four

Three essays in Veritatis Splendor and the Renewal of Moral Theology. Studies by Ten Outstanding Scholars. Edited with J. A. DiNoia, O.P. (Chicago: Midwest Theological Forum, 1999). Section One: Perspectives.

Pinckaers, Sources, pp. 327-399

Writing Assignment

Write a five-page paper that explains to a class of young adults why some kinds of actions can never perfect the human person.

Question

The moral object is what one is doing relative to reason, and not merely the physical character of one's act. Yet the physical character of what we do is one of the essential causal elements in determing the moral species or character of the object. Explain how this illustrates the character of our reason as a "measured measure".

The God-given created order of reality, how God knows the world to be, stands underneath the order that shapes moral reason. Since virtue is called by Aristotle and Aquinas a "habitus of acting according to reason" (Summa theologiae Ia-IIae q. 64, a. 1), when something is "against reason," it is, in its most fundamental sense, against virtue too. Whence comes this law or order of nature which is the reason for things that measures the validity and correctness of human reason? It derives from the divine reason, the eternal law, an order set in things by God, their Creator. Hence when something is described as unvirtuous, this is synonymous with saying that it is against reason--the reason of God whose order placed in things constitutes nature, and is the reason or cause of their being and activity, and which reason, cause, or order, in things ultimately measures human reason.

Veritatis splendor provides an extended critique of what it calls teleological ethical views. To avoid confusion, it may have been better to use the English term "teleologistic," since "teleological" theories in fact reject the Church's teleological tradition in morals. These views, the encyclical says, claim to look at the conformity of human acts with the personal objectives pursued by the doer or with the values that he or she intends. In other words, the measure of the moral act falls principally within the agent. The encyclical, on the other hand, points out the totality that exists in a properly defined moral object that both carries and embodies its own intelligibility independent of subjective considerations. A good human act, good according to its object, perfects a human person because it conforms to human nature. When the action is enacted in charity, the person enters, either for the first time or with greater intensity, into a communion of love with God. Here below, this communion subsists in the Church of Christ, whereas hereafter it becomes that beatific sharing in the divine nature which we call the communion of the saints.

Nominalist reductions of moral action can lead to mistakes about the pursuit of the good and of the ultimate good which is God. Certain moments in the modern period have illuminated the conceptual affinities between casuistry and nominalism. In the Church of seventeenth-century France, Blaise Pascal's Fourth Provincial Letter provides a good illustration of what happens when teachers of the moral life neglect its in-built teleology.

During the conflicts which arose between Jansenists and Jesuits, it seems that certain theologians had advanced the theory that for persons to suffer harm from sinful actions required the verification of a complete set of subjective conditions. In order to enlarge the ambit of personal freedom, some authors included among these conditions the requirement that a person consciously advert to the fact that a particular action actually stands directly opposed to God's law. To be held culpable, then, of even the grossest departures from the natural law meant that a person had to be informed completely of the sinful nature of the acts and advert to it. On the one hand, this outlook represents a certain apogee in extrinsicism, not to mention an excessive concern for establishing culpability, but on the other, the frame of mind reveals a complete lack of appreciation for the intrinsically evil character of certain specific actions. To this obviously obfuscatory way of talking about practical morals, Pascal retorts to an imaginary clerical advocate of the non-advertence theory:

Blessings on your head, Father, for justifying people in this way! Others teach how to cure souls by painful austerities, but you show that the souls which one would have believed to be the most desperately ill are in the best of health. What an excellent path to happiness in this world and the next! I had always thought that the less one thought of God the more sinful one was. But, from what I can see, once one has managed to stop thinking of him altogether the purity of one's future conduct becomes assured. Let us have none of these half-sinners, with some love of virtue; they will all be damned. But as for these avowed sinners, hardened sinners, unadulterated, complete and absolute sinners, hell cannot hold them; they have cheated the devil by surrendering to him. (Pascal, IV Provincial Letter, trans. A.J. Krailsheimer (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1967), p. 65).

In his essay, Pascal plays with a reductio ad absurdum in order to make the point that something beyond an analysis of personal subjectivity must enter into the moral meaning of a human act. These words from one France's finest belletrists impress on us the need for objective moral criteria. In our own day, Veritatis splendor has outlined the proper criteria for determining moral behavior within a proper teleology.

Because of the truth about the good and the invitation to participate in it that Christ announces, Christian theology is able to include among the goods required for complete human flourishing the beatific vision of God. "Beatitude, in my opinion," writes Gregory of Nyssa, "is a possession of all things held to be good, from which nothing is absent that a good desire may want. Perhaps the meaning of beatitude may become clearer to us if it is compared with its opposite. Now the opposite of beatitude is misery. Misery means being afflicted unwillingly with painful suffering" (St Gregory of Nyssa, The Beatitudes, Sermon 1, trans. Hilda C. Graef, The Lord's Prayer. The Beatitudes (Westminster, MD:: Newman Press, 1954), p. 88). For the Christian believer, the face to face beholding of God's goodness alone fulfills the yearnings of human nature. As the Roman liturgy softly reminds us about heaven, "there we hope to enjoy the vision of your glory." And because heaven remains our vocation, every created thing which forms a basic human good requires integration in God in order to achieve its ultimate perfection.

The call to beatific fellowship with God implies that man possesses an openness to communion with God. The sacred Scriptures and the theological tradition of the Church refer to this capacity as man's being created in the image of God (imago Dei). Good moral theology must respect the ordering of the imago Dei to its God-given ends. Again Gregory of Nyssa, "He who paints our soul in the likeness of the only blessed One describes in words all that produces beatitude; and he says first: `Blessed are the poor in spirit, because theirs in the Kingdom of Heaven'" (Sermon One). To describe Aquinas's moral theory as teleological means nothing more than to identify it with this sort of Christian eudaimonism. Without due attention to the Sermon on the Mount, it is impossible to elaborate authentic Christian moral theology. Warrant for this assertion comes from the theological traditions of both East and West.

Moral theories which reject the notion that the human person achieves its perfection through freely-accomplished virtuous actions are committed to developing models other than a realist teleological one to guide human behavior. Utilitarian consequentialism, to take an example which has its roots in the British moral tradition, judges morality somewhat mathematically on the basis of the over-all good accomplished for the largest number. Kantian deontology, which is typical of Continental schools of ethics, grounds moral judgments on the basis of duty or obligation to follow a moral imperative which itself usually results from some form of a priori moral reasoning. Whatever contributions to Christian moral theology these schools of ethics can make, experience has shown that Christian moral realism best suits the requirements of the Catholic tradition. As the topics that will be addressed in this series reveal, Catholic moral theology is too much concerned with the concrete existent not to take its form seriously, e.g. the contents of safes, freshwater lake fishes, jewelry in Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse, fine cars like a Rolls Royce, etc.

Because Christian moral theology finds its beginning in God's own knowledge about himself, the eternal law gives a determinate and recognizable shape to the whole of Christian morality. Though Aquinas describes the natural law as a participation in this effective ruling design whereby God governs creation, his natural law theory enunciates a position quite different from the "Book of Nature" theories developed by Enlightenment thinkers. It was characteristic of many Enlightenment thinkers to deny God altogether or, among the moderates, to assume that the only trace left of him in the universe was to be found at its origins.

Reading Assignments

Martin Rhonheimer, "Intrinsically Evil Acts and the Moral Viewpoint: Clarifying a central Teaching of Veritatis splendor," inVeritatis Splendor and the Renewal of Moral Theology. Studies by Ten Outstanding Scholars. Edited with J. A. DiNoia, O.P. (Chicago: Midwest Theological Forum, 1999).

Romanus Cessario, "Moral Absolutes in the Civilization of Love," in Veritatis Splendor and the Renewal of Moral Theology. Studies by Ten Outstanding Scholars. Edited with J. A. DiNoia, O.P. (Chicago: Midwest Theological Forum, 1999).

Questions

1) Why are moral absolutes a good for the human person and not an infringement on his or her personal autonomy?

2) Why does something other than subjective human intention enter into the moral nature of what we do?

In this lesson you will learn about the qualities or graces that God bestows on the Christian believer in coordination with the sacramental dispensation and life of the Church. In light of the distinction between the infused and acquired virtues, we can envisage two concrete alternatives: first, the case of the believer, who enjoys the life of grace but does not possess a particular acquired virtue; second, the case of the person who possesses acquired virtue, but, for whatever reason, does not enjoy the benefits of a living relationship with Christ. The moral life unfolds differently in each case. First of all, consider the status of the newly-baptized.

Of course, juridical categories remain hopelessly inadequate in sacramental theology, which has to deal with community actions whose symbolism is transformed by the intervention of Christ. Theologians teach that the character of baptism places the seal of the risen Christ, imparted by the Spirit, on those who receive it. Although questions about the relationship of grace to the infused virtues exercised authors during the period of high scholasticism, it suffices to observe that baptism gives those who receive it a gift which falls within the logic of the incarnation, the possibility of joining with Christ in his sacramental worship. When those brought to faith by the preaching of the word receive baptism, they confess their belief publicly as the community of believers welcomes them. Incorporation into Christ means, among other benefits, that those who are baptized possess the ability to live in conformity with the norms established for Christian conduct. ( C.E. O'Neill, Sacramental Realism: A General Theory of the Sacraments provides a fuller account of the theology of baptism, esp. c. 5). This accounts for the common Christian teaching that, at baptism, the believer receives the full complement of the infused virtues. The Roman Catechism calls this the "comitatum gratiae." This effect of baptism also recalls the important connection which the Church recognizes between worship and morality.

The case of infant baptism presents a special set of difficulties. What meaning can be assigned to the presence of the infused virtues in one whose psychological constitution is not developed enough to serve as the basis for an acquired habitus? The scholastic theologians, whose motto "Always distinguish" served them well, replied that, for the infant, the infused virtues supplied only the principles of virtuous operation. These virtues could not, however, account for the actual practice of virtue, since the individual lacked the physical and psychological abilities required for any moral act. In the case of the infant, then, the actualization of the infused virtues would accompany the normal development of human maturity which results from Christian upbringing. Aquinas even defines fornication as morally defective partially on the basis that one cannot assure that the child of such a union will receive proper supervision. See his discussion in IIa-IIae q. 154, a. 2. In any event, the theology of the virtues upholds the importance of both Christian instruction and parental guidance for children.

On the other hand, the case of the adult who receives baptism is different. For the adult already possesses the developed physical and psychological capacities which make the practice of virtue possible. Since there is no such thing as a purely supernatural human action, the infused virtues, which amount to freely-given graces, cannot by themselves account exclusively for any human action, not even one which comes under the influence of divine grace. Still, the infused virtues do establish a capacity--a principle--for salvific actions which result from the believer's incorporation into Christ. Aquinas explains how this "principle" of the infused virtue operates. "Facility of operation with respect to virtuous activity," he writes, "comes about in two ways: first, from a previous habitus, but the infused virtues do not supply this kind of facility; second, as an originating principle, which comes about as a result of a strong adherence to the object of virtue. And this [kind of facility] infused virtue bestows immediately, by way of principle" (In IV Sententiarum d. 14, q. 2, a. 2). An early Christian document substantially supports this interpretation of baptism's effect on the moral life of the believer. The Letter to Barnabas tells us: "This means that we go down into the water full of sins and foulness, and we come up bearing fruit in our hearts, fear and hope in Jesus in the Spirit" (Letter to Barnabas, 11:11 (PG 2, 760).

In any event, the infused virtues do provide believers with a unique moral capacity; for, given the presence of these virtues, the members of Christ adhere strongly to the object of virtue. This means that the newly-baptized adult, whatever the actual state of his acquired moral development, possesses a source or principle for right conduct which derives exclusively from baptismal faith. Christ himself now makes it possible for such a one to adhere to the object of virtue. For the believer, as a result of baptism's sacramental efficacy, enjoys a personal relationship with Jesus which cannot fail to provide whatever Christian virtue requires. Although current liturgical practice rightly emphasizes pre-baptismal preparation for adults coming to faith, the full effects of incorporation into Christ result only from the action of the Spirit effectively completed in the baptismal bath. By baptismal grace, the believer possesses a source of moral strength previously unavailable: "we come up bearing fruit in our hearts, fear and hope in Jesus in the Spirit." Moreover, this new moral strength belongs both to those who already possess the acquired virtues and to those who approach baptism with vicious habitus, but it functions differently in each case.

Accordingly, one can consider two typical cases. The first is the adult who comes to Christian faith and baptism with certain bad habitus, specific acquired vices. Of course, the complete gratuity of divine grace means that its bestowal never depends on the moral status of the one who receives it. God loves us, not because we are good, but because he is. See De potentia q. 3, a. 15, ad 14um: "The ultimate end is not the communication of goodness, but rather divine goodness itself. It is from his love of this goodness that God wills it to be communicated. In fact, when he acts because of his goodness, it is not as if he were pursuing something that he does not have, but, as it were, willing to communicate what he has. For he does not act from desire of the end, but from love of the end." Thus it remains entirely possible that adults who come to the saving waters of baptism, although they may possess the resolve to renounce Satan and sin, still bear the marks of past sins. Statistically, this undoubtedly is true of the majority of actual cases. In this circumstance, what do the infused virtues accomplish?

Reading Assignments

Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics, chaps 4-6.

Romanus Cessario, O.P., "On Bad Actions, Good Intentions, and Loving God: Three Much-Misunderstood Issues about the Happy Life that St. Thomas Clarifies for Us," Logos 1.2 (1997): 100-124

Questions

1) Why are virtues necessary for Christian living?

2) Discuss the seven virtues of the Christian life.

3) How do the theological virtues ensure that our moral choices remains ordered toward God.

Christian moral theology instructs us to appreciate the reason God allowed sin to gain entrance into the world. Although the notion seems paradoxical to unaided human reason, the words, "O felix culpa!" "O happy fault!", sung at the Easter vigil, explain best the divine permission for sin. From the vantage point of having been redeemed by Christ, the believer can look back at the original sin and recognize that it has become a happy fault. Ancient Christian wisdom avows that it is better for the human race to have been redeemed by Christ than to have persevered in innocence. St Ambrose captures the encouragement that this profound Christian wisdom imparts to the individual Christian, when he writes: "My guilt became for me the cause of redemption, through which Christ came to me" (Jacob and the Happy Life Bk.I, chap. 6, no. 21). The Christian must accept this wisdom, or otherwise learn to deal with depression.

Early Christian literature records the dynamic interplay between sin and forgiveness that shapes the Christian moral life. For example, St Augustine's De doctrina christiana clearly indicates that the Christian life forms a passage from involvement with sin to participation in grace. The Doctor of Grace describes the circle of conversion that begins with the exercise of the moral conscience and leads to "the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" (Eph 4:24). In this catechetical summary, he says: " From the law comes knowledge of sin, by faith the reception of grace against sin, by grace the soul is healed of the imperfection of sin; a healthy soul possesses freedom of choice; freedom of choice is ordered to love of righteousness; love of righteousness is the accomplishment of the law" (De doctrina christiana 30, 52). The passage exhibits the dynamics of Christian conversion that unfolds within the context of the Church and her sacraments.

Augustine formulated this synopsis of orthodox teaching as a reply to the position of Pelagius. According to Augustine's account, Pelagius taught that the grace of God means that, from its establishment, our nature receives the possibility of not sinning simply by reason of the fact that it was established with the ability to choose freely (See De gestis Pelagiae 10: 22). Pelagius thought that Adam's sin left in the world only a bad example instead of a wounded nature. This view, however, would have encouraged in the believer a self-reliance that is difficult to reconcile with the Gospel injunction that each one remain united with Christ.

Saint Augustine saw the fatal error in the Pelagian argument. By way of rebuttal, he insisted that human nature by itself remains inefficacious with respect to fulfilling the requirements of the moral law. In an actually existing state of sin, human freedom without the help of divine grace is more likely to fail than to succeed. The Church still stands by Saint Augustine's conviction. The Church has incorporated Saint Augustine's teaching into her official teaching (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 406). And although interpretations of Saint Augustine's texts differ even among Catholic scholars, the basic lines of his account have been incorporated by the Church into her official teaching on the necessity of divine grace.

It is impossible to underestimate how much the human creature requires the gift of divine grace. Even with the help of grace, human freedom remains fragile. Saint Augustine offers sound pastoral advice when he reminds us that,"while he is in the flesh, man cannot help but have at least some light sins." This circumstance provides reason for neither presumption nor despair. Instead, as St Augustine further points out, even the everyday experiences of wounded nature return us to Christ, his Church and the sacraments: "But do not despise these sins which we call 'light': if you take them for light when you weigh them, tremble when you count them. A number of light objects makes a great mass; a number of drops fills a river; a number of grains makes a heap. What then is our hope? Above all, confession . . . ." (The text comes from his Commentary on John 1, 6 and is cited in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1863). For St Augustine, the moral life leads back to the sacramental life, and conversely the sacraments strengthen the moral life. Were it not for the grace freely given in Christ, the human predicament would become a source of profound discouragement.

The truth of the Catholic religion provides a refreshing alternative both to the claims of a narrow legalism and to the uncertainties of the various kinds of teleogisms that Veritatis splendor describes. The great teachers of the Catholic faith instruct us that the overarching concern of the Christian moral life centers on union with God. In this present life, such godly union finds its highest realization in the personal presence of the Blessed Trinity to the souls of the just. We attribute this transforming presence to the Holy Spirit who unites us in charity to God and gathers us together in the communicatio or fellowship of divine love. In the Church of Christ we listen together to the sacred scriptures. These dispose the believer's mind towards understanding and accepting the mystery of Christ even as they instruct about that authentic "contempt for the world" which attends the exercise of a spiritual life.

Growth in the moral life cannot happen apart from an effective, personal union with Christ in the Church of faith and sacraments. Those who provide good moral teaching recognize this truth, and so refrain from imposing moral obligations without giving a clear explanation about how these demands may be suitably met. The Pelagian mentality neglects the importance that the mystery of personal union with Christ holds for the successful living out of the Christian moral life. Some have observed the historical affinities between Pelagians and Nestorians, whose explanation of the unity in the Incarnation the Church later judged insufficient. To first emphasize determined human willing rather than affective union with the person of Christ only provokes frustration. Whenever the Pelagian mentality prevails, however, the believer confronted by the reality of his or her personal sin faces one of three options: a denial of the sin's objective character, depression based on the perception of one's utter helplessness, or despair born from the fear that God will either not give the means for living a holy life or will not forgive the sins of the past. None of these options is reconcilable with Gospel of Christ. On the contrary, Christ's promises overflow with hope. We can only conclude that Pelagian optimism is doomed to disappoint, and that its spirit will keep people from absorbing the authentic Gospel message.

According to the teaching of Christ, the whole efficacy of the New Law results in the restoration and perfection of the imago Dei. We call this achievement the grace of justification. Some persons suppose that grace is weak and inefficacious. One phenomenon that persuades to such a view is the widespread evidence of sin that continues to exist in the world even millennia after Christ's salvific death. Without a proper understanding of the Gospel message, personal sin--whether our own or that of others--can easily promote what might be called the "devil's blackmail." By insisting on the hopeless state of the sinner, the tactic urges believers to give up on believing in Christ's love and forgiveness. When this blackmail works, these people look for a remedy for their sins that moves them away from the holiness of Christ. But as Jesus himself instructs us, there is no moment in our lives when sin provides a reason for turning away from God. Remember that when one of the criminals who was crucified with Jesus, turned to him and said, "'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.' He replied, 'Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise'" (Lk 23: 42,43). The truth about God's love for the sinner and the transformation that occurs in the lives of all those who seek to do God's will must accompany every instruction about morality. Failure to pay heed to these truths results in a gross perversion of the basic New Testament teaching about the divine love, namely, that God loves us, not because we are good, but because he is goodness itself.

Only the grace of the Holy Spirit given inwardly to those who are united with Christ saves. Nothing else can directly and immediately bring about this sort of divine action in the creature. Whatever forms part of the Christian religion remains instrumental to our justification: the creed, the decalogue, all other truths of divine and Catholic faith. Indeed, these elements in themselves are considered subordinate elements of the New Law. They of course serve an important and irreplaceable purpose in the Christian life, but none of them possess the ability in themselves of transforming the human person into a son or daughter of God. Aquinas even makes the very strong affirmation: "Thus even the Gospel letter kills unless the healing grace of faith is present within." The assertion leaves no room for ambiguity about how to interpret this central point of his moral theology (Summa theologiae, Ia-IIae q. 106, a. 2). But Aquinas is only repeating what he himself learned from divine wisdom. Consider the teaching of the First Letter of John: "And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who keep his commandments abide in him, and he in them. And by this we know that God abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us" (I John 3: 23,24). The love of Christ opens up the way for the final perfection of each man and woman created in the image of God. The proper work of the moral theologian and, for that matter, of all who minister in the Church centers on the proper elucidation of this one truth.

Reading Assignments

Virtue, chaps. 4-7.

Introduction to Moral Theology, chaps. 4,5.

Writing Assignment

Write a five-page paper that examines the role that sacramental forgiveness plays in the life of the Church.

Questions

1) Why does growth in the moral life require effective, personal union with Christ in the Church of faith and sacraments?

2) How does the omnipotence of the divine good, and the superabundant efficacy of grace, play a formal role as a motive for a hope which stabilizes the moral life in God and overcomes temptations to presumption or despair?