International Catholic
University
[Federation of Catholic Scholars Newsletter, v.17, #1 (Dec. 1993) pp. 20-24.)]
This text is taken from the new encyclical of Pope John Paul II on the fundamental principles of Catholic morality, Veritatis Splendor.{1} To be both free and a servant is a very good summary of the traditional Catholic teaching on fundamental principles of morals. For centuries, Catholic moralists have been accustomed to make a distinction in discussing the morality of a human act. The first part of the distinction examines the presence of the will in an act. This makes the act free and sets human acts apart from the acts of all other beings. This consideration of the presence of the will in a given deed done by man even sets acts within the same man himself apart from those actions which simply happen to him. The second part of the distinction examines the presence of the intellect or reason in the act. The judgment based on the presence of reason in the act is the source of the traditional determination of good and evil in human acts. This judgment forms the basis for the commandments.
Traditional Catholic morals has always defended the idea that the commandments express acts which in themselves cannot be reconciled with the fulfillment of man's soul. They express this by saying that an act which is evil from its object cannot be used for a good motive. St. Thomas Aquinas expresses this tradition well in a primordial text taken from his Summa Theologiae,
Thus as the first goodness of a natural thing is perceived from its form, which gives it species, so the first goodness of a moral act is perceived from its convenient object. Thus it is called by some ex genere; for example, to use one's own thing. And as there is a first evil in natural things if a thing generated does not attain its specified form, for example, if a man is not generated, but something in place of a man, so the first evil in moral actions is from the object, as to steal. Evil is said to be ex genere, taking genus in the sense of species, as when we speak of human genus, we mean by that the human species.{2}
This constant tradition is also echoed in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church when the catechism states the conditions for the analysis of the goodness or evil in human acts.
The morality of human acts depends on the object chosen; the end forseen or the intention; the circumstances of the action. The object chosen is a good towards which the will is deliberately borne. It is the matter of a human action. The object chosen morally specifies the act of the will, according to which reason recognizes and judges itself as conformed or not to the true good. The objective rules of morality express the reasonable order of good and evil, witnessed by the conscience.{3}
Finally, this same constant tradition is affirmed by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor. 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.{4}
The Pope uses the terms freedom and servant to summarize the relationship between freedom and truth. Man is free because he has a will. The judgment of this aspect of the human act involves the exercise of the will in the act. Man must submit himself to truth in every moral act. The judgment of this aspect is the basis for the specification of human acts as good or evil. This aspect is made on the basis of the moral object and in consideration, man is a servant of the moral law as taught to him by nature and revealed to him by God.
Given this cloud of witnesses to the moral tradition of the church, it is very strange that so many dissent from the common teaching that one can derive the moral goodness or evil from an object before one knows the circumstances and the intention. Many modern moralists reject this teaching. For example, in many places in his work, Richard McCormick, S.J. states "an action cannot be judged apart from the circumstances and intention."{5} Many other moralists also hold to the idea that every act done by man is morally indifferent until the intention and the circumstances are considered. The act is a cadaver, which only receives life from the intention and the circumstances.
The key concept which is the basis for determining the truth of the moral act is that of proportionate reason. This key concept is known under many other different names by the modern moralists: commensurate reason (Knauer), Materia Apta or Ontic Evil (Louis Janssens), teleological norm (McCormick).{6} All the modern moralists introduce into their consideration of good and evil an anti-intellectualism which is not only alarming, but also false to human nature. Kant seems to be their remote source of inspiration. Kant did not think that morals could be judged on universal norms which found their basis in human nature. Each act had to be removed from the concern of any law which originated outside the acting subject.{7}
It is no wonder that there is a malaise in the moral consciousness of the Catholic if moralists in general think this way. Most seem confused as to the nature of moral demands on them. Questions of ethics and business which once seemed governed by absolute laws, now seem to be governed only by recommendations. What is lacking in the contemporary moral scene which could lead to such a loss of moral sense?
The answer is Metaphysics. The new morality has a completely different Metaphysics or science of being at its source than traditional morals. Contemporary morals is not completely devoid of interest in the truth. The trouble is that the truth is hard for them to derive because their idea of the universal, and laws are universals, considers the universal as an impoverished sense experience. "One pertinent and undeniable shortcoming in McCormick's sort of innovative teleology is that, in the absence of a classical or medieval metaphysics and anthropology, it is no mean task to discern and agree upon the precise relations of values in the hierarchy upon which the theory depends."{8}
What is the inspiration behind this change in the very basis for the judgment of truth in ethics? How did the philosophy of Kant enter into Catholic moral theology? I think the proximate cause can be attributed to Karl Rahner.
Rahner treats of moral theology in his classic article in Theological Investigations, "On the Question of a Formal Existential Ethics".{9} In this article Rahner first questions the fact that God's will could actually be realized in man through the Ten Commandments as absolutely binding universal principles which express human nature. "It would be absurd for a God-regulated, theological morality to think that God's binding will could only be directed to the human action in so far as the latter is simply a realization of the universal norm and of a universal nature."{10} This is because no universal can ever truly express all that is entailed in each individual being. though for material nature, one may be able to express the whole truth with a universal, this can never be true for persons. The freedom enjoyed by an individual human person can never be boxed into a moral norm. Every moral norm is insufficient to express what each one of us is in our individuality. This does not mean that the universal attempt is not true on a certain level. The universal norms which are present in the law are partly binding because they form a part of the situation which each individual must judge.
Put in a different way, one may ask if the norm which prohibits birth control is true. Rahner would say that it was true as a universal. When one is making a moral judgment about whether one should practice birth control in this particular act and situation with this particular person, this norm would certainly have to be taken into account as a value. But the actual action which I did with this person could not be considered birth control, even if I precluded birth by using an IUD or pill until I considered the reasons in the circumstances and in my intention which led me to practice birth control. Indeed, I must pray to the Holy Spirit and consult the action of the Spirit within me before I can make any necessary judgement as to whether this act is athe kind of act forbidden by Humanae Vitae. In fact, this prayer may lead me to the judgement that it is not forbidden, but most life affirming. One of the principal proportionalists, Richard McCormick, goes so far as to say that in the celebrated moral dilemma of the mother or the child, not only is it permitted to abort a child in the womb, but abortion is "the only response available."{11}
Karl Rahner uses his principles to posit the existence of two completely different sciences of the moral. There is the science of the laws, termed by him "Material Essentialist Ethics". This is the science of the universal laws which can only recommend. The other science is that of the "Formal Existentialist Ethics."{12} The source for the formal existential ethics is the conscience which is enlivened by a "supernatural instinct"{13} of the Holy Spirit. The moral laws contained in the Ten Commandments can never be applied simply to cases in which one could judge that the commandments applied or not without some interior revelation of the Holy Spirit. There is something true in what Rahner has to say. It is true that our observance of the moral law is not just a dull, inhuman bowing to a set of rules which drop from heaven with no relation to the personal God or to the human person. It is also true that there may be difficulty in knowing how these laws apply to individual conduct. After all, traditional morals affirms constantly that our individual must develop the virtue of Prudence precisely for the purpose of applying universal norms to individual conduct.
Still, this does not mean that the object of the act is just a moral cadaver or is morally indifferent until the intention and circumstances are considered. It only means that the human mind has difficulty in determining the object sometimes due to the uncertainty of our knowledge, not the uncertainty of the law.
With St. Thomas, one must make a twofold distinction in the analysis of human acts. On the one hand, moral science considers an act as free. Is there a human agent present in the deed? This is determined by the will. The exterior or commanded acts of all the powers are like matter to form in this case. An act can only be considered a responsible human act if the will was actually present in it.
On the other hand, moral science considers an act as real or apparent good. Truth is the standard for judgement. Does this act so join me to the things which I love so that my soul becomes ordered by this union? One who wills and loves becomes what he wills and loves after the manner of what he wills and loves. Does the manner in which I love this good really fulfill the highest powers of my soul? Does it conform to reason? Is this love right? Is it true? Does it conform to the law which expresses my nature? This second value judgement is always based on knowledge of the nature of the body-soul composite and how all the various beings which I encounter in this world can fulfill that body-soul composite. To suggest that there is a separate science of morals for individual consciences which can somehow contradict this science is nominalism. To suggest that the Holy Spirit could inspire someone to perform an act which contradicted the moral law on a frequent basis makes no sense. Why would the Holy Spirit teach the author of Holy Scripture a moral law at all if he were to constantly contradict it?
In fact, the constant teaching of moralists following St. Thomas is that the specification of human acts is always judged according to "reason informed by the divine law either naturally, by doctrine or by infusion."{14} This reason must correspond to the actual being of man. There can be no divorce between the universal and particular. In this respect, the exterior act is matter. But the matter is not a simple cadaver. It is not like a piece of wood which could be used to construct any building or table or chair indiscriminately. It is rather matter like the matter of a duck or a horse or a man which cannot be used interchangeably, but is the perfect expression of the being which it expresses.
This matter refers to the term from which the action comes or the terminus a quo in the language of philosophy. This term from which the action originates are the powers of the soul which are subjects of the virtues. In the case of temperance, these are sexual pleasures; in the case of courage, these are the emotions of fear and courage; in prudence, doubts about the good, and in justice the necessities of this life. Yet, the matter from which these virtues are fashioned is to guide all of these powers according to reason.{15}
The moral object is the good as it relates to the powers of the soul. The powers of the soul must be the foundation on which the good or evil of these acts is judged. This foundation is expressed in the natural law, the revealed law and on occasion by direct inspiration from God.
The contemporary moralists hold that no act can be judged as good or evil until the intention and the circumstances are known. Traditional Catholic morals holds that some acts can be judged without these other things being known. Some moral objects simply cannot express the relation of God with the soul. Man is indeed free because by the will he can exercise lordship over his own acts. Yet, his freedom is not absolute. Man is the servant of the nature which he has been given by God. Only in discovering how to serve God through his nature expressed in the moral law either by nature or by grace or by revelation can man truly discover what it means to be free.
The Pope's recent encyclical has sought to recall these important truths to a society suffering increasingly from moral relativism. Sadly, contemporary moralists have only pleaded that they are not understood. Their reactions have varied from "long-lasting seizures of the brain"{16} to denying that proportionalists in any sense think what has been attributed to them. One says that "In brief, the encyclical repeatedly states of proportionalism that it attempts to justify morally wrong actions by a good intention. This, I regret to say, is a misrepresentation."{17} Yet proportionalists cannot be denying that the object is the basis for moral judgement in at least some cases because "they insist on looking in all dimensions of the act before saying it is morally wrong."{18}
In this, they seem to be begging the question. What is the difference between saying that an act in the universal or simply as an object cannot be judged without all the dimensions and saying it is a cadaver until circumstances and intention are considered? They are the same.
In the original sin and in every actual sin committed since that sin, man has echoed the great "Non serviam" (I will not serve) of Satan. All contemporary morals suffers from the tendency to empty service of its meaning. In exalting the private conscience over the moral law, they take the bite out of human servanthood. Man can only rediscover his freedom when he rediscovers his servant position and ceases to interpret away any of the universal laws which express his nature.
{1} John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, n. 87.
{2} "Et ideo sicut prima bonitas rei naturalis attenditur ex sua forma, quae dat speciem ei, ita et prima bonitas actus moralis attenditur ex obiecto convenienti; unde et a quibusdam vocatur bonum ex genere; puta, uti re sua. Et sicut in rebus naturalibus primum malum est, si res generata non consequitur formam specificam, puta si non generetur homo, sed aliquid loco hominis; ita primum malum in actionibus moralibus est quod est ex obiecto, sicut accipere aliena. Et dicitur malum ex genere pro specie accepto eo modo loquendi quo dicimus humanum genus totam humanam speciem." Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, 18, 2, corp.
{3} The Catechism of the Catholic Church, nn. 1750 and 1751, my translation.
{4} John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, n. 80.
{5} "Reflections on the Literature", in Readings in Moral Theology: No. 1, Edited by Charles E. Curran and Richard McCormick, S.J., New York: Paulist Press, p. 299.
{6} McCormick himself states, "This is the key notion in the writing of Schuller, Knauer, Janssens, Fuchs, Schlotz, Bockle, and, indeed, the entire tradition of Catholic moral theology." in "A Commentary on the Commentaries", In: Doing Evil to Achieve Good, Chicago, Loyola University Press, p. 231.
{7} "Since I have robbed the will of all impulses which could come to it from obedience to any law, nothing remains to serve as a principle of the will except universal conformity of its action to law as such. That is, I should never act in such a way that I could not also will that my maxim should be a universal law." Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Lewis White Beck, (Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merril Company: 1969), p. 21.
{8} Lisa Sowle Cahill, "Teleology, Utilitarianism, and Christian Ethics", in Theological Studies 42 (1981), p. 671.
{9} "On the Question of a Formal Existential Ethics", Karl Rahner, S.J. Theological Investigations, vol. II, translated by Karl H. Kruger (Baltimore, Helicon Press, 1963)
{10} Ibid., p. 227.
{11} McCormick, "Commentary", p. 224.
{12} Rahner, "Question", p. 228 and 228, note 3.
{13} Ibid., p. 230.
{14} ". . . rationi informatae lege divina, vel naturaliter, vel per doctrinam, vel per infusionem." Thomas Aquinas, De Malo, 2, 4 corp.
{15} ". . . aliquid dicitur esse obiectum virtutum dupliciter. Alio modo sicut materia circa quam operatur, ut ab ea in aliud tendens non enim temperantia intendit huiusmodi delectionibus inhaerere, sen istas delectationes compescendo, tendere in bonum rationis." Thomas Aquinas, De Virtutibus Cardinalibus, q. un., a. 4.
{16} Bernard Haring, "A distrust that wounds", In: The London Tablet, October 23, 1993, p. 1378.
{17} Richard McCormick, "Killing the Patient", In: The London Tablet, October 30, 1993, p. 1411.
{18} Ibid.