Theology 131 2nd LT Notes

Notes from notebook:

1. Three Source Theory

-         Act (if only this, then the human person if forgotten)

-         Intention (if only this, then the world is forgotten)

-         Circumstance (if only this, then the whole context is forgotten)

-         All three must be good, or at least neutral

-         If not, then the act is morally wrong

2. Patterns of Thinking in Moral Theology
1. (First part)

                                                               i.      Freedom – capacity to choose coupled with moral obligation; there are objective moral norms

                                                             ii.      Grace – presence of God through the Holy Spirit; sustains us, helps us do good

                                                            iii.      Limitations of free choice

                                                           iv.      Law of love – 2 greatest commandments, etc.; they push us to do good, makes us authentic

1.      to be unloving = to lessen oneself

2.      a sin not to love (justice a sense of love)

2. Human Good

                                                               i.      Nature of Goodness: objective, like peace, life, etc.

                                                             ii.      Nature of Evil: absence of God’s presence

1.      going against its true nature

2.      Gnosticism: evil is physical, but our bodies are good; thus, Gnosticism is anti-Christian

                                                            iii.      Goods of Human Nature: not necessarily Christian, such as life, truth, peace

                                                           iv.      Goods of Human Communities: found in communities; in the constitution

                                                             v.      Other Basic Goods: Maslow

                                                           vi.      Goodness of Pleasure: God-created

1.      Hedonism: overestimation of the goodness of pleasure

2.      But what is pleasureable is not necessarily good.

3. Proporionalism – just like consequentialism

                                                               i.      Two wrongs don’t make a right

                                                             ii.      End does not justify the means

3. Salvation: a way out
1. Covenantal: religious reality in a covenantal reality
2. Self-sufficiency: idolatry
3. Fact: it is a sinful world

                                                               i.      Act: adding to the confusion /sinfulness of the world

                                                             ii.      Direction: a state of life, a constant shunning of the good

4. Mystery: we know it, yet there is always more to know; we need to know that we need to be saved.
5. What sin is

                                                               i.      Not good

                                                             ii.      Refusing to follow one’s conscience

                                                            iii.      CFC 770: PiusXII: this generation has lost its sense of sin (mistakes only)

                                                           iv.      3 views:

1.      spiral: sin begets more sin

2.      sickness: gets worse, spiritual – physical

3.      compulsive and obsessive addiction

6. Conscience is reason
7. We all need salvation
8. What sin is

                                                               i.      More than breaking the law

                                                             ii.      Refusal of god’s love

9. CFC 773:

                                                               i.      Sickness: spiral, which we have to acknowledge

                                                             ii.      Compulsive and obsessive addiction

                                                            iii.      Enslaves you – sin becomes your master

10. Degrees of sin: not only an act, but also fractures the relationship with God

                                                               i.      Venial – hurts

                                                             ii.      Grave – damages

                                                            iii.      Mortal – destroys

11. Original sin:

                                                               i.      Consequences:

1.      sinful world

2.      concupisence

4. A Theology of Sin
1. To be human is to be responsible for the self-obligated
2. Morality: following God; way for which we refer to the whole realm of obligation and human responsibility
3. Scriptural Sin (in the Gospels and OT)

                                                               i.      Sin: a religious reality

1.      Because God in the OT is a covenantal God, there is focus on the covenant (biblical life is lived)

2.      Sin is covenantal infidelity, failure to live up one’s part of the bargain

                                                             ii.      Sin: missing the mark, not in accord with God’s will. Sin comes to be thought of as a free offense against God

                                                            iii.      Sin: failure to accept the claims of the God of revelation. Self-sufficiency and idolatry are grave, substituting God for some other reality. Failure to love God and serve God = neighbor [social dimension]

                                                           iv.      Sin: a state of alleged independence, imagined self-sufficiency, this “hardness of heart.” Cosmic situation of alienation, fractured relationships with God

4. Traditional Vision (Tradition of Christianity)

                                                               i.      Vision of the world changes, so does our understanding of our being human, so does our understanding of change

                                                             ii.      Sin as an act: fairly reasonable, “actual sins.” When we refuse to accept the Lord’s challenge

                                                            iii.      Sin: that which we are subject to, “only you didn’t do it,” Catholics find it an embarrasment, this leading to avoidance of the topic, or an altogether disbelief in the topic

                                                           iv.      Sin: “state of mortal sin.” Cut off from grace, acts more important than resulting state (confession segue in the article)

                                                             v.      Catholic tradition: From an Act, State and Fact arise

5. Two Dimensions – or Four?

                                                               i.      Human person as agent. Identifications, total, inferred from acts.

                                                             ii.      One must not only take into consideration the act and the agent, since there is also growth and direction as well.

6. Sin Today: A Fact

                                                               i.      It is a sinful world: it is discovered; original sin, sin as a situation

                                                             ii.      Pain, anger, encountered and re-encountered in the world, disappointment, etc

                                                            iii.      Interpretation of evil: for the Judaeo-Christians: a story

                                                           iv.      We don’t know why the world is so evil, but we have to accept the responsibility and make it better. Activity is stressed. All are responsible for this mess we are in.

                                                             v.      Evil is a fact

                                                           vi.      Sin as a fact, also an act – reason, gone astray; we need forgiveness

7. A Direction

                                                               i.      We have the power to choose how we stand in life. We can always stand on the side of sin and accept it. We can make sin our very state of life

                                                             ii.      State = direction

                                                            iii.      Sin is a possibility, and its blessed alternative is God. This is what life is about. Choosing a direction

                                                           iv.      Fact to Act to Direction

8. Conclusion

                                                               i.      We cannot ignore it

5. Cosgrave
1. Personhood is more basic than sexuality

                                                               i.      Beyond sexuality is personhood

                                                             ii.      But we are both sexual and persons, not one before the other

2. Men and women differ sexually

                                                               i.      But are equal as persons/ in dignity (in the eyes of God)

3. Chastity: can be discussed without reference to couples/ romantic love

                                                               i.      Not merely control

                                                             ii.      Growing into the persons that we are

4. Sexuality: every fiber of who we are
5. Sexuality: NCDP

                                                               i.      Fundamental and essential dimension

                                                             ii.      Is for love (conjugal and celibate)

                                                            iii.      Relational power

                                                           iv.      Bodies as the temples of the holy spirit

                                                             v.      A challenge

6. Sexuality is social
7. Call of attraction is a call from within ourselves
8. Purposes: (one is not superior to the other)

                                                               i.      Facilitate and promote love between men and women

                                                             ii.      Procreation of children: integral, but not essential purpose of marriage

9. Gift: helps man loves women and thus promotes and others’ growth to maturity
10. Task: sustained effort to put it at the service of love in personal relationships with the opposite sex
11. Chaste person as the most truly human and loving

Notes from Readings (Online) abridged with Assigned Readings:

6. Three Source Theory   
1. Conscience uses moral norms to discern (CFC 711)

                                                               i.      Act

                                                             ii.      Intention

                                                            iii.      Circumstance

2. CFC 711:

                                                               i.      If act alone: forgetting the person engaged in the act and the context

                                                             ii.      If intention alone: forgets the objective nature of the (moral) act. Intention does not justify the act

                                                            iii.      If circumstances alone: forgets the objective nature of the nature AND all moral norms are forgotten

3. All three must be neutral/good to have an adequate moral decision

7. Patterns of Thinking in Moral Theology
1. Basic Principles of Moral Reasoning

                                                               i.      Freedom – capacity to choose with moral obligations; god is the author of moral, and thus it is not arbitrary; there, too, are objective laws that govern our world

                                                             ii.      Grace – God’s presence, which helps us choose good; through the holy spirit; works through human freedom as he works through human nature; can be rejected

                                                            iii.      Free Choices have Limitations – not all human behavior makes us authentically free (that which makes us more human); some acts are morally wrong

                                                           iv.      Law of Love – OT and NT finds love the foundation of morality (without love, just legalism)

1.      Two greatest commandments – central to God’s plan

2.      Openness to his love

3.      Our morality proposed to us by a loving god

4.      We are in love, made for love, creating as loving beings

5.      to be unloving is to be less of oneself

6.      God(love) shares his love by making us his children

2. The Human Good – we must freely and intelligently choose what is good (perfective); god wants us to flourish in what is really good. There is a good:

                                                               i.      Nature of Goodness

1.      Objective goods (divinely established set of values (as seen in the Love laws, beatitudes, 10 commandments)) and not just whatever a person likes

2.      Goodness from making moral choices

3.      Moral norms for choosing well

4.      Being moral is being good

5.      Morality is not just a set of rules but a demand to perfection

                                                             ii.      Nature of Evil

1.      Never a positive thing

2.      Refusal to let authentically freeing acts lead us to greater freedom, fullness of being

3.      Sex is not wrong, only if in the wrong context (right place, person, context, purpose)

                                                            iii.      Goods of Human Nature

1.      Truth, life, justice, love, holiness – not recognized merely by Christians

                                                           iv.      Goods of Human Communities

1.      Basic goods recognized between persons/communities

2.      Goods which make life (private/public) rich and meaningful

                                                             v.      Other Basic Goods

1.      Maslow

2.      Self-integration

3.      Goods perfective of other aspects of human nature: authenticity, integrity, firm adherence to a code of moral values, such that one is incorruptible, complete or undivided, or peace, truth, life

4.      Human good is not a specific finite goal but realized in actions of individuals and communities.

                                                           vi.      The Goodness of Pleasure

1.      Created by God (thus, it is good)

2.      There are good things not pleasurable

3.      Pleasure is not the basis for all motivation.

a.       justice even if not pleasurable.

b.      Not romantic love but love that wants the good of the other.

4.      One must pursue good without expecting pleasure in effort.

5.      Good actions can be pleasurable but not good.

6.      Pleasure is good but not the meaning of goodness.

7.      Actions not always pleasurable in proportion to their goodness.

8.      Activities intensely pleasurable can be destructive and immoral. 

9.      Goodness of action determined by character of action, not the accompaniment of pleasure or pain.

10.  Sexual act not immoral because pleasurable

3. From Human Good to Moral Norms – “So how do you love good things right and pursue them properly?”

                                                               i.       Making Good Moral Choices – Standards and procedures to arrive at judgment that a choice is morally good or bad.

1.      PJP II in Veritatis Splendor speaks of 2^nd tablet of X, those on loving neighbor.

2.      VS #13:  One must safeguard the good of the person by protecting his goods.

3.      VS # 80:  Some human acts are by very nature, intrinsically evil, based on the object/nature of the act, regardless of intention or circumstance.

4.      There are absolute moral norms, which means there are no exceptions.  It is such since we should not go against our human nature as images of God (undermine our dignity).

5.      PJP II’s universality of absolute norms against intrinsically evil acts (refers to all heinous acts CCC #1756) ; acts, which, by their very nature, contradict moral order  (blasphemy, perjury, murder)

                                                             ii.      Proportionalism

1.      Secular consequentialism by Catholic moral theologians

2.      Denies moral absolutes and intrinsically evil acts

3.      Emphasizes on proportion of good and evil in actions (uses principle of lesser evil and principle of greater good)

4.      Evaluate all the good and evil consequences of the act.  (Is it really possible to do that?)

5.      And when weighing the good and the bad, isn’t it just a rational justification? (Okay to abort if there are “very good reasons!”)

                                                            iii.      The Morality of Principles

1.      Natural law approach based on St. Thomas Aquinas – insists on truth and centrality of moral absolutes – universal applicability of specific moral norms

a.       No objectively good reason for violating these principles.  Of course, most moral norms have exceptions. (Ex.  keeping a promise, obeying the law)

2.      Moral absolutes are requirements of love.  Intelligent directives to live with requirements of love of neighbor and reverence for what’s really good.

3.      Human goods not just ideals but fulfillment of human persons (to be truly human)

4.      Morality of Principles protects what is most precious and valuable in human life; humanistic (pro-life)

5.      Basic principle is love commandment expressed in respecting entire human good

6.      Intrinsic evils can never have a “proportionate reason” for doing them

7.      Don’t do evil for good to come out of it.

8.      Moral absolutes necessary to protect basic human rights

9.      Every aspect of the act must be morally good or at least neutral – act, intention, circumstances, for the act to be good.

                                                           iv.      Good Deeds and Good Consequences

1.      Do good (only good actions)

2.      Responsibility for effects of actions but difference between what is intended and what is indirectly willed (permitting evil is not choosing it)

3.      The End does not justify the Means.

4.      While what we do makes us what we are, we also are what we do.

5.      Not all act-oriented, but recognize basic commitment (identity).  Still, choices lead to personal self-determination.

6.      Hard choices but choose the good ones that reflect that you love all that is good.

8. The Mystery of Sin
1. Salvation – way out, a way to freedom and salvation; finding meaning in life
2. Fact, Act, and Direction

                                                               i.      Scriptural Sin

1.      Idolatry – substituting God for some other reality

2.      Imagined self-sufficiency, when God sustains us every moment in our lives

3.      Reality of sin not connected to any particular act, but the meaning of the action and effect of the action on the relationship with God and men

                                                             ii.      contemporary view of sin

1.      Sin as a function of self-understanding as human person

a.       Original: from the beginning

b.      Origin is beyond us/our time: we are victims of sin, the pain is not our fault

2.      First man and woman introduced sin into the world. But we, too, do such. Even small deeds make everything worse

                                                            iii.      Direction – life of unfreedom; 4 dimensional since it is not static

3. Reality of sin: The Mystery of Its Wickedness

                                                               i.      We need salvation

1.      we are all sinners, yet we do not know the depth and power of sin; sinners nonetheless

2.      it is beyond knowing right from wrong. CFC #1799:  We need a Christian sense of sin vs. a guilt complex. We go deeper than ethics. We need to develop a Christian conscience. We realize Christ and the effect on our relationship with Him and others.

                                                             ii.      What Sin is

1.      beyond breaking the law/missing the mark

a.       Refusal of God’s love

b.      Saints know most about the wickedness of sin (detached), mystery, there is always more to know about it

c.        Freedom against God (CFC 770: PiusXII, loss of sense of sin)

                                                                                                                                       i.      Not following conscience

                                                                                                                                     ii.      Rejecting God’s love

                                                                                                                                    iii.      Becoming less of who we are

                                                            iii.      Contemporary View of Sin

1.      spiral: never-ending

2.      sickness: weakens us; infects the whole body

3.      compulsive and obsessive addiction

                                                           iv.      Degrees of Sin

1.      Venial – does not involve fundamental freedom – hurts

2.      Grave – not engaged in evil in a definitive way – damages

3.      Mortal – basic orientation engaged in evil – destroys

Degree of Sinfulness takes into consideration	Traditional	Contemporary View of Sin. Distinctions:
1.       Nature of the act (if grave matter)	Murder, rape, etc. (sins against the Ten Commandments) are considered objectively morally wrong in themselves. Murder is never morally right.  Neither is stealing, lying, etc.	Stealing P100 from beggar vs. P1,000 from rich man
2.      Intention (if full knowledge of the seriousness of the act)	Have awareness that act will have serious consequences but do it anyway	Evaluative knowledge:  How much is he aware and can grasp values?
3.      Circumstances (if full consent)	Made a full conscious choice (wasn’t forced/coerced)	Ex.  Nurse in Europe who has to assist in an abortion or she loses her job.

-         There must be distinction between the morality of an act and subjective culpability. What goes on in a person’s mind is left to God alone.

                                                             v.      Original sin (Sin as a Fact)

1.      Sinful situation

2.      Concupiscence – to sin even before one has thought of acting

                                                           vi.      Structures of Sin – sin is personal, but not private

1.      Personal sin

2.      Social sin – negative in the community

3.      Structural sin – existing structures that condition society harmfully, unjustly

4.      Amidst evil, there is grace. Holy spirit works within and through us, in structures and societies. Wherever there is truth/goodness, God is there through the holy spirit

4. Sin is three things, ordered thus: Fact to Act to Direction

9. A Christian View of Human Sexuality
1. Basic and essential good in the human nature of life (sexual/sexed beings)
2. Personhood is more basic than sexuality, but both are equal. One is more than one’s gender.
3. Men and women complement each other at all levels of their personalities, and need each other – we complete each other (insufficient alone, relationship-wise, and not just marriage-wise)
4. Conclusion:

                                                               i.      Sexuality is a process (not static; a task)

                                                             ii.      There is a social dimension to sexuality (recognition of laws about marriage)

                                                            iii.      Personal and social dimensions of sexuality complement each other

1.      sexuality urging us to go outside of ourselves towards women; relate to them personally, and not merely sexually

2.      love is more than sexuality, but all love is sexual; only sexual persons love (not just in the sense of intercourse)

3.      gift, task, challenge, blessing

5. Moral Criteria

                                                               i.      Sexual activity as

1.       generally loving,

2.      expressing truth about the love

3.      in the context of marriage

4.      open to procreation – within marriage

6. Chastity

                                                               i.      Moral attitude and ability to accept and appreciate one’s and other’s sexuality in all aspects

1.      appreciation – positive and balanced view

2.      integration – source of love in relationship with women

3.      control – discipline

7. Nuancing the article:

                                                               i.      Persons and sexual beings simultaneously

                                                             ii.      Sexuality is not just for romantic love

                                                            iii.      Challenge of sexuality is not discipline but becoming the persons that we are; growing into men and women

                                                           iv.      Procreation is just one aspect of sexuality. Sufficient, but not primary. Sexuality is for love. The focus is on the relational power

                                                             v.      Chastity is more than acceptance. It is appreciation.

                                                           vi.      NCDP 287: sexuality is the relational power through which we show understanding, openness, warmth to people of the opposite sex