Key Concepts
Love: For Christian Morality this is the pre-eminent principal. In Greek there are three and another Latin word for Love, sexus, eros, philios, agape.
sexus: I believe from the Latin, the biological reality of the conjugal act
eros: erotic would be an english derivative. This is the physical attraction to all that is beautiful.
philios: Philadelphia is known as the City of Brotherly Love, this word expresses the love that is shared between family. A true deep affection.
agape: is the love that Jesus refers to when he talks about no greater "love" does anyone have than to lay down one's life for a friend. It is this kind of love that motivates true and legitimate moral behavior.
All these aspects of love are good and holy when exercised in the proper context.
Freedom The human person is made in the image and likeness of God. Freedom in moral decision making in the Catholic context is never understood to mean "license". In other words freedom, true freedom is be who God created us to be, to choose to be like God, Jesus Christ. It can never mean freedom to be or do what ever we want. In lighter terms, I am not free to become a bunny rabbit, no matter how much I would like to be. I am not "free" to do that.
Ontology The study of the essence of things, in scholastic terms the study of both the form (whatness) and matter (material, rock, glass, steel, elements) of things or persons.
Evil has no material existence (no ontology, it is a reality, but has no material existence). God created all things of substance, since God cannot be the source of evil, evil can have no material existence. Evil is a privation, in other words something that lacks fullness. For example the devil, is believed to be a fallen angel, insofar as the devil is a creature of God, the devil has a quality of goodness, unfortunately the devil had chosen not to exercise his freedom to be what God intended him to be, so he chose darkness rather than light, perversion rather than order. The devil, other than the fact he was a creature created by God, enslaved himself to privation and nothingness.
Conscience This is the sole guide for determining the moral imputability of the agent. The Church places the responsibility on the person to form his or her conscience in a way that is amenable to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In other words it is difficult to know if there is such a thing as invincible ignorance. Historically could Hitler have been following a well formed conscience? Could a rapist? Or possible a doctor who performs abortions because of the lucrative profit? Only God can ultimate judge, for God can read the heart. It is the human person's responsibility to form his or her conscience in such a way that both Love (sacrificial - willingness to lay down one's life for another) for God and Love for neighbor is seen as the ultimate goal. This is challenging, but its rewards are out of this world! (heaven!)
Anthropology This is the study of the human person. For Catholicism, humanity is good, because it was created by God, and redeemed by Christ. To be "only human" is to realize our full potential in Christ. This is fundamental in trying to understand Church documents when the documents calls for a "humanization" of society. That is to say that the Church calls for a Christization, (becoming like Christ's humanity). Often times people associate the human as merely a beast among beasts, this cannot be the case with a Christian Morality. The human person is different from the beasts because of his or her capacity to think or reason and his or her capacity to love.
Principal of Double Effect This was a traditional development of the process of moral decision making when there seemed to be evil as the result of actions that were not necessarily moral or immoral. In the determination of a moral or licit act:
1) The action (deed) in and of itself was good, or at least not bad.
2) If as a secondary result, some evil occurred, (circumstance) it must be in due proportion to the evil that would have resulted if some action had not occurred.
3) The direct or immediate result (motive) of the action could not result in something evil.
The standard example would be an ectopic pregnancy (when a child has attached itself to the fallopian tube instead of the uterus. The child has no chance of survival, so by applying the principal of double effect it is allowable to remove the fallopian tube. The removal of the fallopian tube is not the direct killing of a human being, but rather the person's death is a secondary result of the removal of the tube.
Sin Ultimately is some concrete action done with explicit intention which alienates one from God. Sin's result is alienation. Traditionally the Catholic Church has broken down a discussion of sin into two categories, Deadly or Mortal sin (see 1 John 5:16-17), which is truly sin that severs one's relationship with God, and Venial Sin which is not "sin" in the strict sense of the term. Venial sin does not sever one's relationship with God. Thomas Aquinas saw venial sin as sin only by analogy.
In the Manual Tradition there were four criteria to help one discern the gravity of action, Namely:
1) Grave Matter, objectively was the action intrinsically wrong or disordered?
2) Serious Reflection, did the agent (person acting), knowing the gravity of the action, consider it, and reflect on the results?
3) Full consent of the Will, did the person without force, but freely give him or herself over to the action without inhibition?
4) Did one after these considerations do the action or have every intention of doing the action?
If all of these criteria were fulfilled, then one could be certain that their soul was in mortal danger, that they had chosen a creature or thing (a person, money, power, career, lust) and placed it above God and His Goodness. On the other hand if any of the last three things were lacking, personal imputability was mitigated. In other words the person's own responsibility before the judgement throne of God may not merit eternal damnation.
Some contemporary authors seem to take issue with this approach because they believe that it is impossible to know or make judgements about actions distinct from a personal agent and circumstance. Unfortunately the moral theologians, often times seem to argue viciously with one another, and it seems unfortunate that a discipline that is fundamentally motivated by love often appears to lack such charity in their scholarly debates.
In my own mind the fundamental battleground is over one's (sorry for the big word) epistemology, that is to say the way they understand reality is fundamental different. At the risk of painting with very broad strokes the proportionalists or consequentialist school operates from and existential philosophical framework. Existentialism seems to believe (their faith) that reality is ultimately inaccessible. In other words, meaning can only be derived by the intention of the human person, hence it is impossible to make judgements about a specific action distinct from a person acting in a particular context and situation. This is a philosophical development which more or less began with Rene Descartes around the 16th century, and culminated into the philosophy of Nietzsche which significantly influenced the rise of National Socialism.1 One of Nietzsche's books, Beyond Good and Evil, argues that truth is merely convention, in other words truth is that which the human person defines.
Traditional Catholic philosophical foundations are a radical realism. In other words the human person cannot define reality. The human person's intention has nothing to do with the reality. If the human person never was, the truth would not be affected. The virtue of humility lies in the human person's ability to recognize that he is not master of the universe, but rather God has created all things and established an ordered universe. The human person is to discover meaning rather than impart it. The scriptural support for such a position is clear; it was God, not the human person who said, "Let there be Light and there was light". It is God's word that governs reality and truth, not the human person's. That is why the ten commandments take on a special significance, for they are believed to be God's word. This perspective runs counter to some of the contemporary arguments that suggest that sin is somehow only derived from a persons transgressions against neighbor. (an infliction of "ontic" evil). One can transgress God, by putting objects or things before Him, or by not holding God's Sacred Name in respect, or not fulfilling one's obligation to give worship and praise to God. It is on these principals that the Church teaches that one has a serious obligation to attend Mass on every Sunday and Holy day, and why there are guidelines for fasting and abstinence in lent and on all Fridays for Catholics.
The human person's intention does however affect there personal responsibility for a specific action, but does not affect the quality of that action. The Catholic Church believes that actions can be judged distinct from the situation and circumstance, however because of a persons ignorance or lack of insight they may not be culpable or responsible for the action which they have done. Two examples:
There was a little boy who had a plant that someone had given him. He had asked some people that he trusted, "how can I best care for this plant". They were uncertain, but they believed in good faith that if one poured oil on the plant one would be well served in caring for the plant. The boy followed their instructions. The plant soon died.
I admit this is much more simplistic than moral actions, but I think it can illustrate a point. If we are open to concrete experience we must recognize that nature has intrinsic immutable qualities that are not contingent upon our own perceptions of those qualities. For example the little boy, and those who told the little boy what to do, were acting in good faith. Good faith did not preserve the integrity of the plant, though it did mitigate the blameworthiness of the boy's act of pouring oil on the plant. This act, distinct from any agent, would have been equally destructive. One might go so far to say that it has an intrinsically destructive or evil character to it. It may be unfair to assume that our experience concerning the created order is applicable in the moral realm, but it would not seem to be altogether unreasonable. Let me reflect further, only this time with a moral example:
Susie is sixteen years old, she is pregnant. Her boyfriend encourages her to have an abortion. Her parents also encourage her to have an abortion and they even offer to give her the money for the abortion and will to drive her to the clinic. She watches the news and sees that abortion is merely a choice, a choice by right she believes in good faith she has. She has the abortion.
Susie could hardly be held morally accountable for her action. However I would argue that she is still damaged as a human person because of the transgression against the real and the good, in this case, the intrinsic dignity of the human person, not only the person whose life was lost, but Susie's own self as well. One could dispute whether or not real damage was experienced by her, but I would maintain that there is concrete evidence which supports that psychological damage results as the consequence of procuring an abortion. I am referring to the difficulties that often times surface only years later. We could also speculate about other spiritual damage which may be experienced. I believe that those things which are "sinful", in the less restricted sense of the term,1 damage who we are as human persons. A straining of our relationship with God occurs, and our ability of perception is obscured. These observations are only based on my own experience, but nonetheless I believe them to be quite plausible and reliable.
