| A SHORT COURSE ON MORALITY I. “Born To Be Free” Who wants to be happy? Who is happy? “I have no reason to get up in the morning”. “God alone satisfies” (St. Thomas). “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live” (Deut 30:19). Theology = Exitus & Redditus. Moral Theology & Dogmatic (Systematic) Theology. CCC: Life in Christ No. 1 = Choose what is good; avoid what is evil. “Be perfect (holy)” (Matt 5:48). Means = sacraments, prayer, virtues, gifts… Foundations: personal dignity & freedom, choices, emotions, conscience, virtue/vice. DIGNITY Dignity: personal & Christian (who we are and to what we are called). Heaven = the perfection the human person through union with God. H. = a free gift from God. Creature (divine image) & Child of God (divine grace). A spiritual and immortal soul (“willed for its own sake”). Reason (understanding) & Free Will (love). We can know God and His plan for us and, therefore, must obey. We desire good but we are weak & wounded (original sin) - internal division (disharmony). The merits of Christ’s death enable us to live the Christian life - No sin is inevitable. FREEDOM We are aware that we are free. * Praise and guilt. By freedom we shape our lives: Action – Habit – Character – Destiny (+ God’s grace, of course). Psychological Freedom (capacity to choose) & Moral Freedom (to choose what is good) The possibility of choosing evil. Freedom = responsibility/culpability (invincible ignorance – cf. traffic laws). Freedom factors: duress, fear, habit… Actions are of persons. “I am the one who acts”. “An effect can be tolerated without being willed by its agent; for instance, a mothers exhaustion from tending her sick child” (CCC 1737). Romans 3:8 - “And why not do evil that good may come?--as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just”. CCC 1738: “The right to the exercise of freedom, especially in moral and religious matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of the human person”. Our freedom is limited and fallible – (self-deception). CCC 1742: “Freedom and grace…the more docile we are to the promptings of grace, the more we grow in inner freedom”. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (1691-1748) 1691 "Christian, recognize your dignity and, now that you share in God's own nature, do not return to your former base condition by sinning. Remember who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Never forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of the Kingdom of God" (St. Leo the Great). 1700 The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God (article 1); it is fulfilled in his vocation to divine beatitude (article 2). It is essential to a human being freely to direct himself to this fulfillment (article 3). By his deliberate actions (article 4), the human person does, or does not, conform to the good promised by God and attested by moral conscience (article 5). Human beings make their own contribution to their interior growth; they make their whole sentient and spiritual lives into means of this growth (article 6). With the help of grace they grow in virtue (article 7), avoid sin, and if they sin they entrust themselves as did the prodigal son to the mercy of our Father in heaven (article 8). In this way they attain to the perfection of charity. ********************* |
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