What is Moral Theology? And what are the sources of Moral Theology? Discuss the Historical Development of the Catholic Moral Theology.

What is Moral Theology? And what are the sources of Moral Theology? Discuss the Historical Development of the Catholic Moral Theology.

Moral Theology is a branch of Theology. First, it is Moral, in that it deals with the behavioural pattern of every human being, not just Catholics and Christians; thus, it necessarily goes beyond the boundaries of the Church and involves all aspects of human behaviour. Secondly, it is theological, meaning, a reflection on revelation; though it aims to speak to all, including those outside the family of the faith. It must be truly theological and must never collapse into a mere secular ethics. Hence, Moral Theology is the part of theology that judges and directs human acts towards the supernatural end under the guidance of revelation. It therefore studies man’s way to God in the light of what God himself has revealed about man. Just as moral philosophy treats the rightness or wrongness of actions, so also, moral theology considers the rightness or wrongness of actions in theology, but unlike philosophy, it does this from the perspective of faith. As opposed to simple ethics, it is about the transformation of the human person into the image of Christ through grace.

 Ethics asks the question “what must I do?” the emphasis being on human action. How can I act well and avoid acting badly? This is the question asked by ethics. Moral theology, however, must beware of falling into the heresy that human action can of itself change the world. Only grace can do this and openness to the action of the spirit. Rather than asking “what must I do?” a proper moral theology should ask “what has God done for me in Christ?” Once again, moral theology is proposing a vision of the human being as one called into communion by God and called to be transformed into his image and likeness. It includes everything relating to man’s free actions and the last or supreme ends to be attained through them. It is a practical science whose subject matter is Man as a free agent under the guidance of revelation.

b. Sources of Moral Theology.

1. Biblical Foundations of Morality: This is a moral or ethical textbook

i. Old Testament: In the Covenant and Law, a solemn agreement of personal relationship is set up between God and Israel. God chooses Israel, but now, they must obey him. Their morality is covenant morality. They come to live like God by living by the law. They also have the Ten Commandments as that which God wants his people to be. The people stopped living by the covenant and became morally corrupt. This led to a religious formalism and dead rituals. The prophets said religious practice is only sincere if it is in conjunction with right conduct. Also, wisdom literature provided prudent and practical advice to guide one’s behavior. 

ii. New Testament (The Teachings of Jesus): Jesus’ teachings and deeds show the truth about moral actions. He makes known to us, God’s plan for salvation. He announces the kingdom of God showing us that God wants to give us a share of his divine life. The kingdom is God’s plan for the human race. Jesus also called to repentance and conversion. The Sermon on the Mount tells us that of the Christian personality, from its innermost depths to external actions and the concrete problems they entail. It is this faith that joins the believer with the person of Christ, thereby uniting us very intimately with the love of God.

2. Sacred Tradition: Sacred Tradition constitutes the second source of Christian Morality. The word tradition comes from the Latin “tradere” which means “to hand on” and refers to those truths passed from generation to generation. Tradition is the very life of the Church which preserves and guards the teachings of Jesus Christ. The writings of the Church Fathers (II-VII centuries), which systemize moral doctrine and applied the New Testament teachings to different times, are important parts of tradition as it is the teaching, life and worship practices of the Church.

3. The Magisterium: The magisterium is the name given to the Church’s teaching office. It is derived from the Latin word “magister” which means “teacher” and refers to the authority of the pope and the bishops united with him in teaching matters of faith and morals. This teaching is not above the word of God, but rather, serves it. According to the encyclical of Pope Johnpaul II, Veritatis Splendor, the magisterium carries out the important work of vigilance, warning the faithful of the presence of possible errors, even merely implicit ones, when their consciences fail to acknowledge the correctness and the truth of moral norms, which she teaches.

4. Ancillary Sciences

a.       Philosophical ethics

b.      Human sciences, anthropology, biology, psychology

c.       Social sciences.

c. Historical Development of Catholic Moral Theology.

Moral Theology started as a branch of theology not because there was disagreement between Christians about its content, but disagreement about its application. The first text books on morals known as “Manuals” (From the latin, manuales) were designed to help confessors determine the gravity of sins and the appropriate penances, and to establish a uniform approach across the whole Church in its administration of the sacrament of Penance.

Following the opening of seminaries after the Council of Trent with the formalization of priestly training in the late sixteenth century, moral theology was taught by the same professor, usually who taught Canon Law, and the idea remained the same (to help confessors, and to determine the “weight” of various sins). On top of this, moralist and canonists, frequently the same people, began to consider the difficult cases that the confessors referred to them, and from these cases, often considered in the abstract, they developed various schools of thought such as probabilism (that one can follow a solidly probable opinion in favour of liberty even though the opposing view is more probable), probabiliorism (one may choose between two opinions when neither is certain, but you have to choose the more probable option) and equiprobabilism, (the system where two courses of action seem equally probable, and you can choose whichever of the two you prefer) all of which were methods of decision-making that avoided sinful action.

These systems did not please everybody. To some, these appeared as excuses for getting round the rules. Those in this group subscribe to what is known as Rigorism (the belief that the law must be interpreted in the strictest manner possible in favour of the law, not the person). Whereas their opponents were in turn dubbed exponents of Laxism (the belief that moral rules were not really binding).

Controversies reigned about what was allowed and what was not. The focus was always on the law and not on the person. Case histories where published, all of which were legalistic and sin-oriented, all weighing up various opinions in fictional or real cases which dealt with duties, and whether people were bound or not. This casuistry, as it was called, concentrated on the minimum requirement that needed to fulfil the law. It was attacked by Protestants and by many Catholics too as being legalistic and out of touch with the Gospel of Christ.

All these ignored many positive things in the Catholic tradition to which theologians were recalled by various movements in the Church which culminated with Vatican II. Chief among these was St. Thomas Aquinas’s work contained in the Summa Theologiae. Pope Leo XIII called the Church to the study of the Summa in the original with his encyclical Aeterni Patris in 1879. Since then, most Catholic moral theologians have been neo-Thomists of one sort or another, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church takes a Thomist approach in the section on moral theology.