Eschatologically awakened by Christ
In drawing out the moral implications of Christ’s meeting with the rich young man, Veritatis splendor underlines the importance of encounter. In this interpretation, man in all his complexity, including his awareness as a moral subject, comes to birth through encounter with Christ; through “a dialogue with Jesus.”[1] This, according to Ratzinger, is consistent with the renewal of moral theology envisaged by the Council; of “an ethics conceived not as a series of precepts but as the event of an encounter, of a love that then also knows how to create corresponding actions. If this event happens – a living encounter with a living person who is Christ – and this encounter stirs up love, it is from love that everything else flows.”[2] It is also of a piece with his vision of the Christian life itself, poignantly expressed in his first encyclical as Pope: “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”[3]
Livio Melina interprets this moment as an encounter “between the quest for happiness or blessed fulfillment, which dwells in the human heart and motivates every initiative of his freedom, and the person of Jesus, the one whose charm has awakened even in the young rich man the promise of an unexpected fulfillment of his own destiny.”[4] In keeping with Christ’s directing the young man’s question about the ‘good’ towards God, moral subjectivity, according to Melina, requires a standard of ‘goods’ that serves as a measure for man’s aspirations. However, he insists that “the promising experience of an ideal is not born in an individualistic isolation, but is anticipated in the interpersonal encounter of love.”[5] In speaking of an ‘original’ or ‘originating’ moral situation, Melina refers to those singular experiences that exist as “a foretaste or promise more primitive and greater” than one’s own will or that of others.[6] He illustrates this with the example of friendship, in which the original encounter “contains in itself the germ and hope of a fullness in the communion of persons”, even before any commitment is made. “It is as it were a call to us to transcend ourselves, to attain the good that is anticipated and promised.”[7] This original experience, this promise of fullness, is what allows one to recognize the ultimate Good found in each particular good, and to orientate one’s actions towards it. It is an appeal not only to reason, but to affectivity and desire.[8] “Thus, at the origin of our acting,” writes Melina, “is encountered the desire awakened by love in such wise that the will tends toward the realization of the promised fullness by means of the concrete act.”[9]
Melina speaks of the image of the Son as being one of beauty, and that in the encounter with Christ’s charm and beauty, “ethics is born of aesthetics, that is, of the fascinating encounter in which one perceives that the promise of blessed self-fulfilment is realized in a human way.”[10] Melina similarly writes that “[i]t is on account of the ‘attractiveness of the person of Jesus’, a promise intuited in his words and in his actions, that the question is reawakened with all of its openness.”[11] This corresponds with John Paul’s interpretation of the young man’s question to Jesus as conforming to the “aspiration at the heart of every human decision and action” that seeks “the absolute Good which attracts us and beckons us; it is the echo of a call from God who is the origin and goal of man’s life.”[12] Or of what Melina, following Aquinas, affirms that love, “provoked by beauty”, precedes desire (ST I-II, q. 25, a. 2: “amor praecedit desiderium”). Love has the nature of a promise and moves towards communion.[13] “Love is first of all the gift of a presence that affects the subject, promising rich fulfillment. In this way, love provokes the subject’s movement towards union, a union that is not only affective but real.”[14]
Christ speaks to the heart of man and calls him to perfection
Christ, as the radiation of the Divine love, appeals to every human heart. By his incarnation, and the revelation of God’s mystery, he also “fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear.”[15] Conformation to Christ, the foundation of the Christian moral life, is thus oriented towards man’s supreme calling which consists in communion with the life of the Blessed Trinity. It is in this context that John Paul asserts that “the decisive answer to every one of man’s questions, his religious and moral questions in particular, is given by Jesus Christ, or rather is Jesus Christ himself.”[16]
God’s revelation of Himself is Christ calls forth a response. Faith, which constitutes man’s response, is both informative and performative. It is a light which shines on our human nature and moves us to act. As we read in Veritatis splendor, “What man is and what he must do becomes clear as soon as God reveals himself.”[17] This is again evident in Christ’s encounter with the rich young man. Through that encounter, we grasp the conditions for the moral growth of man, who has been called to perfection.”[18] The call to perfection, the revelation of man’s ‘supreme calling’, movement towards eternal life – all point to the end of man, and becomes the eschatological lens through which he views the moral life. It has as its object God himself, “who alone is goodness, fullness of life, the final end of human activity, and perfect happiness.”[19]
Here, John Paul is in continuity with a long tradition that roots morality within happiness or beatitude. From Antiquity and into the Middle Ages questions of the moral life were considered in light of beatitude. As evidence of this approach, Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae begins its discourse on the moral life (which forms the whole of Book II) with a treatise on beatitude. However, as Servais Pinckaers has shown, this radically changed with the advent of Nominalism in the fourteenth century, in which the prevailing morality of ‘happiness’ was overrun by a morality of ‘obligation’.[20] The orientation of the moral life towards beatitude was substituted with a morality focussed on “the obligations imposed by law as the expression of the divine will.”[21]
Flowing from these distinct moral theories, Pinckaers further identifies two models of freedom: freedom for excellence, which arouses moralities of happiness and virtue, and the freedom of indifference, which is the basis of moralities of obligation.[22] While Pinckaers credits Aquinas with a notion of freedom as flowing from reason and will, “quickened by the inclinations to truth, goodness, and happiness”[23], William of Ockham placed freedom prior to all things. Stated plainly, “according to Aquinas, free will proceeds from reason and will; according to Ockham, free will precedes reason and will, like a first faculty.”[24] Ockham’s theory therefore severs any connection between reason and nature – the “built-in harmony between mind and nature.”[25] As Pinckaers notes, such a theory revolutionizes our understanding of the human person and action.
In particular, human nature finds itself disconnected from its roots in divine creation, such that only an exterior relationship to God through ‘law’ remains. As Pinckaers writes: “[M]oral systems of obligation or commands are by nature static; they fix limits and determine minimal requirements. On the other hand, the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is fundamentally dynamic; it is animated by a continuous tendency toward exceeding and surpassing, a tendency toward the progress and perfection of love in imitation of the Father’s goodness.”[26] In systems of obligation, morality becomes a choice between autonomy and heteronomy. “Either a moral system was autonomous, centred on the human person, and precisely on his freedom to claim radical independence in his choice of external things, or it was heteronomous and subjected his freedom, in one way or another, to a rule, a law, to alien obligations.”[27]
What is lacking in this approach is acknowledgment of the transforming power of encounter with Christ which opens up a new horizon for humanity. By severing action from man’s interiority, it neglects the effects of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which prompts man to live the New Law. Veritatis splendor renews morality in this truth. It wills to show forth “the inviting splendour of that truth which is Jesus Christ himself.”[28] “In him, who is the Truth (cf. John 14:6), man can understand fully and live perfectly, through his good actions, his vocation to freedom in obedience to the divine law summarized in the commandment of love of God and neighbour. And this is what takes place through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, of freedom and of love: in him we are enabled to interiorize the law, to receive it and to live it as the motivating force of true personal freedom: ‘the perfect law, the law of liberty’ (James 1:25).”[29] To this transformation, wrought be grace in the Holy Spirit, I will now turn.
Moral transformation made possible through grace
“We do not understand man when we ask only where he comes from. We understand him only when we also ask where he can go. Only from his height is his essence really illuminated.”[30] These words of Joseph Ratzinger, John Paul’s faithful collaborator during his long pontificate, echo the eschatological orientation of the moral life found in Veritatis splendor. John Paul echoes these words, placing them squarely within a Christological context, when he writes: “Only in the mystery of Christ’s Redemption do we discover the ‘concrete’ possibilities of man.”[31]
However, while man is fully revealed in his end, he must, with humble realism, acknowledge that the exalted nature of this end is beyond his natural capacities. His nature as creature, burdened further by the advent of sin, renders him dependent. With the realisation that God alone is good, “no human effort, not even the most rigorous observance of the commandments, succeeds in ‘fulfilling’ the Law. … This ‘fulfilment’ can come only from a gift of God: the offer of a share in the divine Goodness revealed and communicated in Jesus.”[32] This truth is dramatically expressed at the end of the gospel narrative of Christ’s encounter with the young man. When the young man goes away sad, Christ proclaims: “Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:23-4). The disciples are left bewildered and wondering. “Who then can be saved?” they ask. The Lord’s response rings through human history and forms the soul of the moral life: “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).
Man’s life ‘with God’ is realized through grace. Grace capacitates man to move towards his end in God. By the gift of grace, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the sentiments of Christ are engraved on the heart of the believer. This interior conformation to Christ makes of man, in the words of the Apostle, a ‘new creation’ (2 Corinthians 5:17); buried with Him in baptism, “so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). This transformation is the foundation of apostolic paraclesis – a type of urgent, fraternal exhortation that characterises much of New Testament morality.[33]
Thus, as John Paul notes in Veritatis splendor,the Christian moral life should be marked by this ‘newness’, and will be judged according to this standard. “In Jesus Christ and in his Spirit, the Christian is a ‘new creation’, a child of God; by his actions he shows his likeness or unlikeness to the image of the Son who is the first-born among many brethren (cf. Romans 8:29), he lives out his fidelity or infidelity to the gift of the Spirit, and he opens or closes himself to eternal life, to the communion of vision, love and happiness with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”[34] Man’s conformation to Christ through grace therefore exists as the source and standard of the Christian moral life. As its source, Christ bestows on the believer “the grace to share his own life and love and provides the strength to bear witness to that love in personal choices and actions (cf. John 13:34-35).”[35] As its standard, Christ is the model and measure to which all the actions of man are oriented. As the Apostle writes: “Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-4); and again: “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).
In light of the limitations of man’s nature, and the transcendent nature of his end, grace is not limited to the moment of conversion or Baptism. It accompanies the believer throughout life, conforming them to the figure of Christ. As John Paul relates, man’s orientation towards his end “is a still uncertain and fragile journey as long as we are on earth, but it is one made possible by grace, which enables us to possess the full freedom of the children of God (cf. Romans 8:21) and thus to live our moral life in a way worthy of our sublime vocation as ‘sons in the Son’.”[36]
(In the final section of this paper next month, I will consider how the eschatological focus of Veritatis splendor might serve as a hermeneutical key for understanding the more polemic parts of the encyclical, especially its response to questions of conscience, the immanentizing of moral theology and the so-called ‘teleological’ moralities.)
[1] Servais Pinckaers, “An Encyclical for the Future,” in Veritatis splendor and the Renewal of Moral Theology, eds. J. A. DiNoia and R. Cessario (Chicago: Midwest Theological Forum, 1999), 21.
[2] Joseph Ratzinger, “The Renewal of Moral Theology: Perspectives of Vatican II and Veritatis splendor,” Communio 32 (2005), 359.
[3] Benedict XVI, Encyclical Deus Caritas Est (2005), no. 1.
[4] Livio Melina, Sharing in Christ’s Virtues: For a Renewal of Moral Theology in Light of Veritatis splendor (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 27.
[5] Ibid., 24.
[6] Ibid., 41.
[7] Ibid., 41. He adds: “Moreover, the desire that moves one to act is not first of all the expression of a lack but is preceded by an initial gift that serves as a foretaste or promise of a dimly seen fullness. Desire finds it origin in love, and love its origin in an experience of particular fullness, in the promise of a personal communion, granted at the very dawn of the moral life.”
[8] Ibid., 44.
[9] Ibid., 42.
[10] Ibid., 28.
[11] Livio Melina, “Desire for Happiness and the Commandments in the First Chapter of Veritatis splendor,” in Veritatis splendor and the Renewal of Moral Theology, eds. J. A. DiNoia and R. Cessario (Chicago: Midwest Theological Forum, 1999), 152.
[12] John Paul II, Encyclical Veritatis splendor (1993), no. 7.
[13] Livio Melina, “Love: The Encounter with an Event,” in The Way of Love: Reflections on Pope Benedict XVI’s Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, eds. by L. Melina and C. A. Anderson (San Fransico:Ignatius Press, 2006), 18.
[14] Livio Melina, “Epiphany of Love: Morality, Cosmology, and Culture,” Communio 32 (2005), 251.
[15] Vatican Council II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et spes (1965), no. 22.
[16] John Paul II, Veritatis splendor, no. 2.
[17] Ibid., no. 10.
[18] Ibid., no. 17.
[19] Ibid., no. 9.
[20] Servais Pinckaers, Morality, The Catholic View (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001), 65.
[21] Ibid., 66.
[22] Ibid., 68.
[23] Ibid., 68.
[24] Servais Pinckaers, “Aquinas on Nature and the Supernatural,” in The Pinckaers Reader, Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology, eds. J. Berman and C. S. Titus (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 361.
[25] Louis Dupré, Passage to Modernity, An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 39.
[26] Servais Pinckaers, “Scripture and the Renewal of Moral Theology,” in The Pinckaers Reader, Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology, eds. J. Berkman and C. S. Titus (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 52.
[27] Servais Pinckaers, “Aquinas and Agency: Beyond Autonomy and Heteronomy?” in The Pinckaers Reader, Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology, eds. J. Berman and C. S. Titus (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 169.
[28] John Paul II, Veritatis splendor, no. 83.
[29] Ibid., no. 83.
[30] Joseph Ratzinger, Images of Hope: Meditations on Major Feasts, trans. J. Rock and G. Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 58-59.
[31] John Paul II, Veritatis splendor, no. 103.
[32] Ibid., no. 11.
[33] Pinckaers, “Scripture and the Renewal of Moral Theology,” 55.
[34] John Paul II, Veritatis splendor, no. 73.
[35] Ibid., no. 15.
[36] Ibid., no. 18.