The proper orientation of the moral conscience
As his “secret core and his sanctuary”, the conscience is the most interior of man’s moral discernment.[1] It is there that man can know the truth, can discern good from evil, and judge his actions accordingly. In its orientation towards self-actualization through choice and action, the moral conscience is eschatologically ordered to man’s fulfilment. For as we read in Veritatis splendor, the conscience is a place of “dialogue of man with God, the author of the law, the primordial image and final end of man.”[2] As a place of encounter with God, the conscience confirms man in his capacity to know the truth and directs him to his end.
With this in mind, John Paul rightly differentiates the judgments of the upright conscience from the erroneous conscience: “It is never acceptable to confuse a ‘subjective’ error about moral good with the ‘objective’ truth rationally proposed to man in virtue of his end, or to make the moral value of an act performed with a true and correct conscience equivalent to the moral value of an act performed by following the judgment of an erroneous conscience.”[3] The upright conscience, (i.e., one conformed to the objective truth, and recognised as such), orientates man to what is good. The acts which it approves, therefore, are those judged fitting to his end. The erroneous conscience, on the other hand, fails man in this respect. It responds to a mutated voice. It is incapable of discerning the good, and sanctions acts that do not conform to man’s flourishing. Even if the erroneous conscience is “the result of invincible ignorance or a non-culpable error of judgment”, nonetheless its fruit “does not cease to be an evil, a disorder in relation to the truth about the good.”[4]
Even when an erroneous conscience chances on a good action, the act itself is deemed to be subjectively useless. In the words of Veritatis splendor, such an act “does not contribute to the moral growth of the person who performs it; it does not perfect him and it does not help to dispose him for the supreme good.”[5] In other words, such acts do not orientate man towards his eschatological end. However, when man wills and chooses the good as commended by the upright conscience and realised in action, he conforms himself to the image of God – witnessing to our creation and heralding our end. “This,” in the words of John Paul, “is the meaning of Jesus’ saying: ‘He who does what is true comes to the light’ (John 3:21).”[6]
Immanentizing of morality
Furthermore, when the eschatological dimension of truth is lost, morality is reduced to an immanent reality. Without a foundation in the eternal law, morality becomes detached from divine revelation and the natural law. Instead, it finds it locus solely within the capacity for human reason. John Paul responds to this tendency in Veritatis splendor:
Some people, however, disregarding the dependence of human reason on Divine Wisdom and the need, given the present state of fallen nature, for Divine Revelation as an effective means for knowing moral truths, even those of the natural order, have actually posited a complete sovereignty of reason in the domain of moral norms regarding the right ordering of life in this world. Such norms would constitute the boundaries for a merely ‘human’ morality; they would be the expression of a law which man in an autonomous manner lays down for himself and which has its source exclusively in human reason.[7]
Ratzinger reflects on this development in an essay delivered on the tenth anniversary of Veritatis splendor.[8] He considers how divine revelation, through Sacred Scripture, became alienated from moral theology in the post-conciliar period – an unhealthy development that John Paul responded to in the encyclical. While the pre-conciliar moral theology had typically focussed on a narrow foundation in Sacred Scripture in rules and commands, some post-conciliar attempts, after a brief attempt to draw more deeply on God’s word, ended up deeming Scripture to be unhelpful – limited by reliance on a historico-critical method that could not move beyond its own restrictive categories, and frustrated by a language that did not immediately speak to the modern world. As Ratzinger writes, the “Bible seemed too distant from the common way of thinking, unsuitable for public engagement.”[9] Accordingly, “while it was hoped that a renewed moral theology would go beyond the natural law system in order to recover a deeper biblical inspiration, it was precisely moral theology that ended by marginalizing Sacred Scripture even more completely than the pre-conciliar manualist tradition.”[10]
From this stance of alienation from divine revelation, the state of post-conciliar moral theology was further complicated by a retreat into rationality that was itself limited and antithetical to Christian faith. Modern philosophy, with its adoption of positivism and radical evolutionary theories, had obscured the origins of the world in creative reason and blunted man’s capacity to recognize a natural law. Creation and nature lost its “metaphysical transparency”[11], unable to discern moral principles inscribed in being. This radically changed morality at its source. “With the denial of the existence of principles inscribed in being, the possibility of recognizing the instrinsece bonum aut malum naturally also disappears. Nothing is intrinsically good or evil because everything depends on context and on the finalities that must be realized.”[12]
One of the manifestations of this retreat into rationality was a disconnection between God’s Word and human reason. As John Paul writes: “Some people, … disregarding the dependence of human reason on Divine Wisdom and the need, given the present state of fallen nature, for Divine Revelation as an effective means for knowing moral truths, even those of the natural order, have actually posited a complete sovereignty of reason in the domain of moral norms regarding the right ordering of life in this world.”[13] What resulted was a morality that was nominally Christian in its adoption of gospel ‘values’, but essentially rational in its ordering of life.
In their desire, however, to keep the moral life in a Christian context, certain moral theologians have introduced a sharp distinction, contrary to Catholic doctrine, between an ethical order, which would be human in origin and of value for this world alone, and an order of salvation, for which only certain intentions and interior attitudes regarding God and neighbour would be significant. This has then led to an actual denial that there exists, in Divine Revelation, a specific and determined moral content, universally valid and permanent. The word of God would be limited to proposing an exhortation, a generic paraenesis, which the autonomous reason alone would then have the task of completing with normative directives which are truly ‘objective’, that is, adapted to the concrete historical situation.[14]
Such an attitude not only denies a normative value to biblical ethics, but also creates a division within man: a division between the divine law and human reason. But, as John Paul insists, God’s law is not a heteronomy. It is not foreign to man, or imposed on him. Rather, it resonates with his very being, flowing from the same logos of God who speaks through His Word and resonates with the law implanted in man’s heart. It is not a heteronomy, but a theonomy – a participated theonomy – “since man’s free obedience to God’s law effectively implies that human reason and human will participate in God’s wisdom and providence.”[15]
A fruit of the disconnect (between revelation and reason, law and human freedom) is the ‘fundamental option’. This theory makes a distinction between a freedom that is fundamental (transcendental and athematic), and one that is particular. Fundamental freedom, “deeper than and different from freedom of choice”, is the locus of the fundamental option ‘for’ or ‘against’ God.[16] But due to its transcendental nature, it cannot be enacted or exhausted by particular choices or actions. A two-tiered morality is thus proposed: one that engages fundamental freedom and defines the person morally, and one that is realised at the level of particular choices, “which by their nature are partial”, cannot define “a person in his totality.”[17]
In response, Veritatis splendor does not deny the reality of a fundamental choice or option for God. In the Old Testament, God’s chosen people are identified in light of their covenant relationship with the Lord. They are formed by their “fundamental decision” to abide by God’s Law.[18] “The morality of the New Covenant is similarly dominated by the fundamental call of Jesus to follow him,” writes John Paul; “to this call the disciple must respond with a radical decision and choice.”[19] But this following of Christ is not generic. It is identified and realised in individual choices. It is reflected in Christ’s admonition to the young man to keep the commandments (Matthew 19:17). It is manifest in Christ’s amplification of the demands of the Law in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:17-48). It is emphasized in apostolic teaching, that qualifies Christian freedom as opposed to sin (see Galatians 5:13). “For freedom Christ has set us free,” exhorts the Apostle; “stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).
Instead of a separation between fundamental and particular freedom, John Paul insists on their integration. He insists that human acts “do not produce a change merely in the state of affairs outside of man but, to the extent that they are deliberate choices, they give moral definition to the very person who performs them, determining his profound spiritual traits.”[20] The fundamental choice that gives life its direction must be exercised and realised in particular choices. Correspondingly, the fundamental choice would be “revoked when man engages his freedom in conscious decisions to the contrary, with regard to morally grave matter.”[21]
Again, it is the insufficient concern for the eschatological orientation of morality that forms the basis of John Paul II’s critique: “the morality of human acts is not deduced only from one’s intention, orientation or fundamental option, understood as an intention devoid of a clearly determined binding content or as an intention with no corresponding positive effort to fulfil the different obligations of the moral life. Judgments about morality cannot be made without taking into consideration whether or not the deliberate choice of a specific kind of behaviour is in conformity with the dignity and integral vocation of the human person.”[22] The dignity of human action is dependent upon it relation to God, the only one who is good. Thus, Caffarra writes that “[t]he moral act par excellence … consists in adoring contemplation of the Father, from whom we receive, in the Son and through the Spirit, all good things.”[23] Or as John Paul defines: “Acting is morally good when the choices of freedom are in conformity with man’s true good and thus express the voluntary ordering of the person towards his ultimate end: God himself, the supreme good in whom man finds his full and perfect happiness.”[24] Those acts which, according to their moral nature, as defined primarily by its object, are incapable of being ordered to God as our end, will undo any fundamental option and cause an internal division within the person. Only by maintaining an eschatological orientation can individual acts be properly judged and chosen. Man is called to live with his mind set on heaven (cf. Colossians 3:2). If, as the Apostle says, the purpose of his life is ‘for the praise of God’s glory’ (cf. Ephesians 1:12), then man should always strive “to make each of his actions reflect the splendour of that glory.”[25] In underlying this eschatological orientation, Veritatis splendor defines morality precisely in these terms. “Activity is morally good when it attests to and expresses the voluntary ordering of the person to his ultimate end and the conformity of a concrete action with the human good as it is acknowledged in its truth by reason.”[26]
Teleology or teleologism
Returning to the state of post-conciliar moral theology, marked by the sovereignty of reason, another model was proposed – one rooted in a calculation of consequences. “In this way,” writes Ratzinger, “consequentialist ethics was born, whether we call it teleologism of proportionalism.”[27] Like other forms of immanentized moralities, consequentialism is marked by a loosening of the connection between moral norms (scriptural and dogmatic) and concrete action. It adopts the language of ‘pre-moral’ goods, which exist at the level of norms, which enter the sphere of morality only in choosing that ‘good’ through the calculation of consequences. As we read in Veritatis splendor: “The criteria for evaluating the moral rightness of an action are drawn from the weighing of the non-moral or pre-moral goods to be gained and the corresponding non-moral or pre-moral values to be respected. For some, concrete behaviour would be right or wrong according as whether or not it is capable of producing a better state of affairs for all concerned. Right conduct would be the one capable of ‘maximizing’ goods and ‘minimizing’ evils.”[28] While distinct from utilitarianism in its appeal to God as the end of morality, and legitimate in highlighting the significance of consequences for morality, John Paul nonetheless highlights the serious shortcomings of this approach in its “inadequate understanding of the object of moral action” as ordering the person towards his or her end.[29]
One might say that the telos of such ‘teleological’ moralities is myopic. They cannot adequately see beyond a calculation of immediate consequences. They do not locate the telos of action in God, nor indeed in the person who acts, but in outcomes external to the self. They cannot, therefore, sufficiently discern the moral species of an action, since, as John Paul writes, intentions and consequences are inadequate “for determining whether the choice of that concrete kind of behaviour is ‘according to its species’, or ‘in itself’, morally good or bad, licit or illicit.”[30] Rather, it is primarily the object of the act, as “a freely chosen kind of behaviour” that defines the species of the moral act and actor. “To the extent that it is in conformity with the order of reason, it is the cause of the goodness of the will; it perfects us morally, and disposes us to recognize our ultimate end in the perfect good, primordial love.”[31] Again we note that eschatological orientation is intrinsic to this definition. To reinforce the point, John Paul continues:
The reason why a good intention is not itself sufficient, but a correct choice of actions is also needed, is that the human act depends on its object, whether that object is capable or not of being ordered to God, to the One who ‘alone is good’, and thus brings about the perfection of the person. An act is therefore good if its object is in conformity with the good of the person with respect for the goods morally relevant for him. Christian ethics, which pays particular attention to the moral object, does not refuse to consider the inner ‘teleology’ of acting, inasmuch as it is directed to promoting the true good of the person; but it recognizes that it is really pursued only when the essential elements of human nature are respected. The human act, good according to its object, is also capable of being ordered to its ultimate end. That same act then attains its ultimate and decisive perfection when the will actually does order it to God through charity.[32]
According to Veritatis splendor, the ordering of acts to their ultimate end is grasped by reason, is the object of natural inclinations, and thus defined by the natural law and safeguarded by the commandments.[33] In the same mode, reason can rightly discern that acts which are incapable of being ordered to good are those that “radically contradict the good of the person made in his [God’s] image. These are the acts which, in the Church’s moral tradition, have been termed ‘intrinsically evil’ (intrinsece malum): they are such always and per se, in other words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances.”[34]
Conclusion
Within a series of essays published to mark the fifth anniversary of Veritatis splendor, J. A. DiNoia draws attention to the fortuity that John Paul promulgated the encyclical on the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, August 6, 1993, and argues that this date “provides a key to unlocking its meaning.”[35] Tradition notes that Christ’s transfiguration is not only a revelation of his glory, but also anticipates the end of man. In the context of an encyclical on morality, the connection with the Transfiguration thus emphasizes the end of man in beatitude, and underlines that “morality makes sense only within the perspective of the call to ultimate communion.”[36]
At a distance of more than thirty years since the promulgation of the encyclical, this orientation remains pertinent. Indeed, while Magisterial documents are temporally and culturally conditioned, there is something timeless about Veritatis splendor. Not only because it deals with Christian moral principles that are deeply rooted in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, but precisely (as argued in this paper) because its focus is transcendent. The genius of Veritatis splendor is precisely in its presentation of morality in an eschatological framework; of orienting man and his choices towards his end in God. In this perspective, it is a light of truth whose splendour is undimmed.
[1] Vatican Council II, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes (1965), no. 16.
[2] John Paul II, Encyclical Veritatis splendor (1993), no. 58. Emphasis added.
[3] Ibid., no. 63.
[4] Ibid., no. 63.
[5] Ibid., no. 63.
[6] Ibid., no. 64.
[7] Ibid., no. 36.
[8] Joseph Ratzinger, “The Renewal of Moral Theology: Perspectives of Vatican II and Veritatis splendor,” Communio 32 (2005): 357-368.
[9] Ibid., 359.
[10] Ibid., 361.
[11] Ibid., 363.
[12] Ibid., 364.
[13] John Paul II, Veritatis splendor, no. 36.
[14] Ibid., no. 37.
[15] Ibid., no. 41.
[16] Ibid., no. 65.
[17] Ibid., no. 65.
[18] Ibid., no. 66.
[19] Ibid., no. 66.
[20] Ibid., no. 71.
[21] Ibid., no. 67.
[22] Ibid., no. 67.
[23] Carlo Caffarra, Living in Christ: Fundamental Principles of Catholic Moral Teaching (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1987), 44.
[24] John Paul II, Veritatis splendor, no. 72.
[25] Ibid., no. 10.
[26] Ibid., no. 72.
[27] Ratzinger, “The Renewal of Moral Theology”, 364.
[28] John Paul II, Veritatis splendor, no. 74.
[29] Ibid., no. 74.
[30] Ibid., no. 77.
[31] Ibid., no. 78.
[32] Ibid., no. 78.
[33] Ibid., no. 79.
[34] Ibid., no. 80.
[35] J. A. DiNoia, “Veritatis splendor: Moral Life as Transfigured Life”, in Veritatis splendor and the Renewal of Moral Theology, ed. J. A. DiNoia and R. Cessario (Chicago: Midwest Theological Forum, 1999), 1.
[36] Ibid., 5.