Moral Theology
as Related to Spiritual Advancement
Few Catholic’s study moral theology, and it is not a problem. A working knowledge of it is already present in one’s soul. While not necessary, its study can only benefit one’s spiritual advancement. For the sake of reader interest, let’s get right to the heart of moral theology, which is the moral act itself. We will define and elaborate following.
The Three Elements of a Moral Act
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1750, “The morality of human acts depends on:
― The object chosen;
― the end in view or the intention
― The circumstances of the action.
The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the "sources," or constitutive elements, of the morality of human acts”.
The object is the thing that we do, or the tool which we grasp: praying, lying, moderation, patience. The means is another term for the object: speaking, looking, eating, working. The object describes what we are doing.
The end is the intended result. It is possible the actually result is not what we intended; but do we have complete control over what we intend. The end, is both our motive for acting, and the intended goal of our action. The end is why we do something.
The circumstances are all other components, including the surrounding circumstances of the action, and the reasonably estimated resultant circumstances, or simply the results. Circumstances are matters such as: who, what, where, when, proportion, extent of good or evil produced.{127}
For an act to be morally good, all willed components must be good. Any willed component that is bad, makes the entire action bad. There are no exceptions to this rule, but we shall see that bad elements that are not willed, may be allowed.
If we were to do some shifting of categories, it would not make any real difference. If we were to make “to kill” the object, and add the circumstances “an innocent person, deliberately”, we would have the act of murder, which is “to kill an innocent person, deliberately”. The willed circumstances make the act bad.
If we were to make “murder” the object, then the act is bad from the beginning and no other factors will make it good. Regardless of the categories that we place a moral element in, all must be good for the act to be good, and one bad element makes the entire act bad. An act is good only if all willed elements, (regardless) of classification or order are good.
In Catholic moral theology, the object is defined to the point of its real moral significance. If our speaking is really lying, then we use lying as the moral object, rather than speaking. The intended end of lying which is to communicate a falsehood, makes “lying” rather than “speaking” the object. Using different terms or even identifying additional elements in an act makes no real difference, whatever the terms, and in whatever category the elements are placed, they must all be good for the act to be good.
If instead of three elements in a moral act (as taught in the catechism), we define five; it would make no real difference, now all five elements of the moral act must be good for the moral act to be good. We might define the five elements as, (1) motive, (2) object or means, (3) intended result or goal, (4) all reasonably foreseen results, (5) circumstances.
These two new elements — motive and reasonably foreseen results — are not really new, they always existed and were simply folded into “circumstances” in the traditional three element explanation.
The commonly held idea that “the end justifies the means”, is incorrect. The end may propose the means, but the end in itself does not justify the means. It should be restated as, “a good end, object and circumstances justifies the act.” For an act to be good, all elements of the act must be good.
The idea that the end justifies the means, has one element of the moral act justifying another element. Catholic moral theology has the end (and all other elements of the moral act) being justified by objective morality itself, that is God. The three moral elements of an act do not justify each other; the act is justified by all elements of the act being good.
Another commonly stated moral axiom is “what is best, is right”. This idea occurs in every moral code, including Catholicism. But the true evaluation of what is best, and therefore right, must include the afterlife. In Catholic moral theology, “what is best”, is the reunion of the individual with God. Therefore anything that impedes this reunion cannot be the best course of action.{128}
Good and Evil
For our purposes we define “Good as that, which completely fulfills its intended purpose.” We might speak of a good dog, a good seam, a good decision or a good shot.
In Mk 10:18, Jesus teaches that “God alone is good”. Original sin has in some way damaged all of creation, leaving God alone as being good. If we were required to make morally perfect acts, it would be a crime to get out of bed. Virtually all of our actions are a mixture of good and evil. Evil may be allowable, but may never be intended.
Strictly speaking evil is anything less than perfection. Evil is good which is in some way lacking what it should have in its perfect form. In a moral act, if four of five willed components are good and one is evil, then the entire act is evil.
Evil may be of two varieties: ontological or moral. A morally good act may not be an ontologically good act. Ontology is the study of being, and an ontologically good act is good in all of its components, willed and unwilled.
To kill in self defense is a morally good or legitimate act, but it is not ontologically good act, because killing people in any form was not part of God’s original plan. Even a legitimate act of killing in self defense is somehow lacking in the whole goodness of the original plan and lacks ontological wholeness or goodness.
The Human Act
A human or moral act is: an act made or avoided, knowingly, rationally and freely.
An act made includes intentions whether carried out or not, goals set, emotions indulged in, acts of omission, and more. Acts of omission usually involve a failure to perform ones required or reasonable duty.
Knowingly includes: 1. a person’s knowledge of what is being done, and what will result; 2. a person’s knowledge that what is being done is right or wrong.
An action is the totality of all causes and all effects, both physical and spiritual. We will one day see this clearly, but for this life we are morally responsible for reasonably estimated results.
In Catholicism, reasonable ignorance of a law holds one blameless. Reasonable ignorance is the gaps that are not filled by reasonable knowledge. A Catholic is reasonably expected to know the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Very few Catholics are reasonably required to know the 500 doctrinal encyclicals issued in the past 2000 years. Such ignorance is a reasonable ignorance.
True ignorance of a moral law contained within one’s moral conscience is not the same thing as ignoring it or corrupting it by habitual misuse.
Rationally requires that the actor is able to exert substantial reason in his actions. In the moral realm this involves evaluating an action compared to a valid norm of behavior. Catholicism uses divine objective moral norms, and the laws of the Church, and custom as its standard of behavior.
Freely requires reasonable freedom to act or not act. We can easily list some impediments to a perfectly free act. Employees, soldiers and children are not fully free to do their own will. Circumstances, habit, illness all may degrade perfect freedom.
There are times when freedom is not required to make a willed or voluntary act. For instance a guard in a death camp is ordered to murder another person (under pain of his own death if he disobeys). The man happens to be in moral agreement with the murder, and willingly does it, even though he has no freedom to refuse.
Duress lessens responsibility or may remove it completely. A worker who donates to a good cause, under corporate pressure, does not act as meritoriously as someone who donates out of a sense of virtue.
At the extremes, duress which threatens life will likely remove the resultant act from the realm of moral action, because the element of reasonable free will is removed.{129}
Formal Cooperation with Evil, Material Cooperation with Evil
Formal cooperation with evil, is the willing and knowing commitment of an evil act, and it is never allowable.{130}
Material cooperation with evil is the unwilling assistance in committing the evil, and may be of two types:
Proximate material cooperation with evil is the unwilling, but knowing provision of an essential element in the evil act. It is a close, even though unwilling assistance of some type that makes the evil possible. There is likelihood that this type of material cooperation is not allowable, and the cooperator will incur venial or mortal sin.
Remote material cooperation with evil is the unwilling, but knowing provision of an non-essential element in the evil act. It is a remote, and unwilling assistance of some type that makes the evil possible. There is likelihood that this type of material cooperation is allowable, and no personal sin is incurred.
Evaluation of the allowability of material cooperation with evil is often not simple, or even certain. A package delivery carrier can be reasonably certain that sooner or later a package that he delivers to an abortion clinic will be essential to an abortion. He is considered a remote cooperator by reason of proportion, his job is not significantly dedicated to package delivery to an abortion clinic.
Reasonable knowledge of the evil of an act is a necessary element for culpability, in any circumstance or act.
Necessity or duress are certainly factors. A gun to the head makes most acts into non-moral acts, since the element of reasonable free-will is removed. Necessity of a paycheck lessens moral culpability, but it may require the worker to seek a more morally acceptable line of work. The illegitimate demands of one spouse upon another has a certain quality of duress because of the marriage.
Degree of evil is a factor. To give material cooperation in falsifying construction inspections at a nuclear power plant is a greater evil than falsifying a history test grade.
Moral support or denouncement after the fact makes a difference. It is also possible to be a passive material cooperator.
Our moral instincts tell us that a cashier with a gun to his head is blameless in giving money to someone not entitled to it. Here the cashier is making material cooperation with evil. If this same cashier were to knowingly accept a bribe to sell alcohol to an underage person, he would me making formal cooperation with evil, which is a morally evil act.
In theology, “formal” means ideal or spiritual, it refers to the idea or spirit behind the material being.{131} Of course a thing may have no material nature, and remains an idea or a spirit, with a formal nature but no material nature. ‘Formal’ is derived from the English translation of the ancient Greek idea of immaterial forms, or the spiritual framework of a being, (remember, being is anything that exists). If one desires evil, while sharing somehow in a good or evil act, then ones ideals and actions are the same, and the person has made formal operation with either good or evil. To make formal cooperation with good or evil, one must act alongside someone else (or something, like a written command); one must cooperate. Formal operation of evil is an individual act, formal cooperation with evil involves more than one person, who may not even be physically present.
‘Material’ refers to the physical act alone. In the case of the cashier handing over money under extreme duress, the act has little or no moral component, because the cashier has little or no reasonable free will in the matter. The cashier would be making material cooperation with evil.
It is virtually impossible to live life without at some point making material cooperation with evil, and it is not usually as dramatic as a gun held to our head. Commonly occurring situations are usually at work or in the family; a spouse who insists on the other using contraception is a common example. An employee who is expected to act immorally for the sake of profit or to keep the secret of a supervisor is a classic example.
Material or formal cooperation with evil involves two actions, (two people) producing one evil result. The principle of double effect described in the following section involves one action producing two (or more) effects, one good and one evil.
The Principle of Double Effect
The principle of double effect allows a good action to be made even though both good and bad results are reasonably foreseen. The following four conditions must be met before the action is made.
A textbook example of the principle of double effect would be a fighter pilot intercepting a high jacked airliner which is believed to be on a mission to crash itself into a large building containing a thousand or more people.
The pilot may shoot down the airliner (killing all its passengers), in order to prevent it from crashing into a building and killing hundreds of people…If warning messages, shots, promises and pleas fail; if the target building, or the many possible targets cannot be evacuated.
This decision must not be one in which “a hundred people are killed, in order to prevent the deaths of a thousand.” Such an proposal is not the use of the double effect principle, it would be deliberate murder of a hundred, to save a thousand.
The decision must be “to prevent the high jacked airliner from crashing into a target, (and killing the passengers is an unintended, but unavoidable double effect).” In this allowable decision, we are not swapping one life for ten lives; the death of the passengers and crew are not the goal or intention of the act. The only intention here is to stop the aircraft from hitting the building, and its destruction is morally allowable under the principle of double effect.{132}
Custom
Custom is the reason that use of tobacco is sinless, but use of marijuana is sinful. Custom is the reason that polygamy was allowed in the Old Testament, but not now. Custom is the reason that lying and deception may be morally legitimate in warfare, games or sports, but not in other areas of life. Custom may make the same action legal or illegal according to where and when it is practiced.
The Code of Canon Law, (available online), codifies the practical matters of Catholic doctrine. The theology of baptism appears in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but the requirements of who may administer it, and who may receive it is detailed in the Code of Canon Law. The topic of custom appears in canons 23-28.
In brief, custom may become religiously lawful behavior if existing for at least thirty years, and approved of by those who determine religious law, (Pope, council, local Bishop) Custom is also used to interpret existing laws, (Canon 27).
Let’s examine some of the customs mentioned. Tobacco is poisonous, addictive, and has no medical value, it’s use was customary long before any of this was known, tobacco use was allowed worldwide by religious authority. If tobacco use was an emerging custom today, it would not likely gain approval.
Marijuana is an emerging custom; it too is habit forming, poisonous, and has no essential medical value, like tobacco…yet its use is considered sinful by the Catholic church. Why the difference between essentially same products?
The reason is that Christianity is meant to be the final step in humanities union with God, not just another form of basic monotheism. Basic monotheism is largely a contract of justice between God and man; Christianity takes this further into a union and actual participation between God and man. This union is not advanced by further selfish acts of self stimulation, whether it be tobacco or marijuana.
If we are to examine any other past of current custom, we must not propagate it, or expand upon it, if it promotes selfishness, which is selfish stimulation is some form such as power or pleasure which has no origin or end in God. At the other end, any action which limits or denies God into our lives such as hoarding, pessimism or atheism must also be disallowed.
Such selfishness is the fundamental prohibition of the many varieties of sin and imperfection. The purpose of Christianity is not to provide an expanded smorgasbord of selfish options, but to eliminate self for the greater purpose of union with God.
Our last excursion into custom will be the custom of duty. In example, a single person, with no duty to the protection of others, may legitimately choose to suffer death rather than defend life. Those having a duty to defend life of others (even by taking life, police officers, parents), must use force, even deadly force to defend the life of others.
This situation is complex. A mother may go to the lions of the Roman arena with her infant child, but not necessarily with her child who has attained the age of reason (seven years), who does not wish to go.
A civic official must provide a police force for the safety of the public, this is his duty. This same civic official may opt not to resist an attack on his own life, out of moral or religious convictions.
Legitimate action and perfect action
Jesus tells us turn the other cheek if assaulted, the Church says that we may defend ourselves if assaulted. Are these two ideas in conflict? No, here Jesus describes the perfect response, while self defense is within the realm of legitimate action. This idea is presented in the “Teachings of the Apostles”, authored by the apostles in the first century, “If someone strikes your right cheek, turn to him the other also, and you shall be perfect.”, see appendix 3, “Didache”.
Many actions have a legitimate and a perfect form and recognizing which is which may not be easy. The father of a family may be required to oppose the assault in some way, while a monk is not.
Moral theology usually limits itself to the realm of legitimate action, mystical theology and especially the lives of the saints are good sources of information for those wishing to raise their actions and lives to perfection in any life circumstances.
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We now end our brief excursion into moral theology, having only touched upon the moral act, and its modifiers: material cooperation with evil, the principle of double effect and custom. {133}
Virgin Mary
Within Catholicism the Virgin Mary is too significant to be excluded in virtually any topic. Minimally, Mary is a great saint, and is active in the distribution of graces. Maximally, Mary is the human incarnation of the Holy Spirit, and therefore the mediatrix of all graces, including salvation, forgiveness, spiritual advancement and more.
In the early church there was very little dogma concerning Virgin Mary, and every extraordinary attribute of Mary was been debated before being settled. To date there are four approved Marian dogmas, with others being studied. In the following list, the first four are Church approved dogmas, the final three dogmas have been proposed.
1. Mother of God, or Theotokos, this dogma dates from the year 431. The dogma here is that Mary gave birth to Jesus Christ, who is fully man and fully God. This dogma does not mean that the origin of God is in Mary, it does not mean that God did not exist until Mary gave birth to Jesus. It means that her son, Jesus Christ was God in human form.
This dogma also occurs under the title, ‘Divine Motherhood’, with the additional meaning that both mother and child were divine. Jesus from his conception, and Mary at the moment of her marriage to the Holy Spirit at the annunciation.
2. Perpetual Virginity, Mary remained a virgin for her entire life. The question of a natural or miraculous birth for Jesus is not defined to the level of dogma. The Holy Spirit did impregnate Mary by miraculous means, and at this instant Mary took the Holy Spirit as her spouse. Mary remains faithful to the Holy Spirit and has never had marital relations with any other, not even her guardian-husband Joseph. Therefore when scripture speaks of ‘brothers and sisters’ of Jesus, it refers to cousins and extended family.
3. Immaculate Conception, Mary herself was conceived sinless, and remained free of sin and its effects for her entire life. Selfishness, sin, illness, death are all effects of sin, and never affected Mary. Mary grew to perfection at some age (33 years ?) and never suffered bodily corruption from aging. When Mary appears in an apparition, she looks the same as she did 2000 years ago; she is 2000 years old, but looks 30! The Mary we see now is not a Mary perfected by the resurrection, she never died.
We observe the difference between Jesus and Mary, both of who were born sinless. Jesus however, took on the sins of the apostles and the world when he made Eucharistic communion with them at the last supper. Mary never consumed the Eucharist because she would have shared in the sin of the apostles, as Jesus did.{134}
4. Assumption (1950), "Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory…”, (CCC 966). Sometimes a ‘dormition’ is proposed, which is a sort of sleep rather than death. Others believe that Mary was assumed into Heaven fully conscious.
5. Co-Redemtrix, this is a proposed dogma. The idea is that Virgin Mary is in some way a co-redeemer with Christ. Salvation, redemption or to use the Catholic term sanctification, has two parts: (1) forgiveness of sin, (2) incorporation into Christ. Christ (who is now the entire body of Christ) alone may make this incorporation, but anyone may make sin into virtue. Such a person might be thought of as a co-redeemer.
A person who makes the difference between salvation and condemnation by his actions and prayers must out of justice be termed a co-redeemer. Redemption involves two distinct events: 1. Remediation of sin into virtue, (no sin may exist in the human or divine natures of Christ); 2. Inclusion of the individual into the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus alone may make this inclusion, but anyone may remediate sin into virtue.
6. Mediatrix of all Graces, this is a proposed dogma. The Holy Spirit is the will of the Father united to the will of the Son, completely, permanently, eternally, divinely and Godly. When the Father or the Son wills something, the Holy Spirit is the one who delivers the grace, whether it be creating a universe, or responding to a prayer. Wherever God’s will is found, the Holy Spirit is necessarily present. When Jesus, an angel or a saint delivers a grace, God’s will is present and also the Holy Spirit.
The proposed dogma of “Mary the Mediatrix of all Graces”, has Virgin Mary delivering all graces to humanity and to all creation. This dogma would not preclude any other being from also delivering a grace, but Virgin Mary would in some way be decisively involved in every grace given. If Virgin Mary is the mediatrix of all graces, then our own spiritual advancement can only become more effective with her help.
This profound dogma was not constructed from thin air, Virgin Mary calls herself the “Mediatrix of all Graces” in many of her apparitions. The maximum understanding of this proposed dogma gives a sort of equality to the Holy Spirit and his spouse Virgin Mary, which leads us to the next proposed Marian dogma.
7. Incarnation of the Holy Spirit, this too is a proposed dogma, and would be by far the most significant. The ideas behind it are not well known, so several paragraphs are dedicated to it here.
The marital union between the human Mary and her spouse the Holy Spirit has been a subject for prayer and meditation for 2000 years, and many arrive at the conclusion that Mary is the (adopted) divine incarnation of the Holy Spirit.
The ideal for marriage, and the ideal that God can only pursue, is union of persons to the greatest possible extent. Human marriage has its limitations, and two persons can never fully become one in this life. When marriage is contracted by God however, it is an unlimited, total, perfect and permanent union of persons. Mary is the human incarnation of the Holy Spirit because of her unlimited, total, perfect and permanent union with the Holy Spirit.
In many gospel verses, Jesus speaks of a Heavenly wedding with he as the groom and the faithful as the bride. This wedding is far beyond the human understanding of a wedding. In this spiritual marriage, the two persons become one; we will literally become Christ, who is now all who constitute the body of Christ. So it is when the Holy Spirit makes marriage, Mary has become the human incarnation of the Holy Spirit.
Catholic doctrine regarding Mary as the human incarnation of the Holy Spirit occurs in pieces:
• Mary, like all others has an intended destiny of divinization, hers occurred in this life.
• Mary is acknowledged as having overflowing fullness of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
• Divine marriage is the total, permanent, and divine union of beings. Mary offered no obstacles to this total divine union. Virgin Mary is married only and forever to the Holy Spirit. Not the good Joseph, not even to Jesus in the Heavenly wedding that he speaks of. Jesus is our union to The Son of God; Mary is our union to the Holy Spirit. God the Father is the origin of all divinity.
When these pieces are assembled, what is arrived at