For Christ's Sake. Bishop Geoffrey Robinson
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a true Christian morality in the beatitude, ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for what is right, for they shall be filled’, that is, blessed are those who desire all that is right and just and good, and who desire it with the same degree of intensity as a person dying of hunger desires food or a person dying of thirst desires water.
The beatitudes are not commandments, and we do not sin if we do not live up to their highest ideals, but it would be a total misunderstanding if anyone were to conclude that they are not, therefore, part of Christian morality. They are ideals rather than laws, but they are what has been called ‘prescriptive ideals’; that is, we do fail if we totally ignore the ideals and make not the slightest attempt to strive towards them.
Any adequate understanding of Christian morality must include these ideas and purposes. If we take them away, morality will lack cogency in our lives and could become as empty and formalistic as it was in the life of Rycker.
TAKING RESPONSIBILITY
As well as determining the goals we are seeking, we must also think about the means by which we will achieve those goals.
If rewards in an afterlife were our only purpose in performing right actions, it would be possible to believe that right actions might be adequate, in and of themselves alone, to achieve this goal. But if our purpose is to build a relationship with God and become all God wants us to be, then we must ask whether performing right actions is sufficient, in and of itself alone, to achieve this purpose.
Doing Right Things
Most certainly, doing right things and avoiding wrong ones is an essential part of growing to become all we are capable of being. We do not grow by doing things that harm other people or our own true good, even if we do them in good faith. E.g:
Imagine that, in the midst of a powerful history of communal or tribal hatreds, a certain person makes the decision that he should take part in the massacre of his perceived enemies and does so. In the words of the Second Vatican Council, I would be compelled to say that his very dignity lies in following his conscience, even when he is wrong. Despite this, I would have to add that his decision has hurt him. He has become a murderer, and for the rest of his life, whenever he looks in a mirror, that is what he will see. To make serious progress as a human being, he would need to recognise that his decision had been a morally wrong one, and he would need to do all he could to repair the damage he had caused.
Taking Responsibility for our Actions
Doing right things is, however, no more than a means to an end and it is not capable, in and of itself alone, of achieving the end. Morality is about growth as moral persons and for growth more is required than simply performing right actions, as the following examples will show.
As children grow, it is important that they learn right habits, but it is also important that they gradually learn to take responsibility for their own actions. If they learn wrong habits from their parents, or if they rebel against their parents and adopt wrong habits themselves, they will encounter problems. But if they do not learn to take responsibility for their own actions, obedience to parents will gradually become an obstacle rather than a help to their true growth as persons. A forty-year-old who cannot take responsibility, but must in all things still follow parents, is not an ideal for anyone. If this is true in all aspects of life, it is true also of moral life.
Years ago much marriage counselling was directive, that is, a couple presented their problem to the counsellor and the counsellor responded by indicating the best way to resolve the problem. All too often, however, the couple went away not fully convinced the solution would work—or even not wanting it to work—and tried the solution in a half-hearted way; when it consequently did not work, they blamed the counsellor. So counselling became non-directive, that is, the counsellor undertook the harder task of helping the couple to find their own solution to the problem, a solution they were both convinced of and committed to. Even if the solution the couple decided on was not the one the counsellor thought ideal, it was the best solution in the circumstances because the couple took responsibility for it.
Imagine that a person is faced with a moral choice, but it is a choice between two morally good things, with neither option involving a moral offence or harm to other persons. The person takes the matter seriously and goes through a very careful process of conscience, eventually choosing Option A. From heaven, five scholars and six saints have observed the process and agree that Option B would have been better. Granted that no moral offence or harm to others is involved, it may still be argued that the careful process of conscience and taking responsibility makes Option A better for this person, for it is the whole process, and in a particular way the taking of personal responsibility, that brings about the moral growth and goodness of the person.
There are persons who, because of fear or laziness, do not want to take personal responsibility for moral choices. They want either the Bible or Church authority or a charismatic leader or popular opinion or a peer group to take the responsibility for them, so that all that will be left to them is to follow this authority. This cannot be called ‘the very dignity’ of these persons, for they have not truly taken personal responsibility for their decisions and will not grow as they should. Mere obedience, to either religious authority or popular opinion, is not ‘the very dignity’ of a person.
Many moral decisions are easy, so it is easy to take responsibility for them. The more difficult the matter we are dealing with, the more difficult it will be to make the decision and take responsibility for it. But it is also true that, the more difficult the issue, the more we will grow through the process of taking true responsibility for our actions.
This need for personal responsibility is fully in agreement with Catholic teaching.
• ‘By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness.’15
• ‘Freedom makes us responsible for our acts to the extent that they are voluntary.’16
• ‘The right to the exercise of freedom, especially in moral and religious matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of the human person.’17
• ‘Conscience enables one to assume responsibility for the acts performed.’18
Thus it is important that we take personal responsibility for our decisions and it is also important that we get them right. We will not grow unless we take personal responsibility for our actions. But, even if we do take personal responsibility, we will still not grow if our decisions harm other people or our own true good; for growth, both of these elements are essential. Any adequate understanding of the meaning of the word ‘morality’ must, therefore, contain both elements.
MORAL CHOICES
Many times each day we make choices between right and wrong. Most of these choices are minor, though major choices sometimes present themselves. Through these choices we take responsibility for each of our actions. Then, through the sum total of all these choices, big and small, we gradually and imperceptibly begin to take personal responsibility for the moral direction of our entire lives and to determine our moral identity. Over a long period of time we gradually determine whether we are basically just or unjust persons, kind or unkind, truthful or untruthful, honest or dishonest, loving or selfish. We determine at which of the six levels of morality mentioned earlier we habitually act.
Virtues and Vices
Most of the actions we perform each day are the result of moral choices we made long ago and of the habits that were formed as a result of those choices, so that we do not need to think about the morality of the action each time we perform it. There are, of course, right habits and wrong habits. Rights habits are called virtues and wrong habits are called vices. A person possessing the virtue of justice will, from long practice, instinctively react justly in every new situation. A person possessing the vice of injustice will, from equally long practice, instinctively seek an advantage over others without caring whether they might be hurt. A truly moral person is one who has worked so hard and long at forming good habits (virtues) that things