An Introduction To Moral Theology, 2nd Edition. William May
Читать онлайн книгу.
dialogue of man with himself can never be adequately appreciated. But it is also a dialogue of man with God, the author of the law.… It can be said that conscience bears witness to man’s own rectitude or iniquity to man himself, but, together with this and indeed even beforehand, conscience is the witness of God himself, whose voice and judgment penetrate the depths of man’s soul, calling him fortiter et suaviter to obedience [no. 58].
John Paul II likewise insists that “it is always from the truth that the dignity of conscience derives” (ibid. no. 63).
Later in this chapter, after considering the reality of free choice and the role of virtue in the moral life, I will return to the subject of conscience in order to consider it more fully; and in the following chapter I will examine in depth the meaning of natural law as humankind’s participation in God’s divine and eternal law. Before considering free choice and the role of virtue in the moral life in this chapter, however, it is necessary to reflect on the third kind of dignity predicable of human persons.
This is the dignity we have as “children of God,” brothers and sisters of Jesus, members of the divine family. This kind of dignity is a purely gratuitous gift from God himself, who gives this to us when, through baptism, we are “re-generated” as God’s very own children and given the vocation to become holy, even as the heavenly Father is holy, and to be co-workers with Christ, his collaborators in redeeming the world. This dignity is a treasure entrusted to us, and we can lose it by freely choosing to do what is gravely evil. There is a close bond between this kind of dignity and the second kind of dignity proper to us as intelligent and free persons. This kind of dignity, our dignity as God’s very own children, will be developed at length in Chapter Six, “Christian Faith and Our Moral Life.”
I now will look more closely at the meaning of free choice, for it is by freely choosing to observe God’s law — his wise and loving plan for human existence — as this is made known to us that we acquire the dignity to which we are called as intelligent and free persons, and which is inextricably linked, as will be seen later, to our incomparable dignity as God’s children.
2. Free Choice
A central truth of Christian revelation is that human persons, created in the image and likeness of God, have the power of free choice. In order to create a being to whom he could give his own life, God created persons (angelic and human) who have the power to make or break their own lives by their own free choices. Persons are of themselves, sui iuris, i.e., in their own power or dominion. Their choices and actions are their own, not the choices and actions of others. If God’s offer of his own life and friendship is to be a gift, it must be freely received; it cannot be forced on another or settled by anything other than the free choices of the one who gives and the one who receives.
The truth that human persons have the capacity to determine their own lives through their own free choices is a matter of Catholic faith. It is central to the Scriptures, as the following passage from the book of Sirach, cited by the Fathers of Vatican II in Gaudium et spes (no. 17), shows:
Do not say, “Because of the Lord I left the right way”; / for he will not do what he hates. / Do not say, “It was he who led me astray”; / for he has no need of sinful man. / The Lord hates all abominations, / and they are not loved by those who fear him. / It was he who created man in the beginning, / and he left him in the power of his own inclination. / If you will, you can keep the commandments, / and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. / He has placed before you fire and water: / stretch out your hand for whichever you wish. / Before a man are life and death, and whichever he chooses will be given to him. / For great is the wisdom of the Lord; / he is mighty in power and sees everything; / his eyes are on those who fear him, / and he knows every deed of man. / He has not commanded any one to be ungodly, / and he has not given any one permission to sin [Sir 15:11-20].
The reality of free choice, so central to the biblical understanding of man, was clearly affirmed by Church Fathers such as Augustine7 and by all the great Scholastics. As St. Thomas put the matter, it is only through free choice that human persons are masters of their own actions and in this way beings made in the image and likeness of God.8 The great truth that human persons are free to choose what they are to do and, through their choices, to make themselves to be the persons that they are was solemnly defined by the Council of Trent.9 Vatican Council II stressed that the power of free choice “is an exceptional sign of the divine image within man” (Gaudium et spes, no. 17).
Germain Grisez, who, in collaboration with others, has authored an important work defending the reality of free choice against the attacks of contemporary determinist philosophers,10 rightly notes that free choice is an existential principle or source of morality. It is an existential principle of moral good and evil because moral good and evil depend for their being on the power of free choice. This is so because what we do is our doing and can be evil doing or its opposite only if we freely choose to do it.11 A dog or a cat or a chimp cannot be morally good or evil; human persons can, and they can because they have the power of free choice. It is through free choice that human persons make themselves to be the sort of persons that they are, that they make themselves to be morally good or morally bad persons. It is for this reason that free choice is an existential principle of morality.
Pope John Paul II also emphasizes the self-determining character of free choice, its significance as the existential principle of morality. Thus, he writes that “freedom is not only the choice for one or another particular action; it is also, within that choice, a decision about oneself and a setting of one’s own life for or against the Good, for or against the Truth, and ultimately, for or against God” (Veritatis splendor, no. 65).
Free choice is experienced when one is aware of a conflict. Different possible alternatives of action are present to one, but they cannot all be realized simultaneously. One deliberates about these possibilities, but deliberation cannot settle the matter. Deliberation cannot determine which of the alternatives promises unambiguously the greater good (although, as we shall see later, one can determine which alternatives are morally good and which are not), and it cannot do so precisely because each alternative, to be appealing and eligible as a possibility of choice, must promise participation in some good that is simply incommensurable with the good promised by other alternatives.
For example, if one is thinking about buying a house and wants a house (a) within a certain price category, (b) with four bedrooms and a family room, (c) within walking distance of church and school, and (d) proximate to good public transportation, and if one house out of four that are examined promises all these benefits (a, b, c, d), whereas none of the other three houses do so, then no choice is possible or even necessary, so long as one is still willing to buy a house fulfilling these conditions. Of the alternatives available, only one has all the benefits one is looking for; hence, the appeal of the other houses — what makes them alternatives of choice — simply disappears. They are no longer eligible or choosable because they promise no good that is not present in the house that has all the benefits one is looking for. But if one is in the market for buying a house, and indeed must buy a house, and none of the houses available has all the “goods” or benefits one wants, then one will have to make a choice from among those that offer some of these benefits; each of these houses is choosable because each offers some good or benefit incommensurable with the good or benefit offered by the other houses. And ultimately the matter is settled by the choice itself. As Grisez says: “One makes a choice when one faces practical alternatives, believes one can and must settle which to take, and takes one. The choice is free when choosing itself determines oneself to seek fulfillment in one possibility rather than another. Inasmuch as one determines oneself in this way, one is of oneself.”12
The experience of free choice can be summarized in the following way. First, a person is in a situation where he or she is attracted by alternative possibilities and there is no way to eliminate the incompatibility of the different alternatives or to limit the possibilities to only one. A person can do this or do that, but not both; they are real, i.e., choosable but incompatible possibilities. Second, the person realizes that it is up to him or her to settle the