An Introduction To Moral Theology, 2nd Edition. William May
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the impact of John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis splendor — I considered dropping the chapter on moral absolutes (Chapter Three of the 1994 edition and Chapter Four of this edition), insofar as the Holy Father’s encyclical provided an incisive and authoritative critique and rejection of “consequentialist” and “proportionalist” approaches to making moral judgments and their denial of moral absolutes. However, theologians holding the views repudiated in Veritatis splendor uniformly (and erroneously) claim (as will be seen in the text of the chapter devoted to this encyclical included here) that their ideas were not those repudiated by John Paul II but rather their “caricature.” Moreover, they continue to deny that there are any moral absolutes in the sense understood by the magisterium of the Church. They are, in short, still setting forth the positions rejected by John Paul II and adamantly deny that specific moral norms expressed in non-morally evaluative language, such as the one absolutely forbidding the intentional killing of the innocent, can be absolutely binding, with no exceptions. It is thus still imperative to present their views accurately and show precisely why they are wrong and likewise, in discussing John Paul II’s encyclical on the moral life, to show how seriously they have misrepresented what he said. I have thus retained the chapter on moral absolutes and, in revising the chapter on the encyclical, showed how revisionist theologians have grossly distorted its teaching.
In the 1994 edition, the chapter dealing with the moral teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church was written before the French text had been translated into English. Consequently, I had made my own translation from the French text, and it differed in places from the officially approved English translation published late in 1994. In 1997, the official Latin text of the Catechism was published, and subsequently minor errors in the French text and in vernacular editions based on it were corrected. I have thus revised the chapter summarizing the Catechism’s teaching on the moral life, making use of the official English translation as amended in light of the official Latin text. However, since my treatment of the Catechism’s presentation of the moral life is intended primarily to offer an overview of the Catechism’s teaching and not a theological analysis thereof, I have decided to place this material, with its revisions, in an appendix.
I have also revised the chapter devoted to Pope John Paul’s encyclical Veritatis splendor by incorporating into my presentation elements of the very helpful commentary on the encyclical prepared by the Italian theologian Dionigi Tettamanzi, now the cardinal archbishop of Milan. In that chapter, I have also answered some of the major objections to the teaching of John Paul II made by dissenting theologians. Since John Paul II’s encyclical is concerned in depth with some of the major issues taken up in this book, and since in presenting his teaching I have sought to provide a theological analysis and defense of it, I have kept it as a formal chapter of this book.
Thus, the present volume includes the following chapters: (One) “Moral Theology: Its Nature, Purpose, and Biblical Foundation”; (Two) “Human Dignity, Free Human Action, Virtue, and Conscience”; (Three) “The Natural Law and Moral Life”; (Four) “Moral Absolutes” (along with two appendices, “St. Thomas and Moral Absolutes” and “Pope John Paul II and Moral Absolutes”); (Five) “Sin and the Moral Life”; (Six) “Christian Faith and Our Moral Life”; (Seven) “The Church as Moral Teacher”; (Eight) “Christian Moral Life and John Paul II’s Encyclical Veritatis Splendor”; and an appendix, “Christian Moral Life and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”
In Chapter Four, I have adapted and revised material originally published in my 1989 Pere Marquette Lecture in Theology, Moral Absolutes: Catholic Tradition, Current Trends, and the Truth (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1989). Chapter Five incorporates material first published in my article entitled “Sin,” which appeared in the New Dictionary of Theology, edited by Joseph Komanchak and others (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1987). Permission to use this material is gratefully acknowledged.
I want to take note of important English works on moral theology:
• In my own opinion, the most important post-Vatican II work in English in the field of moral theology is that of Germain Grisez. His multivolume work, The Way of the Lord Jesus, now embraces three very large volumes (each around a thousand pages): Volume 1, Christian Moral Principles, on which I was privileged to help him to some extent, was published in 1983 by Franciscan Herald Press of Chicago. That press is now defunct, but all three volumes are now published by the Franciscan Press of Quincy University, Quincy, Illinois. Christian Moral Principles deals with issues of fundamental moral theology and is most relevant to matters taken up in this book. A summary, prepared by Grisez and Russell Shaw, was published under the title Fulfillment in Christ by Notre Dame University Press in 1991. Grisez’s Volume 2, Living a Christian Life, was published in 1993. It considers specific moral issues of concern to all Christians, lay or clergy, and takes up responsibilities pertaining to faith, hope, love, penance and reconciliation, prudence, justice and mercy, equal dignity and communication, human life and health (the chapter is a small treatise in bioethics), marriage and sexual ethics (another chapter of book length and superb quality), subhuman nature and work, and civic life. Volume 3, Difficult Moral Questions, was published in 2000, and contains detailed analyses of two hundred specific questions faced by lay Catholics in living out their vocation to holiness. A fourth volume, concerned with responsibilities pertaining to clerical and consecrated life and service, is in preparation but will not be published until about 2008.
• In 1995, The Catholic University of America Press published an English translation, entitled The Sources of Christian Ethics, of the Dominican theologian Servais Pinckaers’s well-respected Les Sources de la Morale Chrètienne, originally published in French in 1985. Père Pinckaers’s work has three major parts. In the first, he discusses the nature of moral theology and the meaning of the Christian moral life as presented by St. Paul, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas. Part Two provides an enlightening and comprehensive history of moral theology, and Part Three considers in depth Aquinas’s understanding of human freedom and natural law. Pinckaers’s book is very useful and excellent; I believe, however, that his treatment of St. Thomas’s thought on natural law in Part Three is in many ways inadequate and is the weakest part of the book.
• Benedict Ashley, O.P., a very erudite Dominican theologian, published his Living the Truth in Love: A Biblical Introduction to Moral Theology in 1996 (Staten Island, NY: Alba House). Ashley’s work not only covers issues in fundamental moral theology but also offers overviews of Catholic sexual ethics, bioethics, and social ethics. As a result, it provides a panoramic view of the Catholic moral life but lacks the depth needed for an adequate treatment of many of the matters addressed. Although subtitled “A Biblical Introduction to Moral Theology,” it is in essence a presentation of moral theology according to the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, and the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude — in essence the schema adopted by St. Thomas. Ashley cleverly introduces the virtues via the biblical account of them. His book is useful and fully in accord with magisterial teaching.
• Romanus Cessario, O.P., has recently published An Introduction to Moral Theology, the first of a new series of texts in Catholic moral thought published by The Catholic University of America Press. Cessario provides a fine account of what moral theology is and a particularly good treatment of the virtues. However, he fails to consider in any formal way the problem of sin, and his account of Aquinas’s natural law thought and of how human intentions specify the “object” of a moral act is in my opinion inadequate. This work, also fully in harmony with Catholic moral teaching, is a welcome addition to the literature.
• Fordham University Press, in 2000, brought out an excellent English translation, Natural Law and Practical Reason: A Thomist View of Moral Autonomy, of Martin Rhonheimer’s Natur als Grundlage der Moral. Rhonheimer, a Swiss philosopher/theologian, is among the most important interpreters of Aquinas’s thought writing today. In my chapter on natural law, I have sought to provide a summary appreciation of his contribution.
Finally, I want to thank all who have helped me in writing this work. For the earlier editions, the help given by Germain Grisez, John Finnis, and Ramón García de Háro