An Introduction To Moral Theology, 2nd Edition. William May
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alone: “The written word of God is inseparably linked to Sacred Tradition; both together as the supreme rule of the Church’s faith are authentically interpreted by the Magisterium, whose definitive teachings are to be faithfully assented to” (p. 97). Moreover, as Gutowski notes, the Fathers also directed that in understanding divine revelation the teaching of the Church Fathers — and in particular, the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas — provides indispensable help and insight (p. 97).
In seeking to follow the directions of Vatican Council II and Pope John Paul II, therefore, I will try to show the sound philosophical foundations that help the Christian faithful come to a deeper and richer understanding of the truths of the moral life mediated through Christian faith and also to show how the truth about human existence definitively revealed in and through the saving mission of Christ and the new law of grace and love “perfect” and “fulfill” the “natural law” written on our hearts. As we have seen already, it is indeed Jesus, God’s eternal Word-made-man, become, like us, a “created word” of the Father, who reveals to us who we really are. And one way of coming to know Jesus is to meditate on the Scriptures — in particular, the New Testament, wherein the promises made through the prophets of the Old Testament come to fulfillment. I thus hope to root the moral theology presented in this book in the Scriptures — in particular, the New Testament. I seek to do this primarily in Chapter Six, below, which treats of Christian faith and the moral life — and in particular, with Jesus as the foundation of our moral life and with his Sermon on the Mount as the “magna carta” of the Christian moral life. It will, however, be useful to conclude this opening chapter by briefly considering how moral theology is rooted in Sacred Scripture.
MORAL THEOLOGY AND HOLY SCRIPTURE
The Church teaches that all Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit and that it provides us with the truths necessary for our salvation. “We must acknowledge,” Vatican Council II instructs us, “that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures. Thus ‘all Scripture is inspired by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work’ (2 Tm 3:16-17, Gk text)” (Dei Verbum [Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation], no. 11; emphasis added). This means that it includes the moral truths necessary for our salvation. In particular, the gospels, although not intended to give us a “biography” of Jesus, present an accurate portrait of him and offer him as the model of the moral life required of his disciples. Thus, the Church insists on the historical accuracy of the gospel narratives, as this passage from Vatican Council II makes very clear:
Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day he was taken up into heaven (see Acts 1:1-2). Indeed, after the ascension of the Lord the apostles handed on to their hearers what he had said and done. This they did with that clearer understanding which they enjoyed after they had been instructed by the events of Christ’s risen life and taught by the light of the Spirit of truth. The sacred authors wrote the four Gospels, selecting some things from the many which had been handed on by word of mouth or in writing, reducing some of them to a synthesis, explicating some things in view of the situation of their churches, and preserving the form of proclamation but always in such fashion that they told us the honest truth about Jesus. For their intention in writing was that either from their own memory and recollections, or from the witness of those who themselves “from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word” we might know “the truth” concerning those matters about which we have been instructed (cf. Lk 1:2-4) [Dei Verbum, no. 19].
The Pontifical Biblical Commission’s 1964 Instruction on the Historical Truth of the Gospels is instructive here. In this document, the Commission affirmed: “From the results of the new investigations it is apparent that the doctrine and the life of Jesus were not simply reported for the sole purpose of being remembered, but were ‘preached’ so as to offer the Church a basis of faith and of morals” (emphasis added).8
Jesus definitively reveals to us God’s wise and loving plan for human existence and redeems us from sin, establishing with us a new and lasting covenant. But the way for Jesus had been prepared in and through God’s covenant with the people Israel. Thus, here I will review the nature of this covenant and its requirements in order to show how the moral life was understood in the Old Testament.9
In the ancient Near East, the spoken word was invested with great solemnity and could not be annulled or retracted.10 The covenant was a solemn ritual agreement guaranteed by the spoken word.11 The covenanting parties bound themselves by a treaty or an alliance that included severe sanctions on the party who should violate its stipulations. Such covenants among men appear throughout much of the Old Testament, and the relationship among men thereby established was transferred by the Israelites to identify the relationship between Yahweh and the people Israel. There were covenants between Yahweh and Noah (Gn 6:18) and between Yahweh and Abraham (Gn 15:1ff); but the covenant between Yahweh and the people Israel was the covenant of Sinai (Ex 19:1ff),12 and the laws that are placed in the book of Exodus after this event are called the covenant code (Ex 20-24).13 The major stipulations of the covenant are the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:1-17), which require the people’s exclusive loyalty to God and also regulate relationships among God’s people, who must preserve unity to remain in common allegiance to their covenant Lord. Chapter 24 of Exodus completes the account of the covenant. The agreement between Yahweh God and his people is read, the people accept it, the covenant is sealed with the blood of bulls, sprinkled upon both the people and the altar. This blood is life, the vital principle (see Gn 9:4), and thus it brings the covenant to life and puts it in force.14
Through the covenant, which he initiates, God calls Israel to partnership with him. He will be their God, their protector, and they will be his people. Their relationship, as prophets like Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel show us, is analogous to that of husband and wife in marriage: it is a love-based union and requires utmost fidelity. Israel’s entire existence is rooted in Yahweh’s choice to give himself to this people, the descendants of Abraham with whom he had made a personal covenant. By his sovereign power, Yahweh speaks, and Israel comes into being as his people.
Yahweh’ s act of love is that of a unique, wholly other sovereign, the only God there is, the one who is to be loved and worshipped above everything. The people to whom he has espoused himself, in receiving his offer of faithful love and friendship, respond in awe and gratitude for the unexpected generosity given them. This relationship naturally brings with it the expectations and requirements of the sovereign God who initiated it. As a covenant partner of Yahweh, Israel is a people defined by obedience. They must listen to God, hear his voice, and become a light to the nations, bearing witness in their lives to his merciful love and fidelity.15
The covenant requires obedience to the commandments given to the people by God through Moses on Sinai. The stipulations of the covenant, summarized in the Ten Commandments or “ten words” (cf. Ex 20:1), require the people to love Yahweh God above all and to have no strange gods before him, to honor their parents, to forbear killing the innocent and the just (Ex 20:13 in light of Ex 23:7), not to commit adultery or bear false witness or steal, etc. But the requirements of the covenant, epitomized in the Decalogue, affected the whole of Israel’s life. The God who had espoused himself to them wanted sacrifice, to be sure, but more than this he required them to care for the widowed and orphaned and to love the stranger in the land (cf. Dt 10:17-19). Indeed, as Walter Bruggemann so well says, “It is clear that in these most radical injunctions [to execute justice for the orphan and the widows, etc.], understood as Israel’s covenantal obligations, the wealth and social resources of Israel are understood not in privatistic or acquisitive ways, but as common resources that are to be managed and deployed for the enhancement of the community by the enhancement of its weakest and most disadvantaged members.”16
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