B TO CHOOSE IN ACCORD WITH CONSCIENCE
CCC 1786 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.
1787 Man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral judgments less assured and decision difficult. But he must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed in divine law.
1788 To this purpose, man strives to interpret the data of experience and the signs of the times assisted by the virtue of prudence, by the advice of competent people, and by the help of the Holy Spirit and his gifts.
1789 Some rules apply in every case:
- One may never do evil so that good may result from it;
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the Golden Rule: “Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.”
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charity always proceeds by way of respect for one’s neighbor and his conscience: “Thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience . . . you sin against Christ.” Therefore “it is right not to . . . do anything that makes your brother stumble.”
It is true the Faith is about a Person, not solely about Rules. But Rules are very necessary for human life. The Rules are the precursor and antecessor of the Person. Rules dispose our hearts to hear the Lord and gives clarity of action hearing the Voice.
Goodness goes through the whole fruit.
Ex/ apple though outside may look good, but if inside rotten, fruit si bad
Details. A grandchild is good. The details how is child arrived at. Child always good, but those partaking in creating this child will the good truly be met.
Difficult spot, chronically in monologue, we are determining factor of our own happiness. This is a bald-faced lie.
V Christ as the Way, Truth, Life
- Truth has two wings, not equal, but both necessary: faith & reason fides et ratio
Christ Truly God (faith, divine), truly Man (reason proper to humanity)
Faith and reason are not equal value but truth is not sola fides or sola ratio.
Quotes from Fides et Ratio
#7 Underlying all the Church’s thinking is the awareness that she is the bearer of a message which has at its origin in God himself, … the word of God which she has received in faith.[1]
#9 Truth attained by philosophy (reason) and the truth of Revelation are neither identical nor mutually exclusive. Based upon God’s testimony and enjoying the supernatural assistance of grace, faith is of an order other than philosophical knowledge which depends upon sense perception and experience and which advances by the light of the intellect alone.
Higher order since it is God Himself who is the author. But this should not cause us to be Sola Fides as the encyclical points out:
#10 This plan of Revelation is realized by deeds and words having an inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them. By this Revelation, then, the deepest truth about God and human salvation is made clear to us in Christ, who is the mediator and at the same time the fullness of all Revelation”.
- Christ as the Way to Authentic/Genuine Freedom
John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor (VS) honestly presents Justice Kennedy’s and Modern Man’s position, while at the same time showing the way to true freedom/liberty and its foundation in Christ who is the Source of Truth.
- “Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?”.The question of morality,to which Christ provides the answer, cannot prescind from the issue of freedom. Indeed, it considers that issue central, for there can be no morality without freedom: “It is only in freedom that man can turn to what is good”.
But what sort of freedom? The Council, considering our contemporaries who “highly regard” freedom and “assiduously pursue” it, but who “often cultivate it in wrong ways as a license to do anything they please, even evil”, speaks of “genuine” freedom: “Genuine freedom is an outstanding manifestation of the divine image in man. For God willed to leave man “in the power of his own counsel” (cf. Sir 15:14), so that he would seek his Creator of his own accord and would freely arrive at full and blessed perfection by cleaving to God”. Although each individual has a right to be respected in his own journey in search of the truth, there exists a prior moral obligation, and a grave one at that, to seek the truth and to adhere to it once it is known. As Cardinal John Henry Newman, that outstanding defender of the rights of conscience, forcefully put it: “Conscience has rights because it has duties”.
Certain tendencies in contemporary moral theology, under the influence of the currents of subjectivism and individualism just mentioned, involve novel interpretations of the relationship of freedom to the moral law, human nature and conscience, and propose novel criteria for the moral evaluation of acts. Despite their variety, these tendencies are at one in lessening or even denying the dependence of freedom on truth.[2]
“Conscience has rights because it has duties”.
God given ability to know, love an serve Him. Freedom for that purpose. Need to learn to love Him.
Christ no conflict between word & action. Perfection of truth. Theology of the The Body, JPII
Subjectivism of mind, now subjectivism of the body. Lack of moral order outside selves, we are determiners of the body, the body telos. Neither word or bodies do not speak language of truth
God is determiner of what we are. In that moment He determined as man & woman, as a gift, not imposition, know Him easiest as a man or woman. Nietzsche did not kill God, Enlightenment did.
Sophistry, philosophy lover of wisdom, sophistry.
Man is a unity, mind and body. Mind & body ordered towards God at peace.
Man separated from God, now separated body from God. Self-determinization of what is good and who I am.
Humility ascent to truth Christ, one Savior. Christ saves the world.
[1] http://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html accessed June 9, 2020
[2] http://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor.html accessed June 10, 2020