My dear parishioners,
Peace! In other bulletins (4 December, 2016-11 June, 2017) we have considered the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on “conscience.” We then turned to Saint John Paul II’s encyclical letter Veritatis splendor (6 August, 1993) which addresses fundamental moral issues, including “conscience” more than one hundred times. These reflections were begun earlier (6 April, 2018-30 May, 2018). Here we now consider a passage from Veritatis splendor, 63.
Saint John Paul II (+2005) when considering the “seeking what is true and good” insists that “it is never acceptable to confuse a ‘subjective’ error about moral good with the ‘objective’ truth rationally proposed to man in virtue of his end, or to make the moral value of an act performed with a true and correct conscience equivalent to the moral value of an act performed by following the judgment of an erroneous conscience.” Tin this rich passage the Holy Father cites De Veritate (q. 17, a.4) of Saint Thomas Aquinas, OP (+1274). There are here overtones of not only of anthropology (the study of man), but also epistemology (the study of knowledge), and ethics (the study of moral good and evil). Here we highlight three key aspects.
Subjective error about moral good, even if widely held, does not make what is evil good or what is good evil. There is a difference between what is good and evil. To feed the hungry and clothe the naked are good (cf. Matthew 25:35). As in mathematics there is a difference between positive and negative numbers (above or below zero), so too in moral calculus good is positive and evil is negative. While there may have been a lot of people at the Nuremberg Rallies (some 200,000 in 1934), to blame all of societies ill on a few (non-Nazis) seems, at best, to be erroneous. Even if subjectively sins of greed or lust are widespread does not somehow change them into virtuous acts.
The Holy Father teaches that objective truth can be rationally proposed to us in virtue of our end. There is a lot tied up in this. Our rational human nature allows us to seek and recognize the truth for which we are made. Our rational human nature allows for abstraction. An example of abstraction: we have experience of various chairs (wingback, folding, barrel, Eames) but not all chairs, yet still we know what a chair is. There is a proximate end (goal) namely virtue and a remote end (goal), namely God. These are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary.
The moral value of acts differ according to the judgment of correct or erroneous conscience. Theft if wrong, not good, bad and evil. A child who steals a gumdrop (.06) has stolen. Bernie Madoff (+2021) stole more than gumdrops ($18 billion). Quantitatively Madoff’s theft was of greater value than a gumdrop. The moral value of a doctor who heals is greater that a “doctor” who destroys (e.g. abortion, euthanasia, mutilation).
God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr