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, 64.2.
Saint John Paul II (+2005) when considering the “seeking what is true and good” reminds us that “the Magisterium does not bring to the Christian conscience truths which are extraneous to it; rather it brings to light the truths which it ought already to possess, developing them from the starting point of the primordial act of faith.”
Our friends at Merriam Webster remind us of the origins of the word “primordial” coming from the Latin words primus (first) and ordi (to begin). In this light, primordial truths of conscience are those which are innate or found present at the very beginning of human existence, as a species and individually. It may well be another way of speaking of the Natural Law. The Decalogue is a privileged, revealed expression of the Natural Law (cf. Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 5:6-21; CCC, 2070). Part of the primordial truths of conscience would include doing good and avoiding evil, both of which imply that we have some ability to actually recognize what is good and what is evil, so as to do the one and not the other. Saint Paul echoes another primordial truth of conscience that evil is not to be done that good may follow (cf. Romans 3:8). The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church published in 2005 picks up on this by reminding us that “it is not licit to do evil that good may result” (see articles 368-369). Philosophically, utilitarianism (represented by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill) and consequentialism (represented by Henry Sidgwick and Peter Singer) are confronted here.
The Holy Father, writing of the primordial act of faith, brings the volume Praeambula Fidei: Thomism and the God of the Philosophers to mind (Ralph McInerny, Washington, DC: CUA, 2006). Again, the primordial or original act of faith, has to do with that which precedes. If someone does not believe that God exists, that God is good and just and one… how might someone believe in the Trinity of God or the Incarnation or the redemption??? That the Good God exists and is good and just and has made us in His image should be a reminder that we too are to be good and just… (cf. Genesis 1:27). When we live good lives, rejecting sin and Satan and the glamour of evil we are more and more like the God who has made and redeemed us.
Mother Church teaches as a master teacher and expert in humanity because of her Founder, Spouse and goal (cf. Sollicitudo rei socialis, 7).
God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr