Source:William Pojman & James Fieser, Ethics: DiscoveringWhat is Right andWrong

(Wadsworth Cengage Learning: E-book, 2009), 170-187.

Bishop Pabillo once told this story:
I visited Mang Doming. I was so shocked when I entered his hut. It
was see through. I could see the sky from inside, since the nipa
leaves are so threadbare. It was then already in their rainy season. I
wondered how the family would be doing when it rains. Mang
Doming is completely blind for 7 years already. His wife is a
katutubo, a Tagbanua. When I saw him, he was cleaning rattan
strips with his knife. His wife gathers them from the forest and Mang
Doming cleanses them to be sold at 30 pesos per hundred in the
local store. This is how they support themselves and their three
small children. At one point of our conversation I asked him, "Mang
Doming, how do you manage to survive?" I was deeply struck by
his answer. With a serene smile on his face he said quite naturally,
"Father, nabubuhay kami sa awa ng Diyos (We live in the mercy of
God)." An excerpt from the speech of Fr. Broderick Pabillo during the Second National Congress of the Clergy of the Diocese of
Manila entitled Poor Priests for the People; [Article-Online], 18 February 2013. He was a parish priest in Macarascas, Palawan during that time.
An Analysis
His life Situation
▪ Mang Doming has been blind for 7 years.
▪ Married to a “katutubo”, gathered rattan, earned 30 pesos a day.
▪ Have three small children
▪ Live in Nipa Hut with a threadbare roof .
His struggle (moral imagination)
▪ Everyday worries and anxiety
▪ Who would defend his children or the house from bad people?
▪ Will his wife ok being alone in the forest? Will she still be back home?
His Faith
▪ “Nabubuhay po kami sa awa ng Diyos!”
▪ In his blindness, he recognized clearly his place in God.
▪ He did not curse God but was simply grateful (“a serene smile”)
▪ Instead of questioning God, he completely surrender to his will.
❑ Suffering has meaning, God has a plan.
❑ “I am not alone”.
❑ Reward might not be on this earth but at least in
heaven.
❑ Good will win out over evil.
❑ All persons are of equal worth.
❑ Moral perfection is possible.

Where is such confidence coming from?

▪ Every living being is created by God and because of that
everything finds its purpose & meaning in God.
✓ Hinduism: Brahman is in everything.
✓ Muslim: Allah is the Creator
✓ Christian: God is a Father-Creator
▪ Among every living things, Man has special relation with God.
✓ Hinduism: Man is Brahman.
✓ Muslim: Man is a servant.
✓ Christian: Man is God’s Child.
▪ How does man know this?
▪ Among other species man possesses Intellect – ability to understand
his relation to God - and Will – ability to believe in it.
▪ To ensure that all creations act according to God’s will,
God bounded everyone to the Eternal law.
▪ God's wisdom directing the movements and actions of his creatures towards the
fulfillment of their nature. In Man, through the Natural Law.
▪ Natural Law is a portion of the eternal law that God imprinted into man’s
mind and will so that man can grasp God’s plan and fulfill it naturally.
▪ This natural law is reflected in man’s synderesis and conscience. How?
▪ Synderesis is an “innate disposition” of the human mind to grasp the first principle
of natural law: “Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.”
▪ Conscience is the natural tendency to apply such principle to concrete life
situation helping us to choose right from wrong.
▪ In other words, synderesis made us aware and feel that there are certain moral
precepts that we are obliged to follow as moral beings and if we don’t do it
conscience will be there to “accuse, torment, or rebuke” us.
The Problem of extreme belief…
The Divine Command Theory
▪ God determines what is moral and not moral.
▪ An act is right in virtue of following the will of God, and wrong when one violates it.
▪ Morality, therefore, is solely based on God’s Order.
▪ If God’s decree is the sole arbiter of right and wrong, it would seem to be
logically possible for such heinous acts as rape, killing of the innocent,
and cruelty to others become morally good actions — if God suddenly
decided to command us to do these things.
An African Newspaper reported:
A missionary in Africa killed his wife and five children claiming that God
commanded him to kill them and that he was only obeying God.
Solar Temple gained worldwide
notoriety between September 1994
and March 1997 when the burnt
bodies of 74 of its members were
found in Switzerland, Canada and Over two nights in August 1969,
then France. On October 5, 1994, 23 seven people were brutally
bodies were discovered in a burnt-out murdered. The Manson "Family"
killers were following orders from
farm in canton Fribourg. Another 25 their cult leader, Charles Manson.
bodies were found in canton Valais. One of the seven victims was
Several had been shot in the head or pregnant actress Sharon Tate.
asphyxiated, and many had been The effect of these murders
drugged, in what were apparently continues to haunt the nation 50
years on. In 2019, three movies
ritual murders, although some were about the killings, including Quentin
thought to have been willing Tarantino's latest film, "Once Upon
participants in the supposed mass a Time in Hollywood," are being
suicides. released.
https://www.cbc.ca/archives/topic/solar-temple-a-cult-gone-wrong
https://www.insider.com/timeline-photos-show-how-
sharon-tate-charles-manson-murders-happened-2019-8
 Abraham’s Trial
Sometime later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied. Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom
you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering
on a mountain I will show you.” Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his
donkey. He took with him his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt
offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked
up and saw the place in the distance... Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and
placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of
them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes,
my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the
lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for
the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together. When they reached
the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on
it. He bound his son Isaac [w/o complain] and laid him on the altar, on top of the
wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. Genesis 22:1-18
An Analysis

1. Is God’s request morally justified?

2. Does Abraham’s act of killing his son Isaac, morally justifiable?