CHAPTER 3 Conscience, Law, and Obedience
Conscience
 Conscience is the most secret core and
sanctuary of a person. There he/she is alone
with God whose voice echoes in his or her
depths.
 It alludes to basic interior experiences and
activities inherent in the mature human person.
 For Christians, conscience is not a personal
ideal or have social norm. It is bound up with
the mystery of Christ and the life of the spirit.
 The foundation of conscience is the Trinitarian
life and his discretions are constituted in the
mystery of the fall, the incarnation, redemption,
and the eschatological fulfillment of the
kingdom.
 The mature conscience is illumined by the Spirit
and is in accord to Christ, and through Christ is
united to the Father.
Moral Conscience and the Superego
 A criterion of a mature moral conscience is the
competence to establish one's mind for oneself
about what ought to be performed. The mature
conscience is formed and exercised in
community in dialogue with other sources of
moral wisdom.
 If a person spends his/her whole life performing
what he/she is told to do by some authority
simply because the authority says so, or it is
because it is expected by the group, then that
person never really makes moral discretions
which are his/her own.
 For moral maturity one must be one's own
person. It is not enough merely to follow what
one has been told. The morally mature person
must be competent to perceive, choose, and
identify the self with what one does.
 On the moral evil, we perceive every choice
between being an authentic and an inauthentic
person. We act either in character or out of
character.
 In brief, we give our lives meaning by
committing our freedom. The morally mature
adult is called to submit his/her freedom. As
long as we do not direct our own activity, we
are not yet free, morally mature persons
The Structures to our Personality (Freudian
School)
The id
 The human organism arrives in the world
equipped with an unorganized chaos of
instinctual drives: hunger, self-preservation,
sexuality, and love. These drive urges for
gratification. They constitute the id.
 The id is the aggregate of the entire individual's
most primitive emotional striving. It is the
unconscious reservoir of instinctual drives
dominated by the pleasure principle.
 It constitutes competence to distinguish
between the inexorable reality of the external
world and an interior dynamism of response.
 An id impulse is defined in terms of its
operation. It is striving for immediate reduction
of compulsion, in disregard of consequences for
itself or for other impulses. Compulsions are
subjectively painful, the reduction of
compulsions are pleasurable.
 The id operates in conformity with the pleasure
principle, the organism's general tendency to
evade pain and to seek pleasure.
The ego
 The modified part of the id. It is the conscious
structure, which operates on the reality
principle to mediate the forces of the id, the
demands of society, and the reality of the
physical world.
 It takes into consideration circumstances that
exists in the real world and seeks to govern
activity to gain in the long run a maximum
satisfaction of needs.
 It protectively selects and orders its chaos
anent the external world. The stronger the ego,
the more effectively it will perform its functions.
 The indices of ego strength are measures of the
adequacy of performance in various spheres of
activity.
 Accuracy of perception, obiectivity judgment,
common sense, tolerance of ambiguity, self-
insight, initiative, persistence, competence in
solving problems, tolerance of frustration,
flexibility of adaptation, ability to learn from
experience, capacity for logical thinking,
planning ability and foresight, ability to stick to
promises and to carry out resolutions are some
of the indices of the ego's strength.
The superego
 Is a modification of the ego? It is a hypothetical are the source of love and approval. We follow
construct invented to explicate such the commands of the superego out of the fear
phenomena as self-blame, self-abasement, of losing love, or out of our need to be
feelings of guilt, depression, suicidal thoughts, accepted and approved.
and anxiety in the absence of actual threats,  Moral conscience stem from personal
over-submissiveness to external authority, night perception and appropriation of value, which
terrors, compulsive strivings to gain high moral we discover in the stories or, examples of
standards. persons we want to be like. Moral conscience is
 It is part of the ego, which responds to and the key to responsible freedom of wanting to do
transmits the restrictions imposed by the what we do because we value what we are
external world through external authorities. seeking. "Shoulds" and "have-tos" of the
Gula presented this as the ego of another superego look to authority. The "wants" of
superimposed on our own to serve as an moral conscience look to personalized and
internal censor to regulate our conduct by using internalized values
guilt as its powerful weapon.  The conscience/superego mix up helps us to
 The superego is like an attic in an old house. It understand in part what makes a person with
stores all the should " and "have-to's" which we an overly developed or overly active superego
absorb in the process of growing up under the have a difficult time distinguishing between
influence of authority figures, first our parents what God is enabling or calling him her to do
but later any other authority figures - teachers, from what someone in authority says she/he
police, boss, sisters, priests, pope, etc. should do.
 It's powerful weapon of guilt Springs from
automatically for simple faults as for more John Glasser in his article Conscience and
serious matter. Superego: A Key Distinction draws up
 The super ego tells us we are good when we do contrasting characteristics between
what we are told to do and it tells us we are Superego and Conscience.
had and makes us feel guilty when we do not
do what the authority over us tells us to do.
 For Glasser, to understand the superego it is SUPEREGO CONSCIENCE
necessary to begin with childhood. As we
advance through childhood, the need to be Commands that an act Invites to action, to
loved and approve is the basic need and drive. be performed for love, and in this
 We fear punishment as children not for its approval, in order very act of other-
physical pain only, but more because it to make oneself directed
represents a withdrawal of love. We regulate lovable, accepted; commitment to co-
our behaviour so as not to lose love and fear of love- create self-value.
approval. We absorb the standards and withdrawal is the
regulations of our parents or anyone who has basis.
authority over us as a matter of self-protection
 The authority figure takes up a place within us Introverted: the Extroverted: the
to become the source of commands and thematic center is thematic center is
prohibitions Glasser. an aspect of one’s the value which
 The divergence between superego and moral value invites; self-value is
conscience is in differentiating between the concomitant and
shoulds" or "have-tos" and the "wants" as the secondary to this
source of commands directing our behavior.
"Shoulds" and "have-tos" belong to someone Static: does not grow, Dynamic: an
else. "Wants" belongs to us. does not learn; awareness and
 Our friend sometimes reminds us. I don't want cannot function sensitivity to value
to be the way you think I should be. creatively in a new which develops and
situation; merely grows; a mind-set
 The command of the superego tells us that we
repeats a basic which can precisely
should do come from the process of absorbing
command function in a new
the regulations and restrictions of those who
situation
 Conscience is the whole person’s commitment to
Authority-figure Value-oriented: the values and the judgment one must make in light of
oriented: not a value or disvalue is that commitment to apply these values.
question of perceived and
perceiving and responded to, THE FORMATION OF CONSCIENCE
responding to a regardless of
value but of whether authority When the right choice becomes of primary interest,
obeying authority’s has commanded or the formation of conscience becomes a matter of
command “blindly” not acquiring:

“atomized” units of Individual acts are  Skills necessary to assess morally relevant
activity are its seen in their factors: Action itself, intention,
object importance as a circumstances, consequences, values, and
part of a larger norms
process or pattern
 The competence to consider the entirety of
Past-oriented; primarily Future- oriented: the contention.
concerned with creative; sees the
cleaning up the past as having a
 The competence to offer sound reasons for
record with regard future and helping
a moral judgment.
to past acts to structure tis
future as a better
 The competence to constitute a decisive will
future
to execute a judgment.
Urge to be punished Sees the need to repair
and thereby earn by structuring the For Kohlberg, moral life is a matter of making
reconciliation future orientation choices on the basis of reason. Moral development
toward the value in is a matter of acquiring the ability to provide
question (which increasingly more principled reasons to justify those
includes making choices.
good past harms)

Rapid transition from A sense of the gradual LAWRENCE KOHLBERG SCALE OF MORAL
severe isolation, process of growth DEVELOPMENT
guilt feelings, etc., which characterizes
to an aspect of self- all dimensions of STAGE Obedience and punishment
value accomplished genuine personal 1 orientation. Egocentric deference
by confessing an development to superior power or prestige, or
authority figure a trouble- avoiding set.

Possible great Experience of guilt STAGE Naively egoistic orientation. Right

disproportion proportionate to 2 action is that instrumentally
between guilt the importance of satisfying the self’s needs and
experienced and the value in occasionally others
the value in question, even
STAGE Good-boy orientation. Orientation to
question; extent of though authority
3 approval and to pleasing and
guilt depends more may never have
helping others
on weight of addressed this
authority figure and specific value.
STAGE Authority and social-order
“volume” with
4 maintaining orientation.
which he speaks
Orientation to “doing duty” and to
rather than density
showing respect for authority and
of the value in
maintaining the given social order
question
 for its own sake which serves wisdom own” and the
us the wherever moral action
STAGE Contractual legalistic orientation. presupposition they may be expressive of
5 Duty defines in terms of contract, to moral found. "me" by
general avoidance of violation of assertion or realizing and
the will or rights of others, and disagreement The goal of expressing my
majority will and welfare. on a specific its tasks is fundamental
contention. attained stance.
STAGE Conscience or principle orientation. "evaluative
6 Orientation not only actually knowledge," This is the
ordained social rules but also to personally conscience,
principle of choice involving appropriated, which I must
appeal to logical universality and interiorized obey to be
consistency. knowledge. true to myself.

The quest for This is the

what is right “secret core
through and sanctuary
THREE SENSES OF CONSCIENCE accurate of our self
perception, which must
MORAL and as not be
SYNDERESIS CONSCIE CONSCIENCE process of violated. Each
NCE reflection and is bound to
A CAPACITY A JUDGMENT analysis. follow his
A PROCESS conscience
faithfully in all
The aspect of The aspect of The concrete his activity so
fundamental our method judgment of that he may
qualities of of visualizing what I must do come to God,
being human, and thinking. in the situation who is his last
which makes it grounded on end.
possible to The realm of my personal Therefore, he
know and to moral perception al must not be
be good. disagreement and forced to act
and error, apprehension contrary to his
Our general blindness and of values. conscience.
aspect of value insight.
and The primary Conscience, for the Psychologists' especially
fundamental The proper object of this Kohlberg, is a set of cultural rules of social action,
aspect of realm of the judgment is which have been internalized by the individual.
accountability formation not merely this Concerning internalized rules, emphasis diverged in
which makes it and or that object researchers' conception of morality. Conscience is a
possible for us examination of choice but nebulous thing. It does not represent a unitary,
to engage in of being this or internally consistent set of principles or sanctions.
moral conscience. that sort of The formation of conscience goes beyond mere
argumentation person knowledge of external formulas of law and the
s to assess the Ensues moral through what I skills stated above. It goes beyond the moral
specific moral truth, which choose. development presented by Kohlberg. Insistence on
good. explores to external law is the haven of the insecure
apprehend by The act of (neuroticism, scrupulosity) or shallow (legalism,
The making use conscience Phariseeism). Christian morality is love, and I thou
fundamental of sources or makes a moral relationship between God and man. It is
condition, of moral discretion “my communitarian and creative (attuned to the Spirit
of God). The Christian grows in wisdom, age, and
grace. It acknowledges man's engagement with
others in the kingdom of God. It evades excessive
individualism. An authentic Christian conscience
directs man to have an affirmative commitment to
the kingdom of God. It makes Christianity and
Christian love the light of the world and the salt of
the earth. It is also considering the findings of
positive sciences.
Conscience is formed in dialogue with several
sources of moral wisdom. As humans, we consult
our own experience as well as the experience of
family, friends, and experts in the field, which
pertains to the area of judgment at hand. We
analyze and test the stories, images, language,
rituals, and actions by which the various
communities in which we participate live the moral
life. As Christians, we turn to the testimony of
scripture the religious convictions of our creeds, the
values of moral virtuosos, and the informed
judgment of theologians past and present to help
interpret the traditions of Christian life. Christian
communities have access to a rich heritage of
stories, images, language, rituals, devotional
practices, and spiritual disciplines, which nurture
one's moral Vision, and practice. These
communities have also official Statements of moral
teachings from its readers to give guidance in areas
of specific concern. As Catholics, we pay attention
to our rich heritage of stories, images, and
practices as well as the official teachings of the
Magisterium, which are pertinent to our areas of
concern
Conscience as Disposition
 a judgment of conscience is to be a response
from the heart. It is dependent on character, or
virtue. It is necessary to explore the moral
import of who we are and to value in full weight
all the factors, which influence the formation of
character.
 Moral choices are made by people who visualize
the world in a certain mode because they have
become particular sorts of people. The
description of a specific condition and the kinds
of choices we apply follow from the kind of
character we have. Character gives rise to
choice.
 Choices affirm and qualify character for choices
are self- determining. In choosing to adopt one
or another course of action, we make ourselves
into certain sorts of persons
 Gula cited Thomas More saying, when we do
not act in conformity to our character, our very
self can be lost. Moral choices are
fundamentally matters of integrity: we act in
character or out of character. When we "size
people up" to get a glimpse of their character,
what do we attend to? We focused to patterns
of actions, which mirror attitudes, dispositions,
and the readiness to see things and to choose
in certain ways.
 Gula envisages that these are indices of
character, since character exhibits itself in its
fruits. Character identifies the responsive
orientation of a person: seeing the world as a
hostile or friendly place, or being a person who
loves and helps or one who is fearful and
selfish.
 Gula delineates that the acquisition of character
is fashioned by directing our freedom to
loyalties outside ourselves. Christian character,
for example, is shaped by directing freedom to
the person and message of Jesus as the
ultimate core of loyalty. Character is the
consequence from the values we consider our
own.
 When a value has woven its way into the fabric
of our being, we delight in doing what pertains
to that value. Character predisposes us to
choose in certain ways, even though it does not
predetermine every choice. We can act against
character, and by making new choices we can
change our character.
Pope Pius X11 considered natural disposition as the
natural image of man. Essentially, the natural
disposition is constitutive of three dimensions:
The Dimension of the Intra-Individual
 Is designated as the conscience of biological
fitness. It is the innate drive of the somatic
organism to flourish, its several warning signals,
its need for a healthy state of equilibrium.
 It exhibits a dual aspect: It is a strongly ego-
related as it is value-related. Its ego-
relatedness becomes clear when we remember
that it is from the depths of the psyche that we
receive those alarm signals, which register
danger, loss, injury, and inner discord.
 From the same depths come feelings of joy and
inner satisfaction when the psyche is able to
 unfold naturally. The ego experiences is either
well balanced or as threatened and disunited.
 The quality of value relatedness is expressed
wherein the go cannot remain indifferent to the
voice of the natural disposition but feels itself
summoned because it senses value, which it
experiences as its own value.
 The intra-individual dimension strives for self-
realization. It is living in conformity to one's
conscience. It is letting one's individual
potential unfold in conformity to its own laws.
The Dimension of Social Commitment and
Orientation
 For Aristotle, social commitment and orientation
are constituent elements of man's makeup.
Conscience is shaped by man's social nature.
Man is not a self-contained monad. He is open
in all directions. The realization of his best self
is living in a community.
The Dimension of Transcendental
Relationship
 Through man's participation in the divine, man
enters into communion with the Corpus Christi
Mysticum.
Conscience as Seeing
 Gula maintains that seeing and choice are key
notions, which alludes to conscience and
disposition. Seeing precedes choices in the
moral life. Any performance we endeavor is a
selection grounded on seeing.
 We visualize what we see because of our
disposition as to who we are in person. The first
task of the formation of conscience is the
attempt to help us see. Responsibility paradigm
for moral life indicates that we respond to what
we see e.g., if we look on children as a burden,
we refuse to carry them; if we look on our
colleagues as competitors, we refuse to
cooperate with them.
 Gula further noted that a phenomenology of
seeing begins from experiences of seeing. It
reflects on those experiences describe and
clarify the basic structures of such experiences.
 Seeing is an expression of our disposition. It is
more than observation. Seeing is interpreting
and valuing. "My employer is bossy" are modes
of seeing which has a deeper impact in our
choices. But these modes of seeing are not
connected with the logical application of rules.
 It is anchored with the images assisting us to
apprehend what we visualized. Visualization
directs and restricts actions performed. It
engenders certain choices and disposes the
person to respond.
 Selection performed for others may never stem
as expected for it is not an option/choice. The
human person may not visualize the world the
way others visualized it.
 For St. Augustine, visions are corporeal,
imaginative, and intellectual. The eyes perceive
an object that would normally be imperceptible
to the sense of sight. God may cause the
phenomenon through the mediation of angelic
powers. The person is given an intuitive
understanding of some supernatural truth or
divine mystery.
Moga proposed the following paradigms for
understanding seeing:
The Figure-Ground Paradigm
 is an apprehension of human experience
through focusing of attention and a background
context. The focus of attention (the figure)
never emerges completely by itself.
 Human seeing is constitutive of both a figure
and a ground. The ground is construed as a
horizon of possibilities. It has the capacity to
exhibit a comprehensive standpoint of totality.
It reinforces to offer a description of the
meaning, value, and truth present in human
experience.
The Project Paradigm
 Is a distinctive structure of human existence.
The image is a casting forward into a plan or an
envision of life. It is a description of human
selfhood situating itself in the projects of life. A
project is experienced as a plan.
 It offers direction, as it is a preparatory
standpoint of life. Potentially, it is a schema of
possibilities; a mode of life can possibly be
lived. Hence, it is temporal. It is a transition
into the future. It is an adjunct to one's
essential being.
 The project is an essential reality of an
experiencing sell. Seeing, therefore, is a
 description of a mode that a human person
projects. This projection becomes a horizon of
meaning for whatever is envisioned.
The Paradigm of Living in a Process
 Life is a process that is always in a state of
transition. It is unceasingly moving. It involves
the three temporal dimensions of past, present,
and future. It is experienced as a totality, It
also constitutes an experience of unfolding.
 This is exemplified in human life wherein the
human person takes the growing bountiness of
his past in to the future, It is a transition
toward completion. This sphere is expanded in
Aristotelian aspect nature known as the
teleological (goal) process. It is a transition
toward an ending or death.
 Man experiences this ending process and
simultaneously a fulfilling process. The
paradigm of living also differs in tempo. There
are transitions having a speedy tempo, others
are slower or boring.
 It also consists of a gradual transition of
meaning, and finally, it is creative. It is not a
mechanical reiteration of the past.
The Involvement Paradigm
 Constitute a spatial image comprising a
sphere of transition from the centrality of
the self to another.
 It is dedication and commitment casting
itself in a process of involvement forward.
The human self is not a simple reality.
 In its intricacy, it is anchored to both core
and plans of life. It accentuates the
relational disposition of human existence.
Conscience as a Narrative
 Most people do not make moral choices
grounded on impersonal rules, rational
abstractions or logical procedures.
 The moral world of our moral choices is a
composite of imagination, visualization, habits,
affections, dispositions, somatic reactions, and
countless non-rational factors which logical
generalizations never consider in discretion
making.
 Discretions are established by the beliefs we
live by and the habits we have projected out of
the principles we have learned.
 Visualization is enhanced by a community. The
visualization demanded is in part the
consequence of internalizing the beliefs and
values, causes and loyalties of the community,
which comprises the environment. Visualization
is dependent on concatenated engagements, on
the sphere in which we live, and on the
commitments we have dedicated and
established.
 Consequently, the morality in which we are
socialized is not a set of rules but a collection of
narratives and images of what establishes life
worth living.
 An experience of God's love forms the
disposition and consciousness of being loved by
God even during trials and tribulations,
excruciating spiritual suffering of uncertainty
and doubt.
 Here, the historical experience of the
community of the church is an attestation to
the conviction "God is love and his lived
personal experience of human engagements
which accorded on that conviction entered into
the molding of his consciousness and assist in
sustaining him even when circumstances might
have led him to object to such a conviction.
 The world of family and church are not the only
worlds we live in. Religious practices and
narratives are not the exclusive formator of our
lives.
 The formation of conscience occurs in these
communities so that one's conscience mirrors
the values and loyalties of the most influential
community’s c.g., as would put it parents worry
about where their children go to school about
the friends they make, about what they do in
their free time, about the television shows they
watch? They worry because the inner spirit, or
the conscience, is shaped and developed by the
structures within which we live, by what we
see, and by what we do.
 To speak only morals to children and to expect
that this will make them Virtuous is to miss the
mark of forming conscience. Parents must pay
attention to their schools, their friends, the
books they need read, the television programs
they watch, and so on.
 The profound participation in the Christian
community, its practices and narratives will
highly mold one's moral conscience.
 We also live in the worlds of our ethic
community, school, profession, sports, politics,
commerce, advertising, and entertainment.
 The more we involve in the narratives, rituals,
images, and language of a community, the
more we begin to conform to its mode of
visualization.
o The example of the religious world and
the non-religious worlds of sports,
television, advertising, and business
offer a distinctive sphere of modes our
visualization is formed by the multiple
worlds in which we live.
 Each world communicates what is good and
how life ought to be lived.
o These examples exhibits that most of
what we visualize does not lie in front of
our eyes but behind them in the images
which constitute our imagination.
Conscience as Imagination and Christian
Narrative
 Human behaviour is a function not so much of
the moral propositions one adheres as
authentic, but of the imagination exhibiting the
images, which presents us a "picture" of the
world.
 In shaping our consciences for the sake of
establishing a moral judgment, it is necessary
to be critically alert to images at play in our
imaginations.
 Christian morality believes that narratives and
images emerging in the Christian narrative
exemplify a description of goodness in the
moral life, and present authentic modes of
visualizing.
 The convergence of these narratives into our
own mode of visualizing, feeling. Thinking,
judging, and acting will sustain our engagement
in the world as a people molded by Christian
faith
Conscience and Choice
Choice stems from visualization. It is a response to
what we visualize. It is formed by the sort of
persons we have become. It is visualizing what is
real. It is a response to the "what question.
1. What help us to see what is really there.
Whether war is justified, depends on what
war is, what nuclear weapons do. In
medical matters, what chemotherapy does,
what death is, what abortions do. In sexual
matters, what masturbation does, what
contraceptive pills do, what sexual
intercourse is. For everyday life, what
smoking does, what can pooling does, what
overworking and overeating do?
2. Who also includes the other persons in the
decision. The moral reality of sexual
intercourse is different when my partner is
my spouse or my neighbour.
3. When and where: Driving over speed has
different moral meaning when it is done in a
school zone at 3’o clock than what is done
on the highway. There is a difference
between yelling "fire" on a rifle range or in
a crowded movie theater.
4. Why and how? Consequences: what if and
what else.
Conscience and Church Authority
 Gula exemplified that conscience is the
whole person's commitment to values and
the judgment of what "I must do in
response of that commitment applicable to
those values.
 Conscience has been traditionally known as
the ultimate subjective norm of morality in
contrast to the objective norm of the moral
order, which logically apprehends through
nature and revelation.
 It is conforming and following the judgment
of a properly informed conscience.
Inculcation of values occurs in community
by appealing to various sources of moral
wisdom.
 In the Church, the Magisterium is a source
of moral authority. Its teachings are
pertinent, though not exclusive, factor in
the molding of conscience and moral
judgment.
The Magisterium: Official Teaching Authority
 From all walks of life, we depend on experience
and advice of knowledgeable persons. We are
in agreement to be influenced by them as an
authority. To appeal to authority is essential of
responsible living. It does not mean becoming
passive or abandoning reason.
 In appealing to authority we acknowledge the
restrictions of our knowledge and experience to
resolve difficulties in life satisfactorily.
 The acquisition of knowledge in resolving
complicated matters in life direct us to allow the
authority to check, confirm and challenge us
concerning the things unknown to us.
 Insufficiency of knowledge directs us to cling to
authority to offer better evidence and
clarification.
 Appealing to an authority gives us an aspect of
confidence that they will provide us a precise
solution than anyone else to which we might
appeal.
 The engagement between conscience and
authority is inseparable e.g. child's connection
to parents, or in a soldier's linked to political
authority commanding officer or in a Catholic's
anchorage to magisterial authority.
 In the Roman Catholic Church, the Magisterium
is an institutionalized authority in matters of
faith and morals.
 The deposit of Christian moral teaching has
been handed on, a deposit composed of a
characteristic body of rules, commandments
and virtues proceeding from faith in Christ and
animated by charity.
 The Decalogue is the basis of this catechesis. It
sets out the principles of moral life valid for all
men.
 The Roman Pontiff and the bishops are
authentic teachers, i.e., teachers endowed with
the authority of Christ, who preaches the faith
to the people entrusted to them, the faith to be
believed and put into practice.
 The ordinary and universal Magisterium of the
Pope and the bishops in communion with him
teaches the faithful the truth to believe the
charity to practice, the beatitude to hope for.
 The supreme degree of participation in the
authority of Christ is ensured by the charism of
infallibility. This infallibility extends as far as
does he deposit of divine This revelation; it also
extends to all those elements of doctrine,
including morals, without which the saving
truths of the faith cannot be preserved,
explained, or observed.
 The authority of the Magisterium extends also
to the specific precepts of the natural law,
because their observance, demanded by the
Creator, is necessary for salvation.
 The Magisterium of the Church exercises an
essential part of its prophetic office of
proclaiming to men what they truly are and
reminding them of what they should be before
God.
Disadvantage
 If the institutionalize authority in the church
does not function in a cooperative and
collaborative fashion, it can obscure the human
character of the process of formulating a moral
teaching.
 The guidance of the Holy Spirit does not
exempt the Magisterium from the human
process of gathering data, consulting, reflecting
on the data, making a proposal, entertaining
counter proposals, doing more research, and so
on.
 Rather, the Spirit guides the learning-teaching
process in the Church and through these fallible
human endeavors.
 To obscure this process can result in creating
an "extrinsic" authority for teachings. "Extrinsic"
authority fails to recognize that a teaching is as
strong as the thoroughness of the homework,
which produced it, and the cogency of the
arguments, which support it.
Advantage
 It provides a structure, which can bring
together, in a cooperative and complementary
way, the experience and Insights of various
perspectives so as to reach as complete as
expression of truth about the moral life as
possible. When the collaborative function of
teaching is working well in the church, we reap
the fruits of this advantage.
 The primary responsibility of the Magisterium is
to help us to understand the Gospel for our
times and to foster our assimilation of its basic
values. By attending to the teaching of the
Magisterium, we may be able to cut through
the conflicting voices, competing images, and
even our personal bias and rationalizations in
order to hear the call of the Gospel moire
clearly.
 Since the Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae of
Pope Paul Vi in 1968, we have had extensive
argumentations of the normative character of
non-infallible teaching in moral matters. While a
moral teaching may not be defined as infallible,
this does not mean that such a teaching is
meaningless, useless or irrational. It means that
even though these teachings remain subject to
 re-evaluation and the possibility of revisions,
the catholic may still take them into account in
the formation of conscience. The formula, "no
infallible decision - conscience decides", is a
complete distortion of the real function of
conscience. Conscience needs to be informed.
 For a catholic to make a decision of conscience
with indifference to, or in spite of the
Magisterium would be forfeiting one's claim to
be acting as a loyal catholic and according to a
properly informed conscience.
Law and Obedience
 Law is an action about actions. From the
standpoint of the lawmaker, law is an ordinance
of reason for the common good made by the
one who has care for the community and
promulgated. From the standpoint of the
subject, it is a rule and measure of acts.
 Immanuel Kant defines law in terms of power
or "heteronomous decision" whereby one
person governs the conduct of another
(theteros) by establishing a norm (nomos). A
lawmaker compels by communicating a choice
of values and a sanction such as in
disobedience. Law, however, is more than
sheer power Law is power rooted in authority
whereby is meant the right to decide for
another to increase the subject's good. This
right spring from God. It could also be
mediated. Law operates on the realm of
common sense rather than theory. It considers
orthopraxis, doing practical things rightly. Self-
appropriation of the mental operations in law is
necessary. It is about the experience and
apprehension of data of sense and
consciousness, verifying of insight through
factual judgment, and by assessing the sphere
of consciousness where law is situated.
 Bernard Lonergan called this the oneralized
empirical method. It deals about consistency
between knowing and praxis. Civil law is
oriented toward protecting the freedom and
upholding public order for the common good.
Ecclesiastical law is the expression to the
interior reality of the Church as a community of
love empowered by the Spirit.
Kinds of Law
1. Eternal Law - God knows all his creatures and
how they must act to fulfill their destiny. His
operation is eternal. He knows his law directly.
Through reason and revelation, human beings
were given the initiative to participate in his
eternal law and fulfill their destiny.
2. The Natural Law - is human participation in
the eternal law with the use of reason
3. Divine Positive Law - God revealed further
sphere of his eternal law to direct humans to
their supernatural destiny. This is exemplified in
the Mosaic Law and the law of the Gospel. It is
authoritative like the Natural law.
4. Human Positive Law - ask and answer
questions about reality so as to focus on higher
norms bearing practical life through a
prudential determination. Canon and civil law
depend on practical wisdom (phronesis,
prudential) in establishing common sense
discretions.
The Purpose of Law
1. To identify basic values. Laws stems from the
experience of value. Legalism forgets that.
Legalism wants to make an end of the law
rather than to see the law as pointing to a
value. Laws identify certain values and
challenge us to foster them. Laws protect
values by commanding us to pursue certain
ones and by forbidding us to jeopardize others.
Because we value freedom or bodily health, for
example, we enact and accept laws to protect
these values. Laws support our freedom to
speak and to assemble. Laws prohibit smoking
in certain areas. In approaching laws, we ought
to understand and appropriate the values,
which the laws are trying to protect and
promote. Values are primary, laws are
secondary.
As expressions of the experience of values, laws
are summation of the accumulative vision of the
community's experience of what advances or
impedes life together. Laws open us to the wisdom
of the ages. Laws serve as repositories of moral
wisdom. Laws function like a road map giving
directions to find our way through the often
confusing and conflicting pathways of life. Because
of our sinfulness, (individual and social), we need
laws to protect us from our sinful inclinations and
to challenge us to foster the good of all
Laws never satisfy the full measure of moral
responsibility. Laws do identify basic values and
point to corresponding beneficial courses of action,
laws set the lower limits of protecting values. Each
person must choose and act in light of the laws to
gain the fullness of the values at stake. Without
laws cach person would have to discover the best
course of action in every instance on his/her own.
But no one has the energy, capacity, or vantage
point for such a task. It is necessary to depend on
the wisdom and standpoint of others and those
who passed away. With laws grounded on the
wisdom of an amplified experience of value,
everyone is freed from the necessity of deciding. By
having laws, everyone is freer to go about the
business of living together in an orderly way.
2. To safeguard the public order by regulating
relationships within the community, and by
protecting basic rights and freedom. Laws
exhibit the framework within which individuals
and institutions can exercise their freedom. Law
protects the public order. It includes an order of
peace to enable individuals to live in harmony,
an order of public morality, which is the
minimum moral consensus necessary to enable
people to live together, and an order of justice
to secure what is due to the people, particularly
their freedom.
Law and Morality
For Murray
 the moral law governs the entire order of
human conduct, personal and social; it extends
even to motivations and interior acts. Law looks
only to the public order of human society, it
touches only external acts, and regards only
values that are formally social.
 For Peter Chirico
o private moral values (what pertains to
personal growth)
o public moral values (what benefits
society as a whole).
 The proper realm of legislation
 “The state ought not to legislate morality" is
false.
The purpose of law is to foster public order; the
states can and does use the law to enforce moral
standards, which involves the public order. For
instance, homicide, rape, and theft are immoral
actions, which also bear legal sanction Doing bodily
harm to oneself or lying to a friend in a private
conversation does not carry legal sanction. The
former actions undermine the public order whereas
the latter do not.
The Nature of Obedience
What is the binding power of Law?
1. The Rationalist
 something is commanded because it is good.
 For Thomas Aquinas, as an ordinance of
reason, positive laws are specific expressions of
natural law and participate in eternal law.
 God is the ultimate source of obligation. Human
beings must be obedient to him. Good law
intensifies the human person to respond to the
call of God.
 Authority revitalized their capacity to
promulgate good laws which public order
demands, and to offer logical reasons for them.
 For the rationalist's, the binding power of laws
are proportionate to the persuasiveness of the
reasons that are based on natural law. The
implications: Illogical laws not beneficial for the
common good must be abandoned. Critical
thinking and evaluation on the promulgated
laws are necessary
 The basic criterion for good law is logically
sound and beneficial for the common good. The
rationalist does not advocate blind obedience to
the law.
2. Voluntaris
 Something is good because it is commanded.
 For Francis Suarez, there are two elements:
o Promulgated
o Competent authority
 The will of the legislator assessed what is good.
Blind obedience assessed those subject to
authority. By highlighting authority to assessed
what is good, it follows that voluntarism gives
all the power to the legislator and none to the
individual.
 It presumes that by birth, election, or
appointment such a person is competent of
prescribing the conduct that will protect and
advance public order.
The Virtue of Epikela
Roman Catholic tradition of law has dealt with
inherent restrictions of laws. For instance, it has
acknowledged situations wherein laws cease to
bind such as invincible Ignorance, physical
impossibility, grave inconvenience, and
The Virtue of Obedience
Obedience is deduced from ob-audire meaning to
hear." It denotes a willingness to hear others and
do their will. It alludes to hearing God and obeying
the divine will manifest in the will of others. The
virtue of obedience is a disposition to surrender our
wills to others. It is a consciously willed and free
choice. It shapes the disposition of the believer to a
sensitivity and docility to God's call in a number of
situations. It reinforces the person to open up to
the fullness of self-realization. It follows that;
obedience is selffulfillment and self-sacrifice. The
virtue of obedience goes beyond discerning God's
will. The obedient person imitates and follows the
commandments, the beatitudes, and teachings of
the Scriptures as presenting God's will for everyday
life. The virtue of obedience reinforces the human
person to consciously exercise charity and
solidarity. Obedience also includes the Word of God
and the human hearing of that word as a personal
call. It is our vocation.
Human Acts and Acts of Man
1. Human Acts (actus humanus)
 is a description of an action performed by
a human person in a truly authentic
human manner. They are performed with
awareness and free choice. Human acts
are actions performed by a human person
with human capacities for knowledge and
freedom. It is done knowingly, freely (his
own volitions and powers) and voluntarily.
Hence, it is deliberate, intentional, and
voluntary.
2. Acts of Man (actus hominis)
 is a description of a behavior emerging
through human agency, but without the
same knowledge or freedom. They are acts
done by man without deliberation or
volition, and simple acts of sensation and
appetition such as biological, and
physiological movements. For instance,
metabolism, respiration, the emotive sphere
such as fear, hatred, jealousy, infatuations,
and love.
Kinds of Human Acts (Agapay, 12-13)
Human acts are either elicited acts or commanded
acts. They are performed by the will and are not
bodily externalized. The compositions of elicited
acts are:
1. Wish - the inclination of the will towards
something attainable or not.
2. Intention - the inclination of the will to what
is possible to occur without commitment of
gaining it.
3. Consent - the agreement of the will to carry
out an intention.
4. Election - the scrutinizing of the will to opt
for something effective in carrying out its
goal.
5. Use - an act of the will moving a person to
opt for the usage of those means necessary in
carrying its goal.
6. Fruition - enjoyment of the will deduced for
the paining of goals intended earlier
Moral Distinctions (Agapay, 13]
Human acts could be in agreement or in
disagreement with the dictates of reason concerned
about the norms of morality wherein actions are
judged. Actions could be moral immoral, or amoral.
1. Moral actions - actions congruous with the
norms of morality. These are good actions.
2. Immoral actions - actions not congruous
with the norms of morality. They are evil
actions necessitating negations.
3. Amoral actions - are neutral actions in
connection to the norms of morality. They
are neither good nor bad.
Actions and the Norms of Morality [Agapay,
13-14)
The connections of actions to the norms of morality
are as follows:
1. Intrinsic - when it is integral to the nature of
that thing. i.e., when the nature is defective
due to the eclipse or absence of certain
attributes or qualities. Such actions are
intrinsically evil.
2. Extrinsic - when certain actions or factors
attached through circumstances establishing
such actions in contradictory to the norms of
morality. For instance, direct abortion, Tran’s
sexuality, and so on are intrinsically evil.
Amputation or Therapeutic mutilation is
extrinsically evil when it is the only resort to
safeguard the life of the person.
Elements of a Human Act (These 3 elements
must be present)
1. Knowledge - conscious acts are of two general
kinds: cognitive and appetitive. Cognitive acts
are acts of knowing Appetitive act is not in itself
cognitive but presupposes some cognitive act
such as to love one's spouse, to enjoy sunrise.
There are two main types of appetitive act:
first, positive appetite, which motivates toward
something such as hunger for food, enjoying
the company of a friend, enjoying a symphony.
It is an attraction to something known as
"liking," second, the negative appetite involves
all appetitive acts, which motivate one to evade
certain things. It consist the element of
aversion known as "dislike." A properly human
act is a mixture of appetite with intelligence,
There are different ways of knowing: first,
speculative knowledge; second, evaluative
knowledge.
a. Speculative knowledge - is the knowledge
of science. It is an intellectual knowledge
and has certain objectivity (a certain
independence from the knower). It is
universal in character. In a certain aspect, it
is an essential knowledge. It deals with the
essence of things. It is also fact oriented.
Like scientific knowledge, it is proveable. It
can be taught because it is objective and
independent. It is also subservient to the
knower. We respect the facts to attain our
goals.
b. Evaluative knowledge- is the knowledge
of art. It deals with quality rather than with
quantity. It deals with goodness or beauty
of a thing. It is a specific mode of knowing
the individual existing thing and not with
essences. It is appreciating value and
attains a sort of ecstasy. It is not
subservient to the knower. It is superior to
the knower. The knower serves this
knowledge, embrace, accept, and
appreciate the value he discovered. It
demands commitment. It is also involving
knowledge. It is a command and intensely
personal. It is not subjective in the aspect
of being fabricated by the knower. The
knower is presented something that
transcends the self. It is an outcome from
the unique interaction of a unique subject
and a unique object. It cannot be shared in
its entirety. The process of sharing
evaluative knowledge is a process of
education.
c. Reflex knowledge - knowledge involved in
human acts. We know the object of our
attention. We know that we know. It is
knowledge that is or can be the object of its
own reflection within our intellect.
a. Non-reflex knowledge - Our personhood
could not be reflected upon. It could not be
the direct object of our attention. We do
have certain awareness and aspect of our
own identity. Such awareness is not
available as a direct object of reflection. It is
the knowledge of our core human person.
2. Freedom of the Will - is an essential
component of an authentic human act.
Fundamental Option is brought about by that
fundamental freedom. What sort of freedom?
a. Basic Freedom or Freedom of Self
Determination - it must be freedom of choice
whereby the person makes an overall self-
determination, not through a specific and
conscious discretion on the sphere of reflection,
but in a transcendental and athematic mode.
Fundamental option is a choice that emerges
from a personal depth or reinforces the
fundamental direction of our lives. It must be
rooted in a deep knowledge of self and a
freedom to commit oneself. Through a
fundamental option, we express our basic
 freedom of self- determination to commit
ourselves profoundly toward a certain way of
doing in the world. It is a choice by which a
human person directs his entire life either
toward God or in contradictory to God. Specific
moral acts springs from this option only partially
articulates a person's basic stance. The
fundamental option itself remains untouched by
specific moral choice. It is made possible by the
presence of a number of options and multiple
possibilities. It is the freedom exercised in the
selection among those options and possibilities.
1) Person's fundamental stance.
2) The profound meaning and pertinence of
discretions of our lives.
3) It is discretion about the sort of person one
chooses to be. It is an interior action of self-
definition. It is not irrevocable, not final or
definitive. It is a discretion about the person
as a whole but not totally as we have the
capacity to reverse even our basic approach
to life.
b. Freedom of Choice - it has to do with
realizing our capacity to be ourselves through
the particular choices we make. It is subject not
only to hereditary determinants of our basic
inclinations but also to limiting factors such as
unconscious motives, peer pressure, drugs,
ignorance, passions, fears, blind habits and the
hidden persuaders of mass media [Nery, Ethics,
Postulates of Ethics 6-7]
categories. God confronts it. It is a freedom
that opens up life. It is the freedom of human -
as person. It is also the freedom associated
with perduring being.
3. Voluntariness - is deduced from the Latin word
"voluntas". Alluding to the will. Besides sense
perception, sensuous appetency, and
intellection, we experience phenomena known
as volition, the activity of the will, as a phase of
our mental life. It is essential to an act. The
eclipse of voluntariness makes an act a mere
act of man [Agapay. 15-17). The will is
understood and defined as rational appetency
or the power to strive for an intellectually
perceived good and to shun an intellectual
perceived evil. We strive for material and
spiritual things, which seem good to us. From
the individual things where are good the
intellect abstracts the universal concept of the
good in general." "Goodness" is the suitability
of a thing to a natural tendency or appetency.
The adequate good of the human will is
everything that is good. The formal object of
the will is the good as good, provided it be
suitable to the willing subject.
Perfect Imperfec Conditio Simple
Voluntari t nal Voluntar
ness Voluntar Voluntari ism
ism sm

The freedom of the human act, of human-as-agent, When a When a When When a
is a dividing freedom. It takes the experience of life human human human human
and splits it into alternatives. being being being is being is
possess full performs forced by performin
a. Categorical freedom of human-as agent – knowledge an action circumsta g an
it organizes life into categories and selects from and full without nces action
among those categories. It is a restricting intention to full beyond wilfully
freedom. It is categorical because freedom is an act awarenes his control either
associated with performing. Only objects can be s and to affirmativ
categorized. Our personhood is not an object. It realization perform ely or
is a freedom associated with human action. what he an action negatively
b. Transcendental freedom - at the deeper means to .
aspect of man's being, his personhood, a do. The
human person is free not only as agents but action is
also as persons. Personhood is not an object. It performed
is a subject. Freed decisions are not categories without
of objects or another. It is all objects taken fully
together. Personhood is confronted with the intending
reality (of world, situation, body, feelings, the act
attitudes and prejudices) that transcends all
Types of Voluntariness
1. Direct Voluntariness - when the act is
primarily intended by the performer, as an end
in itself or as a means to attain something else.
2. Indirect Voluntariness - when the act is the
consequence of a directly willed act. In
indirectly voluntary actions:
a. The performer foresees the evil
consequence.
b. The performer has the freedom to
refrain from actions, which would
generate the foreseen evil.
c. The performer has the moral
accountability not to perform actions
that will engender an evil consequence.
Impediments to a Human Act
There are factors that influence man's interior
disposition. It affects the mental or the emotive
sphere of the person affecting the voluntariness of
an act as either increased or decreased. Almoro et.
al.' gives us a clearer account on the violation
moral principles.
1. Ignorance - is the absence of knowledge
needed by man in the performance of an act.
Kinds of Ignorance
a. Invincible Ignorance - the lack of required
knowledge that ordinary efforts,
conscientiousness and proper diligence cannot
remove. It is also known as "total ignorance". It
has the effect of completely dehumanizing a
human act.
b. Vincible Ignorance - the lack of required
knowledge that ordinary efforts,
conscientiousness and proper diligence can
dispel. It is also known as partial ignorance". I
know where I am going but do not fully
appreciate the implications and consequences
of my actions. For instance, driving in excess of
the posted speed limit.
Kinds of Vincible Ignorance
a. Antecedent Ignorance - when ignorance
comes before the will can decide on the
morality of an act. Here, action is done because
of ignorance and through ignorance.
b. Concomitant Ignorance - Like antecedent
ignorance, concomitant ignorance has causal
influence on the action. The action is performed
in ignorance and with ignorance.
c. Consequent Ignorance - Ignorance is
dependent on the will's decision.
Moral Principles:
a. Invincible ignorance annuls the
voluntariness of an act; therefore, imputability
and moral responsibility are absent.
b. Vincible ignorance does not annul the
voluntariness of an act but merely lessens it.
Moral responsibility is still present, although
diminished.
2. Concupiscence or Passion - It is the natural
inclination of the sense appetite towards what
is consciously perceived as a sensuous evil. To
be an adult is to be aware of the extent to
which anger, envy, sexual desire, and other
emotions can limit one's freedom of choice.
Kinds of Concupiscence
a. Antecedent Concupiscence - is present
before any act of the will is made due to the
suddenness of the passion as surging forth
uncontrolled.
b. Consequent Concupiscence - is present
when the intellect is aware of the hidden
passion, and the will chooses to foster or to
arouse the passion.
Moral Principles:
a. Antecedent Concupiscence: Voluntariness is
lessened and at times, is completely destroyed
by antecedent concupiscence.
b. Consequent concupiscence: Voluntariness is
not lessened by consequent concupiscence
inasmuch as the will consents to foster or
arouse the passion. Consequently, there is
imputability in the actions affected by passions,
and moral responsibility in the agent.
3. Fear - Fear is the apprehension of an
impending danger and prompts the agent to
shrink from the threatening evil. Fear and
anxiety are the enemies of full human life and
authentic human discretion.
Moral Principles
a. Ordinarily, acts done from fear are voluntary,
although voluntariness is less than when fear is
absent in the performance of an act.
b. In extreme cases where uncontrollable fear
completely grips reason and the free will, the
act performed is considered an act of man and
the agent is absolved from moral responsibility.
4. Violence- It is the exercise of an outside
physical force upon a
The End of the Act The End of the
Performer
The natural ending The personal goal of
of on action. It the person
finalizes an performing an
action action.
Resisting person to compel him to act against his
will. The presence of force and the fear it
engenders) inhibits and at least partially prevents
the clear thinking and free choosing that comprise
a really human act. For instance, rape, shotgun
marriage.
Moral Principles
a. If due resistance is offered by the unwilling
victim, the act done is involuntary and
therefore not imputable.
b. If the victim does not resist or gives consent
during performance, the act done is still
voluntary and consequently imputable.
5. Habit- It is a firm and stable behaviour pattern
of acting with ease and readiness as a result of
acts frequently repeated. Good moral habits are
called virtues. The seven virtues are: faith,
hope, charity, justice, temperance, fortitude
and prudence. Bad moral habits are called
vices. The seven capital vices are: pride, anger,
gluttony, lust, avarice or covetousness, envy
and sloth.
Moral Principles
a. An act done by force of a bad habit or vice,
which is known and consented to, is voluntary
and hence imputable.
b. If efforts are exerted to counteract and remove
the evil habit, then the habit itself and the acts
inadvertently coming from it are involuntary,
and not imputable.
The Ends of the Human Act
The End of the Performer
1. Proximate or Remote End - the goal which a
person performing an action intends to finish
his action.
2. Intermediate or Ultimate End - the goal
desired for its own sake. The intermediate end
is the goal desired as a way for gaining another
thing. The gaining of an ultimate end finalizes
an action and further actions. The gaining of
intermediate ends direct to another
intermediate ends or to an ultimate end.
The Church and Moral Norms
The Notion of Sin
Sin is an offense against reason, truth and right
conscience. It is a failure in genuine love for God
and neighbour caused by a perverse attachment to
certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and
injures human solidarity. It is defined as an
utterance, a deed or a desire contrary to the
eternal law. Sin listed in the Letter to the Galatians
are: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry,
sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, dissension,
factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the
like. Sin can be distinguished according to their
objects, as can every human act; or according to
the virtues they oppose, by excess or defect; or
according to the commandments they violate. They
can also be classed according to whether they
concern God, neighbour or oneself. They can be
divided into spiritual and carnal sins, or again as
sins in thought, word, deed or omission
The 1st Commandment embraces faith, hope and
charity. Our moral life has its source in faith in God
who reveals His love to us. Obedience of faith is
our first obligation. Our duty toward God is to
believe in Him and to bear witness to Him. The 1st
Commandment requires us to nourish and protect
our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject
everything that is opposed to it.
There are various ways of sinning against faith:
 1. Voluntary doubt refuses to hold as true
what God has revealed and the Church
proposes for belief.
2. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in
believing difficulty in overcoming objections
connected with the faith, or also anxiety
aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately
cultivated, doubt can lead to spiritual
blindness.
3. Incredulity is the neglect of reveled truth
or the willful refusal to assent to it.
4. Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal
denial of some truth which must be believed
with divine and Catholic faith, or it is
likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the
same.
5. Apostasy is the total repudiation of the
Christian faith
6. Schism is the refusal of submission to the
Roman Pontiff or of communion with the
members of the Church subject to Him
When God reveals Himself and calls him, man
cannot fully respond to the divine love by his own
powers. He must hope that God will give him the
capacity to love Him in return and to act in
conformity with the commandment of charity. Hope
is the confident expectation of divine blessing and
the beatific vision of God. It is also the fear of
offending God's love and incurring punishment.
Despair and presumption are sins against
hope. By despair, man ceases to hope for his
personal salvation from God for help in attaining it
or for forgiveness of his sins. Despair is contrary
God's goodness, to his justice - for the Lord is
faithful to his promises - and to his mercy. There
are two kinds of presumption. Either man presumes
upon his own capacities, (hoping to be able to save
himself without half from on high). or he presumes
upon God's almighty power or his mercy (hoping to
obtain his forgiveness without conversion, and
glory without merit) [CCC 2090-2092).
Faith in God encompasses the call and the
obligation to respond with sincere love to divine
charity. The 1st Commandment enjoins us to love
God above everything and all creatures for him and
because of him.
One can sin against God's love in various ways:
1. Indifference neglects or refuses to reflect on
divine charity, it fails to consider its prevenient
goodness and denies its power;
2. Ingratitude fails or refuses to acknowledge
divine charity and to return love for love;
3. Lukewarmness is hesitation or negligence in
responding to divine love: it can imply refusal to
give oneself over the prompting of charity:
4. Acedia or spiritual sloth is the refusal to joy
that comes from God and to repelled by divine
goodness;
5. Hatred of God comes from pride. It is contrary
to love of God, whose goodness it denies, and
whom it presumes to curse as the one who
forbids sins and inflicts punishments.
The theological virtues of faith, hope and charity
inform and give life to moral virtues. Charity leads
us to render to God what we, as creatures owe him
in all justice. The virtue of religion such as
adoration, pruner, sacrifice and promises and
vows disposes us to have this attitude.
The 1st commandment
 Forbids honouring gods other than the one Lord
who has revealed himself to his people.
 It proscribes superstition and irreligion.
Superstition ion some sense represents a
perverse excess of religion, irreligion is the vice
contrary by defect to the virtue of religion.
 The 1st Commandment condemns polytheism.
It requires man neither to believe in, nor to
venerate, other divinities than the one true
God.
 Idolatry not only refers to false pagan
worship. It remains a constant temptation to
faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not
God. Man commits idolatry whenever he
honours and reveres a creature in place of God,
whether this be gods or demons (eg,
Satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors,
the state, money, etc.
 A sound Christian attitude consists in putting
oneself confidently into the hands of Providence
for whatever concerns the future, and giving up
all unhealthy curiosity about it.
 Improvidence can constitute a lack of
responsibility. All forms of divination are to be
rejected. Consulting horoscopes, astrology,
palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots,
the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse
for mediums all conceal a desire for power over
time, history, and in the last analysis, other
human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate
hidden powers. They contradict the honor,
respect and loving fear that we owe to God
alone.
 All practices of magic or sorcery, by which
one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to
place them at one's service and have
supernatural power over others even if this
were for the sake of restoring health-are
gravely contrary to the virtue of religion.
 These practices are even more to be
condemned when accompanied by harming
someone, or when they have recourse to the
intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also
reprehensible. Spiritism implies divination or
magical practices.
The 1st Commandment condemns the main sins
of irreligion: tempting God, in words and deeds
sacrilege and simony.
1. Tempting God consists in putting his
goodness and almighty power to test by
word and deed.
2. Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating
unworthily the sacraments and other
liturgical actions, as well as persons, things
or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a
grave sin especially when committed
against the Eucharist, for in this sacrament
the true Body of Christ is mad substantially
present for us.
3. Simony is defined as the buying or selling
of spiritual things.
Atheism denies the existence of God. It is a sin
against the virtue of religion. It covers many
different phenomena.
Practical materialism restricts its needs and
aspirations to space and time.
Atheistic humanism falsely considers man to be
an end to himself, and the sole maker, with
supreme control of his own history. Another form
of contemporary atheism looks for the liberation of
man through economic and social liberation. It
holds that religion thwarts such emancipation by
raising man's hopes in a future life, thus both
deceiving him and discouraging him from working
for a better form of life on earth.
Agnosticism
 Assumes a number of forms. In certain cases
the agnostic refrains from denying God; instead
he postulates the existence of a transcendent
being, which is incapable of revealing itself, and
about which nothing can be said.
 In other cases, the agnostic makes no
judgment about God’s existence, declaring it
impossible to prove, or even to affirm or deny.
 Agnosticism includes a certain search for God,
but it can equally express indifferentism, a flight
from the ultimate question of existence, and a
sluggish moral conscience.
 Agnosticism is all too often equivalent to
practical atheism.
In the Old Testament, God ordained or permitted
the making of images that pointed symbolically
toward salvation by the incarnate Word: so it was
with the bronze serpent, the Ark of the Covenant
and the cherubim. The Council of Niceae justified
against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons- of
Christ, but also of the Mother of God, the angels
and all the saints. By becoming incarnate, the Son
of God introduced a new 'economy' of images. The
Christian veneration of images is not contrary to
the 1st Commandment, which proscribes idols. The
honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype
and whoever venerates an image venerates the
person portrayed in it. The honor paid to sacred
images is a respectful veneration, not the adoration
due to God alone [CCC 2129-2132]
The 2nd Commandment
 forbids the abuse of God's name, i.e., every
improper use of the names of God, Jesus
Christ, but also of the Virgin Mary and all the
Saints.
 Promises made to others in God's name
engage the divine honor, fidelity, truthfulness
and authority. They must be respected in
justice.
 Blasphemy is directly opposed to the 2nd
Commandment. It is contrary to the respect
due God and his holy name. It is in itself a
grave sin. It consists in uttering against God -
inwardly or outwardly - words of hatred,
reproach, or defiance, in speaking ill of God, in
failing in respect toward him in one's speech, in
misusing God's name. The prohibition of
blasphemy extends to language against Christ's
Church, the saints, and sacred things. It is also
blasphemous to make use of God's name to
cover up criminal practices, to reduce people to
servitude, to torture persons or put them to
death. The misuse of God's name to commit a
crime can provoke others to repudiate religion.
Oaths, which misuse God's name, thought
without the intention of blasphemy, show lack
of respect for the Lord.
 The 2nd Commandment also forbids magical
use of the divine name.
The 3rd Commandment
 Obliges Christians to observe the Sabbath day.
Sundays and other holy days of obligation the
faithful are bound to participate in the Mass
unless excuse for serious reason e.g., illness,
the care of infants, or dispensed by their own
pastor. Also to be observed are the day of the
Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Epiphany,
the Ascension of Christ, the feast of the body
and Blood of Christ, the Feast of Mary the
Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her
Assumption, the feast of St. Joseph, the feast
of the apostles Sts. Peter and Paul, and the
feast of all Saints.
 Those who deliberately fail in this obligation
commit a grave sin.
 The root of sin is in the heart of man, in his
free will.
A. The context of Freedom and knowledge |
different Ways of knowing:
1. Speculative Knowledge
2. Evaluative Knowledge
B. Sin: A Biblical Perspective
From the bible, we see that God calls we respond.
The relationship that we establish with God in and
through our responses to all things becomes the
focal point of the moral life. Practicing the presence
of God becomes essential for Christian
responsibility, Christian moral growth and our
awareness of sin.
1. Covenant
In the Old Testament, sin is Miserere (an evil of
sin) points to violations of relationships:
Hattah or "to miss the mark" or "to respond"
points to a willful rejection of the known will of
God. It is action oriented toward an existing
relationship. The existence of the relationship
makes the offense or failure possible.
Pesha "rebellion" is a legal term exhibiting how
in sinning human persons reject God and his love.
It denotes a deliberate action violating a
concatenated engagement in community.
Awon - means inequity or guilt. It alludes to the
mode wherein sin twists and distorts the sinner's
interior being
Hamartia and Hamarfema is the New
Testament term for sin. It connotes a deliberate
action rooted in the heart and missing the intended
mark. Sin is a freely chosen deed casting aside
God's loving norms for human life.
Anomia - "lawlessness". It accentuates that sin
involves the spirit of rebellion and contempt for
God and his law.
Adikia - "injustice". Sin is a repudiation to accept
God and his reign as disclosed in Christ and to live
in the justice that God has offered.
Pseudos - "falsehood". It discloses sin as in
contradictory to the truth of God and of being a
human person. It is deception and lying.
Skotos - "darkness".
Asebia - impiety from which injustice flows.
 For Gula, the covenant claims that God loves us
without having doing anything to attract God's
attention or to win that love.
 It is completely a bond of gratuitous love, pure
grace. God's initiative of love (grace) does not
destroy our freedom. God makes an offer we
 can decline. God's offer of love awaits our
acceptance.
 Once we accept the offer of love we commit
ourselves to living as the covenant demands
Gula, 91).
 In worshipping the golden calf (ex 32), Israel
missed the mark of covenantal love, or sinned,
not so much because Israel broke one of the
laws of the covenant, but because Israel broke
the personal bond of love of which the law was
an external expression.
 Sin is a deviation to the God given bond of love.
Sin articulates our negation to respond
appropriately to God's love and mercy. Sin is
declining to live out the gift of divine love
The covenant calls us in a threefold manner
1. To respect the worth of ourselves and others as
constituted by God's love.
2. To live in solidarity with creation and with one
another as covenantal partners.
3. To develop the virtue of fidelity as the proper
characteristic of every covenantal relationship.
Sin would be to act contrary to these covenantal
requirements.
2. Worth
 Our hearts hunger for love. The covenant
responds to this cry of the heart longing for
worth with a firm "yes". The covenant insists
the necessity of grace.
 Our worth springs from God's offer of divine
love as a free gift and is not conditioned by our
own achievements.
a. ls 43:1: 41:8-16 - God loving the people of the
covenant for their own sakes and not for the
sake of being useful or powerful
b. Hos 11:1-9 - We read of God's love for a
rebellious people being articulated through the
tended image of the parent for the child.
c. Mt 18:1-5 - children: Greatest in God's reign
kingdom.
The child's worth comprises simply by generous
love of the parents. We must imitate children
before God. We experience bountiful love and not
because of anything we may have accomplished
Instead of basing our worth in divine love, sin
establishes worth on the foundation of surrogate
loves which we create for ourselves to give us
security of being loveable and acceptable.
Depending on an idol rather than the divine love,
the reality of sin remains with the sinner. Creating
surrogate loves is the sin of idolatry. These loves
may be our talent, our goodness, our efficiency,
our charm, our wealth, our social position and
prestige, or whatever else we might create in order
to secure our worth and make ourselves some
body. The sin of idolatry plunges the person into
darkness and disengages in the depth of existence.
By opening ourselves to the source of our worth in
God's will we overcome our sin of idolatry and open
ourselves to the amplified values of God's creation
and God's people.
3. Solidarity
 Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (Dec. 30, 1987) Pope
John Paul II spoke of solidarity as a virtue, a
moral and a social attitude. This then is not a
feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress
at the misfortunes of so many people, both
near and far.
 It is a firm and persevering determination to
commit oneself to the common good, that is to
say to the good of all and of each individual,
because we are all really responsible for all.
 Solidarity helps to see the other - whether a
person, people or nation not just as some kind
of instrument, with a work capacity and
physical strength to be exploited at low cost
and then discarded when no longer useful, but
as our "neighbour," a "helper" (Gen 2:18-20),
to be made a sharer, on a par with ourselves, in
the banquet of life to which all are equally
invited by God.
 Covenantal solidarity means that our lives
extend beyond a private engagement with God
and our neighbour to embrace the entire social
order - social structures, institutional order,
economic systems. Our lives are unavoidably
marked by the structural linkage, which can act
in conformity or in contradiction to the
fundamental worth and well-being of all.
 The fruit of covenantal solidarity is shalom -
that peace which is not just the absence of
violence, but the peace, which is the justice of
communal integration where in competing
claims gain equilibrium.
Sin from the standpoint of the covenant and
solidarity, weakened all concatenated engagement
to which we are called. The foundation is radical
independence. Sin is a transgression of the divine
command. It is an idolatry leading to sins of
injustice and failure to respect the diversity within a
collaborative community domination and
disintegration. Sin is a personal by fostering
deliberate action even as it is communal: in
opposition to one's neighbour and God. Sin springs
from the heart of a human person for which he is
ultimately accountable not in a sphere of congruous
relationship with God, but in the sphere of failing to
respect what God loves. Personal sin amplified its
consequences in society in its entirety. It is
incommensurably a violation of the covenant by
introducing disorder and strife into the
independence of covenantal connections.
Our obligations inherent in being social are
inseparable from the bond that links us to God.
Human solidarity is one piece with our relationship
to God. To betray a social commitment demanded
by justice is to betray God and to perpetuate social
sin.
4. Fidelity
 The solidarity of covenantal partners
accountable to and for one another needs
fidelity to gain its fullest expression.
 Fidelity, trustworthiness and loyalty are modes
of articulating the core virtue of the covenant.
What sort of person should I be? The answer:
be faithful, be trustworthy. When there is no
harmony, openness, fidelity to the covenantal
commitment, the relationship is on the dead
end. It breaks down. It is a loss of joy, peace
and energy. It diminishes one's to capability
appreciate to be grateful, faithful, and share in
others joy, love, and peace. It cannot radiate
anything. He is incapable of respecting the
conscience and dignity of others and thereby,
discloses the loss of his worth and dignity.
 Gula presented the narratives of the Garden of
Eden and the garden of Getshemane to inform
us that we are pursued by the relentless fidelity
of God. Sin is the power play of infidelity.
 Sin is refusing to believe that God can be
trusted and that others are worth trusting. In a
covenant, we entrust to one another something
of value to ourselves
 Sin cannot let go of the fear and suspicion
which wages war in the inner self and incapable
of seeing the other as a gift. In sin we are
unable to live in the freedom of being entrusted
by God with personal worth and with the gifts
of one another.
 Sin abuses the power we give to one another
when we entrust another with something of
value to ourselves a personal secret, our health,
our property, and our bodies. Sin is a power
swaying over all mankind.
 It deceives the person by not entrusting as
creatures empowered with gifts to set one
another free. We live in suspicion of another's
gifts and abuse our power by controlling,
dominating or manipulating these gifts to serve
our own self interests. This is sin as infidelity,
an arrogant use of power. This power is beyond
freedom and responsibility. It is a power
against life.
5. Heart
 The heart is what the divine love of the
covenant seeks. Divine love is either embraced
or rejected in the heart. According to biblical
anthropology, the heart is the seat of vital
discretions, for it is the fulcrum of feeling and
reason, discretion and action, intention and
consciousness.
 This establishes the heart the ultimate locale of
virtue or sin. We sin first in our hearts. From a
person's heart come the evil ideas which lead
one to do immoral thing (Mk 7:2). Whereas a
good person engenders good from the
goodness in the heart (Lk 6:45):
 The very essence of conversion, or metanoia, is
to live with a new heart in a new spirit, the
spirit of Christ living in us. The biblical vision of
 the heart focuses on that dimension of us which
is most sensitive and open to others.
 The essential characteristic of the heart is its
openness to God -its capacity to receive divine
love.
 For Augustine, our hearts are by nature
oriented to God. Jesus said: "Where your heart
is there will be your treasure as well" (Mt 6:21).
Our heart is restless until it rests on God. When
our hearts treasure Ciod, all other treasures will
be treasured rightly.
 The heart properly ordered to God as our single
center of value will have a certain instinct for
what is good relative to God.
 Such a properly directed heart yields a life of
virtue. The misdirected heart generates sin. The
sinner, shackled by selfishness may accord in
disengaging between moral knowledge and his
will.
 A mechanism of the stubborn sinfulness can
activate another sort of integration. Dark
energies of selfishness and arrogance may
dominate the person's actions into energy of
dark goals.
C. Sin: The Arrogance of Power
There are three common analogous uses of sin:
Original sin - the human condition of living in a
world where we are influenced by more evil than
that which we do ourselves).
Material sin - transgressions of a law or acts
wrongdoing such as killing.
Social sin - the consequences of individual
choices, which form oppressive social structures
such as sexism.
Pertaining to the quality of our relationship in the
covenant suggests both a transcendent and an
immanent dimension to sin. The transcendent
dimension articulates a break in our relationship to
God. This is the "no" we answer other invitation to
live with God in love. But we do not experience or
express this relationship to God apart from our
relationship with all things, especially other
persons. Our sin is our way of rebelling not only
against God but also against the living images of
God.
The immanent dimension of sin is construed as
seeing the relevance of the human community as
the place in and through which we receive love and
gave love. Sin in its immanent dimension is the
"no" we answer in our dealings with our neighbours
to be loved and to love. We sin when we choose to
turn inward and cut off the dynamics of receiving
and giving love. Sin is always a type of self-
absorption. Whenever loving. Life-giving
relationships are weakened or destroyed, sin is
present in some form. Whether that form be lying,
gossip, stealing, abusing, ignoring, or whatever. A
life-giving relationship is weakened or broken.
Personal sin-is a spirit of selfishness grounded in
our hearts and wills wages war against God's plan
for our fulfillment. It is rejection, either partial; or
total, of one's role, as a child of God and a member
of his people, a rejection of the spirit of sonship,
love and life.
Rollo may provide a helpful schema for
understanding sin as the arrogance of power. All of
us have power. But not all of it is demonic. We
need power to love in the first place. Power is the
capacity to influence change in others and
situations for good or evil.
There are five kinds of Power
1. exploitative
2. Manipulative. Such powers are destructive.
These are forms of power over another and
often can be used with force or violence.
3. Competitive power acts against another. It
can act destructively when it puts another
down, or it can act constructively to bring
out dormant capacities in another and to
bring vitality to a relationship.
4. Nutrient power acts for the sake of another
by giving care. This kind of power is vital in
relationships between friends and loved
ones.
5. Integrative power acts with another to draw
out the best in him or her. The arrogance of
 power in the misdirected heart seeks a
greater proportion of exploitative,
manipulative, and competitive power over
nutrient and integrative power.
Sin as the arrogant use of power disengages us
from life-giving and loving affections. As covenantal
partners, caring and serving through nurturing and
integrative power is an obligation. Sin is
encountering the power of evil casting us to strive
to safeguard the self we have made in order to
guarantee that we are loveable and loved
When we set out to safeguard the self we have
made, we set ourselves against God, against
nature, and against one another. Self-serving
interests destroy bonds of peace and justice, and
spread conditions of fear, hatred, and violence,
which use her in the disharmony of the world which
we know as social, in the collaboration in the
continued maintenance of oppressive structures in
society. Some are vultures in the more active
sphere and they engender additional piles of
corpses by their own actions engendering these
structures of sin.
We break the dynamic of power of sin in our lives
when we realize that we are in fact profoundly
loved apart from our achievements and our virtue.
Only God's love is so permanent and profound or to
liberate us from our sin. Christian life is dialectic of
sin and grace, of guilt and of forgiveness. Hence, it
is breaking the spiral cycle of evil, sin, and guilt.
Kinds of Sin
Original sin
 is the theological code word for the human
condition of living in a world where we are
influenced by more evil than what we do
ourselves.
 Our whole being and environment is infected by
this condition of evil and brokenness willy-nilly.
We feel the effect of its presence and it's in our
lack of freedom and in our vitality to love, as
we would want.
 In Rom 7. Paul said: I do not do the good I
want to do; instead, I do the evil I do not want
to do.
 The full doctrine of original sin tells that though
we may be broken, we are not disasters. We
can still become who we are made to be. The
reason for this is that the power of original sin
is in tension with the power of God's redeeming
love, or grace, which enables us to grow toward
wholeness and in communion with our selves,
others, and God. While the energy of original
sin pulls us in the direction of radical selfishness
and independence, the energy of grace moves
us toward inter-dependence and communion.
We need to open ourselves to the presence of
redemptive love.
 This gift of divine love is mediated to us in and
through the human community our families, our
neighbourhoods, and the wider community
which witnesses to justice, truth, peace and
other virtues. Because of original sin, struggle
and tragedy will always be part of our moral
striving. But because of grace, redemption and
the resurrection - destiny will always have the
last word.
 Original sin makes actual sin and social sin
possible and even probable. Redemption is not
just some kind of liberation from guilt. It is
receiving God's own holiness.
Actual sin - there are two distinctions:
1. The mortal sin
2. The venial sin.
The greatest sin is the direct rejection of God. This
is idolatry.
Paul: sins which can exclude one from the reign of
God, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be
forgiven because the person is closed to the power
of the Spirit to save. For example, mortal sin:
idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, fornication,
false witnessing, fraud, and lying.
There are three conditions.
1. sufficient reflection;
2. full consent of the will;
3. Serious matter.
Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even
remove the imputability of a grave offense. But no
one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of
the moral law, which are written in the conscience
of every man. The promptings of feelings and
passions can also diminish the voluntary and free
character of the offense, as can external pressures
or pathological disorders. Sin committed trough
malice, by deliberate choice of evil, is the gravest.
Formal sin
 is sin in the true sense.
 It is precisely the action for which we are
morally culpable because is proceeds from
knowledge and freedom and so carries a
significant degree of personal involvement.
Material Sin
 is sin only in an analogous way.
 It is an act of objective wrongdoing, an act that
may cause great harm. But the objective
wrongdoing itself does not automatically make
one morally culpable or make the actions
subjectively sinful.
 To say an action is a moral sin presumes that
the action is done with evaluative knowledge
and basic freedom. Through moral sin, the
sinner closes the self-off from a commitment to
life and love.
 Moral sin radically disrupts the person’s
relationship with God and turns the person
away from openness to life and love. Mortal sin
demands degree of self-awareness, self-
possession, and self-determination.
 For a sin to be mortal ("mortalia" or deadly
sins), the object is grave matter and which is
also committed with full knowledge and
deliberate consent. Grave matter is specified by
the Ten Commandments. The gravity of sins is
more or less great: murder is graver than theft.
One must also take into account who is
wronged: violence against parents is in itself
graver than violence against a stranger (CCC
1857-1858). Mortal sin results in the loss of
charity and privation of sanctifying grace, that
is, of the state of grace. It is not redeemed by
repentance and God's forgiveness. It causes
exclusion from Christ's kingdom and the eternal
death of hell, for our freedom has the power to
make choices for ever with no turning back.
Although we can judge that an act is in itself a
grave offense, we must entrust judgment of
persons to the justice and mercy of God (CCC
1861).
Venial Sin
 A human act, which does not stem from the
core of the human person and does not
constitute a fundamental option. It does not
engage the transcendental freedom of our
deepest sphere.
 It does not spring from the deepest level of our
knowledge and freedom so as to change our
fundamental commitment to be open to God,
others, and the world.
 In venial sin, there is an interior contradiction.
The more clearly we become aware of God's
love for us, and the more greatly grateful for
that love we become and can clearly know our
venial sins and the more seriously we will take
them.
 Our venial sins are what weaken the rootedness
of our fundamental commitment to God and to
being a loving person.
 If we take more seriously our venial sins, the
more attuned we will become to the call to
conversion in our lives. The ongoing need for
moral flourishing, the ongoing conversion,
which ought to mark our moral lives, is the
transition bringing us back in line with our
fundamental orientation of being committed to
life and love.
 The distinction between mortal and venial sin is
in the degree of personal penetration or
personal involvement in the action.
 In mortal sin, there is a deeper core
involvement. Venial sin does not deprive the
sinner of sanctifying grace, friendship with God,
charity, and consequently eternal happiness
(CCC 1863].
Social sin
 Sins gives rise to social situations and
institutions that are contrary to the divine
goodness. Structures of sin are the expression
and effect of personal sins. They lead the
victims to do the evil in their turn. In an
analogous sense, they constitute a social sin.
 The notion of social sin articulates how social
structures can shape our existence for the
worse.
 It describes the consequences of individual
choices, which form structures wherein people
suffer various forms of oppression and
exploitation.
 For example, patterns of racial discrimination,
economic system that exploit migrant workers,
structures which make it necessary that persons
be illegal aliens and sanctuaries harbor them,
 and the exclusion of women from certain
positions in the church.

The Proliferation of Sin

Sin engenders vice by repetition of the same acts.

This results in perverse inclinations, which cloud
conscience and corrupt the concrete judgment of
good and evil. Sin tends to reproduce itself and
reinforce itself but cannot destroy the moral sense
at its root. Vices are linked to the capital sins. They
are called capital because they engender other
sins, other vices. They are pride, avarice, envy,
wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth or acedia [CCC
1865-1866). Sin is a personal act. We have a
responsibility for the sins committed by others
when we cooperate in them: by participating
directly and voluntarily in them; by ordering,
advising, praising, or approving them; by not
disclosing or not hindering them when we have the
obligation to do so and by protecting evil-doers.