Irish Theological Quarterly Frank Mobbs

66 ( 2001 )

Is the Whole of Morality Contained in

Revelation?
Appealing to distinctions enshrined in conciliar teachings, the author offers grounds for
rejecting Lawrence J. Welch’s attempt (ITQ, 64, 1999) to provide a christological foun-
dation for the claim of Veritatis Splendor that the magisterium has a divine commission
to teach moral truths as contained in natural law.

I
Catholic theology long tradition calling moral truths’
there is of
In’moral law’, and of dividing exhaustively the whole
a

of moral truths set

into revealed truths (divine law) and non-revealed truths (natural law).
The first are known by human beings in virtue of God’s revealing them.
The second are known independently of God’s revealing. In addition
there is a long chain of claims of theologians and of bishops, notably of
the Bishops of Rome, to possess a divine authorisation to teach all moral-
ity, whether revealed or contained in natural law.
It is useful to pause and assess the significance of this claim, to feel the
full weight of it. It means that the magisterium of the Church, the bish-
ops, have authority from God to answer all moral questions and to judge
the truth of every moral statement. It means, further, that the bishops
have the capacity to know the answer to every moral question, for there
would be no point in having divine authority to assess the truth of all
moral statements and not know whether they were true or false.
,
According to Francis A. Sullivan,’ Pope John Paul It’s encyclical
Veritatis Splendor (VS) makes the customary claim to have divine author-
ity in all moral matters. Sullivan cites VS 2, 5, 28, 30, 72, 79, 81, 82, and
116 in support of this analysis, concluding that he finds ’it difficult to
avoid the conclusion that John Paul II is effectively basing the authority
of the magisterium in all moral matters on its authority to interpret divine
revelation For the pope ’... all traditional Catholic moral doctrine is,
in the final analysis, the Church’s interpretation of the contents of the
Ten Commandments as reaffirmed and specified in the New Testament.’
The claim which Fr Sullivan has detected in Veritatis Splendor is a very
large claim indeed. A reader might be inclined to dismiss his and my
account of it as exaggerated. Such a reader might care to take note that

1. I assume that a truth is a true proposition.

2. Francis A. Sullivan, ’Infallible teaching on moral issues? Reflections on Veritatis
Splendor and Evangelium Vitae’, in Choosing Life. A Dialogue on Evangelium Vitae, edited by
Kevin Wm. Wildes and Alan C. Mitchell (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University
Press, 1997), 77-97.
3. Ibid., 82.
157

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VS 27 clearly makes the claim when it quotes canon 747, ~2, of the Code
of Canon Law of the Latin Church. Following the statement that the
Church has the right to teach and defend the ’deposit of faith’
(Revelation), the canon says:
The Church has the right always and everywhere to proclaim
moral principles, even in respect of the social order, and to make
judgements about any human matter (de quibuslibet rebus humanis)
in so far as this is required by fundamental human rights or the
salvation of souls.

One would expect all the requirements for the salvation of souls to be
contained in the deposit of faith, yet here they are additions to the contents
of the deposit. Seeing that they are not revealed, they can only be require-
ments of natural laW.4 So both revealed and also natural law morals -
that is to say, all morals - fall within the competence of the magisterium.
Moreover, in teaching thus John Paul II was treading the path of many
popes and theologians. For example, Pope Pius X:

Whatever a Christian man may do, even in affairs of this world ...
all his actions, in so far as they are morally good or evil, that is,
agree with, or are in opposition to, divine and natural law, are
subject to the judgement and authority of the Church.&dquo;
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, published in the year before the
publication of VS, after stating that the infallibility of the magisterium
’extends as far as the deposit of divine Revelation’, goes on to say: ’The
authority of the Magisterium extends also to the specific precepts of the
natural law, because their observance, demanded by the Creator, is
necessary to salvation’ (no. 2036 - my emphasis).
As for the theologians, John J. Reed will serve as one example:

The teaching authority of the Church in matters of natural law

extends not only to the enunciation of abstract principles but also
to their application in the concrete. The Church is not limited to
stating that one must be just, or charitable or chaste, but may teach
that a certain concrete situation is unjust, that a definite impending
legislation is immoral, that a specified conjugal practice is illiCit.6
4. Brian W. Harrison maintains that the set of all moral truths is not exhausted by the sub-
sets of revealed truths and naturally known truths (natural law), for there is a third set com-
prising ’those which are known as the logical conclusion of a revealed premise and a
naturally known premise’ (‘The "Secondary Object" of Papal Infallibility: A Reply to Frank
Mobbs’, in ITQ, 65 (2000), 325, n. 29). I comment that for any proposition p, p is either
revealed or not revealed, and it is only revealed propositions which comprise the deposit
of faith.
5. Encyclical Singulari quadam, 24 September 1912, AAS, 4 (1912), 658, as quoted in John
J. Reed, ’Natural law, theology, and the Church’ (Theological Studies, 26 (1965), 61).
6. Reed, loc. cit., 60.

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The relevant argument of VS can be summarised in this form: Christ

authorised his Church to teach what he taught (and thus revealed), and
he taught that one must keep the Ten Commandments, and they contain
the whole moral law (revealed and natural); therefore, the Church is
divinely authorised to teach all matters of morality.
In a recent article, Lawrence J. Welch’ has sought to strengthen and
clarify the pope’s claims by showing ’that they rest ultimately on a
Christological foundation.’8 If Welch is correct, then there are facts about
Christ which entail that the magisterium is authorised to determine the
truth of all answers to moral questions. What, according to Welch, are
these facts?

What is natural law?

But first we need to be clear about what is meant by ’natural law’.

Welch gives no description of it, relying on the pope’s account. So what
is this natural law according to VS? No succinct definition of it occurs in
VS, so one is forced to compile scattered references to it. Elsewhere’ I
have listed 18 descriptive statements about natural law, as found in VS. I
draw attention to a defining property of natural law, one to be found in
John Paul 11’s description and in every papal description of natural law
published in the last two centuries. The property is that of being known
by human reason, as distinct from being known by faith in Revelation:
The morality of acts is defined by the relationship of man’s freedom
with the authentic good. This good is established, as the eternal
law ... [Tihis eternal law is known ... by man’s natural reason
(hence it is ’natural law’),’o
Natural law can be known without Revelation by every rational person
(VS 74) through conscience (VS 3, 33, 54, 57, 59). So when the pope
refers to natural law he is referring to something which is known by
human reason. Were it an item of Revelation, it would be known, not by
human reason, but by faith. The one proposition might be known both by
reason and also by faith, but by employing the expression ’known by
human reason’ the pope is maintaining the common theological distinc-
tion between faith and reason, thus signalling that the contents of natural
law, in so far as they are items of natural law, are not known by faith. If
7. Lawrence J. Welch, ’Christ, the Moral Law, and the Teaching Authority of the
Magisterium’, in ITQ, 64 (1999), 16-28.
8. Ibid., 27.
9. Frank Mobbs, Beyond its Authority? The Magisterium and Matters of Natural Law
(Alexandria, Australia: Dwyer, 1997), 59-61.
10. VS 72 (italics omitted). Cf. VS 43: ’[God] cares for man through reason, which, by
...

its natural knowledge of God’s eternal law, is consequently able to show man the right
direction to take in his free actions’. See also VS 44, 51, 74.

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one knows them by faith they are not items of natural law. This distinc-
tion was most authoritatively expressed by the First Vatican Council in
its dogmatic constitution, Dei Filius, which distinguishes sharply between
Revelation and reason: faith is a response to Revelation, the virtue by
which ’we believe that the things [God] has revealed are true, not because
of the intrinsic truth of the things viewed by the natural light of human
reason but because of the authority of God himself’ (DS 3008), and
which goes on to anathematise anyone denying the distinction between
faith and ’natural knowledge of God and of moral truths’ (DS 3032 - my
1
emphasis).&dquo;
The pope affirms the same account of faith in his 1998 encyclical Fides
et Ratio:

By faith, men and women give their assent to this divine testimony.
This means that they acknowledge fully and integrally the truth of
what is revealed because it is God himself who is the guarantor of
that truth (no. 13).

Again, Pope John Paul II distinguishes reason from faith in VS 53:

’This truth of the moral law - just like (aeque) that of the &dquo;deposit of
faith&dquo; - unfolds down the centuries’. Thus he distinguishes between ’the
deposit of faith’ and ’the moral law’. 12 The latter is not part of the deposit
of faith because it is not known by faith.
The point to which I draw attention is that if the bishops, including
the Bishops of Rome, know propositions of natural law, then they do so
’by the natural light of human reason’ and, hence, without the ’divine
testimony’ to its truth.
Welch’s christological foundation
The claim that the magisterium has divine authority to teach natural
law, as well as revealed law, possesses a secure christological foundation
according to Welch. What is his argument? He spends six pages on evi-
dence to show that facts about Christ are the foundation of the magis-
terium’s claim to teach all morality. I find that what Welch says is
obscure, so it is not easy to summarise. I can only hope that the following
summary accurately expresses his case: (1) Welch states that the whole
moral law (revealed and natural) is contained in Revelation because ’the
moral law is one in Christ. 13 VS 45, which Sullivan has overlooked, says
11. Si quis dixerit, fidem divinam a naturali de Deo et rebus moralibus scientia non distingui ...

anathema sit. Cf. Summa Theologiae, I, 1, 6, ad 2: ’But the knowledge proper to this science
[theology] comes through revelation, and not through natural reason.’
12. ’The rational ordering of the human act to the good in its truth and the voluntary
pursuit of that good, known by reason, constitute morality’ (VS 72 - my emphasis). Cf. ’...
reason enlightened by Divine Revelation and by faith’ (VS 44).
13. Welch, loc. cit., 18.

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that both natural and also revealed law have their origin and goal in God
who predestines human beings to be conformed to the image of his Son.&dquo;
(2) The natural law, which ’is known from reason’, ’lays down the pur-
poses, rights and duties which are based upon the bodily and spiritual
nature of the human person.’15 What has this to do with Christ? As
answer, Welch cites the pope’s encyclical DommMm et Vivificantem, no. 33
(’The Word [Christ] is also the eternal law’), and adds: ’The eternal law
is someone: the Son of the Father.’16 Seeing that human beings are created
in the Son, they have an imprint of the eternal law which is natural law.
(3) In his writings, John Paul II has emphasised the primacy of Christ, as
did St Paul. Welch cites six of the pope’s writings to the effect that Christ
is the Head of all creation. This primacy of Christ is affirmed in VS.
Christ reveals God’s plan for all creation, and for man in particular.’7
(4) The natural law and the positive (revealed) law find their unity in
Christ who is the eternal law. 18 (5) The Word (Christ) is the eternal law,
that is, God’s plan for all creation ’who fully reveals the moral law&dquo;9
(revealed and natural). (6) Welch concludes that the total moral law
(natural and revealed) is ’one in Christ’. He writes: ’Because VS teaches
that Christ is the decisive answer to our moral questions, it can teach that
the magisterium’s authority in moral matters is coincident with its auth-
ority to interpret revelation. 121
Do these statements provide adequate grounds for concluding that all

morality is contained in Revelation? I think not. Consider no. 1: God pre-

destines human beings to be conformed to the image of Christ. One can
have no idea what God requires for this conformation to occur unless God
has revealed the requirements, and certainly the record of God’s revealing
in the New Testament contains no requirement to make moral choices in
accordance with ’knowledge of that truth and goodness about the human
person that is known from reason’ .&dquo; There is no record of that in the New
Testament nor in Apostolic Tradition. As for no. 2, even if human beings
have an imprint of natural law, it does not follow that all natural law is
contained in Revelation. Regarding no. 3, Christ revealed very little of
God’s plan for creation, and Christ never taught anything regarding nat-
ural law under the description given by Pope John Paul II. Whatever
Christ taught of God’s plan for human beings constitutes items of
Revelation, which are known by faith, not ’by the natural light of human
reason’, which mode of knowing is a defining property of natural law.
Regarding no. 4, it is difficult to determine the meaning of the statement
14. Ibid., 22.
15. Ibid., quoting VS 50.
16. Ibid., 24.
17. Ibid., 25.
18. Ibid., 28.
19. Ibid., 27.
20. Ibid., 27-28.
21. Ibid., 22.

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that Christ is the etemal law. If read literally, it makes no sense, so it is a

metaphor.&dquo; For what? The quotations from the writings of John Paul II
give nothing like a clear answer. Welch seems to mean that all moral
truths are somehow a result of the Father’s bringing about the cosmos
(understood as all that is not God) through Christ. Maybe they are, but
it does not follow that they are all contained in Revelation. Regarding no.
5, my criticisms of no. 4 apply, and, in addition, there is no evidence that
Christ revealed any law-like truths which he thought of as items of that
natural law bearing the description given in VS. Regarding nos. 5 and 6,
what we know of Christ’s answer to moral questions is recorded in the
New Testament and in the Tradition handed down in the Church as hav-
ing been revealed to the apostles, 2) and these lack any assertion that Christ
answered all moral questions. Indeed such an assertion is easily falsified
by appeal to examples of moral questions to which Christ gave no answer.
He said nothing about the morality of war, of charging interest on loans,
of capital punishment, of in vitro fertilisation, of the levying of taxes by
governments, of forms of constitutions of states, of destroying the natural
environment. One can both affirm that Christ knew the answer to all
moral questions and also that he revealed the answers to a very limited
range of them. The range of moral questions he answered is a fraction of
all the questions that have so far been asked by human beings, and a
much smaller fraction of all those that will no doubt be asked.
Any enquiry into characteristics of Christ, and into what he taught and
presupposed, is answerable, for the most part, by reference to the evidence
provided by the New Testament. Welch’s argument needs more support
from the New Testament for it to be at all convincing.

An explanation
The key to understanding Welch’s misunderstanding of the scope of
the magisterium’s authority in moral matters lies in his repeated assertions
that natural law is a participation in eternal law. He remarks, for exam-
ple : ’In VS 43, the Pope defines the meaning of the eternal law: the wis-
dom, reason and will of God that lovingly guides and arranges the whole
created world.’24 Both the pope and Welch are here employing St Thomas
Aquinas’s concept of the eternal law as that which ’directs the entire cre-
ated universe and the activity of all created things, including the activity
of human persons’. 25 To know natural law, then, is to know eternal law,
which is the mind of God. In Welch’s view, such knowledge has a very
22. See Richard Swinburne, ’Metaphorical interpretation of the Old Testament’, in
Revelation. From Metaphor to Analogy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 184-191.
23. ’This Tradition which comes from the Apostles’, VS 27, quoting Dei Verbum 8.
24. Welch, loc. cit., 23. Cf. 40, ’... the eternal law, which is none other than divine
wisdom itself’.
25. William E. May, An Introduction to Moral Theology (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday
Visitor, 1991 ), 39.

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special status, with the consequence that when someone rejects the mag-
isterium’s natural law teachings he is rejecting what the magisterium
knows of the mind of God.
I draw attention to the fact that we know nothing of eternal law, other
than that in knowing something of (a) the behaviour of things (e.g., par-
ticles, molecules, tides, children, men), and of (b) what it is right for
human beings to choose to do, we know eternal law, for eternal law is
identical with whatever human beings know. It follows that knowledge of
the behaviour of anything is knowledge of the mind of God. I know that
heat tends to expand metals and God knows it, therefore I know some-
thing that God knows. In the area of morality, I know that it is wrong to
torture infants and God knows it: thus I know something of the mind of
God. Knowledge of eternal law is very common.
However, ’know’ is an achievement or success word. One knows only
if one achieves true belie f.2’ This applies to knowledge of eternal law: only
if one’s beliefs are true, does one know eternal law. Therefore, if one has
reason to believe that a proposition is false, then one has reason to believe

it is not part of the eternal law. 27 Because we have no direct access to eter-
nal law, we have to focus on whether our beliefs are true. We do not know
that they are true because we know they are items of eternal law: the
reverse is the case. That applies to moral propositions, such as those

which the magisterium proposes as items of natural law. When Welch says
that Christ is the eternal law he is saying that if we have a true belief,
then it is true because Christ brought about a universe in which it is true.
This, if true, does nothing to enable us to know moral truths. Moreover,
it has no bearing on whether all moral truths are contained in Revelation.
In Christian belief there is another way of knowing the mind of God:
through faith,28 for God has revealed some propositions as true, including
moral propositions,2’ as I have already argued. In knowing these we do
know eternal law with the highest possible assurance, for God has
informed us of his mind.
In teaching these the magisterium is teaching what the Lord Jesus
authorised his Church to teach, ’the gospel’. Outside ’the gospel’ the mag-
isterium is limited in its knowledge because as John Henry Newman
wrote: ’the Church does not know more than the Apostles knew, [so]
there are many questions which the Church cannot answer
26. ’[I]n my view and that of most philosophers who have analysed knowledge in recent
years, knowledge entails belief - if you know that p, you believe that p (although of course
not necessarily conversely)’, Richard Swinburne, Faith and Reason (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1981), 106.
27. Cf. Summa Theologiae, I-II, 93, 2, Omnis enim cognitio veritatis est quaedam irradiatio et
participatio legis aeternae (’For all knowledge of the truth isa kind of reflection and partici-
pation of the eternal law’ - my emphasis).
28. ’Faith is the entrance into this participation and communion’, Welch, loc. cit., 28.
29. ’By divine revelation God wished to manifest and communicate both himself and the
eternal decrees of his will concerning the salvation of mankind’, Dei Verbum 6.
30. The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, edited by C. S. Dessain and Thomas
Gomald (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), Vol. 25, 418.

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Conclusion

Lawrence Welch has claimed that there are facts about Christ which
support Veritatis Splendor’s claim that, in revealing that God requires
observance of the Ten Commandments, all moral teachings of the magis-
terium count as interpretations of Revelation; therefore, such teachings
enjoy God’s guarantee that they are true. I have shown that the cited facts
are irrelevant to Welch’s claim. In addition, I have shown that such a
claim contradicts the distinction emphatically maintained both by the
First Vatican Council and, at times, also by Veritatis Splendor, that moral
truths known by reason (natural law) - by far the greater number of moral
truths - fall outside the scope of Revelation.

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