Help needed! What does the church teach about this principle? Does anyone know?

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semper_catholicus

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Does anyone here know anything about the principle of the integral good?

For those who might not know what it is, it is basically the concept that in order for something to be morally good, every single aspect of that thing must be morally good. For example, if a man does good works, but he is divorced and remarried and is not fulfilling the Church’s requirements for such a case, then he is not truly morally good.

I wanted to know if anyone knew what the Church’s view on this was, and if the Church adopts this principle. If this principle is true, I could see some potential problems with it.

If anyone knows of any Church documents or writings from Doctors and Fathers of the Church, would you please be so kind as to redirect me to them?

Pax Domini Sit Semper Vobiscum.
 
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It is my understanding that if you are in the state of mortal sin, none of your good works have any supernatural merit. That being said, not everything a sinner does is therefore sin or evil. A sinner can still do good and just things.

Here are some errors definitively condemned by the Church:

Clement XI, Unigenitus (remember, these statements are being condemned):
1.What else remains for the soul that has lost God and His grace except sin and the consequences of sin, a proud poverty and a slothful indigence, that is, a general impotence for labor, for prayer, and for every good work?

2.The grace of Jesus Christ, which is the efficacious principle of every kind of good, is necessary for every good work; without it, not only is nothing done, but nothing can be done.

38.Without the grace of the Liberator, the sinner is not free except to do evil.

39.The will, which grace does not anticipate, has no light except for straying, no eagerness except to put itself in danger, no strength except to wound itself, and is capable of all evil and incapable of all good.

40.Without grace we can love nothing except to our own condemnation.

48.What else can we be except darkness, except aberration, and except sin, without the light of faith, without Christ, and without charity?

49.As there is no sin without love of ourselves, so there is no good work without love of God.

59.The prayer of the impious is a new sin; and what God grants to them is a new judgment against them. is a new judgment against them.
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Thank you very much.

I was thinking of something more like this: say that in a movie, one of the
actors commits a sin against the second commandment. According to the principle of the integral good, that movie, as a whole, is not morally good (because of that one actor who committed that sin) and therefore must be rejected. Failure to do so would result sin.

Do you know anything about that?
 
Oh, I see what you’re getting at. I don’t think this is a Catholic principle at all (it may be prudent to do in particular cases, however, depending on the person, the work, and other circumstances).

For example, in the encyclical Aeterni Patris, we see praise for the Fathers for the following:
The philosophers of old who lacked the gift of faith, yet were esteemed so wise, fell into many appalling errors. You know how often among some truths they taught false and incongruous things; what vague and doubtful opinions they held concerning the nature of the Divinity, the first origin of things, the government of the world, the divine knowledge of the future, the cause and principle of evil, the ultimate end of man, the eternal beatitude, concerning virtue and vice, and other matters, a true and certain knowledge of which is most necessary to the human race; while, on the other hand, the early Fathers and Doctors of the Church, who well understood that, according to the divine plan, the restorer of human science is Christ, who is the power and the wisdom of God,(27) and in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,(28) took up and investigated the books of the ancient philosophers, and compared their teachings with the doctrines of revelation, and, carefully sifting them, they cherished what was true and wise in them and amended or rejected all else.
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http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xi...ts/hf_l-xiii_enc_04081879_aeterni-patris.html
 
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Oh, thanks again.

That’s a good point. The reason I said I could see some problems with the principle was this:

If you apply it to the Catholic Church, then you come to the conclusion that the Catholic Church isn’t morally good, because not all of her members are morally good.
 
A human act is morally good when its object, its circumstances, and its end are morally good. Fr. John Laux, Catholic Morality, Chapter II, Moral Good, page 25.
 
I would suggest you read Part 3 of the Catechism, particularly the sections on human freedom, the morality of human acts, and on the fonts of morality.
 
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