Moral Complexities and Ambiguities

[vinessa]

God said “Be fruitful and multiply.” 9 billion may seem like a huge number to you but it’s probably a pretty small number to God. Do you honestly think after He based His whole creation on the basis of the human population multiplying, that somehow the Earth isn’t going to support the population?

We also have the reality of Satan and his current, thankfully temporary rulership over this earth.(2 Corinthians 4:4) If we were ALL living in the Eden God intended, no, I don’t think there would be a problem.

But again, it’s a moral conundrum, and the truth is that we are mainly mindless about the impact of our behaviours on others. Have any of you sold all your belongings and given the money to the poor? No, me neither. Do any of you have too much junk, or too many objects that you rarely use? Me too. Do you buy bottled water? Me too sometimes. Do you always look at package labels to see how far something has traveled before deciding to buy it? Me neither, but I’ve started to, and am shocked and horrified when I see strawberries from South Africa in my supermarket. How much fossil fuel was burned to bring them here, and isn’t it just excessive vanity? It’s profitable to someone – but we, the planet, and our neighbors pay the price.

We are sinners, needful of God, and stumbling toward Him, but imperfectly. The issue really isn’t contraception vs. population, although that’s interesting. It’s how mindless we are, or how mindful. And exactly how do we make these decisions? Do we simply follow the letter of the law, then say done, pick up the remote again and sink back into the couch? Or do we use our God-given spirit and brain, to really weigh the consequences of all our actions from every angle? Which might mean, like Jesus, that we would disobey the letter of the law in favor of its spirit and our conscience.

I can’t help but struggle with this.

 

[newbetx]

Can we overpopulate the planet? Possibly. Natural disasters may keep that from happening. We may try to talk it up and maybe that will work some. But, again, it’s not a resources issue at this time. It’s a distribution problem. The HAVE NOTS don’t have hardly anything but the HAVES have way too much. We try to legislate this but that isn’t working. We raise spoiled children and grandchildren. A couple of years ago, my DD told the kids coming to the birthday party not to bring presents. They were to bring stuff for the local animal shelter. Filled up the back of the van with that stuff. Of course it sat around here for almost a month… see a distribution problem.

We’ve lost the conservative attitude. “The Conservatives,” today take. The Liberals, take from the Conservatives. We give more to those that don’t need it or don’t know how to use it than we give to those in need to help them not be needy anymore.

My heritage in Native American. I grew up with poorer relatives and we always helped them. It pains me to see the “it’s all about me” stuff. No one is respected. Everyone seems to be a target. It’s ALWAYS someone elses fault. Errr. How do we take back this country from “them” and teach them respect for others, themselves and, of course, God?

 

[setter]

In our RCIA class we talked about moral complexities and the stages of moral development.

A good section to read from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

**II. THE FORMATION OF CONSCIENCE **

1783 Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.

1784 The education of the conscience is a lifelong task. From the earliest years, it awakens the child to the knowledge and practice of the interior law recognized by conscience. Prudent education teaches virtue; it prevents or cures fear, selfishness and pride, resentment arising from guilt, and feelings of complacency, born of human weakness and faults. The education of the conscience guarantees freedom and engenders peace of heart.

1785 In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path, we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord’s Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.

III. TO CHOOSE IN ACCORD WITH CONSCIENCE

1786 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.

1787 Man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral judgments less assured and decision difficult. But he must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed in divine law.

1788 To this purpose, man strives to interpret the data of experience and the signs of the times assisted by the virtue of prudence, by the advice of competent people, and by the help of the Holy Spirit and his gifts.

**1789 **Some rules apply in every case:

• One may never do evil so that good may result from it;

We had 2 seminarians in our group also, so their learning is quite current and the discussion was very good.

We talked about how moral questions often don’t resolve neatly into black or white, and that being Catholic is about more than just “obeying the rules”. For example, to the Pharisees, Jesus sinned when he healed on the Sabbath, because it was “against the rules.” Obviously our Lord thought differently.

The seminarians told us that priests are now being taught to support the process by which moral decisions are made, and to help guide people deeper, or further along in the stages of development, where the complexities and ambiguities we all often face are more faithfully addressed.

As long as folks faithfully obey the “rules” and engage the process of finding out “why” the Church teaches what it does in matters of faith and morals; and thoughtfully learn and try to apply the principles of Catholic morality to specific situations in which a perceived moral dilemna exists; and having the humility and discernment to seek orthodox counsel from a competent clergy or lay person to assist in one’s formation of conscience.

So I was wondering, how do you all deal with morally complex or ambiguous situations, where it’s damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t?

This usually is not the case, as when the pharisees and scribes of his day repeatidly tried to get Jesus to ascibe to their framing of moral dilemna from their limited frame of reference, i.e., poorly formed conscience as they were not including the “heart” of the law.

Now, we could pray for a loaves and fishes deal… Or we could close our eyes and pretend that having an unlimited number of children won’t “really” impact our planetary resources…

Responsible stewardship and knowing and believing that God is responsible for His creation, that He can not be outdone in generosity, and that He will honor His promise that He will be with us until the end of time …for real, and real solutions and provision for our earthly problems. We are responsible to do our part, and He will pick up the slack and make up the difference, often in spite of ourselves. God has a wider scope and depth of concerns that we, His finite creatures, can ever pretend to comprehend. His loving plan and perfect will is not limited by the sins of this world or the resources of His finite creatures…we just can’t see it yet on this side of eternity.

 

[Joe_5859]

So some of this also has to do with how we define things. Thus, in my example, both situations are anti-life. Just like anger is like murder, so is ecological degradation. It’s a murdering of the planet that sustains us, a murdering of our neighbors (through pollution or competition for scarce resources), and can even be construed as suicide.

Actually, if you look at the Catechism (CCC 2415-2418), the Church speaks about respect for the environment in relation to the seventh commandment, not the fifth commandment.

In other words, failing to take care of the environment violates the commandment “Thous shall not steal,” not “Thou shall not murder.”

I think this is an important point that, far too often, is completely overlooked. We tend to anthropomorphize the planet and humanize animals as though they can be “murdered”. That is simply not the way the Church looks at it.

Yes, of course we respect the environment. The reason is more that we do not want to “steal” the earth’s resources from those future generations that also have a right to them. It is not that we don’t want to “murder” the planet (because you can’t “murder” something that doesn’t have a rational soul).

Also, to say that having another child might be murdering your neighbor 40 years in the future is simply not a good way to go about making moral decisions. First, because you would be basing your decision on a hypothetical future scenario that you cannot possibly predict with any degree of real certainty. Second, you could also make the argument that your neighbor’s mother should have refrained from conceiving them so that they would not be stealing resources from your children. You soon find yourself in a scenario where you are arbitrarily deciding whose children are more important. That’s never a good situation to be in.

 

[fix]

The seminarians told us that priests are now being taught to support the process by which moral decisions are made, and to help guide people deeper, or further along in the stages of development, where the complexities and ambiguities we all often face are more faithfully addressed.

Can you explain what this means, please?

 

[fix]

Don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating following every urge, no matter what. I am saying that genuine relating and oneness doesn’t work very well on a schedule.

Is one relating and being one when one intentionally changes the act contrary to the way God ordianed it?

And manipulation is still manipulation.

What manipulation is involved in refraining from the marital act?

Between a loving, married couple, if using ovulation cycles is okay, why not a diaphragm? What is so sinful about using a diaphragm, especially if the husband helps and it brings them closer? I really don’t get this.

In one case one is not acting. In the other case one is acting to frustrate the act as God ordained it. The moral difference is dramatic.