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Abu
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Betterave
You are right and Ender’s confusion is exemplified by his “Either we need the Church to interpret moral law for us or we can do it ourselves via our own reason, but you can’t claim that both are true.” He fails to see the contradiction he has established. He fails to see the irrationality, clearly revealed, in the moral morass in which some Protestants have been shown to be mired.
As you point out the Church, doesn’t claim, but She affirms that BOTH are true. No one could be confused by the Church’s insistence that
The Church has never ever said that there are moral lwas which cannot be known by reason alone. How could She? But what is the individual moral problem over which Elder is confused?
You are right and Ender’s confusion is exemplified by his “Either we need the Church to interpret moral law for us or we can do it ourselves via our own reason, but you can’t claim that both are true.” He fails to see the contradiction he has established. He fails to see the irrationality, clearly revealed, in the moral morass in which some Protestants have been shown to be mired.
As you point out the Church, doesn’t claim, but She affirms that BOTH are true. No one could be confused by the Church’s insistence that
The Church has never ever said that there are moral lwas which cannot be known by reason alone. How could She? But what is the individual moral problem over which Elder is confused?
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Ender
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Has she ever claimed that all moral laws are knowable by reason alone? I also think we still have differences over what it means to “know” a moral law, but let me offer you the same challenge I gave Betterave: explain logically why murder is always immoral. You two have put a lot of faith in the ability of reason to comprehend morality; here’s your chance to demonstrate that your position is valid.
Ender
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thereisnogod
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Morality comes from what actions promote a stable society. At first, humans lived in a tribal society, where survival depended on the solidarity and stability of the people. The ability to cooperate was what allowed us to survive, and actions that promote cooperation were passed down as being moral.
Tribes that did not develop these ideas died out because they were unable to depend on those around them in times of need. These societies would have no qualms with theft murder, or anything like that, so they would simply die out.
This is where morality comes from.
Tribes that did not develop these ideas died out because they were unable to depend on those around them in times of need. These societies would have no qualms with theft murder, or anything like that, so they would simply die out.
This is where morality comes from.
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Abu
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The fact that homosexual actions and contraception, proposed by Ender as reasonable, could not be justified by him as reasonable, demonstrates the reality that the natural moral law is knowable by reason alone. Murder is no different.
Why fight the Church as a Catholic, which assures him through the teaching of John Paul II and Vatican I, that BOTH types of knowledge are real – reason for the natural moral law and divine Revelation?
Further, the Roman philosopher Cicero (died 43 B.C.) wrote in De Republica, 3.22: “True law is right reason in agreement with nature. It is of universal application, unchanging, everlasting. We cannot be freed from it by Senate or people. This law is not one thing at Rome and another at Athens, but is eternal and immutable, valid for all nations and for all times. God is the Author of it, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient to it is abandoning his true self and denying his own nature.”
Human beings, endowed with reason and free will, are obliged to conform their lives voluntarily to the natural law of God as manifested by their own intelligence and dictated by their consciences. As Cicero knew, any action against the natural law is due to warped ideas, or through sheer bad will. (See Questions People Ask, Dr Leslie Rumble, Chevalier Books 1975, #514).
Why fight the Church as a Catholic, which assures him through the teaching of John Paul II and Vatican I, that BOTH types of knowledge are real – reason for the natural moral law and divine Revelation?
Further, the Roman philosopher Cicero (died 43 B.C.) wrote in De Republica, 3.22: “True law is right reason in agreement with nature. It is of universal application, unchanging, everlasting. We cannot be freed from it by Senate or people. This law is not one thing at Rome and another at Athens, but is eternal and immutable, valid for all nations and for all times. God is the Author of it, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient to it is abandoning his true self and denying his own nature.”
Human beings, endowed with reason and free will, are obliged to conform their lives voluntarily to the natural law of God as manifested by their own intelligence and dictated by their consciences. As Cicero knew, any action against the natural law is due to warped ideas, or through sheer bad will. (See Questions People Ask, Dr Leslie Rumble, Chevalier Books 1975, #514).
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Betterave
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I wish you would try to explain yourself. I pointed out where you seem to contradict yourself quite explicitly. Can you explain how the two claims I bolded are not contradictory?
If they couldn’t be, they wouldn’t be binding on conscience. If you want to talk about moral obligations arising from faith in revelation that are only binding on the consciences of those who have heard and accepted a special revelation, that’s a different kind of obligation. When we talk about moral laws, I think we’re talking about laws that are universally binding, and therefore universally accessible (at least in principle), and therefore that are accessible to natural human reason as such (provided you accept that *God *creates man as a rational moral being).
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Betterave
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Interesting theory, but I’m afraid it won’t bear up to scrutiny. It’s just way too simplistic, stipulative, and contrary to common sense.
p.s.: your screen name sounds like you’re halfway to becoming a Muslim: “There is no god… but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.”
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Ender
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There is nothing at all demonstrated here. My comment about the reasonableness of homosexuality and contraception was to point out that a large number of otherwise very reasonable people differ on these points and it is not enough to say “those who disagree with me are unreasonable.” It is not your position on these points I am challenging; it is the reasons you give in defending them that are suspect.
I don’t dispute the Church and I accept both kinds of knowledge. I am examining the limits of reason and this is why I challenged you to explain why murder is always immoral.
Yes, but we also know that our conscience is not necessarily always right; both our intellect and our conscience can fail us. What do we do then?
Ender
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Ender
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I first stated that neither knowledge of nor belief in God is required to discern moral truth. No problem there, we both accept this. Then I accepted the quote from the First Vatican Council to the effect that there are two kinds of knowledge and both are required for our knowledge to be complete. I’m sure you agree with this also as it is the Church speaking, not me. So - if we both agreed on the first point and we both agree on the second point, how is this a problem for me and not for you?
Beyond that, however, I have been deliberately vague on this point: does knowledge of moral truth mean “all moral truth” or “some moral truth”? I certainly accept “some” but I’m not yet ready to accept “all”. If you read my comments with this distinction I don’t think you’ll find any contradiction.
I am struggling with universally accessible. If you accept, as I think we should, that reasonable people may disagree over issues of morality, what does that say about moral laws being universally accessible? I accept “in principle” but I have a lot of trouble accepting that in practice this is actually so. I don’t accept that people who, despite careful consideration, go wrong have necessarily acted either badly or stupidly. After all, the Church has been refining her teaching for 2000 years. Take the situation that existed immediately prior to the release of Humanae Vitae; an awful lot of Catholic clergy believed that contraception was not sinful and were completely caught off guard by that encyclical. Even today, given that estimates are as high as 85% of Catholics practice contraception, it would seem that this is a teaching where even the clergy is not fully on board. As I said to Abu, I think there are limits to natural reason.
Ender
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DPMartin
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But what if the tribal society sees that it is not ok, to rob and murder each other hence an agreed trust. But that same society sees that it is ok to rob and murder others from other societies? Such as share the booty, as a result of plundering other societies for profit. Are they moral? And if not; how can that be were it comes from?
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Abu
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Who could fail to notice that Ender has evaded the clearly expressed understanding of God’s natural law by pagan Roman philosopher Cicero (died 43 B.C.) (post #221) – “right reason in agreement with nature.” To portray those who defy reason and go against nature (the natural law) as “reasonable people”, in that instance, is an oxymoron.
As we have seen (post #150): “So man can know God, because man knows “good” as God has provided him (a human person with a human nature) with a conscience and endowed him with intelligence and free will. It is through that conscience that man can know right from wrong. Our philosophers teach us that; Christ’s Church teaches us that – which is precisely why it is possible for pagans to be saved.” We are bound to follow our conscience, but due to having God-given natural law implanted in us we ARE at fault if we have not taken all the means available to us to know right from wrong.
What Ender fails to understand and accept is that, although it MAY be guiltless for a particular person, it is still unreasonable objectively to go against the natural law, **whether it is through a faulty conscience (warped ideas) or through sheer bad will. ** (Which answers DPMartin as well).
Why should contraception be a problem for Ender? Prior to 1930, no Christian denomination had taught against contraception, until the Anglicans deserted reason. Immediately, Pope Pius XI in Casti Connubii, 1930, infallibly defined the teaching against contraception, **affirming the natural law **in:
“54. But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious.”
Ender seems to forget the harm done to Christ and His Church by “an awful lot of people” who adopted a false “spirit” of Vatican II, and at, during and after Vatican II, those theologians who tried to establish their own “magisterium”, with the consequent charge against *Humanae Vitae *which merely reiterated the infallible teaching while ruling against the new “contraceptive pill” (thank God).
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Betterave
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It’s a problem for you and not for me because the Church is not speaking about moral knowledge when she speaks about the mysteries that are given to us only through divine revelation; she is speaking about the particular details of the nature of God and the economy of salvation that are not accessible to natural reason.
Well there’s nothing wrong with an honest struggle. But as Abu has pointed out, we (following reason as well as the teaching of the Church) have to distinguish between subjective and objective elements of conscience: yes, we accept that it is not necessarily the case that “people who, despite careful consideration, go wrong have necessarily acted either badly or stupidly” - but natural reason should tell us quite plainly that the very fact that they have gone wrong guarantees that there is at least an objective element of badness and/or stupidity in where they have gone! We must generally reserve judgment on subjective culpability, but we have to have the universally accessible objective assessment of wrongness, as well as an attempt to assess the subjective sources of error, if we are to hope to correct these errors. The Church tells us we can accomplish this, if imperfectly; and she does not tell us that we must resort to divine faith in order to do so. Natural reason (in principle!) is sufficient; although obviously as Christians, as a practical matter, we explicitly rely on God and invoke His name for guidance of our reason - but this does not mean we ask for a special revelation, or that the operation of our reason in such a case is a matter of “divine faith.”
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Ender
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I think what is being disputed here is whether or not all moral truths can be discerned through reason alone. I am not yet willing to accept that and my comments are consistent with the position that reason alone is insufficient.
Stop there: if we are working from reason alone then (for this discussion) we have to ignore the teaching of the Church. If we have to rely on Church teaching then that must mean reason alone is insufficient.
How do we know when someone has gone wrong? That is, if you and I disagree on a matter of morality, how do we determine which of us is correct?
What does “imperfectly” mean here? I thought your position was that all elements of morality could be worked out through reason. Can you explain how the Church’s position on divorce could be reached through reason? It seems that no society (that I know of) has ever come to that conclusion, so if reason alone is enough to discern it, why does it seem that no one has done it?
Ender
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Betterave
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But that position is not consistent with Church teaching! The problem is that you are presenting your position as if it were.
Well ‘ignore’ is too strong, but, yes, we don’t appeal to the Church as a special authority on moral questions in this context. (And I did not do so!)
We examine the question carefully and attempt to discern the truth, to see which of us is being objectively ‘stupid,’ i.e., ignoring something we shouldn’t be.
First, it’s not just my position; it’s the Church’s position. “Imperfectly” means, to put it simplistically, that our particular historical situations always present particular obstacles to the proper functioning of reason, but reason’s basic directedness, towards the true good, nonetheless always constitutes its essential character. That reason is historically situated means that reason is never ‘alone.’ The notion of ‘reason alone’ is an ideal that speaks of our call and our ability to reflect the image of God, as well as our rational faith that our human nature is relatively intact - it is real and it cannot be (or at least has not been) destroyed, but only damaged, by sin/concupiscence and ignorance/subordination of intellect to concupiscent will.
Can you see, then, what this means for a particular question like divorce?
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Ender
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I have not represented my position as anything other than mine, nor am I convinced, however, that it is the Church’s position that every moral law can be discerned through reason alone.
This is no answer and I think you are aware of that. People of equally good will, learning, and ability will still disagree despite good faith attempts to resolve the issue. How, then, is one to know the truth of the question?
Where does the Church make this claim? Can you substantiate this?
No, that’s why I raised divorced as an example. It seems that it took a direct statement from Christ himself for us to get this one right; I don’t see where man figured this out on his own.
Ender
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Abu
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Having failed to disprove all previous examples that mankind can know the natural moral law, divorce is now picked… We have already established the fact that although it MAY be guiltless for a particular person, it is still unreasonable objectively to go against the natural law, whether it is through a faulty conscience (warped ideas) or through sheer bad will.
Further, that the effects of Original Sin do not eliminate reasoning to a knowledge of good and evil, it makes it more difficult. No wonder there is so much confusion over morals if little effort is put into knowing right from wrong and living it. The papal theologian brings this out with great clarity in the final quote at the end, with website. This article is fabulous.
newadvent.org/cathen/09071a.htm
"The strict law of marriage was made known to our first parents in Paradise: “They shall be two in one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). When the sacred text says two it excludes polygamy, when it says one flesh it excludes divorce.
“Neither polygamy nor divorce can be said to be contrary to the primary precepts of nature. The primary end of marriage is compatible with both. But at least they are against the secondary precepts of the natural law: contrary, that is, to what is required for the well-ordering of human life.”
**For those seriously interested, the following extensive article is fabulous…
Address of Papal Theologian on Natural Moral Law
“The Moral Natural Law: Problems and Prospects,” **
Rome, Feb. 24, 2007 (Zenit.org)
zenit.org/article-19001?l=english
Excerpt:
There is a rapid decline of appreciation of basic moral truths and of the capacity of seeing what is obvious, in the name of that which is fleeting, ephemeral, and therefore not intrinsically binding. Will the social and political approval of gay marriages, of the adoption of children by gays and lesbians, of divorce, of contraception, abortion, euthanasia, the manipulation of embryos and laissez-faire theories of education finally arrive at the point of total absurdity, causing as a backlash a desperate return to rationality in ethics? We may certainly hope so in our wishful thinking, but for a few generations, the return to moral sanity may turn out to be too late.
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Ender
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It has been my contention that reason alone is insufficient for discerning all moral laws nor do I believe the Church teaches otherwise. What she teaches is that reason and faith must work together, reason alone is inadequate. If you believe otherwise then cite something the Church has said that supports your position. Here are some comments from Fides et Ratio that support mine:
This is the human condition vividly described by the Book of Genesis when it tells us that God placed the human being in the Garden of Eden, in the middle of which there stood “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (2:17).* The symbol is clear: man was in no position to discern *and decide for himself what was good and what was evil, but was constrained to appeal to a higher source
- In brief, human beings attain truth by way of reason because, enlightened by faith, they discover the deeper meaning of all things and most especially of their own existence.*
The fundamental harmony between the knowledge of faith and the knowledge of philosophy is once again confirmed. Faith asks that its object be understood with the help of reason; and at the summit of its searching reason acknowledges that it cannot do without what faith presents.
Ender
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Betterave
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I think this follows from the fact that the first determinant of the morality of a human act is its object. An object, as such, must be discerned by reason (otherwise people who lacked divine faith would not be able to perform moral acts - you’ll agree that the Church does not teach this, I assume). Without rational discernment of an object, we do not have a properly moral act.
I disagree: I did answer the question. You just didn’t like the answer! I gather it wasn’t ‘cut and dry’ enough for you, but that’s too bad - there’s nothing we can do about that!
I think this follows directly from the church’s analysis of the morality of a human act, as I mentioned above. (See CCC 1750 ff.)
Christ was a man and he didn’t tell us: “do this because God said so.” He said: “In the beginning this was not so…” He speaks of man’s nature “in the beginning.”
It is simply not true that man didn’t/can’t know about the goodness of faithful conjugal love apart from Christ, or didn’t/can’t know that betraying one’s marital troth is evil - these truths are certainly available to natural reason. What grounds do you have for denying this?
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Ender
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Your response is not relevant to the question. There is no argument about whether reason is necessary to discern morality; the question is whether alone it is sufficient.
I don’t require answers to be simple but I do like them to be meaningful. The question was, if two people disagree on a question of morality, how can you know which (if either) position is correct? Your response was “examine the question carefully”. This approach has the disadvantage of not working in the real world where differences of opinion are rarely resolved and both sides claim truth is on their side.
As I said earlier, the Church teaches that reason must be directed by faith; nowhere does she teach that reason alone is sufficient; quite the contrary, she seems to be fairly clear that reason is insufficient. If you still disagree with this then at least direct your comments to the sections of Fides et Ratio I cited.
Ender
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Betterave
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Well certainly reason alone is not sufficient! That’s not my point at all and the Church certainly doesn’t teach that. The point is that morality is the proper object of natural reason, unaided by divine faith, i.e., divine faith is not necessary. This certainly doesn’t imply that reason alone is sufficient, as if human reason operated purely autonomously - it obviously does not!
Your observation does not mean that my answer is not meaningful. Why would you suggest this?
She teaches that reason is insufficient as a basis for moral rectitude, i.e., righteousness, since the will can misuse and corrupt its freedom by overruling reason. But this is not a matter of intellectual enlightenment by *faith *being required before man can recognize what is right and wrong. That’s obvious - otherwise Adam would not have sinned: without knowledge there is no sin.
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