Matt16_18:
What are you trying to say? God is the moral standard of the Catholic Church. That is why Jesus said we are to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt. 5:48)
The infallible moral teachings of the Magisterium of the Church exist so that we cannot fall into confusion about what constitutes sinful behavior.
The fact that God Himself and that the Catholic Church holds a moral standard higher than man’s is an article of faith in the Church. By definition, faith is “the realization for what is hoped for, and evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)
Our faith is that the moral standard is given by God. We are not given means to prove or disprove (hence faith) this other than whether we accept it as truth or not. Even if 99.99% of Catholics believe something is true doesn’t make it true any more than the 0.01% remaining not believing it doesn’t make it false. What it does make it is a unified body of belief, not that the belief is objectively accurate.
You believe infallibility as an article of faith. Maybe my faith in the Church and its worldly manifestation is not as strong as yours; I have no doubt the enemy can be so subtle as to work through the Church and fervent believers as well as outside of her and I believe it is in my best interest to remain on my guard against anybody who says that any written code is so well done that it is able to reduce any moral decision to a “cookbook” look-up table. I think such claims deny the Spirit and hold us bound to a static, imperfect (as anything that is conveyed through human language is) law.
We certainly must make moral choices to be faithful servants of the Lord, but ultimately, having morals and living a virtuous life are the same thing. Morals are about who we are in Christ.
I’m looking at morals as the codification of what outward behavior is acceptable and unacceptable. To the degree that these behaviors, according to written rules, can reveal what is in the heart, then this code is useful as a moral compass. Beware, though, because as Jesus repeatedly pointed out, those who judged His own disciples as bad because they broke the written rules, were guilty of making judgments based on the outside only.
As humans, (St. Pio excepted maybe) we cannot read into the heart, and therefore cannot judge a person’s soul by a formula of behavioral observation, no matter how complicated and intricate. Never mind this formula might just be infallible, then if we are to use it to judge on this earth we still have to rely on fallible human observation and interpretation.
Even if one buys that Jesus actually said to Peter in essence, “the part of your Church that puts faith and moral teachings into writing and formal policy is infallible and will never err even in the slightest detail” then we still infallibly cannot know in any specific instance if we have accurately read the heart of the alleged sinner because of our imperfect means of observation and interpretation.
Using a scientific analogy, we have specific definitions of what we mean, for example, by a “meter” in length. These definitions are perfect in a way, because they are exactly what we decide them to be. In reality, though, there are two problems. One, we can never define exactly all the conditions present so those standards may systematically leave out a variable too subtle for our perception. The second problem then arises that we can only estimate how any given standard is applied in any situation, so although we can estimate the maximum error we might have in a measurement we can never completely eliminate it.
My idea is that the Church’s moral standard is indeed THE standard, because in faith we agree that is so. However, the application of these standards are then imperfectly performed so in any practical sense, the “absolute” standard – again based on external behavioral circumstances – can only be estimated.
Christ died so that we can be set free from sin, he did not die so that we can be set free from living a moral life!Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
Romans 6:15No one can be saved if he is not repentant for his sin, and no one can be repentant for his sin unless he acknowledges that he is called by God to a live a life of perfection. If the call to holiness is optional, then why did Christ die on the Cross? Did Christ die so that we can sin with impunity because we are “saved”? “By no means!”
How is a written code able to discern whether we sin with impunity or by human weakness?
Also in Romans 6, we must die to sin, and a dead person is absolved from sin. In verse 14, " For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace."
What is this law we are not under because of grace, and what written compendium of laws has superceded this law?
Alan
