The Good & Happiness
• Aristotle wrote that all of our actions, everything we choose to do is done because we think it is good and it will bring us happiness.
• Even when we choose to sin, we are choosing it because we think it is something good and we think it will make us happy.
o Morality guides us in choosing what is truly good and what will bring us true and eternal happiness.
Virtue
• Virtues are habits of choosing what is right, what is truly good.
• In continually choosing to do what is right when faced with a moral problem, it because easier for us to do what is right; it becomes natural for us.
• Prudence
o This virtue guides us in making the right choices at all times. It is the habitual proper use of our intellect & free will so that we are naturally inclined to choose what will make us truly free. Doing good becomes almost instinctual.
• A prudent person makes good decisions when faced with both simple and difficult decisions.
Politics
• Aristotle thought that politics is a natural and good thing.
For Aristotle, politics meant a group of people coming together to do what is good for the community or nation. In this way, all people could strive for and share in the happiness that they are all after together, rather than on their own
*The Love of God
• God’s love for us is unchanging, and there is nothing you can do to make God love you more or make God love you any less.
• Love is self-sacrifice for the good of another, and God make the ultimate act of love for us – he made the ultimate self-sacrifice for our ultimate good – he gave his son Jesus who suffered, who died, and who rose from the dead so that we could have eternal life.
Free Will & Sin
• God gave us the gift of free will so that we could love him in return, because remember… if a person is not free, they cannot love – you cannot be forced to love someone, you must choose to.
• We can use our free will to choose against God. When we do this, we sin.
• If we die choosing against God, in the state of mortal sin, we spend eternity with exactly what we wanted, exactly what we chose – complete and eternal separation from God in hell.
*Our Response to God’s Love
• Our response to God’s love must be one of love.
o It is not enough to just say that we love God, we must show it that we do. Otherwise, it is an empty and hallow because love that is not lived out is not love at all.
• We show our love for God by loving other people as God has loved us. (the greatest commandment)
o We must be vessels of God’s grace, of his love. We must love our neighbors with the love that God has poured into our own hearts.
• God’s love must flow through us to other people.
Theological Virtues
• The virtues of faith, hope, and charity make it possible for us to love God and love our neighbors.
o To have faith is to firmly believe in the truths that God has revealed, and to trust in God’s saving mercy.
o To have hope is to firmly trust that God will give us eternal happiness in heaven and the means to live the moral life.
o To have charity is to love God above all things for His own sake, and to love others in and through God’s love.
** Person & Action
• Morality is concerned with the good and the evil of human acts and of the person who performs them. (Person & Act)
o Christ taught us how we ought to live. We must first conform our hearts to the call of Jesus, and our actions will follow.
• The Beatitudes, which express the heart of Christian morality, speak to the interior attitude of the person – their heart.
o The Christian must first accept the idea of being merciful, pure of heart, a peacemaker – and then, merciful, pure, and peaceful actions will follow.
• Christian morality calls us to love God and love our Neighbor as we see in the Ten Commandments. The first three commandments all call us to “Love God”, while the later seven all call us to “Love Our Neighbor”.
o While the Beatitudes guide us in the attitudes a person must have in our hearts, the Ten Commandments guide us in the proper actions a person must do and also those actions a person should avoid.
• We are called to holiness, to be saints. The saints did not just merely “do good thing” – they did them with love.
o The saints’ good actions flowed from their holiness within.
Morality’s Beginning & End
• God loved us first!
o He gave us life and the free will to choose either for or against Him.
• We are saved by God’s love!
o None of us can earn or deserve salvation – we depend solely on God’s grace, on His love.
• Hence, it is from God’s love that we have life & it is from God’s love that we will have eternal life. Christian morality find its beginning and end in love.
Objective vs. Subject Morality
• Subjective morality holds that right & wrong are decided by each individual person. Thus, I can only make claims about my feelings.
• Objective morality holds that right & wrong exist outside of ourselves as an unchanging standard. Thus, I can make claims about facts, as well as truths that we strive to know and live by. (2+2=4 whether I know it or not. Killing is wrong whether I know it or not)
Situational Ethics
• Situational ethics claims that right & wrong exist, but can change in different situations.
o Ultimately each individual person decides when and how right/wrong changes… so each person is the final judge of what’s right/wrong. (Subjective morality in disguise)
• St. Thomas Aquinas said that we must consider three parts of an action when analyzing the morality of an act, not just the situation.
o He said we must consider the object of the action (what action being performed), the intention of the action (the reasons for the action), and the circumstances surrounding the action (other factors influencing the action).
• If one of these parts is corrupt, than the whole act is corrupted.
Two Foundations of Morality
• The ethical principles of moral theology are grounded in Revelation & Human Knowledge – what God has made known to us, what we know by use of our intellect.
o We primarily come to know or uncover these two foundations through Faith & Reason.
• Faith must always be seeking understanding, or it will fade or become violent.
Animal & Spiritual Beings
• We are both fully animal & fully spiritual beings.
o Fully Spiritual: We have immortal souls, as well as an intellect & free will.
o Fully Animal: We have bodies – ones that were born, need food and drink to survive and grow, and will eventually die.
• There are dangers in emphasizing one over the other.
o Overemphasizing our Spiritual Nature
• Our bodies & this world become bad and are the cause for all our suffering, and our goal is to free ourselves from our bodies & the world. (Buddhism)
o Overemphasizing our Animal Nature
• We have no immortal soul – God and the afterlife do not exist. Thus, fulfilling our bodily desires becomes the most valuable aspect of our life. (Hedonism)
• Like other animals, we live on our instincts. Our choices, thus, have no moral component, and no moral demands can be made on people.
Baptism
• We become new persons in Christ through baptism, and we are opened to God’s sanctifying grace.
• We become Christians, we become Christ-bearers – vessels of God’s grace to others.
Two Primary Sources of Morality
• Sacred Scripture (the Bible)
o This is the written word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit and set down by those chosen and inspired to write by God.
• Sacred Tradition
o This refers to those truths that are revealed by God & handed down orally within the Church for a period of time rather than in written form. (Includes the writings of the early saints)
• Sola Scripture denies any other source of religious authority or divine Revelation other than the Bible – it denies Tradition.
o A major divide between Catholic & Protestant theology.
Human Morality
• Only humans can be moral or immoral beings – animals cannot.
• Why? Because we have an intellect & free will – animals do not.
**True Freedom = peace & happiness in life
• We all searches in life for what will bring us peace & happiness.
• God gave each one of us different natural talents to live out His plan for our lives. We are most free, than, when we are living out God’s plan for our life – living out our vocation.
o What happens when we search after what we want for our lives, rather than what God desires for us?
• We often become quite miserable.
Why? Because we often start searching for only what we want in our lives. Using our freedom to do whatever we want.
Instead, we must search & find what God wants from our lives – find our true vocation. We must align our will with God’s will.
• The only way of finding peace & happiness is to know that God is the ultimate source of any peace or happiness in our lives, and to not be fooled into thinking that our happiness & fulfillment in life comes from the things of this world.
o Remember the life of St. Augustine & his search for happiness.
Freedom & the Moral Law
• Freedom and the law can never oppose one another.
o The moral law is not a “restriction” on your freedom, but rather the “guardrails” which keep us from driving off the cliff.
• The moral law protects our freedom.
