An Introduction To Moral Theology, 2nd Edition. William May. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: William May
Издательство: Ingram
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Жанр произведения: Философия
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isbn: 9781612782324
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her make it. In other words, one is aware that one is free in settling the matter, in making the choice among the alternative possibilities.

      The Catechism of the Catholic Church devotes a section (nos. 1730-1748) to the subject of free choice.

      Free choice bears upon actions that we can do. But the actions in question are not simply physical events in the material world that come and go, like the falling of rain or the turning of the leaves. The actions at stake are not something that “happen” to a person. They are, rather, the outward expressions of a person’s choices, the disclosure or revelation of a person’s moral identity, his or her being as a moral being. For at the core of an action, as human and personal, is a free, self-determining choice, which as such is something spiritual and abides within the person, determining the very being of the person. The Scriptures, particularly the New Testament, are very clear about this. Jesus taught that it is not what enters a person that defiles him or her; rather, it is what flows from the person, from his or her heart, from the core of his or her being, from his or her choice (cf. Mt 15:10-20; Mk 7:14-23). We can say that a human action — i.e., a free, intelligible action, whether good or bad — is the adoption by choice of some intelligible proposal and the execution of this choice through some exterior act. But the core of the action is the free, self-determining choice that abides within the person, making him or her to be the kind of person he or she is. Thus, I become an adulterer, as Jesus clearly taught (Mt 5:28), when I look at a woman with lust, i.e., when I adopt by choice the proposal to commit adultery or to think with satisfaction about doing it, even if I do not execute this choice externally.

      This illumines the self-determining character of free choice. It is in and through the actions we freely choose to do that we give to ourselves an identity, for weal or for woe. This identity abides in us until we make other, contradictory kinds of choices. Thus, if I choose to commit adultery, I make myself to be an adulterer, and I remain an adulterer until, by another free and self-determining choice, I have a change of heart (metanoia) and repent of my deed. Even then I remain an adulterer, for I have, unfortunately, given myself that identity; but now I am a repentant adulterer, one who has, through free choice, given to himself a new kind of identity, the identity of one who repudiates his freely chosen adultery, repents of it, and is now determined, through free choice and with the help of God’s never-failing grace, to amend his life and to be a faithful, loving spouse.

      The significance of human acts as self-determining is beautifully brought out by Pope John Paul II. After noting that “it is precisely through his acts that man attains perfection as man,” he goes on to say: “Human acts are moral acts because they express and determine the goodness or evil of the individual who performs them. They do not produce a change merely in the state of affairs outside of man, but, to the extent that they are deliberate choices [emphasis added], they give moral definition to the very person who performs them, determining his profound spiritual traits” (Veritatis splendor, no. 71).

      Continuing, John Paul calls attention to a remarkably perceptive passage from St. Gregory of Nyssa’s De Vita Moysis, II, 2-3: “All things subject to change and to becoming never remain constant, but continually pass from one state to another, for better or worse.… Now human life is always subject to change; it needs to be born ever anew.… But here birth does not come about by a foreign intervention, as is the case with bodily beings …; it is the result of free choice. Thus we are in a certain way our own parents, creating ourselves as we will, by our decisions” (cited in Veritatis splendor, no. 71).

      The Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 1749) speaks of the significance of human action.

      We have just considered free choice and its existential significance and the meaning of “character” as the “integral existential identity of the person — the entire person in all his or her dimensions as shaped by morally good and bad choices.” From what has been said regarding free choice and its existential significance, we can conclude that the free, self-determining choices at the core of a human act abide within the person as dispositions inclining the person to make similar kinds of choices in the future unless contradictory choices are made. Thus, if a person freely chooses to tell the truth, to reject immediately proposals to commit adultery, he or she makes himself or herself to be the kind person willing to tell the truth and to be faithful to his or her marital commitment, whereas the person who freely chooses to lie or to commit adultery makes himself or herself to be the kind of person disposed to lie or to commit adultery.