Moral philosophy and moral theology are mutually related to one another, presuppose one another, and are always basically united in the person of the Roman Catholic theological ethicist, but in such a way that moral theology forms from the very first the fulcrum of the eccentric wheel and can never lose this position. The problem of the relation of the two sciences is solved by a simple but consistent establishment of two different but equally valid spheres of problems which necessarily follow one another in a specific order, moral philosophy being on the lower rung and moral theology on the upper. Willingly letting itself be taught by experience and history, moral philosophy perceives the basic principles of moral action with the light of natural reason. Yet while these are rational principles like the laws of logic, the imperative being rooted in the being of man as such, it still derives them from revelation, since they would otherwise be subject to error. Finding it to be man’s determination to glorify the Creator by his existence as a creature, and thereby to prepare himself for eternal felicity, it also finds the moral good that is to be done in the four Aristotelian virtues of wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. Adapted to the rational nature of man, this is the relative good, relative, that is, to the absolute good of the divine essence which is the idea of the good. In contrast moral theology draws directly on scripture, tradition, and the source of the church’s living teaching office. It thus makes the elevation of fallen man to the order of grace its presupposition. Its task is to depict the supernatural morality which alone can actually lead man to this goal, to unfold the positive Christian moral law and its implied duties, and at the peak to develop the three theological virtues of faith, love, and hope. According to Roman Catholic teaching, grace is a higher element in life, differing from man’s natural state. Its effect is sanctification, the renewal of nature from the disruption of sin, and the elevation of nature to the mysterious image and likeness of God (Mausbach, Kult. d. Geg., II, p. 540).17 Grace does not destroy nature but annexes and perfects it. The law of the new covenant which regulates the renewal is understood from the very outset as an excellent parallel of the law of nature (p. 523). |
When faced with this construction, this bold union of Aristotle and Augustine (p. 527), which was undoubtedly intimated in the early church, developed in basic outline by Thomas Aquinas, and in the course of the centuries constantly refined by the Roman Catholic church, we do not have to compare it with the confusion of the corresponding Protestant conceptions and in this way be forced to acknowledge that it is a classical, and as, we might calmly say, one of the most grandiose achievements in this whole field. What we have to learn from it is perfectly clear. In model fashion it states (1) that the final and true presupposition of theological and philosophical ethics, seen from the standpoint of the former, has to be one and the same, namely, the knowledge of God; (2) that theological ethics cannot in any sense take its questions and answers from philosophical ethics, with which it has a common origin in the same answer of truth; (3) that it cannot recognize as ethics a philosophical ethics that either lacks or totally denies this presupposition, but in view of what will always be at least some remnants of the presupposition it must claim all ethics, not as theological, but as Christian ethics, recognizing and taking it seriously as ethics in accordance with its own presupposition; and (4) that there can be only a relative and methodological but not a material antithesis between theological ethics and a theological ethics based on this presupposition. This form and these main features of the Roman Catholic construction correspond so closely to the results of our own discussions in subsections 1 and 2 that we cannot but regard them as normative for what follows. |
Nevertheless there can also be no doubt that the same theses necessarily have a different sense for us from that which they have in Roman Catholicism. Between the Roman Catholic view and our own stands a difference in the concept of God, of man, of the sin of man, and of the grace which comes to him. On this basis the intention and the whole character of the definition of the relation between the two disciplines are materially very different for all the formal agreement. |
The Roman Catholic view of the mutual relation between moral philosophy and moral theology rests on the fundamental Roman Catholic conception of the harmony, rooted in the concept of being, between nature and supernature, nature and grace, reason and revelation, man and God. The order of obligation is built on the order of being, ethics on metaphysics, which forms the common presupposition of philosophy and theology. In spite of the fall, imitative human knowledge is fundamentally able to master true being, the supreme good, i.e., God, even though because of the fall it needs special illumination by revelation to keep it from error. The fall has so hampered the knowledge of God that usually it cannot arise without God’s grace, at least in any depth. But it has not made it impossible. There is still a relic of man’s relation by creation to God. Fundamentally, even in the state of sin, man can still have without grace a knowledge of the existence, unity, spirituality, and personality of God. In relation to obligation and volition his free will in relation to God has only been weakened by sin. The soul is thus Christian and the light of natural reason is claimed as the principle of moral philosophy. The created order which remains in spite of sin is then the point of contact to which moral theology, which is founded on grace and draws on scripture and dogma, must orient itself, the only thing being that it is this which finally justifies that claim, which finally executes it, which has thus to precede it in rank, and for which, as the superstructure, it can only be the foundation. |
These presuppositions of the Roman Catholic construction, which G. Wünsch seems to have taken over unsuspectingly as the final conclusion of his theological ethics (§32, pp. 122f.), are at every point suspect and even unacceptable from our own standpoint. This is not the place to do more than sketch in short strokes the objection which even in this part of the problem Protestantism directs against Roman Catholicism as a whole. |
This objection necessarily starts already with the definition of God as the supreme being. For where and how is God knowable and given to us in his being and not in and as his act? If the God grasped in his being is an entity that man can master, with what right does this entity deserve to be called God? Is not this ambiguity suspiciously betrayed in the idea that on the assumption of a natural source of knowledge there is a partial and quantitative knowledge of God whose object is, e.g., the personality and not the triunity of God, ⌜creation and not reconciliation⌝? Does man really know God when he admittedly does not know him totally, in his nature, as the Lord in the pregnant ⌜and comprehensive⌝ biblical sense of the term? Is not metaphysics viewed as a basic discipline superior to both philosophy and theology, a relapse into apologetics in which both theology and philosophy can only lose their true origin and subject matter? As is well known, even the theology of the early church was to a large extent apologetically oriented. Later, of course, the Roman Catholic teaching on principles became infinitely more assured and refined. But when we measure it by the measure of what is described as the knowledge of God in the biblical documents, we are forced to regard it as a deviation in which we cannot participate. |
For this reason the construction of the order of moral obligation on the order of being is also for us an impermissible beginning. From what standpoint can we men verify this construction? When we who are not God but men accomplish this derivation of obligation from being, does it not entail a weakening and indeed a destroying of obligation as such? If there is a divinely ordered obligation, how can it be grounded for us except in itself? Does not its command have to be one and the same as the divine act of commanding; indeed, as the divine commanding itself? How can we look beyond this to an underlying divine being, and if we do, have we taken it seriously as obligation? |
If we are asked why we cannot unite