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1. Charity’s Relationship to Knowledge
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c h a p t e r 1 Charity’s Relationship to Knowledge Charity’s Act: Contemporary EΩorts at Renewal In its Decree on the Training of Priests, the Second Vatican Council turned its attention to the renewal of moral theology. Special care should be given to the perfecting of moral theology. Its scientific presentation should draw more fully on the teaching of holy Scripture and should throw light upon the exalted vocation of the faithful in Christ and their obligation to bring forth fruit in charity for the life of the world.1 The Council’s call to present the Church’s moral teaching from within the biblical conception of charity was a direct response to the limitations present in the perspective of the manuals of moral theology. These manuals were designed for a very specific task: the preparation of priests for the ministry of hearing confessions. In their day, these works were popular. They brought clarity and order to the confusing domain of human action, and provided wise and prudent guidelines for the compassionate care of souls.2 Nevertheless, the dominant perspective held by the most influential manuals had several serious drawbacks.3 1 . Decree on the Training of Priests (Optatam totius), n. in Vatican Council II: the Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, New Revised Edition, edited by Austin Flannery (New York: Costello Publishing Company, ), . . Servais Pinckaers, Morality: the Catholic View, translated by Michael Sherwin (South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press, ), –. . It is perilous to speak in generalities about the manuals of moral theology. There was not one monolithic type of moral manual. The Church contains within it various different traditions of moral reflection and the manuals, as the product of these These manuals viewed the moral life primarily in terms of law and its application in particular acts. While this perspective was useful, it imported far-reaching changes in the Church’s understanding of the moral life. “Once Christian moral life is placed within an ultimately legal frame of reference, moral norms, freedom, and conscience must be reinterpreted accordingly.”4 Influenced by the “Cartesian demand for geometrical clarity,” the most influential manuals of theology employed a deductive understanding of the application of laws to particular cases in conscience. [T]he casuistry of the neoscholastic manuals was presented as a deductive system . Moral principles were likened to mathematical axioms; their meaning was thought to be univocal. Behavior that was allowed or forbidden was likened to necessary conclusions deduced from first principles; judgments about rightness and wrongness were universally applicable. Based on a mod2 Charity’s Relationship to Knowledge traditions, reflect their differences. Also, the perspectives of these traditions developed over time and the manuals were shaped by these developments. Nevertheless, there was a dominant perspective and this perspective shaped the most influential manuals. In what follows, it is not my intention to offer a full treatment of the various traditions and types of moral manual. Instead, the focus will be on the dominant perspective that most shaped the theologians of moral motivation who react against it. . Walter J. Woods, Walking with Faith: New Perspectives on the Sources and Shaping of Catholic Moral Life (Collegeville, Minn.: Michael Glazier Press, ), . For a concise outline of the new perspective introduced into Catholic theology by the manuals of moral theology, see Servais Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, ), . For more on the manuals of moral theology, see Woods, Walking with Faith, –; Charles E. Curran, The Origins of Moral Theology in the United States: Three Different Approaches (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, ), –; James F. Keenan and Thomas A. Shannon, editors, The Context of Casuistry (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, ); Raphael Gallagher, “The Fate of the Moral Manual Since Saint Alphonsus,” in History and Conscience : Studies in Honour of Sean O’Riordan, edited by Raphael Gallagher and Brendan McConery (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, ), –; “The Manual System of Moral Theology Since the Death of Alphonsus,” Irish Theological Quarterly (): –; Albert R. Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin, The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (Berkeley: University of California Press, ), –; Louis Vereecke, “La théologie morale du concile de Trente à saint Alphonse de Liguori,” Studia moralia (): –; “Histoire et morale,” Studia moralia (): –; “Préface à l’histoire de la théologie morale moderne,” Studia moralia (): –; “Le concile de Trente et l’enseignement de la théologie morale,” Divinitas (): –. The last three cited essays also appear in Louis Vereecke...
