The perspective of the acting person: essays in the renewal of thomistic moral philosophy

1. Is Christian Morality Reasonable? On the Difference between Secular and Christian Humanism

1 Is Christian Morality Reasonable? On the Difference between Secular and Christian Humanism Christian Morality: Its Reasonableness and “Unreasonableness” In his famous work “The Reasonableness of Christianity,” published in 1695,1 the British philosopher John Locke holds that in revealed Christian morality “as delivered in the Scriptures” there is nothing that cannot be grasped by human reason alone—unassisted by faith. He adds, however, that faith in revealed morality is still, and always will be, psychologically necessary for the large majority of people since they neither have the leisure nor the ability to apply themselves to the demanding task of philosophical inquiry. Such a view sharply contrasts with both secular humanism and what I want to call Christian humanism. Secular humanism conceives itself as a kind of liberation from the constraints of Christian faith and clerical paternalism . In all its current forms, it would never allow one to assert that Christian faith is “psychologically necessary for the large majority of people” because of their lack of leisure and intellectual skill. Instead secular humanism, be it atheistic or not, contends that many of the typical demands of Christian morality, as, for example, taught by the Catholic Church, are utterly unrea-  1. The full title reads The Reasonableness of Christianity, as deliver’d in the Scriptures (London : Awnsham and John Churchill, 1695). sonable, not demonstrable by rational means, and generally to be rejected as inhuman. In turn, Christian humanism, as I understand it, implies that Christian morality is both profoundly reasonable and provokingly unreasonable. Such an affirmation might cause surprise, among other reasons because, though conceding that some contents of revealed morality are beyond or above reason , at least a Catholic will not easily admit any of the requirements of Christian morality to be properly unreasonable. But this is what, paradoxically, seems to be the case. What I am going to argue is that for a Christian life there are specific moral requirements which could simultaneously be called both reasonable and unreasonable, without however being properly beyond or above reason. Or, to put it in another way: the basic moral requirements of Christian life are in principle fully intelligible and therefore accessible to reasonable argument and defense, but they simultaneously need in many cases the support of Christian faith to preserve fully their reasonableness. Without such support, so I will argue, these basic moral requirements appear to be unreasonable because they are obviously difficult to fulfill. They appear to overburden human beings, to be too demanding and unrealistic, and thus even oppressive. So their inherent reasonableness easily converts into the unreasonableness of an unattainable ideal, which is therefore unacceptable to most people. In my view, people in fact can fully accept these moral demands as practically achievable goals, but only on the ground of faith which engenders hope and becomes practical through charity. It is in precisely this context that these moral demands fully recover their reasonableness.2 I am not, of course, referring here to some strictly supernatural demands of Christian life, such as the reception of the sacraments, faithfulness and obedience to the Church’s Magisterium, or even the willingness to suffer martyrdom. Such moral requirements are obviously only intelligible on the basis of faith in Christ, the Church, and the sacraments. 2. I would probably not go so far as to contend that, without the “announcement of Christ, Christian morality would be an incomprehensible puzzle”; see I. Carrasco de Paula, “El estudio y la enseñanza de la moral fundamental, hoy. Reflexiones en torno al quehacer teológico,” Scripta Theologica 32, no. 3 (2000): 919. The “unreasonableness” of Christian morality I will be talking about, rather than complete “unintelligibility” (like a “puzzle”), is the unreasonableness of the unattainable ideal that, however, in itself and as a kind of good, is intelligible for everyone and, in this sense, “reasonable.” Thus, there is a profound continuity between revealed Christian morality and unassisted practical reason or “natural law.” This will be explained in more detail below.   is christian morality reasonable? Of course even these strictly supernatural features of Christian morality do not go undisputed nowadays, but the point is that they are contested mostly because of a deep crisis at a rather different and deeper level, which is precisely the one I’d wish to refer to: the level of the basic demands of natural law, as understood and taught by the Church. For instance—things like the indissolubility of...