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 THEOLOGY

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THEOLOGY

to the end at which he must aim, if he did not unite the casuistical with the theoretical and speculative element.

What has been said so far, sufficiently outhnes the concept of moral theology in its widest sense. Our next task is to follow up its actual formation and development.

Moral theology, correctly understood, means the science of supcrnaturally revealed morals. Hence, they cannot speak of moral theology who reject super- natural Revelation; the most they can do is to dis- course on natural ethics. But to distinguish between moral theology and ethics is sooner or later to admit a science of ethics without God and religion. That this contains an essential contradiction, is plain to everyone who analyzes the ideas of moral rectitude and moral perversion, or the concept of an absolute duty which forces itself with unrelenting persistency on all who have attained the use of reason. Without God, an absolute duty is inconceivable, because there is nobody to impose obligation. I cannot oblige my- self, because I cannot be my own superior; still less can I oblige the whole human race, and yet I feel myself obliged to many things, and cannot but feel myself absolutely obliged;is man, and hence cannot but regard all those who share human nature with me as obliged likewise. It is plain then that this obliga- tion must proceed from a higher being who is superior to all men, not only to those who hve at present, but to all who have been and will be, nay, in a certain sense even to those who are merely possible. This superior being is the Lord of all, God. It is also plain that although this Supreme lawgiver can be known by natural reason, neither He nor His law can be suffi- ciently known without a revelation on His part. Hence it is that moral theology, the study of this Divine law is actually cultivated only by those who faithfully cling to a Divine Revelation, and by the sects which sever their connexion with the Chiu-ch, only as long as they retain the belief in a super- natural Revelation through Jesus Christ.

Wherever Protestantism has thrown thisbelief over- board, there the study of moral theology as a science has suffered shipwreck. To-day it would be merely lost laboiu' to look for an advancement, of it on the part of a non-Catholic denomination. In the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries there were still men to be found who made an attempt at it. J. A. Dor- ner states in Herzog, "Real-Encyklopiidie", IV, 364 sqq. (s. v. "Ethik"), that prominent Protestant ^VTiters upholding "theological morals" have grown very scarce since the eighteenth century. However, this is not quite correct. Of those who still cling to a positive Protestantism, we may name Martensen, who recently entered the lists with deep conviction for "Christian Ethics"; the same, though in his own peculiar manner, is done by Lcmme in his "Christ- liche Ethik " (1905); both attribute to it a scope wider and objectively other than that of natural ethics. A few names from the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies may here suffice: Hugo Grotius (d. 1645), Pufendorf (d. 1694), and Christian Thomasius (d. 1728), all see the difference between theological and natural morals in that the former is also positive, i. e. Divinely revealed, but with the same subject matter as the latter. This last assertion could spring only from the Protestant, view which has staked its all on the "fides fiducialis"; but it can hardly acknowledge a range of duties widened by Christ and Christianity. Other ^Titers of a "theologia moralis" based on this "fides fiducialis", are Buddeus, Chr. A. Crusius, and Jerem. Fr. Reuss. A logical result of Kantianism was the denial of the very possibility of moral the- ology, since Kant had made autonomous reason the only source of obligation. On this point Dorner says (loc.cit.): "It is true that the autonomy and the autoc- racy of the moral being separates morals and re-

hgion"; he would have been nearer the mark, had he said: "they destroy all morals". Generally speaking the modern Liberal Protestants hardly know any other than autonomous morals; even when they do speak of "rehgious" morals, they find its last explana- tion in man, religion, and God or Divine Revelation being taken in their Modernistic sense, that is sub- jective notions of whose objective value we have no knowledge and no certainty.

This being the case, there remains only one ques- tion to be discussed: What has been the actual devel- opment and method of moral theology in the Church? and here we must first of all remember that the Church is not an educational institution or a school for the advancement of the sciences. True, she esteems and promotes the sciences, especially the- ology, and scientific schools are founded by her; but this is not her only, or even her chief task. She is the authoritative institution, founded by Christ for the salvation of mankind; she speaks with power and authority to the whole human race, to all nations, to all classes of society, to every age, communicates to them the doctrine of salvation unadulterated and offers them her aids. It is her mission to urge upon educated and tmeducated persons alike the accept- ance of truth, without regard to its scientific study and establishment. After this has been accepted on faith, she also promotes and urges, according to times and circumstances, the scientific investigation of the truth, but she retains supervision over it and stands above all scientific aspirations and labours. As a re- sult, we see the subject matter of moral theology, though laid down and positively communicated bj- the Church, treated ditTerently by ecclesiastical WTiters according to the requirements of times and circum- stances.

In the first years of the early Chm'ch, when the Di- vine seed, nourished by the blood of the martjTS, was seen to sprout in spite of the chilling frosts of perse- cution, when, to the amazement of the hostile world, it grew into a mighty tree of heavenly plantation, there was hardly leisure for the scientific study of Christian doctrine. Hence morals were at first treated in a popular, parenetic form. Throughout the Patristic period, hardly any other method for moral questions Wiis in vogue, though this method might consist now in a concise exposition, now in a more de- tailed discussion of individual virtues and duties. One of the earliest works of Christian tradition, if not the earhest after the Sacred Scripture, the "Didache" or "Teaching of the Apostles", is chiefly of a moral- theological nature. It is hardly more than a code of laws, an enlarged decalogue, to which are added the principal duties arising from the Divine institution of the means of salvation and from the Apostolic institu- tions of a common worship — in this respect valuable for dogmatic theology in its narrow sense. The "Pastor" of Hermas, composed a httle later, is of a moral character, that is, it contains an ascetical <?x- hortation to Christian morality and to serious penance if one should have relapsed into sin.

There exists a long series of occasional writings bearing on moral theology, from the first period of the Christian era; their purpose was either to recom- mend a certain virtue, or to exhort the faithful in general for certain times and circumstances. Thus, from TertuUian (d. about 240) we have: "De spec- tacuUs", "De idololatria", "De corona militis", "De patientia", "Do oratione", "De pocnitentia", "Ad uxorem", not to take into consideration the works which he wrote after his defection toMonta- nism and which are indeed of intdresl for the history of Cliristian morals, but cannot serve as guides in it. Of Origen (d. 254) we still possess two minor works which bear on our question, viz., "De martyrio", ])arenetic in character, and "De oratione", moral and dogmatic in content; the latter meets the objec-