On Method in Catholic Moral Theology

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The issue of Morality is associated and similar to the existence of evil. Evil Changes and adapts in creation, the more we try to fight it, the more resourceful that evil (lack of morality) becomes. It is ever changing and ever challenging to the Church of God as it faces Modernism in the Catholic Church especially.

The link for The Church’s full explanation of Moral Theology is here: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14601a.htm

There is a method outlined in the article by: Saint Alphonsus Liguouri’s scategory “Thoologia Moralis”

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01334a.htm

The church in its wisdom however does not limit itself to those teachings, they know that more can and surely will be made known to it as evil adapts and changes in the world we live in.

If the Church were to pinpoint a method that would face the issues of morality, it would quickly fail in it's efforts. The evil it faces, continually throughout the Tribulations period we are in, manefests new properties that have not been previously encountered. This is why we have a living Authority rather than relaying on simply the written scriptures alone with its modernized method of the Authority being anyone who can read it. The Catholic Church recognized and established Scripture, A non-living book, containing the word of God and even more so, the very Words of God. These scriputures, unable to interpret itself without proper discipleship, will lead to heresy and choosing options in moral theology that are based on the opinions of unlearned shepherds rather than the authoritative church given the responsibility by Christ himself through his apostles.

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Teaching Catechism to 12-15 year olds for the last ten years has ingrained in me the Moral Decision Making Framework, which might be a little... Non-academic for the tone of this question, but it seems relevant to me. You can see it applied in the Just War theory. It boils down to his three things.

  1. Circumstances
  2. Object
  3. Means

In consideration of some potentially sinful action you can judge the gravity of the sin (i.e. guilt) by considering those three things.

If i were to kill someone and the circumstances were that they were trying to kill me, i might be less guilty; if i were to kill someone i ran over accidentally, i might be less guilty because my object wasn't their death; and if i were to kill someone who was trying to kill me by rolling them over with a steam roller then i might be more guilty because those means are a tad excessive.

Most of this is spelled out and rooted in scripture in the Faith and Life series Our Life in the Church" the moral decision making framework is what the Bishops (around here at least) are having us teach as part of the settlement with the abuse victims.

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