The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics, Second Edition

Romanus Cessario, O.P.

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780268022976, 9780268210168
• eBook ISBN: 9780268076801
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Ethics & Religion

Since it was first published in 1991, The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics has received praise from a wide range of commentators, both Catholic and Protestant. This second edition includes discussion of works that have appeared since the early 1990s, especially the first papal document to address fundamental questions of moral theology, Veritatis Splendor. Those who already have adopted the book for classroom use will welcome this new edition, while those who have just been introduced to it will find an authoritative account of the status that virtue-centered theological ethics enjoys today.

Following a new preface, the text of the six chapters from the original edition remains unchanged. However, Romanus Cessario has substantially updated his notes to account for recent literature on the subject, and a new chapter that accommodates his original study to current developments in moral theology. This second edition will inspire a new generation of students and teachers.

1. THE MORAL VIRTUES AND CHRISTIAN FAITH

ISSUES IN PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

The present relevance which Aristotelian ethics holds for Christian moral theology derives in large measure from breakthroughs in British scholarship within the analytical tradition.1 Peter Geach, for instance, provides a complete account of classical virtue theory in his small book, The Virtues,2 treating the four cardinal virtues—prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance—as well as the three theological virtues—faith, hope, and charity. Notwithstanding the inclusion of the theological virtues, Geach’s work remains a philosophical text. “Faith is God’s gift,” he writes, “I try here only to remove obstacles to faith.”3 A bona fide theological text must aspire to do more than simply remove rational objections to revealed truth. If theology is to remain true to its character as a holy teaching, a sacra doctrina, its practitioners should ensure that every element of the instruction proceeds from and depends upon revealed wisdom. This standard applies equally to both moral theology and what we have become accustomed to call dogmatic theology.4

It remains a safe generalization to say that virtue theory occupies small place in the current renewal of moral theology, at least in Roman Catholic circles.5 Of course, developments in philosophy usually require some time to influence theological discussion. Still, it is useful to inquire why the virtue tradition that once dominated so much of Christian thinking on moral matters scarcely receives attention today, even from those whose stated purpose includes the revision of Roman Catholic moral theory and practice.

Consider how Thomas Aquinas planned his treatment of “moral matter” in the Summa theologiae. “After a general consideration of virtues and vices and other points pertaining to moral matter in general,” he writes in the prologue to the secunda secundae, “it is necessary to consider each of these one by one.”6 Aquinas devoted more space to the virtues, gifts, and beatitudes than to any other single topic in his textbook for beginners in theology, yet today few people would recognize these tractates as part of moral theology. When theologians debate such basic issues as the mode in which theology depends upon divine revelation and faith and no clear agreement exists even about theological method, it is not surprising to discover that moral theologians generally have chosen to ignore the precedent set by Aquinas and other medieval authors when they developed their moral theories within a framework of virtues and vices.

Today, efforts to revise moral theology often employ ethical models based upon divine command or rule theories, usually moderated by the principle of proportionate reason. Admittedly, the meanings and functions of “proportion” differ according to the usage of the various authors. Still, in the final analysis, proportionalist authors identify the moral life with ethical obligations concretized in norms or precepts, although, as is well known, they have relaxed the rigid moral legalism which the various systems of moral casuistry had highly developed. Casuistry refers to the kind of moral argument which dominated Roman Catholic theology for nearly four hundred years before the Second Vatican Council. Since revisionist moral theologians want to distance themselves from a narrow view of moral law, they recommend moral regulations with a certain flexibility depending on such factors as the weighing of results, the urgency of a particular situation, or the establishment of a hierarchy of moral values.7 Self-determination and even imagination figure prominently in the way many moral theologians work out theories for decision making. Whatever success these techniques may promise for solving difficult cases of conscience, such trends offer little hope for restoring virtue to the place it should maintain in Christian moral theory.

Curiously, there does exist a similarity between the project of revisionist moral theologians and that of the earlier casuistry: both have shown little more than passing interest in the place of virtue in the moral life. As shown by the Belgian theologian Servais Pinckaers,8 casuistry rejected the optimistic program set forth by such high medieval theologians as Aquinas. In his Summa theologiae Aquinas proposed to devote a tractate in turn to “each virtue, the gift corresponding to it, and the vices opposed to it.” In this way, he insisted, “the whole of moral matter is placed in the context of the virtues,” and so “nothing in morals will be overlooked.”9 Instead of this program, the casuist moral theologians conceived a highly juridical moral theology, one in which sin, conscience, the obligation to obey, and the moral law comprised the principal working elements. Accordingly, the casuist conception of morality sanctioned a conscientious observance of the moral law, i.e., the Decalogue and positive ecclesiastical legislation, as the principal standard for the moral life. Because the casuist authors developed their method by writing opinions on individual moral cases (hence the term casuistry from the Latin casus [conscientiae]), casuistry produced its own body of jurisprudence for moral matters.

A complete moral theory must certainly take account of individual cases. Aquinas himself emphasized the fact that moral argumentation becomes less useful precisely as it embraces a higher degree of universality.10 Even so, he was able to elaborate a moral teaching that provided a full account of how right moral reason, ultimately derived from the highest and most universal wisdom, the lex aeterna, actually informed a person’s most particular and individual actions.11 He did this without primary recourse to authoritative interpretations of moral codes or other juridical ways of legislating morality. Aquinas recognized that these latter methods run the risk of emptying the New Law of its original force, the interior anointing by the Holy Spirit given to each believer in baptism. Perhaps no other factor more influences Aquinas’s decision to develop an intrinsic morality than his convictions about what distinguishes the morality of the Christian dispensation from the Old Law of fear and works. His own words best express this crucial point with respect to the virtues. In his treatise on the New Law of grace, Aquinas writes:

All the differences which are proposed between the New Law and the Old rest on the difference between what is perfect and what is imperfect. For the precepts of any law are given in view of the active exercise of moral virtues. Now imperfect men, who do not yet have the stable habitus of virtue, are drawn to the exercise of the virtues in a different way from those who are perfect in virtue. For those who do not yet have the stable habitus of virtue are drawn to the exercise of virtue by some extrinsic motive, e.g. the threat of penalties, or the promise of external rewards such as honor or riches and so on. And therefore the Old Law, which was given to the imperfect, i.e. those who have not yet obtained spiritual grace, was called the law of fear, inasmuch as it induced men to observe its precepts by the threat of various penalties; and it is said to contain various temporal promises. Those on the other hand who have moral virtue are drawn to the exercise of virtuous actions for the love of virtue, not on account of some external penalty or reward. And so the New Law, consisting primarily in spiritual grace itself implanted in men’s hearts, is called the law of love; and it is said to contain spiritual and eternal promises, which are the objects of virtue, especially charity. And so men are drawn to them intrinsically, not as to what is external to them but as to what is their very own. This too is why the Old Law is said to restrain the hand, not the mind since someone who abstains from sin through fear of a penalty does not simply speaking withhold his consent to sin, as does someone who abstains from sin for love of justice. And for this reason the New Law, which is the law of love, is said to restrain the mind.12

Such insistence on the interiority of the moral life provides the principal characteristic of a Christian virtue-centered morality, namely, that theological ethics must first affirm the transformation of the believer by grace, and then set forth the canons for virtuous conduct. “In the same way,” writes St. Augustine, “God, who is the light of the inner self, aids the weakness of our spirit in order that we may do good, not in light of our justice but of his.”13

Philosophers are accustomed to speak about what constitutes a perfection of nature; indeed, they enjoy talking about human existence. When philosophers consider the problem of what constitutes human perfection, they seek to describe the fulfillment of human life, that is, a good and happy life bringing delight to those who apprehend it. But moral theologians must also engage in the dialogue, since they alone can account for what gives perfect human form to the image of God. “It is the interior Master who instructs,” affirms St. Augustine, “it is Christ who instructs.”14 If morality were only a matter of acting in conformity to a rule, one might argue that, even for the Christian, due observance of authoritative teaching would alone suffice to accomplish the purposes of a moral life. Yet such a limited view surely falls short of fully expressing that love which animates the New Law of interior grace. Moreover, simply to obey a moral rule cannot effect the radical transformation in a human person which the Christian life seeks to accomplish in us. As the New Testament clearly teaches, the mere observance of a moral precept can even frustrate the designs of divine love. “But woe to you Pharisees! for you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others” (Lk 11:42).

Ever since Elizabeth Anscombe, in her classic article, “Modern Moral Philosophy,” brought the concept of “human flourishing” to the attention of moralists, Anglo-American philosophers, long anesthetized by Hume’s declaration to the contrary, have been forced to take account of the relationship between ethics and anthropology.15 The serious development of a virtue-centered morality requires some agreement about the essentials of human nature, towards the shaping of which virtue tends. At this time, as the diversity of opinion among authors amply demonstrates, philosophy remains hard pressed to reach agreement on what constitutes a normative human character.16 Still, the theologian can promote such agreement. Arguably, a normative anthropology must, at least, remain open to what revelation discloses about human nature. Of course, no philosopher can declare, as the Church in fact does, that man is “the only creature on earth that God has wanted for its own sake.”17

Central to a theological view of the human person, such as set forth in the doctrine of the imago Dei, remains the faith-affirmation that the ultimate destiny of each individual lies in beatific fellowship or union with the blessed Trinity. Admittedly, the fact that God remains our final goal does not provide immediate responses to the complicated ethical questions that arise in the course of a lifetime. But the vocation of each human person to participate in the beatific vision does significantly influence the work of the moral theologian. Skepticism about the role that God plays in the difficulties of everyday life, as agnostic existentialist philosophy reminds us, remains a consistent challenge to the specifically Christian doctrine of divine Providence. Still, a confident and accurate theological anthropology does provide a foundation for the establishment of an authentic theological ethics. Philosophical agnosticism about what constitutes human nature or its destiny need not undermine the task of elaborating a virtue-centered moral theology. In fact, some argue that we can only discover a comprehensive list of the created goods which compose human flourishing under the guidance of Christian revelation.18

VIRTUES AND THE GOSPEL

The Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Priestly Formation called for a renewal of moral theology as “nourished by scriptural teaching.”19 Only such a program can serve the requirements of a moral theology that takes full account of the graced transformation of the human person taught by the New Testament authors. Even classical writers, such as Aristotle, advanced the view that moral virtue effects a qualitative change in both the person who possesses the particular virtue as well as in the action performed by the virtuous one.20 More importantly both patristic and medieval theologians operated from the assumption that infused virtue effected a personal transformation in the believer.21 One can easily observe the affinities which exist between this classical view of virtue and what the author of the letter to the Colossians had in mind when he wrote:

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you once walked, when you lived in them. But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Col 3:5–10)

Yet, unfortunately, many of those who gave serious attention to the renewal mandated by the conciliar instruction looked elsewhere than to virtue theory for a model for constructing the new biblical morality.

Controversies about the authority which the sacred scriptures possess in moral argumentation arose. Earlier, the nineteenth-century English utilitarian Henry Sidgwick, whose opinion on this matter now is recognized as prototypical, held that the Bible provides no more definitive teaching in morals than the reasoning supplied by Plato or Aristotle.22 But the monuments to Christian culture, such as the renowned mosaics in the baptistery at Florence, witness to a long tradition in which the Bible served as an instrument of specific instruction in Christian morals. Today theologians freely express misgivings about the use of the sacred scriptures to disclose specific moral truth, and they prefer instead to talk simply about methods of imaginative entry into the biblical texts.23 This results in the frustration of the Council’s plea for a scripture-based renewal of moral theology.

There are other reasons that account for the reluctance which theologians have shown towards launching a renewal of virtue theory. First, classical virtue theories depend to a considerable degree upon the work of ancient and, therefore, non-Christian philosophy. For example, Aristotle’s Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics served as principal philosophical source materials for Christian theologians in developing an adequate notion of virtue in moral theology.24 Such a heavy reliance on non-Christian authors appears to run counter to the Council’s directive for renewal from scriptural sources. On the other hand, the Book of Wisdom 8:7 affirms that divine wisdom “teaches self-control and prudence, justice and courage,” and Christian authors as early as St. Ambrose found the same cardinal virtues proposed by classical philosophy to be a suitable starting point for describing an authentically Christian life.

Neglect of virtue in post-conciliar moral theology also derives from an alleged individualism inherent in virtue-centered theories. Admittedly, Aristotle states at the start of the Nicomachean Ethics that the principal concern of the virtuous person remains the pursuit of happiness. Similarly, Aquinas affirms early in the secunda pars of his Summa theologiae that final perfection for each individual rests in a personal vision of the Godhead. Still, these affirmations do not amount to an unqualified endorsement of ethics, whether philosophical or theological, as a solitary adventure, nor do they exclude its social dimension. On the contrary, good arguments can be developed to show that the virtuous shaping of an individual’s character directly affects the well-being of the whole community. As long as Aristotle contends that “the human good turns out to be the soul’s activity that expresses virtue,”25 the exercise of the moral virtues inescapably brings the person into relationship with others. This happens either directly, as in the obvious case of justice, or indirectly, as when others benefit from one who possesses the virtues of personal discipline, temperance, and fortitude. For theological ethics, there exists a general, but real, sense in which every virtue remains ordered to the kind of social communication which befits the unity of believers in Christ. “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you bite and devour one another take heed that you are not consumed by one another” (Gal 5:14, 15).

Still another objection raises the issue of whether a virtue-ce...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Acknowledgments
• INTRODUCTION
• 1. THE MORAL VIRTUES AND CHRISTIAN FAITH
• 2. HABITUS, CHARACTER, AND GROWTH
• 3. WHAT IS A MORAL VIRTUE?
• 4. PRUDENCE AND THE MORAL VIRTUES
• 5. WHAT CAUSES THE MORAL VIRTUES TO DEVELOP?
• 6. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VIRTUES
• 7. AFTER VERITATIS SPLENDOR: THE MORAL VIRTUES AND CATHOLIC MORAL THOUGHT
• CONCLUSION
• NOTES