2. The Dignity of the Human Person
9. Man, Image of God
Morality is based on revealed anthropology. In Christ, the “image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15; cf. 2 Cor 4:4), man has been created to the image and likeness of God. Man is a person, thus endowed with a spiritual soul, and, accordingly, he is born with intelligence and will. With the first potency, he is capable of discovering the truth; with the second, he is able to choose freely, thus determining his life according to the truth. This first aspect of the person’s dignity is an endowment.
The second aspect of human dignity is an achievement. Man has a task ahead of him: to determine himself. Man’s reason—that voice of God compelling him to do good and avoid evil1—enables him to know the truth about himself and the world around him. This good is established as such by divine wisdom, and it is known by man’s natural reason (hence it is called natural law). Man also possesses a will and hence, freedom, “an exceptional sign of the image of God.”2 Furthermore, he is inwardly capable of receiving grace, our Lord’s own divine life. By freely choosing to shape his life according to the truth, and with the help of divine grace, man gives to himself and participates in the dignity to which he is called.
God put us in the world to know, love, and serve him, and so to come to paradise; thus, the human person is destined since his conception to the eternal happiness or beatitude. Human persons are the only created material entities whom God has made for themselves and whom he has called to life in union with himself. Every human being is an irreplaceable and non-substitutable person, a kind of good that cannot be treated as an object of use or as a means to an end.3
In coming into existence, each new human person ought to come—according to God’s original plan—within a community in friendship with God. Humankind, however, lost that friendship with God by original sin. Man, having been persuaded by the devil, abused his freedom at the beginning of history. He succumbed to the temptation and did evil (cf. Gn 1:26–29; 2:5–25; 3:1–24). He still retains the desire of goodness, but his nature carries the wound of original sin. This wound inclines him to evil and keeps him subject to error.
As a result of original sin, we do not come into existence as members of God’s family. But membership is still offered to us through the commitment of faith. God has not abandoned us. He has simply given us a different way—a better way—of being in friendship with him.
Jesus, sent by the Father, assumes the role of leader in order to establish and head the community in friendship with God that we are invited to join—the community of the New Covenant, which is Jesus’ Church. God’s family is now a permanent society in the world, open to all human beings who choose to join it.
Through his Passion, Christ set us free from Satan and sin, merited for us a new life in the Holy Spirit, and transformed us with his grace. Whoever believes in Christ and is baptized, is made a child of God. This filial adoption transforms him, and enables him to follow the example of Christ; that is, with the help of grace, he can act correctly and practice goodness. This union of man with his Savior is sanctity, the perfection of charity. A moral life, matured with grace, reaches its accomplishment in eternal life, in the glory of heaven.4
The question that the rich young man of the Gospel put to Jesus of Nazareth, “Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?” (Mt 19:16), is an essential and unavoidable question for the life of every man, for it is about the moral good that must be done, and about eternal life. The young man senses that there is a connection between moral good and the fulfillment of his own destiny.5
10. The Beatitudes
“People today need to turn to Christ once again in order to receive from him the answer to their questions about what is good and what is evil.… He opens up to the faithful the book of the Scriptures and, by fully revealing the Father’s will, teaches the truth about moral action. Christ sheds light on man’s condition and his integral vocation. Consequently, “the man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly—and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being—must … draw near to Christ.”6
At the heart of Jesus’ preaching, we find the eight Beatitudes. The Beatitudes take up the promises to the chosen people since Abraham. In his preaching of the Beatitudes, Jesus gathered the promises that were made to the chosen people and perfected them, directing them not merely to the possession of the earth, but to the eternal happiness in the Kingdom of heaven.7 The Beatitudes:
· portray Jesus’ charity,
· express the vocation of the faithful: to be associated with the glory of Jesus’ Passion and Resurrection,
· shed light on the actions and attitudes that are characteristic of the Christian life,
· are the paradoxical promises that sustain hope in the midst of tribulations,
· proclaim the blessings and rewards that are already secured—however dimly—for Christ’s disciples,
· have begun in the lives of the Virgin Mary and all the saints.
The eight Beatitudes do not deal with specific kinds of actions but with basic attitudes or general dispositions in life. They express Christian moral principles. We act responsibly when we live with the right attitude and make our choices in accord with it. As a result, we integrate ourselves with these good choices, become morally good persons, and attain our integral human fulfillment (everlasting happiness) in Jesus Christ.
11. Man’s Desire of Happiness
The Beatitudes respond to man’s natural desire for happiness. This desire is of divine origin. God has placed it in the human heart in order to draw man to the One who alone can fulfill it.
To the questions “What is God’s purpose in creating me?” or “What is the ultimate end of man?” the Beatitudes reveal the goal of human existence, the ultimate end of human acts: God calls us to his own beatitude. This vocation is addressed to each individual personally, but also to the Church as a whole.
Once we are aware that beatitude (heaven, everlasting happiness) is the ultimate end of man, the next question is “What are the means to it?” or “How do I fit into it?” Specifically, one will have to ask how authentic human goods are to be pursued, and how human acts are to be performed, so that he plays the role that God intends for him. The answer, as we shall see, is the same: explicitly and consciously living all the moral implications of Christian faith (with the help of God’s grace) to reach integral fulfillment in Christ, thereby attaining good.
Thus, man’s happiness lies in fulfilling himself and attaining the end to which he is ordained. The fuller he attains of the end, the more intense is his resulting happiness, and the greater he rejoices in the good attained. Man’s happiness (beatitude) is directly related to his sense of responsibility in living the implications of God’s will and thereby attaining good.
12. God and Morals
Only God can answer the question about what is good, because he is the Good itself. To ask about the good, in fact, ultimately means to turn toward God, the fullness of goodness.… The goodness that attracts and at the same time commits man has its source in God, and indeed is God himself. God alone is worthy of being loved “with all one’s heart, and with all one’s soul, and with all one’s mind” (Mt 22:37). He is the source of man’s happiness.8
The beatitude that we are promised (eternal happiness) confronts us with decisive moral choices. It invites us to purify our hearts of bad instincts and to seek the love of God above all else.
When man acts with moral rectitude, he is seeking God, his last end. Even if he lacks clear knowledge of God, he is still seeking him, albeit in an obscure way. On the other hand, when man acts without rectitude of intention, he is moving away from God and substituting something else for him, even though, theoretically, he may know well what his last end is. This does not mean, however, that there is an explicit denial of God in every bad action.9
The knowledge of the Absolute Good necessarily moves the will to want it. But on earth, this knowledge is necessarily imperfect, and God is not perceived as the Absolute Good. Thus, not even he necessarily attracts the will; much less can participated, partial goods necessarily attract it. Thus, the will can always choose between different goods.
The objective last end is God, sought in either a natural or a supernatural way. When death comes, the last end chosen remains fixed forever as such last end. Thus, beatitude—heaven—essentially consists in the supreme fulfillment of the love of God. Hell, on the other hand, consists in the frustration of a hopeless self-love. It is hopeless because it excludes the real good, the only thing that can give a supreme and permanent satisfaction. Therefore, it becomes hatred of self, God, everything, and everybody.
The promise of the beatitude—eternal happiness—makes us face decisive moral options with regard to earthly goods; it gives us the guidelines to the use of earthly goods according to the law of God; it also purifies our heart, leading us to love God above everything.10
The attainment of a temporal good and an eternal good are implicitly intertwined in each choice. The concrete actions of a person and his moral goodness cannot be separated. Moreover, the moral goodness of a human act cannot be measured solely by its supposed conformity with rational nature, without any reference to man’s essential relation to God (the need of loving God as ultimate end). Even more, when a person puts aside that essential relation to God in his actions, these actions can still retain some goodness if they contribute to temporal welfare, but they will not be wholly good or worthy of man.
13. The Principles of Morality
We choose beatitude when we freely choose a right conduct, with the help of God’s law and grace.11 The Church affirms the existence of an ordered set of true propositions (which is called the natural moral law) about what we are to do if we are to be the beings that God wants us to be.12 These true propositions or precepts are a participation of God’s wisdom and are recognized by reason.
14. Christian Morality
As we have studied, human behavior is always governed by purpose; each human action has an end. There is an objective and natural ultimate end of all human acts, which is also the end of human nature: God. After the elevation to the supernatural order, we can also speak of a supernatural end of man. This supernatural end is also God, but in a more intimate way: God as sub ratione deitatis. The latter does not destroy the former, but assumes, completes, perfects, and deepens it.
This applies to all aspects of human behavior. Generally speaking, Christian morality fully assumes and retains natural morality, without modifying it. It also perfects natural morality within its own order, giving it a higher goal. This perfection has two aspects:
i) A better knowledge of natural morality (since the Church has received the task of determining its scope and enjoys a special divine assistance to this effect)
ii) An assistance that makes its fulfillment easier
By analogy, the same applies to the relationship between the science of supernatural morality (moral theology) and that of natural morality (ethics).
The infusion of supernatural life also brings with it some obligations that are essential to its preservation and growth. These specific duties of the Christian, as opposed to those that are common to all people through human nature itself, make reference to:
· infused virtues,
· reception of the sacraments,
· the duty of spreading the faith.
The Christian is a human person by nature but also divine by the grace of the Holy Spirit—he is God’s child by adoption—while yet remaining one person. There is no more conflict in the Christian’s being both human and divine than there is in Jesus’ being both God and man. Christian life must be authentically and thoroughly human, but, at the same time, fully and authentically divine. The task of moral theology is to demonstrate that a humanly fulfilling life is one in which fulfillment here and now is intrinsically oriented to eternal fulfillment in heaven.13
Christian morality includes and assumes natural morality and all of its demands. Christian morality adds to the latter a new and higher perspective (sometimes referred to as supernatural outlook) and certain modes of behavior that are required by the new condition of children of God.
God wanted to establish a perfect, everlasting covenant with human kind; he wants to share his goodness with us. Jesus, divine and human, is at the center of the communion between God and man. He relates perfectly to both sides of the relationship. As the Word, he is God, equal of the Father and the Spirit. As a member of the human family, he is the first-born among many brethren (cf. Rom 8:29), our elder brother, our head, our leader. In communion with God through Jesus, human beings can now live and die in Christ and rise in him to everlasting life. Thus, Christian morals imply following and imitating Jesus Christ, each Christian being “another Christ”--alter Christus. It implies:
· a calling or vocation,
· man’s response,
· following Christ,
· discipleship (learning from Christ, the Teacher),
· imitation of Jesus’ life, being alter Christus.
Faith and charity transform the natural principle of morality into the basic principle of specific Christian morality: to live for the sake of the Kingdom, in which all things—including man—will find fulfillment in Jesus.
15. Characteristics of Christian Morality
We can summarize the main characteristics of Christian morality in these ten:
i) Christian morality affects first one’s being and, as a consequence, one’s behavior.
ii) It affects the internal as well as the external aspect of man.
iii) It takes into account the deep attitudes chosen by man.
iv) It emphasizes more what must be done than what must be avoided.
v) It does not merely demand what is “just” but demands sanctity.
vi) Although Christ proclaimed a series of moral norms, Christian morality is not merely a series of moral precepts, but the way of salvation.
vii) It includes “reward” and “punishment.”
viii) It results in man’s true freedom.
ix) It is fulfilled in this life but looks toward future happiness.
x) It begins and reaches its apex in charity.
Footnotes:
1. Cf. GS, 13.
2. Ibid., 17.
3. Cf. William E. May, An Introduction to Moral Theology (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor, 1991), 23; Karol Wojtyła, Love and Responsibility, trans. H. Willetts (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1981), 41.
4. Cf. CCC, 1701–1715.
5. John Paul II, Enc. Veritatis Splendor, 8.
6. Ibid.; cf. John Paul II, Enc. Redemptor Hominis, 10.
7. Cf. CCC, 1716–1717.
8. John Paul II, Enc. Veritatis Splendor, 9.
9. In the case of a person committing a sin, his immediate intent, his ulterior end in acting, is the participation in some appealing good. Thus, the sinner need not “intend” to offend God and turn aside from him. The sinner may be seeking only to gratify himself. He may, of course, be willing to turn away from God as a means to this gratification, and he surely “intends” to do what he knows is opposed to God’s law of love as a means to the good in which he seeks to participate. The sinner’s choice can and ought to be compatible with love of God and neighbor, but the sinner’s chooses to act in a way that he knows is not compatible with that kind of love. His pursuit of this particular created good here and now means putting love for it above his love for God and neighbor. In this way, he puts some created good in the place of God. Cf. William E. May, An Introduction to Moral Theology, 147.
10. Cf. CCC, 1723.
11. Cf. Ibid., 16.
12. Cf. Ibid., 1954ff., 1978–1979; G. Grisez and R. Shaw, Fulfillment in Christ, 54–56; William E. May, An Introduction to Moral Theology, 60–63.
13. Cf. G. Grisez and R. Shaw, Fulfillment in Christ.
Morality is based on revealed anthropology. In Christ, the “image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15; cf. 2 Cor 4:4), man has been created to the image and likeness of God. Man is a person, thus endowed with a spiritual soul, and, accordingly, he is born with intelligence and will. With the first potency, he is capable of discovering the truth; with the second, he is able to choose freely, thus determining his life according to the truth. This first aspect of the person’s dignity is an endowment.
The second aspect of human dignity is an achievement. Man has a task ahead of him: to determine himself. Man’s reason—that voice of God compelling him to do good and avoid evil1—enables him to know the truth about himself and the world around him. This good is established as such by divine wisdom, and it is known by man’s natural reason (hence it is called natural law). Man also possesses a will and hence, freedom, “an exceptional sign of the image of God.”2 Furthermore, he is inwardly capable of receiving grace, our Lord’s own divine life. By freely choosing to shape his life according to the truth, and with the help of divine grace, man gives to himself and participates in the dignity to which he is called.
God put us in the world to know, love, and serve him, and so to come to paradise; thus, the human person is destined since his conception to the eternal happiness or beatitude. Human persons are the only created material entities whom God has made for themselves and whom he has called to life in union with himself. Every human being is an irreplaceable and non-substitutable person, a kind of good that cannot be treated as an object of use or as a means to an end.3
In coming into existence, each new human person ought to come—according to God’s original plan—within a community in friendship with God. Humankind, however, lost that friendship with God by original sin. Man, having been persuaded by the devil, abused his freedom at the beginning of history. He succumbed to the temptation and did evil (cf. Gn 1:26–29; 2:5–25; 3:1–24). He still retains the desire of goodness, but his nature carries the wound of original sin. This wound inclines him to evil and keeps him subject to error.
As a result of original sin, we do not come into existence as members of God’s family. But membership is still offered to us through the commitment of faith. God has not abandoned us. He has simply given us a different way—a better way—of being in friendship with him.
Jesus, sent by the Father, assumes the role of leader in order to establish and head the community in friendship with God that we are invited to join—the community of the New Covenant, which is Jesus’ Church. God’s family is now a permanent society in the world, open to all human beings who choose to join it.
Through his Passion, Christ set us free from Satan and sin, merited for us a new life in the Holy Spirit, and transformed us with his grace. Whoever believes in Christ and is baptized, is made a child of God. This filial adoption transforms him, and enables him to follow the example of Christ; that is, with the help of grace, he can act correctly and practice goodness. This union of man with his Savior is sanctity, the perfection of charity. A moral life, matured with grace, reaches its accomplishment in eternal life, in the glory of heaven.4
The question that the rich young man of the Gospel put to Jesus of Nazareth, “Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?” (Mt 19:16), is an essential and unavoidable question for the life of every man, for it is about the moral good that must be done, and about eternal life. The young man senses that there is a connection between moral good and the fulfillment of his own destiny.5
10. The Beatitudes
“People today need to turn to Christ once again in order to receive from him the answer to their questions about what is good and what is evil.… He opens up to the faithful the book of the Scriptures and, by fully revealing the Father’s will, teaches the truth about moral action. Christ sheds light on man’s condition and his integral vocation. Consequently, “the man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly—and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being—must … draw near to Christ.”6
At the heart of Jesus’ preaching, we find the eight Beatitudes. The Beatitudes take up the promises to the chosen people since Abraham. In his preaching of the Beatitudes, Jesus gathered the promises that were made to the chosen people and perfected them, directing them not merely to the possession of the earth, but to the eternal happiness in the Kingdom of heaven.7 The Beatitudes:
· portray Jesus’ charity,
· express the vocation of the faithful: to be associated with the glory of Jesus’ Passion and Resurrection,
· shed light on the actions and attitudes that are characteristic of the Christian life,
· are the paradoxical promises that sustain hope in the midst of tribulations,
· proclaim the blessings and rewards that are already secured—however dimly—for Christ’s disciples,
· have begun in the lives of the Virgin Mary and all the saints.
The eight Beatitudes do not deal with specific kinds of actions but with basic attitudes or general dispositions in life. They express Christian moral principles. We act responsibly when we live with the right attitude and make our choices in accord with it. As a result, we integrate ourselves with these good choices, become morally good persons, and attain our integral human fulfillment (everlasting happiness) in Jesus Christ.
11. Man’s Desire of Happiness
The Beatitudes respond to man’s natural desire for happiness. This desire is of divine origin. God has placed it in the human heart in order to draw man to the One who alone can fulfill it.
To the questions “What is God’s purpose in creating me?” or “What is the ultimate end of man?” the Beatitudes reveal the goal of human existence, the ultimate end of human acts: God calls us to his own beatitude. This vocation is addressed to each individual personally, but also to the Church as a whole.
Once we are aware that beatitude (heaven, everlasting happiness) is the ultimate end of man, the next question is “What are the means to it?” or “How do I fit into it?” Specifically, one will have to ask how authentic human goods are to be pursued, and how human acts are to be performed, so that he plays the role that God intends for him. The answer, as we shall see, is the same: explicitly and consciously living all the moral implications of Christian faith (with the help of God’s grace) to reach integral fulfillment in Christ, thereby attaining good.
Thus, man’s happiness lies in fulfilling himself and attaining the end to which he is ordained. The fuller he attains of the end, the more intense is his resulting happiness, and the greater he rejoices in the good attained. Man’s happiness (beatitude) is directly related to his sense of responsibility in living the implications of God’s will and thereby attaining good.
12. God and Morals
Only God can answer the question about what is good, because he is the Good itself. To ask about the good, in fact, ultimately means to turn toward God, the fullness of goodness.… The goodness that attracts and at the same time commits man has its source in God, and indeed is God himself. God alone is worthy of being loved “with all one’s heart, and with all one’s soul, and with all one’s mind” (Mt 22:37). He is the source of man’s happiness.8
The beatitude that we are promised (eternal happiness) confronts us with decisive moral choices. It invites us to purify our hearts of bad instincts and to seek the love of God above all else.
When man acts with moral rectitude, he is seeking God, his last end. Even if he lacks clear knowledge of God, he is still seeking him, albeit in an obscure way. On the other hand, when man acts without rectitude of intention, he is moving away from God and substituting something else for him, even though, theoretically, he may know well what his last end is. This does not mean, however, that there is an explicit denial of God in every bad action.9
The knowledge of the Absolute Good necessarily moves the will to want it. But on earth, this knowledge is necessarily imperfect, and God is not perceived as the Absolute Good. Thus, not even he necessarily attracts the will; much less can participated, partial goods necessarily attract it. Thus, the will can always choose between different goods.
The objective last end is God, sought in either a natural or a supernatural way. When death comes, the last end chosen remains fixed forever as such last end. Thus, beatitude—heaven—essentially consists in the supreme fulfillment of the love of God. Hell, on the other hand, consists in the frustration of a hopeless self-love. It is hopeless because it excludes the real good, the only thing that can give a supreme and permanent satisfaction. Therefore, it becomes hatred of self, God, everything, and everybody.
The promise of the beatitude—eternal happiness—makes us face decisive moral options with regard to earthly goods; it gives us the guidelines to the use of earthly goods according to the law of God; it also purifies our heart, leading us to love God above everything.10
The attainment of a temporal good and an eternal good are implicitly intertwined in each choice. The concrete actions of a person and his moral goodness cannot be separated. Moreover, the moral goodness of a human act cannot be measured solely by its supposed conformity with rational nature, without any reference to man’s essential relation to God (the need of loving God as ultimate end). Even more, when a person puts aside that essential relation to God in his actions, these actions can still retain some goodness if they contribute to temporal welfare, but they will not be wholly good or worthy of man.
13. The Principles of Morality
We choose beatitude when we freely choose a right conduct, with the help of God’s law and grace.11 The Church affirms the existence of an ordered set of true propositions (which is called the natural moral law) about what we are to do if we are to be the beings that God wants us to be.12 These true propositions or precepts are a participation of God’s wisdom and are recognized by reason.
14. Christian Morality
As we have studied, human behavior is always governed by purpose; each human action has an end. There is an objective and natural ultimate end of all human acts, which is also the end of human nature: God. After the elevation to the supernatural order, we can also speak of a supernatural end of man. This supernatural end is also God, but in a more intimate way: God as sub ratione deitatis. The latter does not destroy the former, but assumes, completes, perfects, and deepens it.
This applies to all aspects of human behavior. Generally speaking, Christian morality fully assumes and retains natural morality, without modifying it. It also perfects natural morality within its own order, giving it a higher goal. This perfection has two aspects:
i) A better knowledge of natural morality (since the Church has received the task of determining its scope and enjoys a special divine assistance to this effect)
ii) An assistance that makes its fulfillment easier
By analogy, the same applies to the relationship between the science of supernatural morality (moral theology) and that of natural morality (ethics).
The infusion of supernatural life also brings with it some obligations that are essential to its preservation and growth. These specific duties of the Christian, as opposed to those that are common to all people through human nature itself, make reference to:
· infused virtues,
· reception of the sacraments,
· the duty of spreading the faith.
The Christian is a human person by nature but also divine by the grace of the Holy Spirit—he is God’s child by adoption—while yet remaining one person. There is no more conflict in the Christian’s being both human and divine than there is in Jesus’ being both God and man. Christian life must be authentically and thoroughly human, but, at the same time, fully and authentically divine. The task of moral theology is to demonstrate that a humanly fulfilling life is one in which fulfillment here and now is intrinsically oriented to eternal fulfillment in heaven.13
Christian morality includes and assumes natural morality and all of its demands. Christian morality adds to the latter a new and higher perspective (sometimes referred to as supernatural outlook) and certain modes of behavior that are required by the new condition of children of God.
God wanted to establish a perfect, everlasting covenant with human kind; he wants to share his goodness with us. Jesus, divine and human, is at the center of the communion between God and man. He relates perfectly to both sides of the relationship. As the Word, he is God, equal of the Father and the Spirit. As a member of the human family, he is the first-born among many brethren (cf. Rom 8:29), our elder brother, our head, our leader. In communion with God through Jesus, human beings can now live and die in Christ and rise in him to everlasting life. Thus, Christian morals imply following and imitating Jesus Christ, each Christian being “another Christ”--alter Christus. It implies:
· a calling or vocation,
· man’s response,
· following Christ,
· discipleship (learning from Christ, the Teacher),
· imitation of Jesus’ life, being alter Christus.
Faith and charity transform the natural principle of morality into the basic principle of specific Christian morality: to live for the sake of the Kingdom, in which all things—including man—will find fulfillment in Jesus.
15. Characteristics of Christian Morality
We can summarize the main characteristics of Christian morality in these ten:
i) Christian morality affects first one’s being and, as a consequence, one’s behavior.
ii) It affects the internal as well as the external aspect of man.
iii) It takes into account the deep attitudes chosen by man.
iv) It emphasizes more what must be done than what must be avoided.
v) It does not merely demand what is “just” but demands sanctity.
vi) Although Christ proclaimed a series of moral norms, Christian morality is not merely a series of moral precepts, but the way of salvation.
vii) It includes “reward” and “punishment.”
viii) It results in man’s true freedom.
ix) It is fulfilled in this life but looks toward future happiness.
x) It begins and reaches its apex in charity.
Footnotes:
1. Cf. GS, 13.
2. Ibid., 17.
3. Cf. William E. May, An Introduction to Moral Theology (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor, 1991), 23; Karol Wojtyła, Love and Responsibility, trans. H. Willetts (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1981), 41.
4. Cf. CCC, 1701–1715.
5. John Paul II, Enc. Veritatis Splendor, 8.
6. Ibid.; cf. John Paul II, Enc. Redemptor Hominis, 10.
7. Cf. CCC, 1716–1717.
8. John Paul II, Enc. Veritatis Splendor, 9.
9. In the case of a person committing a sin, his immediate intent, his ulterior end in acting, is the participation in some appealing good. Thus, the sinner need not “intend” to offend God and turn aside from him. The sinner may be seeking only to gratify himself. He may, of course, be willing to turn away from God as a means to this gratification, and he surely “intends” to do what he knows is opposed to God’s law of love as a means to the good in which he seeks to participate. The sinner’s choice can and ought to be compatible with love of God and neighbor, but the sinner’s chooses to act in a way that he knows is not compatible with that kind of love. His pursuit of this particular created good here and now means putting love for it above his love for God and neighbor. In this way, he puts some created good in the place of God. Cf. William E. May, An Introduction to Moral Theology, 147.
10. Cf. CCC, 1723.
11. Cf. Ibid., 16.
12. Cf. Ibid., 1954ff., 1978–1979; G. Grisez and R. Shaw, Fulfillment in Christ, 54–56; William E. May, An Introduction to Moral Theology, 60–63.
13. Cf. G. Grisez and R. Shaw, Fulfillment in Christ.