The Absolute Moral Norms Are Dogmas of Faith

Reviewing the teaching of Veritatis Splendor, Francis Sullivan asks “whether one might . . . interpret the encyclical to mean that all traditional Catholic moral doctrine is, in the final analysis, the Church’s interpretation of the Ten Commandments as reaffirmed and further specified in the New Testament.”¹ Sullivan presents this possibility as if it would be a surprise that all the moral teaching of the Church would be revealed. The fact of the matter is that this view, that the moral teaching of the Church is based on Revelation, was taken for granted in moral theology until quite recently. One commentator has said that it has been the common opinion of theologians in recent centuries that the precepts of the natural law have been revealed, and the scriptural foundation centered on the revelation of the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount and the moral teaching of St. Paul.²

It is only in recent years that the change has come about in theological opinion. Charles Curran offers an interesting example in this regard in that he has two different positions at the earlier and later stages of his career. In the early books he recognizes that one can have the impression that the Church has reached its grasp of moral norms by arguing on the basis of the natural law. But, against that, he says: “The Church teaches a particular point because it seems to be a part of the scriptures and the living tradition of the Church.”³ And again: “The basis for all teaching of the Church must be sacred scripture.”⁴ He uses the teaching on contraception as an example, and is confident that the teaching did not arise from natural law reasoning, but from the experience of the Christian people. The natural law reasoning came later in order to give reasons for the already existing teachings.⁵ In his later writing the situation is different. Now, he is clear that the “Catholic tradition in moral theology has insisted that its moral teaching is based primarily on natural law and not primarily on faith or the Scripture.”⁶ And this later opinion has now become the dominant one among contemporary Catholic theologians.⁷

At one stage in his analysis, Sullivan says that he is “not aware of any official document, prior to Veritatis Splendor, that based the authority of the magisterium in moral matters on the grounds that the whole moral law was contained in revelation.”⁸ The implication of what Sullivan says here, that Veritatis Splendor represents a novelty in this matter, is unfounded, for the opinion has appeared quite consistently in earlier magisterial statements. It was with the coming of the Enlightenment, and the emergence of civil society independent of the Church, that the Popes began to formulate the basis of the Church’s moral teaching more precisely. The process began with Pope Pius IX, who wrote:

The Church was set by her divine Author as the pillar and ground of truth, in order to teach the divine Faith to men, and keep whole and inviolate the deposit confided to her; to direct and fashion men, in all their actions individually and socially, to purity of morals and integrity of life, in accordance with revealed doctrine.⁹

Pope Leo XIII also made clear that the Church’s moral teaching is based on Revelation. In one of his encyclicals he wrote:

In faith and in the teaching of morality, God Himself made the Church a partaker of His divine authority, and through His heavenly gift she cannot be deceived. . . . Therefore, the divine teaching of the Church, so far from being an obstacle to the pursuit of learning and the progress of science, or in any way retarding the advance of civilization, in reality brings to them the sure guidance of shining light.¹⁰

Pope Pius XI quotes a contemporary author:

The Church . . . says, has said, and will ever say, that because of her institution by Jesus Christ, because of the Holy Ghost sent her in His name by the Father, she alone possesses what she has had immediately from God and can never lose, the whole moral truth, omnem veritatem, in which all individual moral truths are included, as well those which man may learn by the help of reason, as those which form part of revelation or which may be deduced from it.¹¹

In the encyclical Casti connubii, Pope Pius XI presents the same doctrine, affirming that “Christ . . . has constituted the Church the guardian and the teacher of the whole of the truth concerning religion and moral conduct.”¹²

This Tradition, which understands the moral teaching of the Church as revealed by God, is presented in Veritatis Splendor. Early in the document Veritatis Splendor explains that “[t]he specific purpose of the present Encyclical is this: to set forth, with regard to the problems being discussed, the principles of a moral teaching based upon Sacred Scripture and the living Apostolic Tradition.” (§5) It affirms “the need, given the present state of fallen nature, for Divine Revelation as an effective means for knowing moral truths, even those of the natural order.” (§36) It declares that “there exists, in Divine Revelation, a specific and determined moral content, universally valid and permanent,” and that the “particular moral norms” are “part of the proper content of Revelation.” (§7) We are told that “[i]n teaching the existence of intrinsically evil acts, the Church accepts the teaching of Sacred Scripture,” (§81; see also §49) and that “[t]he doctrine of the object as a source of morality represents an authentic explicitation of the Biblical morality of the Covenant and of the commandments, of charity and of the virtues.” (§82) As the basis for the absolute moral norms, VS affirms that “[t]he Church has always taught that one may never choose kinds of behavior prohibited by the moral commandments expressed in negative form in the Old and New Testaments.” (§52) Finally, Veritatis Splendor repeats the claim made by the earlier Popes that, on the basis of divine revelation, we are given an integral and complete knowledge of the moral law, in all its aspects. It says:

Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). Consequently the decisive answer to every one of man’s questions, his religious and moral questions in particular, is given by Jesus Christ, or rather is Jesus Christ himself. (§2) . . . the Church . . . today once more puts forward the Master’s reply, a reply that possesses a light and a power capable of answering even the most controversial and complex questions. (§30)

Later, it says that the “commandments . . . according to Saint Thomas, contain the whole natural law.” (§79, emphasis added) In summary, then, the most relevant points of this teaching, for the argument ahead, are that the Church’s moral teaching is based on Revelation and the teaching contains the whole of the moral law.

The Magisterium in Practice

In order to make the case in favor of the revealed nature of the absolute moral norms, a place to begin is by examining how the Magisterium has presented its teaching in the different areas of morality.

The Gospel of Life

The moral issue that is most fully developed in this regard is the Fifth Commandment, and it is significant that Pope John Paul II speaks of the moral doctrine about the sacred value of human life and the moral norms this implies as the “Gospel of life,” Evangelium Vitae, which the Church “has received from her Lord,” (§2) and which “is at the heart of Jesus’ message.” (§1) In presenting the teaching on abortion, Evangelium Vitae makes clear that it is based on Scripture and Tradition. It says:

The texts of Sacred Scripture never address the question of deliberate abortion and so do not directly and specifically condemn it. But they show such great respect for the human being in the mother’s womb that they require as a logical consequence that God’s commandment “You shall not kill” be extended to the unborn child as well. . . . Christian Tradition . . . is clear and unanimous, from the beginning up to our own day, in describing abortion as a particularly grave moral disorder. . . . Throughout Christianity’s two thousand year history, this same doctrine has been constantly taught by the Fathers of the Church and by her Pastors and Doctors. (§61)

The Sixth Commandment

The same pattern is followed in the documents on sexual morality, basing the teaching on Scripture and Tradition. In the first one, by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the document recalls the teaching of the Second Vatican Council

on the finality of the sexual act and on the principal criterion of its morality: it is respect for its finality that ensures the moral goodness of this act. This same principle, which the Church holds from Divine Revelation and from her authentic interpretation of the natural law, is also the basis of her traditional doctrine, which states that the use of the sexual function has its true meaning and moral rectitude only in true marriage.¹³

The document then presents a short summary of the Scriptural and Traditional basis and concludes:

Sexual union therefore is only legitimate if a definitive community of life has been established between the man and the woman. This is what the Church has always understood and taught, and she finds a profound agreement with her doctrine in men’s reflection and in the lessons of history.¹⁴

In dealing the issue of homosexuality, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith follows the same pattern. In Persona Humana, it says that “according to the objective moral order, homosexual relations are acts which lack an essential and indispensable finality. In Sacred Scripture they are condemned as a serious depravity and even presented as the sad consequence of rejecting God.”¹⁵ In a later document on the question, the teaching is developed. It said that “there is . . . a clear consistency within the Scriptures themselves on the moral issue of homosexual behavior.”¹⁶ It then presents a summary of the Scriptural evidence,¹⁷ and concludes that “the Church’s teaching today is in organic continuity with the Scriptural perspective and with her own constant Tradition.”¹⁸

Dogmas of Faith

We reach, then, the culmination of the argument being made here, that since all the absolute moral norms are revealed, then the norms need to be recognized for what they are: dogmas of faith. The phrase “faith and morals” is normally understood as implying that “dogmas of faith” refers only to the ontological doctrinal matters, the Trinity, Christology, Ecclesiology and so on, and that these have a higher level of seriousness and authority than moral teaching. That notion needs to be abandoned. In one place Pope Leo XIII had this to say:

As the Catholic Church declares in the strongest terms the simplicity, spirituality, and immortality of the soul, so with unequalled constancy and publicity she ever also asserts its freedom. These truths she has always taught, and has sustained them as a dogma of faith, and whenever heretics or innovators have attacked the liberty of man, the Church has defended it and protected this noble possession from destruction.¹⁹

This same point needs to be made about all the absolute moral norms. They are taught as “dogmas of faith” in exactly the same way, and on the same level of seriousness and authority, as the ontological matters. They are as close to the heart of the lived Christian life as the “high” dogmas, are taught as revealed by God, based on Scripture and Tradition, and are to be accepted with divine and Catholic faith on the same level as the ontological dogmas. The Council does indeed teach that “in Catholic doctrine there exists a ‘hierarchy’ of truths, since they vary in their relation to the fundamental Christian faith,” (Unitatis Redintegratio, §11), but there is no hierarchy of truth, for truth is one and indivisible. It is not useful to compare the absolute moral norms to the ontological dogmas of faith, in order to establish a hierarchy of importance between them. All the dogmas of faith, including the moral ones, are equally true, and we live “by every word that comes from the mouth of God,” (Mt 4:4) so that every dogma of faith is to be accepted and proclaimed with the same fidelity. The “high” doctrinal dogmas are objectively more important, and form the Creed we profess in the Eucharist, but the moral dogmas have a more immediate relevance for our lives, for it is the revealed moral norms that guide our most intimate thoughts, words and actions every day. The value of comparing doctrine in a “hierarchy” is not clear to me, but the key thing in any event is that they are all true, and every dogma of faith, whether doctrinal or moral, is a word of God, to be accepted and proclaimed.