Chapter — Slater, Foundation
Chapter III: Casuistry
IN his translation of "The German War Book," Professor J. H. Morgan makes such reflections as the following: "It will be obvious that the German staff are nothing if not casuists."¹ "This represents 'The German War Book' in its most disagreeable light, and is casuistry of the worst kind."² It is taken for granted that no more severe condemnation of immoral reasoning could be uttered than to say that it is casuistical. Some justification of this opprobrious meaning attached to casuistry is furnished by the Gospel. The condemnation of the Pharisees by Our Lord could hardly be more severe, and one reason for
¹ P. 3.
² P. 85, note.
that condemnation was their casuistry. "Woe to you, blind guides, that say: Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but he that shall swear by the gold of the temple is a debtor. Ye foolish and blind; for whether is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?... Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and faith. These things you ought to have done and not to leave those undone."¹
There have been lax casuists in the Catholic Church who deserved severe condemnation of this kind, as we learn from the decrees of Alexander VII, Innocent XI, and Alexander VIII. But the rooted dislike of non-Catholic writers to casuistry is not accounted for merely by its abuses. They seem to condemn casuistry in itself. Catholics find it difficult to understand this atti-
tude of non-Catholics toward casuistry. They think it obvious that very little experience of life shows that sometimes it is difficult to decide what is the right and what the wrong course of action in particular circumstances. What is more natural than for one who wishes to do right to consult some one who has made a special study of morality?
In order to understand this divergence of view we must go back to Luther and the Protestant Reformation. Luther scornfully rejected the Catholic doctrine that the Church is the divinely appointed teacher of faith and morals. He substituted the Bible for the Church, and declared that a believing Christian infallibly interpreted the Bible for himself. "They lie," he says, "who maintain that the Pope is the judge of the Scriptures. Pardon, Squire Pope, I say: he who has faith is a spiritual man, and judges of all things, and is judged by nobody. And if a simple miller's girl, nay a child nine years old, has faith and judges according to the Gospel, the Pope owes obedience and ought to throw himself at their feet, if he means to be a genuine Christian. And this is likewise the duty of all Universities, and learned men and sophists."¹ Bible, but that ideal is applied to conduct and to the particular actions of everyday life by the conscience of each one. The individual conscience is the ultimate judge of right and wrong, and it is worse than impertinent intrusion for any one else, however learned he may be, to trespass within those sacred precincts. If this be the main principle of Christian morals, there is obviously no room for the casuist and for casuistry. We see that what history has taught us was inevitable. In the Lutheran, Calvinistic, and Anglican sects casuistry survived for some time, but now it seems to have disappeared almost entirely. Non-Catholic writers on Christian ethics confine themselves to generalities and ideals without venturing to descend to the ordinary actions of everyday life. In consequence their teaching to a great extent is impractical. Politics, law, international relations, business, all lie outside the sphere of morality, and the inner life of the individual is a sanctuary where no other may intrude.
A recent writer, Otto Ritschl, says that “when the question is asked whether a lie is permissible to save a persecuted person, we still care too little for 'what the conscience of the person concerned decides and what he feels to be quite definitely his duty.' We still fail, he thinks, 'to perceive that one's own conscience is the ultimate judge of what is morally good and bad, and that the judgment of conscience frequently does not coincide with the generally received code of morality.' "²
According to Protestant principles then a believing Christian gets his ideal from the
¹ J. Verres, "Luther: An Historical Portrait," p. 120.
² Mausbach, "Catholic Moral Teaching," p. 87.
This result is intensified by the Protestant view of legalism and Christian liberty. According to Protestant principles the believer's conscience is under the immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit, and is not fettered by commandments and laws. It requires no external guidance in its moral life and it will not tolerate dictation. It instinctively repudiates any attempt to fetter, by casuistical decisions, the freedom which Christ gave us.
Another reason which makes Protestant ethical teaching hopelessly at variance with everyday morality is its refusal to recognize the Gospel distinction between counsels and precepts. Not everything in the Gospel is intended for everybody. Our Lord occasionally proposed an exalted course of moral conduct which he knew was above the moral strength of many. He said: "All men take not this word, but they to whom it is given."¹ And yet Protestants refuse to admit that there are counsels of perfection in the Gospel. They see nothing there but the preceptive will of God.
The effect of the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone has been to remove the stress laid by the Catholic Church on good actions. It is true that Luther taught that good works would be the result of justification by faith, just as a good tree produces good fruit. Still he knew by his own experience that this was not uniformly the case, and he considered it no small advantage of his doctrine that good and bad works were thrust into the background by his fundamental theory of justification. As long as faith remained, works, whether good or bad, were of comparatively small account. As long as a Christian man clung to his ideal, was affable and generous, his individual actions ought not to be too closely scrutinized either by himself or by others.
Very different from this is the Catholic attitude toward casuistry. As Professor R. M. Wenlez remarks: "Quite obviously, the two conceptions proceed from antagonistic theories of the nature of the Christian religion as a whole."¹
The Catholic has very definite ideas about moral law. He does not look upon the moral law as a collection of more or less arbitrary precepts. He sees in it the expression of the necessary relations which exist among human beings. Those relations follow from the nature of things and they will continue to exist as long as human nature exists. They could not be changed even by God Himself, because they ultimately depend on the essence of God Himself. Luther thought that an action is right because it is accepted as right by God. The Catholic holds that an action is right because it agrees with the right order which
¹ Hastings' "Encyclopaedia of Religion," s. v. Casuistry.
follows from the nature of persons and things, and which God willed when He created them. Because parents are parents and children their offspring, therefore it is right for children to honor their parents. Because human beings are what they are, it is wrong for one to kill another, to steal what belongs to him, or to lie.
Such precepts as Thou shalt not kill are general principles which are to be obeyed in ordinary circumstances. But circumstances change cases and rules. In a just war, in order to defend one's country and one's rights from unjust attack, one may kill the enemy. If it is the only means of saving one's own life one may kill an unjust aggressor in self-defense. The criminal forfeits his life by serious crime and may be put to death by public authority. Those are well recognized exceptions to the general rule, they are the outcome of altered relations which arise from altered circumstances. Right reason affirms that in a conflict of rights, the right of the innocent should prevail over the right of the guilty who provoked the conflict. There may be other cases where it is not so clear whether the right to life has been lost or not. The casuist lays down what is certain and then proceeds to discuss the doubtful cases. In doing this the ordinary casuist does not strive to reduce the moral law to a minimum, nor does he seek to throw off its yoke. There may have been some casuists who yielded to such unworthy motives. Not all doctors or scientific men are honest. But the ordinary casuist tries only to discover what is right or wrong in the nature of things and what right reason prescribes. In his investigations he questions nature and tries to get at nature's verdict, not less than the man of science.
The Catholic maintains that the moral law governs all man's activity. The safety of the race as well as of the individual depends on the right exercise of marital relations. The casuist, therefore, treats of what is right and what is wrong in those relations as in all others connected with human life. He does not wallow in such subjects as one might expect he would from the horror with which Harnack upbraids casuists for their practice. It is, at least, as much the duty of the moralist to investigate what is right and wrong in such matters as for the doctor or the scientist. The books of the casuist are not meant for innocent boys and maidens, they are technical works specially intended for the confessor and parish priest. Mr. MacCunn, in his book, ''The Making of Character," thinks that casuists err in trying to make life conform to their system, instead of making their system conform to life. But what if the casuists' system is merely the moral law, the objective standard to which all human action should conform? Is it a mistake to maintain the absolute supremacy of the moral law?
The same writer thinks that casuists attempt the impossible when they strive to solve all sorts of imaginary or real cases. The complexity of life, he thinks, baffles even the casuist. Mr. MacCunn is mistaken in thinking that this is the aim of the casuist. The casuist is well aware of the infinite complexity of human life. What the casuist has chiefly in view is the training of the student, so that he may become expert in perceiving at a glance what principles are applicable to the solution of any particular case, and so that his judgment may be relied on to apply those principles correctly.
The same writer also thinks that the casuist errs in trying to maintain his system of morals in spite of the fact that the world has outgrown the system. But what if the system of the Catholic moralist is not his own or any other human system? What if it is the will of God Himself made known to man and taught by Jesus Christ? ''Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My word shall not pass away." The world has not yet risen to the height of Christian morality, much less transcended it.