Article IV: Method of Moral Theology

That it may deserve the name of science, moral theology is necessarily solicitous concerning the reasons of its conclusions and concerning the principles to which they are referred; that it may be practical, it must translate principles to concrete cases. Therefore no moral theology is conceived which merely exhibits a catalogue of conclusions, or which is occupied solely in discussing principles.

Nevertheless, according to the principal intention, the method is distinguished as positive and scholastic. The former inquires less than the latter into the reason why; it more dogmatically expounds what the latter polemically defends; it cares less about joining truths among themselves and reducing them into unity. The latter strives to connect them scientifically among themselves.

We shall use a method rather scholastic, yet in such a way that we permit a fuller exposition of principles and polemical defense either to other disciplines, for example, moral philosophy, or to special treatises ² already written by us or to be published.

Moral theology is called remotely practical or proximately practical, that is, casuistic, according as it dwells more upon general principles, or thinks of foreseeing and resolving practical doubts. We shall try to cultivate both kinds at the same time, while after proposing principles we shall not omit to subjoin the principal applications.

Finally, moral theology can be called individual or social, according as it is destined for directing the singular man alone in his private dealings, or is also solicitous concerning man's social duties. And they turn to the fault of not a few who, in our age, have given their work to moral theology, that, being too solicitous about the singular man alone and about domestic society alone, they did not sufficiently study to provide for public society. Therefore we shall by no means put social considerations after the rest.

Concerning method this can be doubted: whether in arguments which also require dogmatic treatment, for example, in the sacraments, it is better to separate moral conclusions from dogmatic discussion, or, on the contrary, whether it is preferable to join both respects, the dogmatic and the moral, in the same school. Each way of proceeding has its own advantages and disadvantages. Simultaneous presentation favors synthetic unity, avoids every repeated exposition, and is also commended by the example of St. Thomas and of distinguished scholastic theologians. Yet again today, because of many controversies, dogmatic exposition must be much more lengthy than formerly, and it is very remote from moral applications. Moreover, different qualities of mind are required in the school of dogma and in the moral school. Therefore, if one and the same professor is ordered to be at once dogmatician and moralist, there is danger lest, according to his special aptitude, he neglect one or the other part too much, or lecture on it less well.

But it is altogether to be desired that principles which are not so remote from practice be explained solidly together with the conclusions.

A canonical-moral treatment of matters which pertain at once to the discipline of law and to moral discipline also seems to be commended. We shall try to accomplish this in the volume on the sacraments.

To the right method of moral theology this also pertains: that it teach how to use moral or juridical sayings or aphorisms prudently, and that it appeal, in their proper place, to the censures of condemned propositions in such a way that it neither increases nor diminishes their force.

We call "sayings" the various formulas or dictates which are frequently appealed to by writers in order, in few words, either to confirm a conclusion or to solve a knot or difficulty. Some are rules of law; others are philosophical distinctions. For excuse, for example, to what is appeal more often made than to the distinction per accidens?

We do not deny the utility of brevity; nevertheless care must be taken lest we increase the force of rules, lest we employ distinctions outside their proper place, and thus lest we seem content with a merely "verbal" solution.

Therefore, concerning the prudent use of sayings, we think these things must be observed.

² We have already written questions on religion, on justice, and a work on chastity.

I. On rules of law. We must begin from the wise admonition of the legislator: "A rule is that which briefly narrates the thing as it is. Not that law is taken from the rule, but that from the law which exists the rule is made" (Digest, De regulis iuris [L, 17], Rule 1).

Therefore they are sometimes called principles, or, at least by philosophical reason, axioms, by a rather improper usage. For principles strictly so called must contain in themselves the reason of the conclusions or corollaries of which they are sources, whereas employed sayings not rarely rest upon a reason extrinsic to them; thus that common saying: in doubt one must answer in favor of the validity of the act. An axiom, philosophically, signifies a sentence whose truth we immediately intuit, whereas several sayings, for example, concerning the privileges of the possessor, need demonstration. Therefore:

1. When the reason of some saying is external to the saying itself, its true reason must be investigated, lest, beyond that reason, we make a fallacious use of the saying.

Let the saying be, for example: "In doubt one must stand for the validity of the act." Since men perform acts, some good, some evil, some valid, some invalid, the truth of the saying is not immediately manifest. Yet the rule must be proved because of these added reasons:

a) Man must employ only that diligence which is human. But it would be inhuman to demand that, without a positive and serious motive, acts once performed should have to be recalled again to the scales. Therefore this first reason already teaches us this correct use of the saying: in negative doubt, solicitude about our past acts can safely be laid aside.

b) In the external forum, matters must often be determined by presumptions. And since acts are for the most part done validly, the presumption by which, at least in the external forum, an act is presumed to have been done validly in doubt, even positive doubt, is just and fair. Yet the force and value of that presumption will vary according to the will of the legislator and according to the efficacy of that will. According to his will, I say. Thus, what before the canonical Code was disputed, the legislator now wills that the presumption for the validity of marriage be stronger than for the validity of baptism. Wherefore, where the baptism of one or the other party has been doubtful, canon 1070, § 2, says that one must stand "for the validity of the marriage until it is certainly proved that one party was baptized, the other not baptized." Yet it reserves the privilege of the faith, because in favor of the faith the same marriage can be held as null ¹.

We added "according to the efficacy of that will." For there are acts which the legislator can render certain from doubtful by his will, whereas others are necessarily left in their objective state, notwithstanding the presumption of the external forum. Thus public authority can render the jurisdiction of an inferior certain by supplying the defect. Wherefore use of probable jurisdiction is always honest, since canon 209, in a positive and probable doubt whether of law or of fact, supplies jurisdiction. On the contrary, no will of a human legislator will be able to supply deficient baptism. Hence it will happen that consciousness of doubtful baptism obliges you to receive baptism again under condition, for example, in order to your own eternal salvation, even though, in order to marriage, it is presumed to have been valid.

c) Finally, if we consider an act as the source of obligation, in positive doubt no simple answer is supplied to us by the praised saying. For if your obligation alone comes to be considered, an act concerning whose validity there is positive doubt will bear only an uncertain obligation, which can be passed over. For this reason a private vow whose validity is doubtful is not to be urged. But if the utility of another private man or a public cause intervenes, many other things will have to be considered, which will be weighed in their own place. The case will have been: a doubtful marriage, a doubtful religious profession, a doubtful payment of a debt.

And thus our inquiry has led us to this conclusion: a saying which must be admitted because of a reason extrinsic to itself does not have perpetual use.

2. Other sayings indeed contain in themselves the reason of their truth, but must be completed in order that their use can be prudent.

Thus, once the nature of ordered charity has been seen, it appears true that "charity does not oblige with excessive inconvenience"; but the proportion of inconvenience must be gathered from elsewhere, so that we may prudently judge the inconvenience to be excessive.

3. Other sayings, even when complete, require that attention be given to the condition which is expressed together with them or understood beneath them.

When we say, "In an equal cause the condition of the possessor is better," we enunciate something complete, which is made true from the very nature of possession. Yet it can be doubted, and is doubted, when a cause is to be called equal. And besides, the very principle of possession cannot exert its own proper efficacy unless true possession is had. But possession supposes two persons who can contest concerning a right; it also supposes a fact, or exercise of a right, which exists, or can exist, separated from the right. Thus one man can possess a field of which another has the right of ownership. Now, neither law nor liberty are two persons. But if you take them metaphorically for the legislator and the subject, the subject, in matter in which the legislator is competent, cannot contest with him concerning any right, but is within the decision of the one legitimately commanding. Finally, law and immunity from law either are or are not: a law cannot be conceived which obliges in fact but not in right, or an immunity from law which is at once moral and illegitimate. For this reason, not a few writers who try to solve moral doubts by considering whether law or liberty is in possession use an argumentation which we call futile, because it is fictive. For there is no possession of liberty with respect to the legislator, and the principle of possession occupies its proper seat in the matter of justice. Cf. Bouquillon, Theologia fundamentalis, n. 296; De Bock, Trac. fundam., I, p. 280, observation IV.

¹ Cf. what we wrote in Periodica de re canonica et morali, X, p. 25.

II. On excuse through "accident." There is very much use and abuse of the distinction between per se and per accidens in moral matters.

1. First, the twofold meaning of the distinction must be attended to. a) A thing is said to happen per se which for the most part, by way of rule, seems to flow as it were from the nature of the thing or from the circumstances; but that is said to happen per accidens which occurs rarely, by way of exception. This distinction is useful, because our human providence generally ought not extend itself beyond those things which regularly happen or follow. Which words, for example, are to be avoided as harmful, insulting, offensive; which occasions of sinning are to be held grave or proximate, before experience, are estimated according to that norm. b) By a more philosophical usage, we do per se what, by our voluntary causality, we effect or produce; but that happens per accidens which, besides our intention, follows because of the intervention of another cause which we cannot impede. Wherefore Almighty God indeed wills some things per accidens, but is said to do nothing per accidens. Thus, for example, to use the classic example, a commander of an army intends to explode a fortress with instruments of war. With the explosion of the fortress his causality per se is ended. But it can happen that, by chance or by the will of another, innocent persons have been shut up in that fortress. The commander, as we suppose, cannot procure that they leave from there or be expelled. The killing of these accompanies the explosion of the fortress per accidens.

From the same example it appears that some effect can be called per se according to the first signification, which according to the other follows per accidens. The killing of the innocent, in the proposed case, follows per se, from the circumstances in which the explosion is made, if we attend to the first signification; it follows per accidens according to the other signification.

Now to speak of the very frequent excuse: if we wish to avoid fallacy, it will have to be weighed what is held per accidens, and at what time of our action.

For per accidens, or because of a concurrent cause which is not in my power, some condition required for the very honesty of the action can be lacking, or the effect to which the action has an order; and it can also happen that a new evil effect is added.

In the first case, whether the condition of honesty was lacking per se or per accidens, the action remains equally dishonest. In the second case the action will preserve its species morally, just as physically.

It is not licit to kill a hare with danger to human life: whether the danger arises per se or per accidens, that hunt will remain illicit. But that food moderately taken is not digested in the stomach per accidens will not morally vitiate the eating. These things must be attended to greatly in the question concerning the use of marriage. Cf. Suarez, De Legibus, l. 3, c. 25, n. 12.

Finally, in the third case, which will be proposed more distinctly later, the action will be honest or dishonest according as you have, or have not, satisfied the positive duty of preventing that evil effect from following from your action. The force of that duty is one thing in one matter and another in another matter, and will be weighed in its own place.

III. On proscribed propositions. There can also be an incorrect use of the judgments of the Holy See, especially those by which certain propositions or theses are disapproved.

For in dogmatic theology the various notes with which propositions are branded are accurately distinguished. For they are condemned as heretical, as proximate to heresy, as erroneous, as proximate to error, or savoring of heresy or error, as rash, as scandalous, as offensive to pious ears. Now the three latter notes, and to a certain extent also the fourth, "savoring of heresy or error," contain no positive and direct judgment of the Holy See concerning the falsity of the proposition itself. Directly, only the enunciation, at least public or open, of a thesis proscribed in this way is forbidden.

Therefore, in order that you may bring a certain argument from authority, it is not enough to recall that the contrary, or rather contradictory, proposition was condemned by such a Pontiff, unless it was struck at least with the stigma of error.

It indeed happens that the Holy See imprints its note upon individual propositions, which is then authentically declared to us; but it also happens that it condemns a series of propositions collectively with various notes which nevertheless do not fall upon the individual propositions.

Then, authoritatively, the individual propositions are affected at least by the smallest note; but which ones deserve a worse note private Doctors will have to teach.

Thus in moral matters, by Alexander VII, in decrees of September 24, 1665, and March 18, 1666, forty-five propositions were condemned "at least as scandalous"; by Innocent XI, in a decree of the Holy Office, March 2, 1679, sixty-five propositions were "all condemned and prohibited, as they stand, at least as scandalous and pernicious in practice"; by Alexander VIII, on August 24, 1690, two propositions, of which one is declared and condemned "as heretical," the other as "scandalous, rash, offensive to pious ears, and erroneous"; and by the same Pontiff, in a decree of the Holy Office, December 7, 1690, thirty-one propositions, some dogmatic, some moral, "as rash, scandalous, ill-sounding, injurious, proximate to heresy, savoring of heresy, erroneous, schismatic, and heretical respectively."

Yet very often appeal is made to these proscriptions as though they contained an infallible declaration of falsity.

It is also manifest that condemned propositions are wrongly alleged to demonstrate theses which are not so contradictory to them that the negation of the one is the affirmation of the other. This, however, in moral matters, is to be received with a grain of salt, since the open mind of the legislator can indicate a somewhat broader use of certain words.