The Code of Canon Law and the Moral System

I. "Laws, even invalidating and incapacitating laws, do not urge in doubt of law" (can. 15). Now, in establishing these things, the Code altogether abstracts from the moral system, or conforms itself to no system. For the moral system treats of private doubt; but the Code treats of public or objective doubt, so to speak. And indeed order would be disturbed too greatly if Authority rendered the efficacy of law dependent on private doubt. Suppose, for example, the case: Peter doubts whether someone can validly contract marriage with a blood relative in the third degree; relying on canon 15, he enters marriage with Anna, who is related to him in the stated degree. The marriage is certainly invalid; this proves that the canon is not speaking of private doubt.

II. "In doubt, the revocation of a preexisting law is not presumed, but later laws must be drawn to earlier ones and, insofar as can be done, reconciled with them" (can. 23). For the reason alleged under I, it must be said that once again the discourse is about public or objective doubt, and not about private doubt. Hence even if someone, for example, doubts whether the law of abstaining from meats on Saturday has been revoked, the said law is and remains revoked.

III. "In doubt... of fact the Ordinary can dispense in them (i.e., in laws, even invalidating and incapacitating laws), provided there is question of laws in which the Roman Pontiff is accustomed to dispense" (can. 15). This canon establishes only that the Ordinary, in doubt of fact, can dispense as a precaution; but it abstracts from the question of what the law is if the Ordinary does not dispense.

The Moral Systems.—There are two general systems regarding reflex moral principles:

(a) Tutiorism, which teaches that the only principle which can change uncertainty into certainty is: “When one is undecided between the safer and the less safe, he must always choose the safer,” because only what is safer excludes the uncertainty of sinning;

(b) Anti-tutiorism, which teaches that the principle given above is true in a few exceptional cases on account of special reasons, but untrue as a rule. The general principle which it substitutes for that of Tutiorism is: “When one is undecided between the safer and the less safe, one may choose the less safe if it is morally certain.”

Of two moral judgments that are compared, it must be noted:

(a) that one is safer which departs more from the danger of sin by deciding for the stricter side. Example: In doubt whether a law exists, whether it obliges in a present case, whether its obligation is grave, the safer opinion is that which holds for the affirmative;

(b) that moral judgment is more likely which is supported by stronger arguments. Example: That a law has ceased, or does not apply in a certain case, or does not oblige under sin, is a more likely opinion if the arguments in its favor outweigh those against it.

Thus, it may happen that an opinion which is safer is less likely. Example: The opinion that the precept of repentance obliges under pain of new sin from the moment a sin is committed is safer, but less likely than the opposite opinion.

Danger of sin is twofold. (a) Danger of formal sin (see 249, 258) is a risk taken which involves, not only that an act may be unlawful, but that the doing of it may be unlawful. Example: Caius eats meat, doubting whether the day is one of abstinence and whether he is obliged to abstain or not. (b) Danger of material sin (see 249, 258) is the danger that an act may be unlawful, not in the concrete or as to its performance, but in the abstract as to itself. Example: Titus is unable to discover whether this is a day of abstinence, but he is of the opinion that it is not. Hence, he takes meat, arguing that, while this may be a violation of the law, he himself is not guilty of sin, since he feels that he has a right to eat meat under the circumstances.

In this Supplement, according to the order of the numbers and tractates of the Moral Institutions, there are found those things which in them are confirmed by the new Code, and those things which must be changed from it. This arrangement of the matter by way of an appendix, although it has against it the fact that it is not inserted into the book itself, nevertheless bears before itself no lesser utilities, especially from this, that thus it may be seen clearly and immediately what things are retained in all moral theology, and what things truly are abolished or renewed, after the Code has begun to have binding force, i.e., after the nineteenth day of the month of May of the year 1918. From it there is thus at once understood the distinction between the old and the new discipline, which helps not a little toward understanding better the new dispositions of law and toward retaining them more easily in memory. It is supposed that anyone possesses a volume of the new Code, which indeed not only most greatly befits a cleric and especially a student of Sacred Theology, but is also plainly necessary for him for observing ecclesiastical laws.

N. B. - Lest the word is confirmed (confirm.) recur too much, it will be omitted whenever it would have to be applied to several immediately following numbers.

For solving doubts the canons 6 § 4, 15, 23 contribute. Cf. also canons 19, 50, 85, 1748 §§ 1-2.