#moral theology

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (August 1)

St. Alphonsus Liguori is a doctor of the Church who is widely known for his contribution to moral theology and his great kindness.

He founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, known as the Redemptorists, on 9 November 1732.

He was born on 27 September 1696 in Naples to a well-respected family and was the oldest of 7 children.

His father was Don Joseph de' Liguori, a naval officer and Captain of the Royal Galleys, and his mother came from Spanish descent.

He was very intelligent, even as a young boy. As a boy of great aptitude, he picked up many things very quickly.

St. Alphonsus did not attend school; rather, he was taught by tutors at home where his father kept a watchful eye.

Moreover, he practiced the harpsichord for 3 hours a day at the heed of his father and soon became a virtuoso at the age of 13.

For recreation, he was an equestrian, fencer, and card player. As he grew into a young man, he developed an inclination for opera.

He was much more interested in listening to the music than watching the performance.

St. Alphonsus would often take his spectacles off, which aided his myopic eyes, in order to merely listen.

While theatre in Naples was in a relatively good state, the young saint developed an ascetic aversion to perhaps what he viewed as gaudy displays. He had strongly refused participation in a parlor play.

At the age of 16, he became a doctor of civil law on 21 January 1713, though by law, 20 was the set age.

After studying for the bar, he practiced law at the age of 19 in the courts. It is said in his 8 years as a lawyer, he never lost a case.

However, he resigned from a brilliant career as a lawyer in 1723 when he lost a case because he overlooked a small but important piece of evidence.

His resignation, however, proved profitable for the Church. He entered the seminary and ordained three years later in 1726.

He soon became a sought-after preacher and confessor in Naples. His sermons were simple and well organized that they appealed to all people, both learned and unlearned.

However, his time as a diocesan priest was short-lived: in 1732, he went to Scala and founded the Redemptorists, a preaching order.

He was a great moral theologian and his famous book, “Moral Theology,” was published in 1748.

Thirty years later, he was appointed bishop and retired in 1775. He died on 1 August 1787.

He was beatified by Pope Pius VII on 15 September 1816. He was canonized by Pope Gregory XVI on 26 May 1839.

He was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX in 1871.

[apesoformythoughts]

«[It] is getting increasingly difficult for the partisans of the “Pope Francis is in total continuity with John Paul II” apologists to engage in the kind of linguistic and conceptual legerdemain that is required in order to keep that narrative alive. Because now this Pope’s critics and his closest supporters all agree: Pope Francis is revolutionizing moral theology in ways that do indeed involve a rupture with the moral theology of Pope John Paul II.»

— Dr. Larry Chapp: “The undermining of John Paul II in the name of Veritatis Splendor continues”

[vulnerasti-cor-meum]

so like is the state of moral theology at this point that on one side is Rahner and Fuchs’s school in Europe and McCormick, Keenan, and maybe Gaillardetz in the US - and on the other side is like, Grisez (US) and Finnis (Europe). do people even take Grisez seriously, because my impression is that scholars [read: the jesuits] dont like him very much and his theology seems (as I can gather from secondary sources eg. lawler & salzman (I know, I know) and the journal Theological Studies) to be very defensive of status quo, if not even stricter. also I’m clearly showing my American penchant for pitting two sides against each other. also ig I wouldn’t have considered Keenan a “progressive” so much as simply a good historically-conscious scholar (there’s a new book of his that’s out on the history of catholic ethics) but he did just contribute a (rather saccharine) article to America Media’s outreach.faith so like. okay. if youre writing for America’s Outreach site you’ve ipso facto outed your views lol. 

[pratchettquotes]

"You could have helped people," said Brutha. "But all you did was stamp around and roar and try to make people afraid. Like...like a man hitting a donkey with a stick. But people like Vorbis made the stick so good, that's all the donkey ends up believing in."

"That could use some work, as a parable," said Om sourly.

"This is real life I'm talking about!"

"It's not my fault if people misuse the--"

"It is! It has to be! If you muck up people's minds just because you want them to believe in you, what they do is all your fault!"

Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

[saint-ambrosef]

young devout Catholics: A lot of laity don't really seem to know or understand a lot of core Church teachings, so it's important that we clearly teach and live it :) boomer hippie Catholics: Wow, so arrogant and unkind. Extremist millennials like you will be the death of the Church. young devout Catholics: ??????????

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

been seeing lots of Chuck-As-Demiurge/"Flawed God" spn meta and it made me realize that my understanding of Chuck is???? not common????

so my hc/understanding was the Chuck Shurley was/is a human prophet who was possessed by God. First in the usual prophetic sense, then later as a "word of God" type prophet, like MAJOR biblical-level power, in order to pass God's direct thoughts/opinions on to Sam and Dean- and then lastly, God took Chuck as a full-time vessel.

so re: this, I kind of wondered if in the finale, the guy Sam and Dean left scrabbling on the ground was... just human Chuck. is it less meaningful? eh, kinda. does it make the finale make more sense? ...yup.

But most importantly. Picture this. You're a writer, creating OCs that you whump/angst/generally torture the CRAP out of, somehow this becomes an incredibly popular book series, you're touring, you're making BANK. Then later, you MEET YOUR OCS, they are REAL, and apparently so is magic, and the "prophet of God" thing that you thought was a writing/inspo device you'd made up is real, and God is talking to you. so uh, what the fuck. then everything goes black

and when you fade back in, its YEARS later, you're beat up and lying in the dirt, and yoUR OCS ARE STANDING OVER YOU, YELLING AT YOU FOR MAKING THEIR LIVES MISERABLE

THE GUYS *YOU THOUGHT WERE YOUR WHUMP OCS*

TELL YOU THAT YOU ARE MORTAL AND WILL INEVITABLY AGE AND DIE LIKE EVERY OTHER HUMAN

AND THEN DRIVE AWAY IN THE CAR THAT *YOU HAD THOUGHT YOU MADE UP*

all before you can get out so much as a coherent "what the fuck is going on"

like I'm sorry. conceptually that's hilarious

the whump OC you made when you were 25: "YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE A NORMAL BORING LIFE AND AGE AND GET OLD AND DIE! FUCK YOU GOODBYE FOREVER"

you:

[christ-our-glory]

To judge or not to judge?

Matthew 7:1-6;13-20 “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

“Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

Many Christians remain forever stuck on those first two words, unable to see that they are indeed meant to judge others. We are commanded to judge the walk of others. For instance, if we see others sinning and we don’t warn them, we will be guilty of their sin (Ezekiel 3:18-21).

Throughout Scripture, we are called to judge. Jesus talked about how we are to judge one’s fruit (verses above). The apostle Paul commanded us not to even eat with false Christians (1 Corinthians 5:11), as well as commanding us to judge inside the church (1 Corinthians 5:12). We are to avoid associating with those whose morals are corrupt (1 Corinthians 15:33) and how can we do that if we’re not judging their walk? And the list goes on and on.

It’s important we must remember our hatred must be directed at sin, not the sinner. As noted by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Our anger must only be against sin; we must never feel angry with the sinner, but only full of sorrow and compassion for him.”

The main problem when it comes to judging sin is with those who try to judge indiscriminately. They will easily see the sins of others while often ignoring their own sin. This is true for all of us. We want to see the best in ourselves and the people we like, while easily seeing the error in everyone else.

We must be fair to all, friend and foe alike. The truth is the truth; it cares not if it upsets your friends or foes. We must be willing to stand with God, even if we have to stand alone.

Not to judge someone’s fruit is to invite disaster. We will either let them continue in their sin or allow a wolf among the sheep.

The only way to properly help the lost, and those being led astray by wolves, is to indeed judge people’s fruits. Knowing when, and how, to judge is crucial for a Christian.

[thedreadvampy]

sorry I'm on one now. Narnia is one of my Big Rant triggers.

but like. I would be lying if I said I didn't love Narnia

(everything except the Horse and His Boy, which a) even as a tiny kid made me uncomfortable with how fucking racist it is (literally there is ONE. ONE. character of colour who isn't evil, selfish, greedy and violent. even when you're 5 and white and don't really understand racism it's like. sorry there are just no nice people in this whole country? and every Narnian is lovely?) and b) is just fucking DULL partly bc of the 2 dimensional racist caricatures populating the world)

but I can't pretend for a second that it isn't specifically built around a Christian theology that's explicitly racist, hierarchical, supremacist, colonialist and The Bits I Like Least Of Anglicanism

and my FAVOURITE books in the series (except the Silver Chair which tbh is WAY less theological and way more mythology-nerd) are the first and last, which are by far the most explicitly Christian. even more so than TLTWATW.

and I can just about stand by the Magician's Nephew bc it's mostly just a mix of Christian creation myth and CS Lewis's sci fi interests in the esoteric and multiverses and it honestly feels fine. but my all time favourite most iconic Narnia book is The Last Battle and I just. cannot. justify it for a second from a political or philosophical standpoint.

it's got it all bc it's the book where Lewis is like ok hold up let me lay out explicitly what my theology is. and what he thinks it's important to say is:

Almost all Muslims are bad and evil

They worship Satan by doing Bad Evil Deeds to please him

There are a couple of Good Muslims who do good deeds. they need to be brought to the light, understand that the voice calling them to do good deeds is the Christian god, and they too can achieve the kingdom of heaven

Some people will use Christianity as a mask for exploitation and mistreatment. They are bad and their faith is false (ok fine)

...and they're doing that because they're CONSPIRING WITH THE EVIL MUSLIMS TO OPPRESS GOOD CHRISTIANS

...and THAT'S THE ONLY REASON ANYONE WOULD TELL YOU THAT GOD AND ALLAH ARE DIFFERENT NAMES FOR THE SAME GOD. because they're either conning you or because they've been misled and can't really think for themselves.

DID I MENTION. THAT MUSLIMS ARE EVIL AND TRYING TO BRING DOWN CHRISTIANS.

and other than the GOD AREN'T MUSLIMS JUST THE WORST of it all, he also goes back over to more fully explain several points he's made throughout the series, such as:

white Christian public school kids are the god ordained leaders of the world and attempts to think otherwise are heretical

god places people where they need to be to serve his purpose

free will is largely an illusion - your only choice is faith or chaos, and as a godly person your actions are preordained

the problem is though. he's kind of a really good character writer? and in The Last Battle he pulls out most of his best classics (hi Reepicheep! hi Frank! hi Jill!) and gives us a whole wealth of really fun new characters (Tirian and Jewel, Emeth, Puzzle, Shift, Griffle and Ginger are all just SO FUN) and it's such a solid adventure. for me it's hands down the most FUN Narnia to read and an effective and affecting end to the series.

but like. god its unjustifiably fucked philosophy is baked into every single character and event. it's so hard to ignore. it's my favourite book in the series. it's the book that makes me angriest. it's everything right with Narnia and everything wrong with Narnia. I like it cause it asks me to engage critically with Lewis' philosophy and I hate it cause it requires me to engage critically with Lewis' philosophy.

in conclusion, Narnia is a land of contrasts. also occasionally brownface.

[apesoformythoughts]

“For [David] DeCosse and many others, the excitement of the present moment consists in the growing ecclesiastical strength of the dominant academic postconciliar conscience-centered Catholic moral theology, in which ‘conscience’ is a place of profound encounter with the other, grounded in a pluralistic sense of historically contextualized human personhood and in respect for the laity's ability, guided by the Spirit, to get things right even when this necessitates changing the church's consistent magisterial teaching.”

— Matthew Levering: “Introduction”, The Abuse of Conscience

[theinwardlight]

Our sense of the presence of God will be distorted if we fail to see God's reality in terms of our neighbor's reality. And our sense of our neighbor's reality will be disfigured unless seen in terms of God's reality.

Kosuke Koyama, Water Buffalo Theology

[vulnerasti-cor-meum]

Looked at merely from the outside, man appears to be "uneven and changeable," many-sided and self-contradictory. But to judge him thus superficially is to judge him unjustly. Go a little deeper, and under his seeming restlessness and shiftiness you will come upon accuracy of thought, uprightness of intention, and, possibly, fixity of aim. But it needs a keen-sighted observer to see into those innermost recesses of human nature where the true man, the man worthy of all respect, for the simple reason that he is a man, is to be found. By their speech and action most men show themselves not only fickle, but strangely weak. Yet, from the point of view of the laws a man is seen to break, a man's weakness is one thing; from the point of view of his own conscience, it may be quite another. The narrow-minded are inexorable judges, for they see no farther than the letter of the law, the broader-minded try to look at a fault through the conscience of him who did it. They reproach him with it, but only as a merciful God looks at it, and always light upon extenuating circumstances to make their judgment more indulgent. 

Moreover, there are many ways of studying suffering and of realizing what it is-----especially interior suffering, pain of mind or heart. There is much, then, for the kind man's mind to do. 

* * * 

Being, too, so eager to find excuses for ourselves, how is it that we are so ready to accuse other people? We may disapprove of an action, and may say so, but we need not judge and condemn the doer. If in your heart you think ill of your brother, your protestations of attachment to him are essentially false, and your words must needs lack that accent of sympathy which truth alone can impart. If, on the contrary, you think the best of all, and trustful of the uprightness of the intentions of others, show yourself indulgent to their weaknesses, you have only to follow the bent of your feelings to show unmistakable kindness in word and in action.

On Kindness, J. Guibert (1911)

[wisdomfish]

Knowledge of God is unique...

Knowledge of God is unique in that it is conditioned by moral and spiritual factors. A spiritually indifferent person can have a profound knowledge of physics, or literature, or history, or sociology, or even of theology. But a spiritually indifferent person cannot know God. According to the Bible, the knowledge of God is promised to those who honestly seek him.

Jeremiah: "And you shall seek me and you shall find me, if you seek for me with all your heart."

Jesus: "Seek and you will find, knock and the door shall be opened, ask and it will be given you. For he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened, and to him who asks it shall be given."

~ William Lane Craig

[69ottersinatrenchcoat]

Considering my theology & philosophy class didn't appreciate my point

I'm posting it here, on tumblr, with the queers, the nihilists and the mentally ill

“I feel like if the threat of eternal damnation is the only thing stopping you from killing someone in cold blood, you’re not really a good person”

I'm up for polite debate on this point, especially as philosophy, theology, ethics, and morality are fluid and influenced by a lot of things.

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

Tell me about your favorite subject concerning moral theology, like one that makes you really passionate about the subject matter

Well, currently I'm stalled out five out of a planned seven chapters into a book attempting to situate a robust account of "nonviolence" (one that takes into account the concept of nonhuman forms of life as moral stakeholders and takes into account the paradox of neutrality constituting de facto support for an oppressor--most previous moral theologians have only tackled one or the other of these problems, if either) within Christian theological ethics, and since I'm only stalled out because I had an incredibly busy month of May I should be able to get back to that soon enough!

Ask me questions to distract me from fandom drama

[fiction-quotes]

“So I went over much grass and many flowers and among all kinds of wholesome and delectable trees till lo! in a narrow place between two rocks there came to meet me a great Lion. The speed of him was like the ostrich, and his size was an elephant's; his hair was like pure gold and the brightness of his eyes like gold that is liquid in the furnace. He was more terrible than the Flaming Mountain of Lagour, and in beauty he surpassed all that is in the world even as the rose in bloom surpasses the dust of the desert. Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.”

  —  The Last Battle (C. S. Lewis)

[grandpasessions]

According to Nietzsche, “slaves” and their “reign” do not in the least subvert or abolish the topography of mastery. They claim only that mastery should be deserved, that one has to be “qualified” to be a master (or that one has to “work hard” in order finally to become a master).

Even God should earn the right to be called God: He seems to be more and more incompetent at performing His job, and men have “reasonable grounds” for doubting that He is equal to His task.

This, for Nietzsche, is “slave morality” at its purest: we want a God/ Master, but a competent one! We want a Master, but a Master who will be dependent upon us, a Master whom we can approve of, and eventually replace with another one. In other words, we want mastery without the Master.

Just as, according to Nietzsche, Christianity perpetuates itself without God, mastery comes to perpetuate itself without masters. It perpetuates itself through knowledge that poses as objective, as absolutely foreign to the “irrational” and tautological dimension of mastery (“it is so, because I say it is so”). But this is still a form of mastery (“the new tyranny of knowledge”), and a very powerful one at that.

The Shortest Shadow Alenca Zupancic