Lesson 26: The Truth That Sets Us Free

We now move on to another part of Catholic teaching. In the FIRST PART we have studied what God tells us about Himself, about us, and about the world (CREED). In the SECOND, we have also studied how we celebrate our Faith, and how we obtain the strength to live by it (SACRAMENTS). Let us now turn our attention to the way the Faith is to be lived. But first, let us examine certain concepts that are needed for understanding Christian morality: namely, freedom, law and conscience.

Guide Questions

What is freedom?
Are we free to do whatever we like?
Why does man need laws?
What is The Eternal Law?
What is The Natural Law?
What are the characteristics of Natural Law?
Can all men know Natural Law?
Can Natural Law change?
Can we be mistaken in our understanding of Natural Law?
What is divine positive law?
What is moral relativism?
What is conscience?
What are the types of conscience?
How do we form our conscience?
What is the relationship between freedom and law? Is law opposed to freedom?

1. Freedom

1.1 Is man free?

We often take freedom for granted, but in fact there are certain schools of thought that deny its existence. These can be divided roughly into two extreme and opposing camps: determinism and indeterminism.

DETERMINISM. Determinists deny the existence of freedom because they say that human decisions are determined or dictated by certain factors. (a) Some people say that a person's behaviour depend on his genes, on what he has inherited from his parents. They say that our behaviour is determined by NATURE. (b) Other people say that it is one's upbringing (NURTURE). (c) There are also PHYSICAL DETERMINISTS, who say that human behaviour is the necessary result of the rigid causality of natural events. (d) There are also BIOLOGICAL DETERMINISTS, who teach that man's actions are the results of his animal instincts. (e) Then there are PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERMINISTS, who hold on to the idea that the will necessarily accepts the strongest motive or chooses the object of the greatest value.
INDETERMINISM. Indeterminists believe that the will acts of itself, unmoved by any reason, not motivated even by the intellect. Indeterminism teaches that the will is completely free of any kind of necessity, even the need to have a MOTIVE for acting. However, it is obvious that such kind of freedom will only be a potential kind of freedom, because unless a person KNOWS what choices he has, he will not be able to decide, he will not be able to ACTUALISE his potential to make choices; unless a person recognises something as GOOD (an operation that needs the exercise of his INTELLECT or MIND), he cannot EXERCISE his power of choice. [See below for an explanation of what freedom is.]

On the other hand, we are aware that we are exercising our power to choose all the time--from the first moment in the morning, when we have to choose whether to get up or stay in bed, to the last moment at night, when we choose when to go to bed.

Sacred Scripture attests to the existence of this power. In the book of Deuteronomy (30:19-20), the people of Israel are told:

19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, 20 loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving to him; for that means life to you and length of days, that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

The book of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus (15:14-17) reiterates this point:

14 It was he who created man in the beginning, and he left him in the power of his own inclination. 15 If you will, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. 16 He has placed before you fire and water: stretch out your hand for whichever you wish. 17 Before a man are life and death, and whichever he chooses will be given to him.

Thus, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1730) affirms:

God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions.

1.2 So what is freedom?

Many people think that freedom is the ability to do what one pleases or what one feels like doing. This definition, however, immediately encounters problems in real life, because there are many things that we would like to do which we cannot do simply because of our human limitations. We may want to fly like the birds or swim like fishes, but we do not have the capacity to do it. We may want to sing like Pavaroti, but nature may not have endowed us with that gift. If freedom where to be defined as doing what one pleases, then that freedom does not exist.

What, then, is the Christian concept of freedom? Point no 1731 of the CCC teaches:

Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

Let us take this definition apart and examine it.

It is ROOTED IN REASON AND WILL. The exercise of freedom requires knowledge, reason. Freedom is the power to make INFORMED AND INTELLIGENT choices. How can I make a choice if I don't KNOW what the options are? Making a free choice means knowing what choices are possible, and what consequences follow from those choices. If I know only a little about each choice, I may hesitate in my choice. I may even defer my decision. The more I know about each choice, the firmer is my decision, the freer is my act of choosing, the more determined I will be. Furthermore, when the choice to be made concerns the goodness or evil of actions, the act of reason that this involves is called CONSCIENCE (see discussion below).
It is the power TO ACT OR NOT TO ACT. This is called FREEDOM OF EXERCISE. My will is at liberty to choose or not to choose, to operate or not to operate.
Moreover, it is the power TO DO THIS OR THAT, that is, once I have decided to act, I can choose the various courses of action to obtain the goal of the action. This is called FREEDOM OF SPECIFICATION.
Having the power to act or not to act, and to do this or that, implies that I have previously CONSIDERED, DELIBERATED, THOUGHT ABOUT the different options open to him.
Since I am not impelled to act or not to act, or to do this or that, acting or not acting depends on me. I take PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for the action.
William May writes in An Introduction to Moral Theology (p 22):
- A central truth of Christian revelation is that human persons, created in the image and likeness of God, have the power of free choice. In order to create a being to whom he could give his own life, God created persons (angelic and human) who have the power to make or break their own lives by their own free choices. Persons are of themselves, sui iuris, i.e., in their own power or dominion. Their choices and actions are THEIR OWN, not the choices and actions of others. If God's offer of his own life and friendship is to be a gift, it must be freely received; it cannot be forced on another or settled by anything other than the free choices of the one who gives and the one to whom it is given.
Through freedom a person OWNS his actions. And just like our ownership of things leads us to look after those things and be RESPONSIBLE for them, ownership of our actions also leads us to take responsibility for them. If they are good, we deserve praise, and if bad, blame.
Pope John Paul II remarked (Be Not Afraid, p 98):
- So in man liberty is a faculty of RESPONSIBLE SELF-DETERMINATION. It lies at the very centre of the transcendence peculiar to man as a person. It also lies at the basis of morality, where it appears as a capacity for choice, a capacity for numerous different choices.
Through freedom, we SHAPE OUR OWN LIFE. With the exercise of our free will, I set the direction in which I want to go. The objective which I must aim for has to be consistent with my personal growth. I freely take on the responsibility of forming myself towards maturity in TRUTH and GOODNESS. Only truth can satisfy the mind, and goodness satisfy the will. That is why we are restless without the truth, and anxious where good is absent.
Finally, freedom is PERFECT when it SEEKS GOD, who is our beatitude, our happiness. More of this in the next point.

1.3 What It Is For

St Thomas Aquinas (cf Summa Theologiae, part I-II, question 5, article 8), tells us that there is one thing in life where we are NOT FREE to choose, and that is the desire for happiness. He writes:

... of necessity, every man desires happiness.... to desire happiness is nothing else than to desire that one's will be satisfied. And this everyone desires.

We said above that we are restless and anxious until we get to the truth and goodness. However, earthly truth and created goodness are limited, while our yearnings are not. Therefore, only something unlimited, only something infinite, can quench our thirst for truth and goodness.

Now, we have seen that God is infinitely True and infinite Good. Moreover, He is stunning Beauty. Only He can fully satiate our deepest desires. Hence, freedom is most perfect, it is most useful to us, when it leads us to God. St Augustine expressed this in his famous prayer in the Confessions (I, 1):

Lord, You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they rest in You!

1.4 Human Freedom is Limited and Makes Mistakes

Since freedom comes from knowing and willing, then ignorance, mistakes in judgment, weakness in our will mean that our freedom may go haywire.

The CCC (no 1732 and 1739) says that

As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.

Freedom and sin. Man's freedom is limited and fallible. In fact, man failed. He freely sinned. By refusing God's plan of love, he deceived himself and became a slave to sin. This first alienation engendered a multitude of others. From its outset, human history attests the wretchedness and oppression born of the human heart in consequence of the abuse of freedom.

This is why man requires training in the use of freedom. CCC 1734 says:

Progress in virtue, knowledge of the good, and ascesis enhance the mastery of the will over its acts.

PROGRESS IN VIRTUE. This includes, first of all, the THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES of faith, hope and charity. The virtue of faith helps the mind discern what is truly good for one. The virtues of hope and charity strengthen the will, and make it capable of overcoming resistance due to sin and the assaults of the devil. We should remember that the theological virtues are supernatural virtues, and are therefore acquired first by asking God for them.
Furthermore, the virtues are further enhanced by the SEVEN GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety and fear of the Lord), for which one should also pray and dispose oneself through mortification.
KNOWLEDGE OF THE GOOD. One grows in knowledge of the good through reading books of sound doctrine and of the New Testament, through regular conversations with Jesus Christ, and through spiritual direction.
ASCESIS or ASCETICAL STRUGGLE. The Greek word "askesis" refers to training for a sporting event. It requires us to swim against the tide and to train ourselves. That is why St Paul teaches us in the First Letter to the Corinthians (9:24-27)
1. 24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 Well, I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air; 27 but I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Pope Benedict XVI, on 1 March 2005 (Ash Wednesday that year), spoke as follows:

Another aspect of Lenten spirituality is what we could describe as "combative", as emerges in today's "Collect", where the "weapons" of penance and the "battle" against evil are mentioned.

Every day, but particularly in Lent, Christians must face a struggle, like the one that Christ underwent in the desert of Judea, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil, and then in Gethsemane, when he rejected the most severe temptation, accepting the Father's will to the very end.

It is a spiritual battle waged against sin and finally, against Satan. It is a struggle that involves the whole of the person and demands attentive and constant watchfulness.

St Augustine remarks that those who want to walk in the love of God and in his mercy cannot be content with ridding themselves of grave and mortal sins, but "should do the truth, also recognizing sins that are considered less grave..., and come to the light by doing worthy actions. Even less grave sins, if they are ignored, proliferate and produce death" (In Io. evang. 12, 13, 35).

Lent reminds us, therefore, that Christian life is a never-ending combat in which the "weapons" of prayer, fasting and penance are used. Fighting against evil, against every form of selfishness and hate, and dying to oneself to live in God is the ascetic journey that every disciple of Jesus is called to make with humility and patience, with generosity and perseverance.

1.5 What exactly am I responsible for?

The CCC (no 1735) explains what things could vitiate the freedom of an act, and therefore diminish our responsibility for it.

Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors.

The reason is that the above-mentioned factors affect either our JUDGMENT (pertaining to the INTELLECT) of the goodness or evil of an act (ignorance, inadvertence, psychological or social factors), or they diminish the VOLUNTARINESS (pertaining to the WILL) of the same (duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors).

If a thought, word, action or omission is done with FULL CONSCIOUSNESS and are DIRECTLY and FULLY WILLED, then the person who did it deserves fully the corresponding praise or blame for it. The CCC 1736 says:

Every act directly willed is imputable to its author:

Thus the Lord asked Eve after the sin in the garden: "What is this that you have done?"[Gen 3:13] He asked Cain the same question [cf Gen 4:10]. The prophet Nathan questioned David in the same way after he committed adultery with the wife of Uriah and had him murdered [cf 2 Sam 12:7-15].

An action can be INDIRECTLY VOLUNTARY when it results from negligence regarding something one should have known or done: for example, an accident arising from ignorance of traffic laws.

How about those things that are NOT DIRECTLY willed? The CCC 1737 teaches us:

An effect can be tolerated without being willed by its agent; for instance, a mother's exhaustion from tending her sick child.
A BAD EFFECT is NOT IMPUTABLE if it was not willed either as an end or as a means of an action, e.g., a death a person incurs in aiding someone in danger.
For a BAD EFFECT to be IMPUTABLE it must be foreseeable and the agent must have the possibility of avoiding it, as in the case of manslaughter caused by a drunken driver.

1.6 Does Everyone Have the Right to Exercise Freedom?

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCCC 365; cf CCC 1738,1747) teaches:

The right to the exercise of freedom belongs to everyone because it is inseparable from his or her dignity as a human person. Therefore this right must always be respected, especially in moral and religious matters, and it must be recognized and protected by civil authority within the limits of the common good and a just public order.

1.7 Does Grace Diminish Freedom?

St Paul, in his Second Letter to the Corinthians (3:17) tells us that

where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Why is that so? God's grace works in us not as a kind of exterior force or inspiration, but as a LIGHT which illumines our MIND, and POWER which strengthens our WILL. The work of sanctification is an inside job! Saint Paul spoke of "the immeasurable greatness of his power IN US who believe, according to the working of his great might" (Ephesians 1:19). We will recall that freedom is rooted in the intellect and the will. Therefore, since grace gives light for our intelligence and power for our will, what it does is to enhance our freedom, not curtail it. This explains why, in our good acts, it always seems as if goodness emanated from us, when in fact, it was God's grace working in us.

Our most loving Father God does not want slaves, he wants His children to be free. Consider the following passages:

13 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. (Galatians 5:13)

16 Live as free men, yet without using your freedom as a pretext for evil; but live as servants of God. (I Peter 2:16)

21 [B]ecause the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. (Romans 8:21)

On the other hand, this is what Scripture says of those who rebel against God:

19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved. (II Peter 2:19)

2. Law

Making choices implies knowing the options before us. When a person goes to a restaurant, he first checks the menu to see what he can order, or asks the waiter what they serve. When a person finds himself in an unfamiliar city, he first consults the map, checks the road signs, asks the policeman, so he does not get lost and reaches his destination. The moral life requires an OBJECTIVE REFERENCE POINT. That reference point is called LAW.

In no way does [a traveller] consider that his freedom is being restricted, nor does he consider it a humiliation to have to depend on maps, signposts, or guides to get where he is going. If he is unsure, or begins to feel lost, the signposts he meets are for him an occasion of reassurance and relief.

In fact, very often we rely more on maps or signposts than on our own sense of direction, of whose unworthiness we have plenty of experience. When we follow the signposts we don't have any sense of being imposed upon; rather do we welcome them as a great help, a fresh piece of information which we immediately proceed to make our own. (Francis Fernández, In Conversation with God, vol 4, pp 451-452).

Pope Benedict XVI, commenting on the attitude of the Magi during his Angelus Message on the 6th of January 2010, said:

They were men of science in a broad sense, who observed the cosmos regarding it almost as a great book full of divine signs and messages for man. ... [But] they were not ashamed to ask for instructions from the religious leaders of the Jews. They could have said: We can do it alone, we have no need of anyone....

2.1 Defining Law

The CCC (no 1951) defines "law" as follows:

Law is a rule of conduct enacted by competent authority for the sake of the common good. The moral law presupposes the rational order, established among creatures for their good and to serve their final end, by the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator.

We find three elements in this definition.

It is a rule of conduct which presupposes the RATIONAL ORDER. Law is not irrational, it is not something given out of pure whim. Law proceeds from reason (not from the will or pure arbitrariness), and is addressed to the reason or intellect of man. St Thomas explains:
- Law is a rule and measure of acts, whereby man is induced to act or is restrained from acting: for "lex" (law) is derived from "ligare" (to bind), because it binds one to act. Now the rule and measure of human acts is the reason, which is the first principle of human acts. (Summa Theologiae, I-II q90 a3)
It is enacted by COMPETENT AUTHORITY. Not just anyone can draw up a law. The authority, who is charged with safeguarding and promoting the common good, has to enact and promulgate it.
It is given for the sake of the COMMON GOOD. Reason guides man to work not only for the individual good, but for the good of everyone. Moreover, the power that authority has is directed to the common good. Hence, the laws it enacts should have the common good in mind. Note that the term "common good" does not only refer to the sum of all material goods. The highest common good of man and the universe is God himself.

The law is an ordinance that emanates from reason and thus announces the TRUTH. It gives facts about life, not arbitrary rules with arbitrary rewards and punishments. Just as road signs are not borne of caprice, but from the need to indicate the truth about which roads lead where.

CS Lewis, in his Reflections on the Psalms (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986, p 61) writes:

A modern logician would say the the Law is a command and that to call a command 'true' makes no sense. 'The door is shut' may be true or false but 'Shut the door' can't. But I think we all see pretty well what the Psalmists mean. They mean that in the Law you find the 'real' or 'correct' or stable, well-grounded directions for living. The law answers the question 'How can a young man keep his way pure?' [Psalm 119:9] It is like a lamp, a guide [Psalm 119:105]. There are many rival directions for living, as the Pagan cultures all round us show. When the poets call the directions or 'rulings' of Yahweh 'true' they are expressing the assurance that these, and not those others, are the 'real' or unassailable ones; that they are based on the very nature of things and the very nature of God.

HA Rommen, in The Natural Law. A Study in Legal and Social History and Philosophy (Missouri: B Herder Book Co, 1947, p 195) adds:

Law ... is primarily not will, although it owes its positive concrete existence to the volitional act of the lawgiver. Materially considered, it has to be a rule of reason and for reason (in the one subject to the law). That is, only thereby can it obtain the decisive qualification of true law. For rational nature must be directed and guided in accord with reason, i.e., it must be in conformity with truth. That has been common intellectual property ever since the Greeks established the truth of the "nomos": law is truth ("veritas facit legem").

CS Lewis, in the same place cited above (cf also the following works: HA Rommen, The Natural Law pp 191-201 passim; M Adler, Ten Philosophical Mistakes, New York: Macmillan, 1985, pp 108-127; and M Adler, Six Great Ideas, New York: Macmillan, 1981, pp 64-71) also argued:

There were in the eighteenth century terrible theologians who held that 'God did not command certain things because they are right, but certain things are right because God commanded them.' To make the position perfectly clear, one of them even said that though God has, as it happens, commanded us to love Him and one another, He might equally well have commanded us to hate Him and one another, and hatred would then have been right. It was apparently a mere toss-up which He decided on. Such a view of course makes God a mere arbitrary tyrant.

No wonder, then, that Pope John Paul II entitled the Encyclical Letter on the Church's moral doctrine "Veritatis Splendor"--the Splendor of Truth.

2.2 The Eternal Law, foundation of all Law

The CCC (no 1952) teaches:

There are different expressions of the moral law, all of them interrelated:

eternal law - the source, in God, of all law;
natural law;
revealed law, comprising the Old Law and the New Law, or Law of the Gospel; finally,
civil and
ecclesiastical laws.

What is the Eternal Law? St Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae (I-II q93 a1) explains Eternal Law with an analogy. He says that every artist has, in his mind, the type and design of the thing he would like to fashion. The idea in the mind of the artist is the exemplar and model of what he would like to create. This exemplar acts as a kind of law that determines how the artist executes his work. So Divine Wisdom, too, has in His mind, the type and design, the plan, for His own creation. This design in His mind is the model, which is like a law--the Eternal Law. The prophet Isaiah (64:8) exclaims

O LORD, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou art our potter; we are all the work of thy hand.

2.3 The Natural Moral Law

Let us extend the analogy cited above. Suppose now that the Maker has finalised the design of the product he wants to make. He then starts to work on it, following the model in his mind (which he may have set down on paper), so that the mental model becomes a material reality. Ideally, the structure of the manufactured artifact should correspond to the model. That structure determines how the product works and functions. So just in the same way the structure of the product corresponds to the model in the maker's mind, the NATURE of man corresponds to the model in God's mind. This nature determines how man works and functions. The mental model is the law in the maker's mind; the nature of the final product is the law in the finished artifact. The model in God's mind is the Eternal Law; man's NATURE determines the law for man. This is ONE REASON why it is called "Natural Law."

Peter Kreeft explains in his book Catholic Christianity (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2001, p 168):

Moral laws are based on human nature. That is, what we ought to do is based on what we are. "Thou shalt not kill", for instance, is based on the real value of human life and the need to preserve it. "Thou shalt not commit adultery" is based on the real value of marriage and family, the value of mutual self-giving love, and children's need for trust and stability.

It is in this context that we have to read what St Paul says in his Letter to the Romans (2:15) about non-believers:

15 They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them.

However, unlike the artifact that the artist is shaping, the object of God's Eternal Law is a creature who can think and will, like its Maker. This creature, unlike the non-living work of the artist, has the option of accepting or rejecting the Master's plan. Yes, that is the "terrible" power of our freedom: we can say yes, and we can say no to our all-good Father. St Josemaría Escrivá remarks in The Way (no 756):

We are blocks of stone that can move and feel, that have a perfectly free will. God himself is the stone-cutter who works on us, chipping off the rough edges, shaping us as he desires, with blows of the hammer and chisel. Don't let us try to draw aside, don't let us want to escape his will, for in any case we won't be able to avoid the blows. We will suffer all the more, and uselessly- and instead of polished stone, ready for the work of building, we will be a shapeless heap of gravel that people will trample contemptuously under foot.

ANOTHER REASON why it is called "Natural Law" is that it can be known by the NATURAL light of naked reason. The Maker, who is Lawmaker at the same time, presents this law to creatures who can understand it with their minds and interiorise it or make it their own, precisely because He expects them to use their intellect and will--their freedom--to respond to it. God respects human nature to such an extent that He will never bypass our freedom. Peter Kreeft explains (Catholic Christianity p 168):

The natural law is also naturally known, by natural human reason and experience. We do not need religious faith or supernatural divine revelation to know that we are morally obligated to choose good and avoid evil or to know what "good" and "evil" mean. Every culture in history has had some version of the Ten Commandments. No culture in history has thought that love, kindness, justice, honesty, courage, wisdom, or self-control was evil, or that hate, cruelty, injustice, dishonesty, cowardice, folly, or uncontrolled addiction was good.

Nonetheless, the knowledge of this law varies from person to person. The CCCC (no 417) asks, "Is such a law perceived by everyone?" And it replies:

Because of sin the natural law is not always perceived nor is it recognized by everyone with equal clarity and immediacy.

This is why God spelt it out for us (see "Divine Positive Law" below) and it requires us to educate our conscience (see discussion on "Conscience" below).

The Natural Law is universal and immutable.

Since the Natural Law issues from man's nature, then every individual with the nature of man is covered by it. Natural Law is, hence, UNIVERSAL. (Cf CCCC 416)
Moreover, since man's nature is the same today as when it was in the times of Adam and Eve, consequently, Natural Law is IMMUTABLE. (Some people might, in fact, argue, that the men of today are different from the men of yesterday. However, they are only speaking of non-essential changes, accidental changes.) (Cf CCCC 416)

2.4 Divine Positive Law

When we buy an electronic gadget or appliance, the first logical thing to do after opening the package is to read the instructions for use. The more expensive the machine, the more zealously we need to read and understand the instructions. That is because the instructions tell us how the machine functions. Are we free to disregard the instructions? Yes, of course, but that would be foolish. The manufacturer has written down the instructions for us so that (1) we do not destroy the machine through misuse or abuse; and (2) we take full advantage of the features of the machine.

This is exactly what Positive Law is. God REVEALS to us the contents of the Natural Law, He explicitly spells it out for us. CCC 1960 says:

In the present situation sinful man needs grace and revelation so moral and religious truths may be known "by everyone with facility, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error" [Pius XII, Humani generis: DS 3876; cf Dei Filius 2: DS 3005]

2.4.1 The Old Law

The CCCC (no 418; cf CCC 1961-1962,1980) asks, "What is the relationship between the natural law and the Old Law?"

The Old Law is the first stage of revealed Law. It expresses many truths naturally accessible to reason and which are thus affirmed and authenticated in the covenant of salvation. Its moral prescriptions, which are summed up in the Ten Commandments of the Decalogue, lay the foundations of the human vocation, prohibit what is contrary to the love of God and neighbor, and prescribe what is essential to it.

The Old Law is thus important in God's plan of salvation. The CCCC (no 419; cf CCC 1963-1964,1982) explains its role and points out its limitation:

The Old Law permitted one to know many truths which are accessible to reason, showed what must or must not be done and, above all, like a wise tutor, prepared and disposed one for conversion and for the acceptance of the Gospel. However, while being holy, spiritual, and good, the Old Law was still imperfect because in itself it did not give the strength and the grace of the Spirit for its observance.

2.4.2 The New Law

"What is the New Law or the Law of the Gospel?" CCCC (no 420; cf CCC 1965-1972,1983-1985) tells us:

The New Law or the Law of the Gospel, proclaimed and fulfilled by Christ, is the fullness and completion of the divine law, natural and revealed. It is summed up in the commandment to love God and neighbor and to love one another as Christ loved us. It is also an interior reality: the grace of the Holy Spirit which makes possible such love. It is "the law of freedom" (Galatians 1:25) because it inclines us to act spontaneously by the prompting of charity.

"The New Law is mainly the same grace of the Holy Spirit which is given to believers in Christ." (Saint Thomas Aquinas)

CCC 1968 points out two important roles of the New Law:

The Law of the Gospel ... releases their [Old Law] hidden potential and has new demands arise from them: it reveals their entire divine and human truth.
It does not add new external precepts, but proceeds to reform the heart, the root of human acts,

The New Law is new in many ways, indicated by different names. The CCC no 1972 enumerates them.

The New Law is called a law of LOVE because it makes us act out of the love infused by the Holy Spirit, rather than from fear;
a law of GRACE, because it confers the strength of grace to act, by means of faith and the sacraments;
a law of FREEDOM, because it

Where does one find the New Law? (CCCC 421; cf CCC 1971-1974,1986).

The New Law is found

in the entire life and preaching of Christ and
in the moral catechesis of the apostles.

The Sermon on the Mount is its principal expression.

2.5 Human Laws

As the name implies, human laws are those made by human legislators.

Fr John Hardon, SJ, explains in The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism (New York: Image Books, 1981, 531) the obligation to follow human laws.

Human law is binding insofar as it agrees with the eternal law of God. Thus all unjust laws passed by the State, like abortion or the prohibition to teach Christianity, are not binding.

There are two main kinds of law: church law and civil law.

CHURCH LAW (ECCLESIASTICAL Law or CANON Law). Fr John Hardon explains (The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism, 532):
- Ecclesiastical law is an ordinance issued by legitimate authority in the Catholic Church. The legislators for the entire Church are the Pope through the Roman Curia or an ecumenical council together with the Pope. Bishops may also legislate for their respective dioceses.
CIVIL LAWS. Fr Hardon explains (The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism, 533):
- Civil laws are those passed by the government in a political society. Civil laws that are just are morally binding in conscience as the Church's tradition since biblical times testifies. As St Peter told the early Christians, "13 Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. 15 For it is God's will that by doing right you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men." (I Peter 2:13-15)

3. Conscience

The CCC (no 1776) quotes Gaudium et Spes (no 16) when it speaks about moral conscience:

"Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment.... For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God.... His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths."

3.1 Definition

The CCCC (no 372; cf CCC 1776-1780,1795-1797) defines conscience as follows:

Moral conscience, present in the heart of the person, is a judgment of reason which at the appropriate moment enjoins him to do good and to avoid evil. Thanks to moral conscience, the human person perceives the moral quality of an act to be done or which has already been done, permitting him to assume responsibility for the act. When attentive to moral conscience, the prudent person can hear the voice of God who speaks to him or her.

Let us examine the various elements in this definition

JUDGMENT OF REASON. Conscience is NOT a FEELING. It is a kind of KNOWLEDGE, a judgment made by reason when it examines an action. We have seen that freedom requires the intellect and the will. When the intellect evaluates the morality of the action, when it weighs whether it is good or bad, it is called "conscience".
ON THE GOODNESS OR EVIL. The Catechism calls the goodness or evil of an act its "moral quality".
The act being judged can be a PAST, PRESENT or FUTURE action.

3.2 Kinds of Conscience

3.2.1 With respect to the JUDGMENT made

CCC 1799 says:

Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.

FALSE or ERRONEOUS. When the conscience judges that something is good when it is actually bad, or judges that something is bad when it is actually good, it is a false or erroneous conscience. How does one know if something is actually bad or actually good? This we shall see below. The CCC (no 1792) explains where these errors can come from:
1. Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one's passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church's authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.
On the other hand, a TRUE, RIGHT, or CORRECT conscience judges bad as bad, and good as good. Our Lord told His apostles (Matthew 5:37):
1. Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'; anything more than this comes from evil.
2. It is a point that St James reiterates in his Letter (James 5:12):
3. Let your yes be yes and your no be no, that you may not fall under condemnation.

3.2.2 With respect to the FIRMNESS OF ASSENT

When conscience judges, a person may be (1) firmly convinced about its conclusions, or he may be (2) open to changing his mind, or he may also (3) hesitate. Here we find three states of assent to or acceptance of the verdict of conscience.

CERTAINTY. This is the case where one is firmly convinced that some action is good or bad, not so good, or not so bad.
OPINION. This attitude is a tentative attitude. One is inclined to think that something is good, or is bad, but he is open to the possibility that he may be wrong.
DOUBT. A person in doubt has not yet made a judgment on whether something is good or bad. IT IS NEVER LICIT TO ACT WITH A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. One has to clarify the doubt before acting.

3.2.3 With respect to the firmness of its command

The conscience, after considering the morality of the action, may do one of the following:

ALLOW an action to be done.
SUGGEST that an action be carried out.
COMMAND or PROHIBIT a certain action.

An important rule to keep in mind is that a person is OBLIGED to OBEY his conscience when its judgment is CERTAIN (not merely holding an opinion or is doubtful) and when it COMMANDS OR PROHIBITS (not merely allows, or suggests). Thus, CCC (no 1790) teaches:

A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.

3.3 Ignorance

We have said earlier that conscience is NOT a FEELING, but a kind of KNOWLEDGE, a JUDGMENT made by the practical intellect. To make this judgment, it needs data, and when data is lacking or completely missing, ignorance ensues.

Is a person who acts out of ignorance blameworthy or not? The answer depends on whether his ignorance is (1) vincible or culpable; or (2) invincible or inculpable. What is the difference?

As the name indicates, VINCIBLE ignorance can be overcome, because the person is intellectually able to grasp the principles involved. If that ignorance is due to the lack of effort, the ignorance is CULPABLE. Thus, points 1790 and 1791 of the CCC teach us:
1. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.
2. This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man "takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin" [Gaudium et Spes, 16]. In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.
On the other hand, INVINCIBLE ignorance exonerates the person from responsibility, and is also thus called INCULPABLE. Invincible ignorance may also exist in persons with great intellectual capacity, because it may happen that they have been wrongly taught by persons whom they highly respected and whose teachings they adhere to. The CCC (no 1793) tells us:
1. If--on the contrary--the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.

3.4 Formation of Conscience

How can one form or educate his conscience? We can cite three important means.

Formation of the mind through STUDY, PRAYER and SPIRITUAL DIRECTION. The CCCC (no 374; cf CCC 1783-1788,1799-1800) teaches:
- An upright and true moral conscience is formed by education and by assimilating the Word of God and the teaching of the Church. It is supported by the gifts of the Holy Spirit and helped by the advice of wise people. Prayer and an examination of conscience can also greatly assist one’s moral formation.
This includes also the frequent reception of the Sacrament of RECONCILIATION, because the confessor can give appropriate advice that is suited to each one's needs. The Sacrament of Confession or Penance gives us an opportunity to avail ourselves of spiritual guidance. How often should we go to confession? Pope John Paul II used to go once a week and Pope Benedict XVI also recommends the same.
Formation of the WILL through ascesis, struggle and mortification. The will can force the intellect to ignore the evil of certain actions. This is why it has to be trained to love the good and to strive for it, in spite of the sacrifices it may entail.
READINESS to CHANGE one's life in accord with one's belief. Everyone is a child of Adam and Eve, everyone is a sinner, and thus everyone should be ready convert and be renewed daily.

4. Conscience and the Law

The conscience judges, as we have seen, the goodness or evil of an action. It is a SUBJECTIVE measure or norm of morality. But the conscience has to base its judgments on certain OBJECTIVE standards. The conscience cannot invent its own rules of morality. It needs a stable reference point independent of any individual's whim or caprice. Otherwise, some individual will impose his morality on the others. This is what Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, said in his homily on the 18th of April, before the Conclave that elected him as Pope.

How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves — flung from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth. Every day new sects spring up, and what St Paul says about human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into error (cf. Eph 4:14) comes true.

Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine", seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.

Our conscience needs to know WHAT IS TRULY GOOD and WHAT IS TRULY EVIL. In this way, it can judge appropriately. When the intellect is WELL INFORMED and WELL-FORMED, it judges correctly; when the will is STRONG and STEADFAST, then it acts accordingly; and freedom is, as a consequence, employed wisely.

Finally, let us often meditate on the words of our Lord that we find in the Gospel of St John (8:31-32)

31 Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."