Moral theology

“ It would be a mistake to think that, while Moral Theology is a technical and scientific treatise on human conduct, it deals exclusively or primarily with vice and sin, and that it is intended only to enable the priest rightly to administer the Sacrament of Penance, distinguishing between the various classes of sins and their consequences. ”

“ The affection for the ethical ideal defined by moral science would claim equal if not superior rights. For suppose theology established the existence of an evil deity--and some theologies, even Christian ones, have come very near this,--is the religious affection to be transferred from the ethical ideal to any such omnipotent demon? I trow not. Better a thousand times that the human race should perish under his thunderbolts than it should say, "Evil, be thou my good." ”

“ We have already satisfied ourselves that morality is not based on religion, but contrariwise that religion is built on the sanctified emotions of the human heart, that is on the moral ideal—"a new church founded on moral science"—and as to theology, I should not waste my time in attempting to show that morality is not based on that. ”

“ We have thus seen that theology is indebted to the fundamental principles of ethics for the most luculent demonstration of the being, omnipotence, and omniscience of God, and for the clear conception of his moral attributes. ”

“ Just as theology has in the study of Divine truth concentrated her gaze on the Person of Jesus Christ as a revelation of God; so ethics, in the effort to formulate the law of moral perfection, must study the same Divine Person as a type of character. ”

“ There is still, however, a large difference—though theology and ethics be kept apart from the teachings of special revelation. For Natural Theology keeps more prominently and controllingly in view the being and character of God, and aims more distinctly to produce the religious sentiments, while authenticating the reality and action of the moral law. Ethics, on the other hand, puts the facts of human nature and life into the front and includes the religious element only as a consequential, though necessary, inclusion. ”

“ Or, to put the matter in a slightly different way, if the sense of the value and the sacredness of the person is one of the two greatest moral convictions of our time, then religion must be clearly seen to hold this conviction, or lose its connection with what is most real and vital to us. ”

“ Here we have a declaration in unmistakable terms that the moral ideal and the religious ideal are one, and that to worship God properly the worshipper must treat his fellow-men properly. We now get the idea that sin against God is not something into which a man may fall without knowing it, but the living of a selfish life. ”

“ Any particular individual may believe in the theology of Jesus, and yet fail to feel the force of the moral doctrine. Why does this love constrain me? he may say. In fact the church has always found it necessary to construct for itself a process, or even a series of processes, through which the unbeliever must go, in order to reach the point of development where he could begin to feel the constraining force of the divine love. ”

“ It is as consistent with the moral rectitude of the Deity to produce sinful as holy exercises in the minds of men. He puts forth a positive influence to make moral agents act, in every instance of their conduct, as he pleases.... There is but one satisfactory answer to the question Whence came evil? ”

“ How glorious was the light of the Gospel to me! I sought for morality, and I found there the most simple, clear, complete, and perfect system of morality that could be conceived; and there I found precepts suited to every circumstance that could present itself in life, as a son, a brother, a father, a friend, a subject, a servant, a labourer, a man, a reasonable creature: my duty in every relation of life I there found inculcated in the most admirable manner. I could not imagine one moral duty for which I did not there find a precept; not one precept unaccompanied by a motive ”

“ As God's redemptive action advanced historically, unfolding religious truth and grace gradually and educationally, so the moral ideal, which Christianity in its fulness of provision and power should exhibit, is found more and more clearly revealed till the view is completed. ”

“ We look to the days when religion shall be purified of such conceptions, when no one shall venture to stand between a man and his conscience, or claim to possess powers unattainable by other men, or pretend that the favour of heaven can be purchased by any other means than those indicated by the prophet of old and no less by the conscience of mankind—a life in accordance with righteousness, that is, a life in conformity with the moral law and the example of that supreme among the prophets of the race—Jesus who was called the Christ. ”

“ But there is a secondary and auxiliary source for formulation of Christian ethics—in the Christian moral consciousness. In this, Christianity exhibits its moral principles and meaning as they enter into the inner experience of men, where they may be studied and estimated. Christianity is a "life," a "new life," in whose moral consciousness its principles and forces are acting formatively for character. Not only of "the life" that in Christ was "the light of men,"66 but of all the pure life that is from him, is it true: "the life is the light of men." ”

“ For, is there no way, my Lords, of turning people’s minds to the practice of moral duties, without turning their minds from the doctrine of justification by faith alone, without which, moral duties cannot be acceptable to God at all? ”

“ They have failed clearly to unite this total humanity, in all its personalities, with God, whose nature and will is the only and absolute source of the moral law which sweeps round and through all the world. The Christian Scriptures and215 the Christian consciousness supply the needed completion of view by throwing both these truths into clear light. Christianity invests human personality with a worth, sacredness, and responsibility never elsewhere recognized. ”

“ The most important elements that religion (though only in its highest form) has introduced into ethics are a grandiose conception of the basis and nature of the moral life, and a tone of tenderness in the attitude toward the deity and toward men. The moral code it regards as the will of God, conscience as the voice of God, morality as obedience to God, all activity as a coworking with God. ”

“ The moral discernment is to be filled and animated by the religious spirit, so that the moral training may be carried on and completed together with the development and consummation of the Christian life. Thus the form of the appeal is: "Be ye holy, for I am holy." "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." In a high and peculiar emphasis all duty is required to be done as unto God. ”

“ BELIEVING AND DOING.
MORALS pertain to right living, to the things we do, in relation to God and His law, as opposed to right thinking, to what we believe, to dogma. Dogma directs our faith or belief, morals shape our lives. By faith we know God, by moral living we serve Him; and this double homage, of our mind and our works, is the worship we owe our Creator and Master and the necessary condition of our salvation.
Faith alone will save no man. ”

“ The cure for false theology is motherwit. Forget your books and traditions, and obey your moral perceptions at this hour. ”

“ Christianism emblemed the Law of Human Duty, the Moral Law of Man. One was for the sensuous nature: a rude helpless utterance of the first Thought of men,—the chief recognized virtue, Courage, Superiority to Fear. ”

“ In this mode of forming the theory God is apt to be left remote, virtue is abstractly conceived and remains a reality too much by itself and separated from any enforcing or helping authority. It becomes too abstract and simply humanistic. But our view of moral good must be lifted into closer and more living connection with God. And so, Christianity, to209 transfuse the ethical sense with religious light and motives, teaches us to look upon right and duty from the standpoint of God. ”

“ But ethics are not alone. As I have endeavoured to point out, religious emotion which grows out of the moral sentiment is the most powerful stimulus towards the realisation of the good life, and I consequently urged the supreme value of true religion, as both satisfying the emotional side of man's nature and stimulating him towards that sacrifice of self—that taking up of a "cross," as Jesus put it—which in some measure is indispensably necessary for the attainment of character. ”

“ I can tell you that I would rather have the practice of a good moral religion without any faith at all in a Supreme Being, than to have faith in a Supreme Being without any moral good action, and a life filled with vice, sin and iniquity. That is my choice. I will say that sin or evil is simply doing that which injures some thing or being. ”

“ Any view that severs morality from God and is bounded by this world and temporal good, must fail to realize the moral life of man. But the Christian view allows no such separation. It unites the two as two sides of the same life of duty, out of one conscience, with vision of both God and men, and one heart true to the indivisible spirit of right. As religious duties are all moral, as obligations to God, and all moral duties are religious, as due to Him, the Christian consciousness of God must re-inforce and vivify with new efficiency the whole twofold moral endeavor. ”

“ But the chief defect of the ideal, the lamentable historical consequences of which we shall witness later, is, as we have already pointed out, in its making the acceptance of all the articles of a given creed an indispensable virtue. In assigning orthodox belief this place in the ideal of moral goodness, theological ethics has marred Christian morality by fostering the faults of intolerance and intellectual insincerity. ”

“ But we confine ourselves to the MORAL TENDENCY, and the consequent BENEFICIAL INFLUENCE, of Christianity. No where except in the Scriptures have we a perfect system of morals; and the deficiencies of Pagan morality only exalt the purity, the comprehensiveness, the practicability of ours. The character of the Being acknowledged as supreme must always impress itself upon moral feeling and practice ”

“ Such a creed forms a topic in which I take great interest but which lies beyond the limitations of this discourse. Yet our study of the historical relations between religion and morality, our earlier analysis of the religious need, have shown us that unless you are able to make some sort of effective appeal to principles that link you with the whole nature of things, your religious need must remain unsatisfied, and your last word will have to take, at best, the form of a moral, not a religious doctrine. Religion does not require us to solve all mysteries ”

“ Where do we find the most elevated and pure morality, {2-2} that which is refined from all selfishness? We find it only in real Christians. The source, and life, and power of it is the Atonement of their Great High-Priest, and the grace which is by Him. Their obedience to all moral precepts is the obedience of faith, even faith in his sacrifice. In proportion as their faith is strong, and their dependence on Him entire, to the exclusion of all reliance upon their own merit, so is their moral conduct irreproachable. ”

“ The common false diremption between morality and religion, classifying duties to God as religious, and only duties to fellow-men or self as moral, each standing in isolation, and largely of separate accomplishment, allowing men to be "moral" while repudiating all their duties to223 God, or "religious" while without a conscience enforcing duty to men, leaves flabby nerve for moral endeavor. All the mighty motives from the Godward side are lost. No quickening force for inter-human duties comes from a consciousness of God and his authority, or the future life. ”

“ Put these different elements of the Christian ethical dynamic together. They aggregate the final moral power. Christianity completes the ethical view, flooding all the principles of right and duty with impressive light. It throws broad and strong illumination over all the moral relations of men, extending the view into the future life, and giving certifying precepts for guidance and support. It gives the inspiring assurance of the triumph of righteousness in the kingdom which God's love is establishing for it. ”

“ And is not this figure employed by Jesus Christ to teach us that if our moral principles are good, we shall exhibit the visible signs of their goodness in our life and conversation?"
"I hear a great deal about moral goodness in the present day, but I very seldom see any; human nature is awfully depraved; some preach about its being made better by the grace of God, but I believe it never can be improved. The heart after conversion is as deceitful and as desperately wicked as before, and if we are saved it must be by free and sovereign grace." ”

“ In morals its teaching is both unsystematic and fragmentary; though it is an unquestionable fact, that a great system of moral teaching may be deduced from the principles it unfolds. But if one thing is plainer than another on the face of the New Testament, it is that the great purpose sought to be effected by Christianity is to impart a new moral and spiritual power to mankind. It professes to be, not a body of moral rules, but a mighty moral force, which is concentrated in the person of its Founder. ”

“ And the science of ethics has not properly completed its view until it has fully included the distinctive teaching of Christianity. For beyond all question the data of this teaching have produced the purest and loftiest moral life that the world has seen, the best product of the moral history of mankind. Its ideal is confessedly the highest and the best sustained. ”