John Paul II on moral decisions

Christian Moral Thinking Minor Essay 2021

In his encyclical, Veritatis Splendor (VS), Pope John Paul II identifies and responds to modern day issues regarding the fundamentals of moral theology. These issues, John Paul II claims, are the cause of a cultural crisis, and have their roots in a separation of freedom from truth, built up from the misconception that freedom and law are in conflict. One of these problematic approaches to morality, discussed in VS, is the idea that the human conscience creates values and makes moral decisions. John Paul II demonstrates that this approach is wholly contrary to both reason and revelation, primarily because it attempts to supersede objective “divine law.”

One problematic approach to morality, described in VS, is the view that the individual conscience is a creator of values and can decide whether an action is morally wrong/right in any given context. At the core of this view is the belief that freedom and law are incompatible, and that free will can be fully expressed independently of any conception of objective truth. Here, freedom is defined as the power to perform deliberate acts free from external pressures. To be subject to law is to have limited freedom, and hence, they are in conflict. In fact, to be subject to any force outside of oneself is to place a restriction on one’s own freedom. Accordingly, to be truly free is to look within oneself and regard one’s own conscience as the highest authority. The human conscience enjoys complete sovereignty over its own laws, including that of the moral order. Only the conscience is binding, and so it is only one’s own conscience that can convict them of wrongdoing.

John Paul II describes this crisis as a result of the loss of a conception of universal moral truth. When this is the case, conscience ceases to be regarded as “an act of a person's intelligence, the function of which is to apply the universal knowledge of the good in a specific situation and thus to express a judgment about the right conduct to be chosen here and now” (VS, 32). There develops a tendency to grant individual consciences the power to determine what constitutes moral value. John Paul II notes that this view is consistent with the modern relativistic sentiment of referral to “my truth.”

To the person who holds this view, the human conscience, and power to reason, are infallible. Any act can be regarded as morally good if the intention of the subject is good (that is, their conscience is clear). This approach to morality separates truth from freedom by focusing on a personal and subjective truth, as opposed to an objective one. The role of “truth” diminishes as the criterion for moral action turns inward, often manifesting as a form of intentionalism, egoism or emotivism. An action is morally good if it is sincere and true to the authentic self (VS, 32). Furthermore, if the human conscience dictates the moral order, then it also dictates the ultimate end of human moral action. God is not needed as a source nor end of moral behaviour – human conscience is not dependent upon divine law. People are free to determine their own purpose, and naturally, this belief can lead to relativism, existentialism, and atheism. Pope Benedict XVI’s criticism of relativism does well to encapsulate that this is an approach to morality that “does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires” (2005).

In responding to this modern-day tendency, John Paul II draws from Scripture, Tradition, encyclicals and prominent theologians. It is important to note that, had he not grounded his reasoning as such, he would effectively be opposing the sovereignty of conscience (ie relativism) with a relative argument. Nothing can give itself existence – morals may be grounded in something lesser or greater than the agent (or, in this case, in the agent himself), but never nothing. Reason, departed from an objective framework external to the self, becomes a tool of relativism – which is exactly the problematic approach VS seeks to reject. The relativist cannot consistently criticise the relativist, as relativistic views have no binding power. Nothing finite/relative can be a true source of goodness. In this sense, John Paul II is right to ground his reasoning in divine and natural law.

John Paul II makes a crucial distinction between moral judgements and moral decisions. The moral judgement uses reason to assess whether an action conforms to the “true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator” (CCC, 1798), while the moral decision implies an independence from the divine law. John Paul II emphasises that the conscience is not a decision, defining it instead as a “practical judgement,” that is, it determines the proximate norm (VS, 59) (ie, it is an activity of reason). The importance of this distinction is in the idea of infallibility. The conscience, and the judgements it makes, are not immune to error, “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” (CCC, 1799). At the core of this distinction is a confirmation of the reality of mankind’s fallen nature and imperfect reasoning. The human conscience cannot make moral decisions because he is prone to error, and for this reason, it relies on the moral order as revealed by God, who is infallible (Genesis 2:17) (VS, 35).

John Paul II adds that this problematic approach is accompanied by the idea that the maturity of moral judgements is measured by “the liberation of the conscience from objective truth” (VS, 61), and that “only by making these decisions "autonomously" would man be able to attain moral maturity” (VS, 55). This stems from a misconception regarding the relationship between freedom and law. Maturity is not a freedom from truth, but a freedom in truth (VS, 64). Freedom matures and becomes perfect in its acts only “when directed toward God” (CCC, 1744). The free conscience shows signs of maturity when it makes judgements in accordance with the divine law (VS, 17). In actuality, the divine law and authority of the Church “in no way undermines the freedom of conscience of Christians,” rather it directs the conscience to truths which it should already have known (VS, 64).

It is the nature of the conscience to search for objective truth, for it is here that “man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience,” (GS, 16) (Romans 2:15). Man detects also an obligation to form his conscience in light of the divine law, and it is this obligation that measures moral maturity and gives human freedom its dignity (VS, 62). John Paul II notes that while a knowledge of God’s divine law is necessary for virtuous choice, it is not sufficient. What is necessary is a kind of “connaturality” between man and the good, and this is manifest in prudence. Romanus Cessario defines prudence as a habit/perfection of the intellect, and the ability to express moral wisdom as practical acts. He writes that conscience, because it is a rational moral judgement, is dependent upon prudence.

A point to be made here is that the conscience matures in its moral consistency. Unlike the problematic approach that views the conscience as a creator of values, and hence has the ability to make moral decisions, the values described by John Paul II are rooted in a higher objective power and are unchanging, though their application may vary. The immature conscience can, at best, “create” pseudo-morals. In this view, to be immoral is simply to fail to be sincere and true to one’s own moral code – a moral code which can easily be changed on a whim. How could this relativistic and fickle moral system ever be subject to evaluation? In such a setting, there is no space for truth to thrive – it loses its integrity. The moral truth begins to resemble matters of taste (“I like/dislike”), instead of objective reality {“good/evil”).

In Romans 12:2, Paul warns believers to resist being “conformed to this world,” and earlier in this same letter, he encourages believers to be “conformed to the image of his Son” (8:29). Likewise, man is obliged to conform his conscience to the divine law. Man has the power to act however he chooses; however, he cannot choose whether these actions are good or evil. Additionally, the exercise of freedom does not imply the right to act in any way man sees fit (CCC, 1747). John Paul II describes genuine freedom as “an outstanding manifestation of the divine image in man” (VS, 34). It is in light of this definition that he could justly claim that the divine law “poses no threat to man's genuine freedom; on the contrary, the acceptance of God's plan is the only way to affirm that freedom” (VS, 45). As John Henry Newman sensibly phrased it, “Conscience has rights because it has duties” (VS, 34). Human conscience does not have the right to create laws and goods – it simply “discovers, utilizes and orders” them (VS, 38). Man does not create moral order – he cooperates with it.

In Veritatis Splendor, John Paul II identifies and responds to the modern-day tendency to regard the human conscience as a creator of values. At stake is the ability to consider certain actions immoral, regardless of what a person decides about the meaning of that action. The human conscience has an obligation to make judgements in light of the natural and divine law, as stated by scripture and tradition (VS, 64). Conscience plays an irreplicable role as a judge and witness to the moral order, recognising and applying objective law to particular cases, however it is not a creator of this moral order. Genuine freedom finds fulfillment when its “delight is in the law of the Lord” (Psalm 1:2).

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