Chapter 1

Sketching a Moral Methodology

Introduction

This chapter introduces the student to fundamental moral theology and traces one particular moral
methodology and the sources which Catholic moral theology traditionally draws upon. Understanding the moral
method and sources Catholic moral theology uses is a first step into doing Catholic moral theology and
discernment; thus, the book starts with this in order to allow the students to understand the Catholic approach to
decision making and ethics.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand what fundamental moral theology is, its scope, and its tasks
2. Sketch a Catholic moral methodology in fundamental moral theology and identify its sources
3. Reflect on how the student’s faith commitment has or has not affected his or her ethics and decisions

Exposition

Fundamental Moral Theology

When confronting one’s faith commitment, a question that is always asked is this: what particular demands
are asked of me in my commitment to this or that way of life? It is not simply enough to say that one believes a
particular set of doctrines, or that one subscribes to a specific set of beliefs; it is also about identifying what the
implications of these beliefs and doctrines are on the everyday practical life. Especially in a world where people
are always confronted with a barrage of choices to make and paths to take, it is important to be conscious of how
our beliefs and faith commitments affect how we make decisions in life, and how they should affect how we make
decisions in life.

This is what Catholic fundamental moral theology is concerned with. Fundamental moral theology is a
branch of theology that is concerned with ethics, or how one is to act if one takes seriously the Catholic faith
commitment; this includes the social teaching of the Church, sexual ethics, medical or bioethics, environmental
ethics, and so on. This would also be concerned with how we discern and make decisions in big choices such as
what career to take, to small choices such as where to shop for things like food or clothes. While it might seem
that moral theology might only be concerned with avoiding evil or sin, we will see later on that it is concerned
with many decisions and choices, as a primary assumption is that many of the choices we make in our day to day
life do have moral dimensions and implications.

As a college student, you may be confronted with questions such as: what career or work will you pursue
after graduating in a few years time? Will you get married? Who will you marry? What will you do in five or ten
years? You will also be confronted by questions of ethics and moral dilemmas in your life; at work, for example,
you may be challenged to balance the good of the company, the good of customers, the good of the environment,
and the good of the local community. How then do you weigh these factors in decisions? Even more broadly, how
do you go about making decisions?
Method

There are many different moral methodologies that have been proposed over the two thousand years that
Christian theology has had to develop in response to the question of decision-making that takes seriously the
Catholic faith commitment. Catholics will have a particular method that is favored, which emphasizes particular
sources over others. This will, of course be different from other religions, and even within the Christian faith
tradition, though there are many things in common among the various Christian Churches, different Christian
groups will favor different sources and methods. Thus, this book will focus in particular with Catholic
methodology.

Specifically, the method that will be outlined is that of James Bretzke, a Catholic moral theologian whose
work draws from various theologians in the Christian tradition. It seeks to be both comprehensive and discernible
to the average person, without compromising or watering down the rich and nuanced Catholic Tradition. In this
method, Bretzke emphasizes that “a key aspect of lived morality is not just ‘doing’ the rights things and avoiding
the wrong things, but more fundamentally living in right relationships—first with God and then with the rest of
God’s children, and finally with the whole of God’s creation.”1 He also emphasizes that the goal of moral decision
making is that of shalom; people often associate the term shalom with peace, but this Hebrew word has a richer
and deeper meaning, which encompasses well-being and wholeness, rather than simply a lack of conflict or war.
As such, moral decision making is concerned with how people are growing and developing and should move a
person and the community towards shalom, which we will see in the chapter on Scripture.

Bretzke outlines what he calls the subjective axis and objective axis in making moral decisions.
Specifically, he identifies four sectors that continue to interact with each other as major considerations in Catholic
moral decision making; these four sectors are also interpreted through our own personal worldview. 2 These four
sectors would be: Scripture, Tradition, human experience, and rational reflection on human experience. It is in
the intersection of these two axes that one’s conscience lies. Conscience will be further expounded on in chapter
three, but first, let us go through the four sectors that make up the axes of Bretzke’s moral methodology.

4 Sectors Interacting with each other3

The Four Sectors

In Catholic moral theology, there are various sources that one draws on in making a decision. Such sources
have a normative claim on the individual or community making the decision as part of the individual or
community’s faith commitment. One source should not be emphasized to the detriment of another; rather, all of
these sources have something important to contribute to moral decision-making that one risks losing if one source
dominates all the rest.
1
James T. Bretzke, SJ, A Morally Complex World: Engaging Contemporary Moral Theology (Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Press,
2004), 12.
2
Bretzke, SJ, 20–21.
3
Bretzke, SJ, 21.
 This method also seeks to go beyond an absolutely physicalist or absolutely relativist approach. An
absolutely physicalist approach focuses on abstract and universalizable theories. This approach tends to focus on
what it understands to be “objective,” ahistorical and unchanging: there is a given nature, essence, and moral
order to the world, and thus the job of people is to find it, understand it, and follow it. Reality is thus understood
to be static. On the other hand, an absolutely relativist view would simply allow for whatever each person wants
in, without any basis. This method that Bretzke outlines tends towards what is called a personalist approach,
which, while not denying some form of objective moral order, nevertheless acknowledges the need to “look for
the moral meaning of the human person in his or her matrix of relations, with his or her talents, concrete
circumstances, personal history, and so on.”4 There is a tension and dialogue between the objective and subjective
dimensions of the human person and reality, as will be seen in the next chapters.

The Subjective Axis: The Human Person’s Experience and Reflection on Experience
Human Experience

Human experience, though difficult to define, acknowledges the individual’s self- awareness and subjectivity,
and a person’s relationship with themselves, other people, and other communities as important considerations or
even starting points for theologizing. Traditionally, human experience has gotten little attention in moral theology.
It has only been recently with the philosophical turn to the subject, as well as the coming of postmodern and
contextual theology, that human experience has been given more consideration in theologizing. The unsaid
assumption that western theology was the only correct theology and was universalizable led to the conclusion that
the only thing needed was to teach other cultures this form of theology without any form of enculturation or
consideration of what other people had experienced; this led to misunderstandings and even erroneous teachings
of Catholicism, and thus people falling away from Christianity in general—such is an example of possibly
disastrous results when human experience is not considered when theologizing. This is not to say that we ought
to privilege human experience above all else; however, as seen in the earlier example that was particularly blind
to the colonial and cultural experiences of other people, theology that does not consider human experience can
lead to erroneous decisions and theology.

Today, particularly with Pope Francis’ papacy, the Catholic Church privileges a hermeneutic or way of
interpreting or understanding the world that is based on a particular human experience: that of the poor. Jesus
Christ sought out the poor and the marginalized—the widow, the orphan, the stranger in the Old Testament, and
the tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners in the New Testament—and sought to include them back into the
community and allow them to once again participate in society; thus, the Catholic Church does the same. It is
through the poor and marginalized that the Catholic Church believes that we will meet Jesus, for as Jesus says
“truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”5

Rational Reflection and Reason on Human Experience

Part of human experience, and what it means to be a human being, is one’s capacity to reason, and experiences
are constantly interpreted by the person or community experiencing it. One processes one’s human experiences
and reflects on them, articulating what the said experiences mean in light of one’s background theories,
retroductive warrants, communities of discourse, and in dialogue with Scripture and Tradition. In this sector, one
reflects on what is thus counted as “normatively human” in order to arrive at more concrete criteria or definitions
of what it human flourishing and the common good means.6 This is obviously difficult, and various people can
have various definitions of what the good is, and who the good is for; nevertheless, this is what a person in this
sector attempts to do, in collaboration with many other people, and with much humility and respect for each other.
4
Bretzke, SJ, 38.
5
Matthew 25:40
6
Bretzke, SJ, A Morally Complex World, 26.
 As mentioned earlier, there is a balance among the different sources, with a hermeneutic of suspicion that
is willing to critique any ideologies that may creep into the Tradition. Thus, in taking into account human
experience in moral methodology, certain factors need to be considered in articulated in order to have a more
holistic analysis and understanding of human experience and what counts as “normatively human” in relationship
to the other sources.7 First, the background theories or presuppositions that a person brings should be articulated.
Each person is not a blank slate: each person comes with his or her own background theories that shape and
inform how he or she approaches and perceives any data, experience, or phenomenon.

There can be a tendency to be unaware of what assumptions a person has, and therefore not question
whether these assumptions hold true or not. Hence, it is important to reflect on one’s background theories: how
does one understand the self, community, and the vision or goals of the said community and self? How does one
understand Scripture and Tradition, and how does one think they fit into the person’s approach to life and work?
For example, much of St. Augustine’s theological work, which has now changed much of western Catholic
theology, was heavily predicated on neo-platonic philosophy, while St. Thomas Aquinas’s work borrowed much
from Aristotle’s work. Conversely, a background theory that assumes an inequality of races, for example, can be
expressed in how salvation is understood: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s work, which integrates evolution and
Christianity and opened a new way for dialogue between faith and science, also assumes an inequality of races,
which is troubling and can be problematic. These examples simply want to show that the background theories
one has will be expressed in one’s theology or perspective, which will in turn affect one’s ethics.

Second, retroductive warrants serve as an important “acid test” to one’s theology. Simply put, retroductive
warrants are the theoretical and practical fruitfulness of one’s theology or decision-making. Are the consequences
of one’s theology and decision actually life-giving, moving the person and community towards shalom, and in
line with the gospel values? If yes, then it is fruitful. To be clear, Catholic moral theology is not purely
consequentialist; however, if one can foresee that one’s decision or theology will lead to oppression, death, or
violence, then it ought be a point of consideration. One’s theology and decisions do not happen in vacuum—they
affect other people, no matter how small or private our decisions are; therefore, these consequences on ourselves
and others should be considered.

Third, the Catholic Church is understood to be a community of discourse, which emphasizes that it is
made up of various people who are theologizing and making decisions. In the interaction among the different
people who will have different perspectives, background theories, and theologies, three questions need to be
raised as part of this community: first, who is the authority? Second, who is the audience—to whom is one
speaking to or theologizing to?
Lastly, who is the adjudicator in cases of conflicts and disagreements in perspectives, theologies, and decisions?

The next two chapters in particular will talk about these questions and concerns on human experience, the
underlying assumptions and principles that guide the understanding of human experience in Catholic moral
theology, and will discuss how the subjective axis interacts with the objective axis in what Catholic moral
theology had traditionally identified as one’s conscience.

7
Francis Schussler Fiorenza describes the importance of the succeeding factors as part of human experience in relation to Scripture and
Tradition. For more on this, please see Francis Schussler Fiorenza, “Systematic Theology: Task and Methods,” in Systematic Theology:
Roman Catholic Perspectives, ed. Francis Schussler Fiorenza and John
P. Galvin, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2011), 3–75.
 From here, we can now discuss the objective axis that interacts with human experience and forms a basis
for guiding one’s understanding of reality and ethics. The objective axis is what is unique to Christianity.

The Objective Axis: Scripture and Tradition

Scripture, understood as the Word of God, understandably holds a major place in moral theology. Recall
that in understanding Scripture, it is important to clarify the way one reads it, and to read it using a correct method,
which is neither fundamentalist nor completely subjective.8 “On the one hand, exegetical practice stresses a
scientific objectivity and neutrality that aim to be free from subjective presuppositions. On the other hand,
contemporary hermeneutical theory underscores the significance that one’s pre-understanding and application
have for interpretation.”9

It is good then to keep in mind that Scripture has its own “language” that may not be the same as the way
we use language today, and that three “worlds” exist when one reads Scripture: the world of the author who put
into writing, through inspiration from the Holy Spirit, the Word of God into Scripture, the world of the biblical
text itself, with its characters, stories, and genres, and the world of the reader, coming in with his or her
hermeneutics presuppositions, and even biases. The intersection of these three worlds helps us have a deeper
dialogue to illumine God’s Word in Scripture. As St. Augustine emphasizes, it is important that one allows the
Holy Spirit help one draw closer to God and to do the good.

Tradition

In the Catholic Tradition, Tradition is broadly understood as both the doctrine that is handed down in the
Church, as well as the process of handing down this doctrine, reinforcing, amplying, or applying Scripture to the
concrete context of people. Sandra Schneiders gives a holistic understanding of Tradition that does not narrow it
down to simply words or doctrine:

Tradition, as the foundational gift, out of which the Church’s experience unfolds throughout history, is
the Holy Spirit, who is the presence of the risen Jesus making the Church the Body of Christ. Tradition, as content,
is the sum total of appropriated and transmitted Christian experience, out of which Christians select the material
for a renewed syntheses of the faith. Tradition also refers also to the mode by which that content is made available
to successive generations of believers, the way in which the traditioning of the faith is carried on through history.10

Since Scripture and the Catholic narratives are not self-interpreting, there is a need to continue to reflect
on and interpret what they truly mean. Tradition is not a “dead faith of the living” as Jaroslav Pelikan says, but
rather it is a living faith, a faith that “develops and changes in a way that constantly reconstructs what it considers
to be paradigmatic” based on Scripture, doctrine, and the needs and human experience of the people. For example,
slavery used to be allowed and even defended using Scriptural passages, citing that slavery was allowed in
Scripture, particularly in the Leviticus law and Pauline texts; Catholics and Catholic orders owned slaves, and it
was only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that slavery was explicitly condemned in Catholicism and
Christianity.11
8
For more on how Catholicism understands Scripture and how to read and understand it, please see Second Vatican Council, “Dogmatic
Constitution on Divine Revelation: Dei Verbum,” Vatican.va, accessed December 3, 2015,
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei- verbum_en.html.
9
Schussler Fiorenza, “Systematic Theology: Task and Methods,” 10.
10
Sandra M. Schneiders, IHM, The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture, Second Edition, Second
(Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Press, 1999), 72.
11
For more on this, please see Bryan N. Massingale, Racial Justice and the Catholic Church (Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books, 2010).
 What counts as Tradition then would include not just magisterial or official documents from the Vatican,
but also various works of theologians and doctors of the Church, and the “historical collective experience of the
entire Christian community, our liturgical and sacramental life together, as well as the paradigmatic examples of
Christian living given us by the… ‘saints.’”12 A large portion of what is handed down and used in fundamental
moral theology is what is understood as natural law, a set of universal precepts that can be known through human
reason, which will be further discussed in the next chapters.

How does this tradition evolve over time? In the Catholic Church, there is a tension between the
magisterium and the sensus fidelium. The Catholic Church, on the one hand, looks to its official teaching body,
called the magisterium and made up of the pope and bishops, to adjudicate or make pronouncements on official
Catholic teaching. These pronouncements may be “from above” in the form of ex cathedra statements from the
pope, who exercises his papal infallibility explicitly at the moment, or through authoritative statements by bishops
collectively. This helps ensure that Catholicism does not simply fall into the trap of relativism or purely subjective
understanding of the faith; in short, in certain areas of doctrine, Catholics cannot simply pick and choose what it
is that they want to believe in, if they wished to commit to the Catholic faith.

On the other hand, the Catholic Church also believes in the sense of the faithful or sensus fidelium or the
sense of the faith or sensus fidei. This sense is something that is exercised by the entire body of Catholic faithful,
and is a form of intuition of what is the Truth. “The sensus fidei…is a sort of spiritual instinct that enables the
believer to judge spontaneously whether a particular teaching or practice is or is not in conformity with the Gospel
and with apostolic faith. It is intrinsically linked to the virtue of faith itself; it flows from, and is a property of,
faith. It is compared to an instinct because it is not primarily the result of rational deliberation, but is rather a form
of spontaneous and natural knowledge, a sort of perception (aisthesis).13 Some of the dogmas associated with
Mary, such as the dogma on her bodily assumption of Mary for example, began not “from above” but “from
below,” in the practices and beliefs of the practicing faithful and Marian devotees. These devotions and practices
were then promulgated through official documents of the Catholic Church.

These two ways of how Tradition develops are not meant to be taken as an “either-or,” rather it is a “both-
and,” wherein the traditional teaching office of the Catholic Church meets the people where they are, and teaches
and learns from the actual practices, ethics, and faith of the people. Later on, we will see how these two are taken
together and at the same time dialogue in developing Church teaching.

The Ultimate Norm: Jesus Christ

One last thing to note in this section, as well as in this chapter. With the various sources that Catholic
moral methodology draws on, how does one adjudicate when they conflict? Do we privilege one source over
another?

It is possible to get conflicting statements. Even in Scripture alone, there can be seemingly conflicting
literal statements. So, it is helpful to always go back to what one calls the ultimate norm. In latin, this is the norma
normans non normata, which means “the norm of norms which cannot be normed: in short, the ultimate norm or
organizing principle upon which Catholic moral methodology turns. As Catholics, this would be the life and the
person of Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh.

12
Bretzke, SJ, A Morally Complex World, 24.
13
International Theological Commission, “Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church,” Vatican.va, 2014,
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20140610_sensus-
fidei_en.html#1._The_sensus_fidei_as_an_instinct_of_faith. Hereafter referred to as SF. SF 49.
 This is important to note because moral decision making is not a linear process—it can be messy,
conflicting, and full of confusion. There can also be times wherein we may have to choose between the lesser of
evils, as a world that is marred by sin can often force people into situations where there may be no good choice.
In all of these cases, having an ultimate norm helps clarify at least some of the confusion and doubt, and helps
keep the person in line towards the goal of flourishing and the common good. It also helps a person keep the
various sources and sectors in moral methodology from becoming fossilized ideologies that become “false gods”
of the people. In sum, “if our ethics and moral theology are to be truly Christian then every other norm, judgement,
and conclusion has to eb subordinated to our understanding of Jesus Christ and his gospel message.”14

Summary

In this chapter we briefly tackled what fundamental moral theology is and its significance in Catholic theology
and a person’s life. We also sketched one particular moral methodology and the sources such a method draws on.
Understanding what method we use and what sources we draw upon is important if we are to make good decisions
and be able to clarify and at times defend our decisions, and so the later chapter will further expound on the
various sources and how they intersect in Catholic moral theology.

In using the four sectors, Bretzke raises the following questions: first, what do we use from which sector, and
why? Second, what do we ignore from which sector, and why? Third, what is rejected from which sector, and
why? Fourth, what is reinterpreted from which sector, and why? Lastly, what do we, as Catholics and the body
of faithful, judge to be decisive when sectors or sources conflict, and why? These questions are important to
ponder on as a collective body, as well as individual Catholics, because as Tradition is deconstructed and
reconstructed over time, it should ultimately be towards the goal of the common good, shalom, and right
relationship with God and creation, in light of the ultimate norm, Jesus Christ.

We will now first turn to the subjective axis of moral decision making: namely, the human person. It is not enough
to simply say that we ought to consider the human person—how we do take the human experience into account
is just as important, as we do not simply want to fall into the trap of moral relativism. Thus, the next chapters will
allow us to fully understand how the human person is understood in light of Catholic theology, and the
implications of this understanding in decision-making.

Guide Questions:

1. What is fundamental moral theology? Why is it important as part of the Catholic faith commitment?
2. How would you describe how you have made decisions in life? Outline the process step by step. Why do you
choose make decisions this way? Compare this with the Catholic moral methodology—how are they same or
different?
3. Describe the moral methodology outlined in this chapter. Which sector or sectors have you heavily relied on or
NOT relied on at all in decision making? Why or why not?
a. What background theories and retroductive warrants do you hold when you make decisions?
b. How does Scripture and Tradition fit into your background theories and retroductive warrants?

14
Bretzke, SJ, A Morally Complex World, 34.
 Bibliography

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Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Press, 2004.
International Theological Commission. “Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church.” Vatican.va, 2014.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20140610
_sensus-fidei_en.html#1._The_sensus_fidei_as_an_instinct_of_faith.
Massingale, Bryan N. Racial Justice and the Catholic Church. Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books, 2010.
Schneiders, IHM, Sandra M. The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture, Second
Edition. Second. Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Press, 1999.
Schussler Fiorenza, Francis. “Systematic Theology: Task and Methods.” In Systematic Theology: Roman
Catholic Perspectives, edited by Francis Schussler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin, 2nd ed., 3–75. Minneapolis,
MN: Fortress Press, 2011.
Second Vatican Council. “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation: Dei Verbum.” Vatican.va. Accessed
December 3, 2015. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-
ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html.