Moral Theology: Anthropology, Virtue, and Contemplation

Senior Year Course Pillars

THEOLOGY DEPARTMENT MISSION STATEMENT:

Graduates of Catholic High Schools in the Diocese of Kalamazoo must be able to

·  Defend the authentic teachings of Jesus Christ and His Church;

·  Explain the natural/philosophical, scriptural, and historical foundations undergirding these teachings; &

·  Apply the skills necessary to cooperate with God’s grace, pray, live a life of virtue, grow in holiness, and achieve the glory of Heaven for which they were created by God.

THEOLOGY DEPARTMENT OVERALL GOAL:

To assist you in becoming an intentional disciple of Jesus Christ. This can be evaluated and measured by:

·  Your attendance/participation in Mass and the other sacraments;

·  Your daily habit of prayer;

·  Your knowledge of authentic Church teaching;

·  Your choices to live out the life of Christ daily; &

·  That you are “always… prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you… with gentleness and reverence” (1 Peter 3: 15)

MORAL THEOLOGY COURSE GOAL:

If the highest good of human life is happiness, then the moral theology is the systematized pursuit of happiness. This course will assist students in thinking about their lives and the world from the perspective of their relationship with God. This reflection will involve internalization of those characteristics by which humans excel in pursuit of happiness: the virtues. Students will derive from this course a more complete notion of the Law; beyond a simple description of illicit and licit, the Law forms knowledge and love of the other. Adherence to the law reshapes the human into one fully responsive to God in prayer. Ultimately, the goal of this course is to help students find God in all things, and to respond fully consciously.

MORAL THEOLOGY COURSE GUIDING PRINCIPLE:

Too often ethics is reduced to a demarcation between simple wrong and not wrong, or at best, three categories of “wrong,” “virtuous,” and “amoral,” or having no bearing on right and wrong. The guiding principle of this course is that what makes activity distinctively human is the consciousness with which it is performed. Every decision, activity, or behavior is intrinsically moral, no matter how innocuous the decision may seem prima facie. Furthermore, these decisions are guided by an internalized ideal of happiness, and the method of happiness, which are the virtues. To be human means to act consciously, and conscious action means to make a moral decision; consciousness and conscience are inextricable. However, the function of conscience is not directly to alert us to the immoral path, but the path of virtue. True consciousness means an awareness of God as the source of knowledge and love, without which any other kind of knowledge and love becomes meaningless. To know reality means to recognize reality and the self in relation to God. True consciousness is not simply a state of knowing, but is perfected in prayer. The highest form of consciousness is contemplation.

METHOD FOR MORAL THEOLOGY:

To accomplish the goals of this course, we will explore the interrelationship of anthropology, virtue, happiness, and the nature of God as disclosed to humans, as well as our response to God as humans, which is prayer.

This course will be divided into three main sections, each with its particular set of pillars. The first section will be anthropology, or a description of what it means to be human. The second section addresses practical ideals, particularly the virtues. The virtues are descriptions of the ideals of humanity. This consideration will be organized according to the Ten Commandments, and how each of the virtues guide us in the ideals articulated by the Commandments. The final section will examine the types and modes of prayer, the sociological, neurological, and psychological effects of prayer, and will facilitate the practice of prayer, especially as they lead to contemplation, or full consciousness of the presence of God.

This course will use many texts, including the Bible, the Catechism, A Pilgrim’s Journey (the biography of St. Ignatius), St. Augustine’s On the Trinity, texts from St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, and selections from the Catholic spiritual tradition from the Desert Fathers through Thomas Merton.

SECTION I: ANTHROPOLOGY

PILLARS FOR ANTHROPOLOGY:

  1. What is happiness? Am I happy? How might I become happy?
  2. What are the virtues? Why would I want to become virtuous?
  3. What is a human being?
  4. What is freedom?
  5. What is the Law? Why do we have commandments? What are the limitations and fulfillment of the Law?

OUTCOME:

Before examining specific ethical circumstances, students will here address the question of what it means to be human. The subject of the moral action logically precedes the analysis of the action and the object. In order to understand what it means to be human, students will consider the purpose of human existence as well as what distinguishes humans from the rest of creation.

  1. What is happiness? Am I happy? How might I become happy?

Readings:

·  CCC 26-49

·  Aquinas on the means to happiness: [selections]

·  Summa Theologica I.II.2: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2002.htm;

·  S.T. I.II.4: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2004.htm;

·  ST. I.II.1: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2001.htm

  1. What is the purpose of human existence? What is happiness?
  2. Am I happy? Are there different levels or types of happiness (material, comparative, absolute)? What types of people are happy? Can I distinguish between types of happiness that I feel?
  3. What does the word Good mean?
  4. How do I excel at being happy? Are there particular behaviors, activities, or habits that are more likely to produce happiness in me?
  5. How are these habits, or virtues, formed?
  1. What are the virtues?

·  Reading: CCC 1803-1845

  1. What are the theological virtues?
  2. What are the cardinal virtues?
  3. What are the gifts of the Holy Spirit?
  4. How do the virtues and gifts form the New Man?
  5. In what way do virtues inhibit my freedom? In what ways do virtues expand my freedom?
  1. What is a human being? What distinguishes humans from other creatures?

Readings:

·  McGroarty, “De Trinitate” in A Study of Walter Hilton’s Reformation in Faith and Feeling from the Perspective of Affect Theory, pp. 69-75.

·  Augustine, On the Trinity, Book IX, ch.2 and Book IX, ch.4.

·  Ignatius, “Principle and Foundation”: https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/offices/ministry/pdf/First%20Principle%20and%20Foundation%20-March%202015%20(2).pdf

·  CCC 1699-1715

  1. How does St. Augustine describe human psychology? How does this understanding correspond to modern psychology and neurology?
  2. How does St. Ignatius of Loyola describe a human being? For what purpose do we exist? How does this description compare with modern psychology?
  3. How do my passions, will, and intellect interact in making decisions?
  4. How does my moral outlook affect everything I perceive?
  5. What is the relationship between my consciousness and conscience?
  6. How do I make moral decisions? How do my circumstances affect the morality of decisions I make? How does my intention affect those decisions? What is a Moral Object in decision making?
  1. What is freedom?

Readings:

·  CCC 1716-1748

·  Gen 2:4-3:24

·  Exodus 16:1-15

·  Dulles, “John Paull II and the Truth about Freedom,” in First Things August 1995: https://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/08/004-john-paul-ii-and-the-truth-about-freedom

  1. What is the relationship between freedom and covenant?
  2. In what way does freedom represent a lack, or emptiness of being? In what ways does peace represent a similar lack? What are the biblical and American conceptions of freedom?
  3. If freedom and peace are not positive realities, how is it we can say they are the objects of desire? What is it we desire when we say we want freedom/peace?
  4. What is solidarity? What is the relationship of solidarity to freedom? What is the relationship of solidarity to sin? What is the relationship of solidarity to suffering?
  1. What is the Law?

Readings:

·  CCC 1949-1986

·  Sweeney, O.P.: “Uncommon Sense: St. Thomas Aquinas and John Paul II on Law”:

https://www.dspt.edu/uncommon-sense-st.-thomas-aquinas-and-john-paul-ii-on-law

·  Boadt, “The Pentateuch as Law” in Reading the Old Testament, Paulist Press, 184-194

·  Aquinas, from “The Treatise on Law,” ST I-II, qu. 90-92

·  Psalms 1, 18, 118

·  Jeremiah 31:15-40

  1. What is the relationship between law and covenant?
  2. How is the Law a restriction of freedom and how does it permit freedom?
  3. How is the law a way of knowing? Is knowing possible without law?
  4. How is freedom lost?
  5. What does freedom have to do with anthropology?
  6. What is Original Sin, actual sin, and grace?
  7. What is Personalism?
  8. What is utilitarianism? What is deontologicalism?
  9. How is Christ the fulfillment of the Law?

SECTION II: VIRTUE

PILLARS FOR VIRTUE:

1.  Why are my thoughts important in themselves? Isn’t it natural to want those things which satisfy my biological urges?

2.  Why is property important? How can the disposition of material things affect spiritual realities, like good and bad?

3.  What is the basis for human dignity?

4.  How do we know and love God? How does our love of God teach us to know ourselves?

OUTCOME:

1.  Why are my thoughts important in themselves? Isn’t it natural to want those things which satisfy my biological urges?

·  CCC 2514-2557

  1. Perception, Sin and Addiction
  2. Purity and the Law Ps 24; Mt 23:27-28
  3. Commandments 9 and 10
  4. Sins: Envy, Greed, Lust, Pornography
  5. Temperance, modesty, chastity wisdom

2.  Why is property important? How can the disposition of material things affect spiritual realities, like good and bad?

·  CCC 2464-2513

·  James Madison on Property Emmett McGroarty, forthcoming, ch. 9

· 

  1. Commandment 8: relation of the Truth as witness to God
  2. Justice, wisdom, charity, understanding, prudence, fortitude
  3. Solidarity and keeping confidences
  4. Sins: Lying, calumny, detraction, perjury, boasting, ridicule
  5. Commandment 7
  6. Charity, Hope, Justice, prudence, temperance
  7. Sins: theft, vandalism, fraud, breaking contracts, keeping something loaned or lost

3.  What is the basis for human dignity?

·  Paul M. Quay, S.J., “Contraception and Conjugal Love” in Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: a Reader Ignatius, 1993: 17-45

·  Judith Jarvis Thomson, “A Defense of Abortion”: http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm

·  “The Trolley Problem”: http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/rarneson/Courses/thomsonTROLLEY.pdf

·  Elliott Ploutz: “Just on Both Sides? The Falklands War of 1982: A Case Study in Just War Theory”: https://owlcation.com/humanities/Just-on-Both-Sides-The-Falklands-War-A-Case-Study-in-Just-War-Theory

·  CCC 2292-2301

  1. Commandment 4
  2. Obedience: humility in listening
  3. Duties of family members
  4. Civil duties/ Social Contract
  5. Commandment 5
  6. Imago Dei
  7. Principles regarding Health, science, body
  8. Just War
  9. Euthanasia
  10. Abortion, Embryonic Stem cell research
  11. In vitro fertilization
  12. Suicide
  13. Alcohol, drugs, tobacco abuse
  14. Commandment 6
  15. Chastity as vocation
  16. Marriage

4.  How do we know and love God? How does our love of God teach us to know ourselves?

·  A Pilgrim’s Journey: the Autobiography of St. Ignatius

·  CCC 2083 - 2195

  1. Commandment 3
  2. The new creation
  3. Redemption of Creation
  4. Slavery to the mundane
  5. Commandment 2
  6. Power of Language to form self
  7. Sacred and profane
  8. Names and naming
  9. Covenant and oath
  10. Use of name in vain
  11. Commandment 1
  12. Faith Hope and Love
  13. Sins against Faith Hope and Love
  14. Adoration
  15. Dedication of self to God
  16. Vows
  17. Prayer
  18. Violations of the First Commandment
  19. Superstition
  20. Idolatry
  21. Divination
  22. Irreligion
  23. Atheism
  24. Agnosticism

SECTION III: PRAYER

PRAYER SECTION GUIDING PRINCIPLE: Students will form an understanding of prayer as the highest form of human activity, the pinnacle of consciousness, and our most distinctive feature.

DESCRIPTION: The student will consider the different forms of meditative prayer, or via positiva, and the relationship of this prayer to contemplative prayer, or via negativa. The student will consider both meditation and contemplation as a description of neurological activity and through the texts of some exemplary practitioners. Students will read the autobiography of St. Ignatius as a model for the continuity between the moral life and the life of prayer. Students will be given the opportunity to engage with guidance in the types of prayer described. Students will appreciate the circular continuity from action to meditation, to contemplation, and back to action.

PILLARS: THREE KEY QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED:

1.  What is prayer? Why do I pray?

2.  What is meditation? Rote prayer, lectio divina

3.  What is contemplation?

OUTCOME:

By the end of senior year, students will recognize the continuity between action and contemplation, and how a healthy relationship between the two increases awareness of God and self, raising consciousness and refining conscience.

1.  What is prayer? Why do I pray?

  1. What are the different types of prayer? What do they have in common?
  2. What are the different modes of prayer? What is the social effect of prayer?
  3. How is prayer characterized neurologically? What are the psychological effects of prayer?

2.  What is meditation?

·  The Confessions of Saint Augustine bk. II ch.s 1-6

·  “To See Jesus” in Aelred of Rievaulx: the Way of Friendship, 146-148

·  The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux: the Story of a Soul, Ed. Clarke, 3rd ed.: 253-256.

·  A Pilgrim’s Journey: the Autobiography of St. Ignatius

·  Ignatius, “Principle and Foundation”: https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/offices/ministry/pdf/First%20Principle%20and%20Foundation%20-March%202015%20(2).pdf

  1. How do my imagination and perception effect my prayer, and vice-versa?
  2. How does meditation effect my creation and appreciation of beauty?
  3. How does meditation effect my behavior? How does it affect my performance?
  4. Lectio Divina
  5. Rote Prayer
  6. Active meditation
  7. Exemplars of meditation:
  8. Augustine
  9. Aelred of Rievaulx
  10. Therese of Lisieux
  11. St. Ignatius of Loyola

3.  What is Contemplation?

·  Benedicta Ward, The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers, 1-3, 39-41

·  “The Canticle of Brother Sun” and “Silence, the Parlor, and the Grille” in Francis and Clare: the Complete Works

·  Saint Bonaventure, “The Sacred Stigmata” in Such is the Power of Love: Francis of Assisi As Seen by Bonaventure, 148-157.

·  Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection, Book II, ch. 40

·  St. Theresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, Book VI, ch. 4

·  St. John of the Cross: Selected Writings 147-150 (from The Ascent of Mount Carmel ch.s 6 and 15).

·  Merton, “The Inner Experience” (selections) in Thomas Merton, Spiritual Master 294-356.

  1. Neurology and Contemplation
  2. The Desert Fathers
  3. Pseudo-Dionysius
  4. St.s Francis, Clare, and Bonaventure
  5. Walter Hilton
  6. St. Theresa of Avila
  7. St. John of the Cross
  8. Thomas Merton
  9. Mother Theresa