Coffee Talk Redux is a reflection on things God is teaching me. In some cases the ideas for these topics may arise from some conversation I may have had with someone, or a thought that crossed my mind, something I have written, or perhaps something I read somewhere, or maybe a combination of all of these. In any case think of this as a discussion on what God is teaching us to help us grow in our understanding of His will for us.
The foundation of moral theology lies in man’s desire for happiness for man’s ultimate goal is to seek happiness. Man in the final analysis always desires happiness as his final end so happiness becomes the goal of all other goals. All of man’s activities and choices are therefore directed to provide him with true happiness. However, man cannot achieve a true sense of what the ultimate goal or meaning of life is without addressing the question regarding wherein his happiness is found. However, this highest good wherein man can find his ultimate happiness is only found in God and the Gospel message of His Son Jesus Christ. All of life’s challenges such as the right use of our free will, evil, sin, and suffering can be understood if one adopts a moral theology that is based on the ultimate happiness that is in God.God is infinitely good and in the creation story as recounted by the sacred author in Genesis 1:31, God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. God created the universe with purpose, order, and meaning and in God’s eyes all of His creation was very good. Hence there is nothing in His creation that is inherently bad or evil or opposed to His goodness. However, there is a point that needs to be addressed, right after God creates man and woman in His image and likeness He does not say that they are good like He did for all of His other creations. God does say that everything that He made was very good, but He never says that man and woman themselves are good. However, God gave man and woman a unique gift that transcends goodness and that is their freedom. Freedom is something that nothing else in His creation received. By giving man and woman their freedom or free will God gave them the capacity to be good.
This presents man with an interesting problem since man can now decide for himself whether to order his life and seek his happiness in the highest good that is found in God or find his happiness in himself and the created world. That is by turning away from God as his source of happiness and focusing on worldly pleasures, power, and possessions and worshiping these in a prideful way that ultimately leads to evil, sin and suffering. Through man’s freedom God has allowed for the possibility of evil. Evil can enter into the world by an abuse of man’s free will. Man’s challenge is therefore to tame his irregular desires and free will and conform them to the highest standard of goodness, which is finding his happiness and being in the image and likeness of God.
The challenge for man is then how best to use his free will. Man can choose to be good or man can choose to be bad or do evil things. This tendency in man to do evil things is a result of the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were seduced by Satan and fell to the temptations of the world as represented by the fruit they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve were led through their pride to try to become gods and to know all things. Man’s nature is now flawed as a result of Adam and Eve’s original sin. Man is no longer a perfect image of God and this original sin and its effects are with man from the moment of conception. Adam and Eve’s original sin introduced a disorder into man’s nature known as concupiscence, which sets man’s free will and intellect in direct opposition to the irregular desires and passions of his body. By turning away from the true happiness that is only found in God man can choose to seek his happiness in himself and the things that are of the created world. Left to himself as a result of his fallen nature man’s corrupted free will can introduce evil into the goodness of God’s creation. Evil then becomes a defect or an absence that spoils the created goodness of the universe. God therefore does not create evil but allows for evil, which is the result of an abuse of man’s free will. This is a prideful state that leads ultimately to a state of sin that takes man away from God leading to the illusion that man is a god. Only by keeping his focus on the ultimate happiness and goodness that is found in God can man tap into the wisdom that comes from God and know how to use his free will in order to become and do good as intended by God.
Because of the freedom that man has he is constantly tempted to decide on his own what is good and what is evil. Rather than being totally focused on the goodness that is found in God man falls away from God and chooses a created good as his highest good. Man chooses not to listen to and follow God’s decrees but through his pride strikes out on his own deciding for himself what is right and wrong. This is the essence of sin wherein man turns away from God and attempts to shape the world according to his flawed will and intellect. Therefore this prideful state can be seen as the beginning of all sin. Pride elevates man to a status not intended by God. Man then uses his free will disordered by original sin in ways that go against God’s plan. In this way man through his sins introduces evil into the goodness of God’s creation.
When man abuses his free will and commits evil or sins through his prideful ways he dehumanizes himself. When man is dehumanized he can no longer seek the goodness that God intended. Man travels down another path and God’s Word is no longer a light to his path. A dehumanized man no longer has the capacity to see that the highest good and the source of his ultimate happiness lies in God. When man is dehumanized by evil and sin he suffers and the rest of mankind also suffers. Man’s sins not only affect himself but they disrupt the goodness in God’s created order affecting others as well. It is through our own sufferings, whether they be physical, emotional, moral, or spiritual, that brings us to the point where we must face the problem of the meaning of our life and to begin to question ourselves about our own moral and religious values. Suffering is the result of the evil and sin caused by man and paradoxically it is by suffering that man can begin to realize wherein his happiness may be found.
At first many would argue that the existence of suffering makes no sense and that suffering even argues against God’s goodness and His very existence. However, suffering is not caused by God but is a result of man’s wrongful use of his free will. Man’s sins and the evil he commits cause spiritual harm to his soul and even sickens his body. Nevertheless, suffering provides man with another difficulty that he has to contend with. Suffering will either destroy all hope and lead one into a state of despair or it will serve as an existential shock that awakens within our hearts those Gospel values exemplified in Christ which bring us to the point where we have the courage to trust in hope.
Understanding suffering is therefore fundamental to the idea of a moral theology based on happiness. That suffering can be seen to be the opposite of happiness and that the very idea of happiness cannot make sense until one suffers, since suffering is what makes happiness real. Happiness can only be understood and therefore makes sense when we unite our sufferings with the suffering Christ. Christ was the perfect sacrifice and He shed His blood for all of mankind, where as said in Matthew 26:28, this blood which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. By uniting our sufferings with Christ our sins and the evil we have caused are forgiven and we are reconciled through faith to communion with God. Christ’s sacrifice and the sufferings He bore for us on the Cross serve as example for man and challenge us to follow in His footsteps. Paul tells us in 1 Peter 2:21, For this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps. This requires a conversion of our hearts since Christ is the one mediator between God and men and by His sacrifice as told in Hebrews 5:9, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. Through His Passion Christ has united Himself to all of mankind and it is through the mystery of our communion with Him that man finds his ultimate and true happiness in God.
A moral theology based on seeking happiness in God explains for man what he is to do with his free will. The meaning of our life is therefore found in the ultimate happiness that is found in salvation by grace through faith in Christ. This approach to morality also helps man to guard and direct his actions in such a manner so as to avoid sin and evil as well as those prideful ways that lead him to seek his happiness in the created world. This also allows one to understand the origins of man’s free will, evil, sin, and suffering and why they exist. The Gospel message of Christ is that God’s grace far surpasses sin and that the sufferings of man can direct him to the true happiness that may be found only in God. Moral theology therefore needs to embrace as its foundation man’s desire for this happiness that can only be found in God. (Ronald L. Fournier © 2009)
