Moral System
Section 3
The Relationship between
the Moral and the Religious Principle
188. The humanitarian need for religion, an intimate, supreme need, is felt by all, even by those who take great care to disguise and hide it. Before continuing therefore I must examine more carefully the nature of the relationship between morality (whose principle I have just posited and defended) and religion in order to discover whether morality is independent of religion or can benefit from it. If religion can render morality more complete, this alone is sufficient to oblige discussion amongst moralists so that they can complete and confirm in every part the moral system they are positing. Moreover, a writer on natural right must also discuss the matter, because, as we have mentioned (and shall see better later on), morality is the unshakeable foundation of the whole science of right.
Section 3 - I.
Can the first moral law have the form of an express command of God?
189. As I have already shown above, it would be a patent error to claim that at the first manifestation of moral obligation a Legislator distinct from the law must also be revealed as though the law could not produce in us a first, truly binding obligation unless it appeared as a positive wish on the part of a Legislator distinct from the law. Indeed, the moral obligation which binds me to respect and obey the Legislator must necessarily be that which counsels respect and obedience to the Legislators words and will.
190. In the system, therefore, which alone I believe conforms to the mind and tradition of the Church, the first law and the Legislator are fused; the law is a law-legislator or (if preferred) a legislator-law. As I said, only when a being is made known to me, can I know that its will is to be respected. If I am informed that the being in question is supreme, the Author of everything, absolute Being, God, this alone and nothing more will be sufficient for me to feel that I must obey the decrees of his will even before he speaks or has expressly revealed his will to me. The obligation is already present within me solely through knowledge of this being; the mental conception of God supplies the obligating force. This obligating force is eternal; it is God himself in whom lies the intrinsic, immutable order of being.
191. But I do not need to know all this in order to be bound by a real obligation. The bond is perfect as soon as I feel the exigency of the divine Being by virtue of his very essence which is revealed to me (negatively) in the mental conception of his being. As I have said, it is possible that the supreme Being has not yet spoken, and that I have not yet reflected on his will; perhaps I am a simple human being who left to himself is unable to reflect on such great things. Nevertheless I am still bound by moral necessity, and if I resist, I am culpable.(117) This necessity does not bind through `a command of a superior but through `the exigency I find and feel in the concept of a being (the supreme Being). If this necessity were not a real, complete and very strict obligation, I would have no real, complete obligation to obey the command either of a superior or of God. But this is absurd. In this case not even the word `God could impose on me a more real, complete, rigorous obligation. If therefore what God commands and wills induces a real and complete obligation, we must accept that the `exigency of the supreme Being which I feel in its very conception is an equally real and complete obligation.
192. Hence, the first form of natural law and natural obligation is `the exigency of the beings conceived by us. This form is different from the form of a superior or of the decree of a Legislator; these forms belong to derived laws. In a word, the ULTIMATE REASON for our willingness to obey God as superior or execute the decree of God as Legislator is contained IN THE MENTAL CONCEPTION OF THE SUPREME BEING. The conception tells me that this being is essentially Superior and Legislator, and hence MUST be obeyed. Thus the CONCEPT of that being manifests the beings MORAL EXIGENCY, which is obligation.(118)
193. Divine Scripture continually takes us back to this formal, ultimate reason of moral obligation, and wonderfully confirms the system which, as a matter of fact, I have attempted to draw solely from the word of God in Scripture and tradition. This will be obvious to lovers of truth by the many references to Scripture and the Fathers with which I have confirmed its truth in many places. I will now confirm it further by other references.
Notes
(117) I offer these thoughts to P. Dmowski, who develops a contrary opinion in his Ethics.
(118) To say that the first obligation properly speaking cannot be called law is to reduce the matter to a question of words