Moral System
Section 3 - IV.
Examination of the principal opinions about the relationship between morality and religion
205. There are four principal opinions about the relationship between morality and religion:
1. Morality and religion are entirely separate.
2. Religion is related to morality as a part is related to the whole.
3. Religion is not a part of morality; morality is a part of religion.
4. Finally, religion and morality are thought to be the same. This opinion is
understood in different ways.
206. It is difficult to save the first opinion from the accusation of impiety that has always been attached to it. Common sense affirms that a religion without morality can no longer be real or adequate, while morality without religion is simply very imperfect and completely dead.
207. The second and third opinions contain a general truth. If morality is defined as `the complex of duties and counsels which perfect human personship, religion clearly plays a role because it includes duties and moral counsels related to God. Equally morality is part of religion. If religion is defined as `the contact and affectionate union of human beings with God, and the means for maintaining this contact and union, then contact such as this, with the supremely holy Being, can take place only on condition that human beings observe, and intend to observe the whole moral law. Clearly the contact itself is essentially moral, and realised in the fullness of morality.
208. Religion and morality, therefore, when understood in their fullest natural extension without the division many would place between them are the same thing considered under two different aspects. Considered ideally and abstractly, that is, as duty, this single thing is called morality; considered really, that is, as contact with the most holy Being, with holiness itself, it is called religion. If we consider matters abstractly and theoretically, religion presents itself as part of morality; if we consider matters from a practical point of view in which we see things as they actually exist morality presents itself as religion. Thus they differ conceptually, but not in reality.
209. We can now see the true sense of the fourth opinion. If nothing moral is excluded from religion, and nothing religious from morality, the two can easily be the same thing. But this is impossible if one is sacrificed to the other by calling `religion morality without religion, and `morality religion without morality. These two errors are still maintained today; the first in particular is supported by rationalist philosophers, who claim that we have no direct duties towards God; all our duties to the supreme Being are indirect, that is, reduced to duties to human beings.
210. Although morality and religion, considered in their totality and perfection, are the same reality, they are certainly different considered from the point of view of their varying development in the human spirit at different periods. The principle of morality is an abstract, ideal rule (the idea of being), while the principle of religion is a subsistent being (the conception or perception of the divinity). Because they begin from different points, they follow a different path. Only when they are at the end of their journey, and both are considered perfect, will they truly become perfectly identical. As long as they are on the way, as it were, to their goal, they are considered, and really are two things which, however, harmonise, perform mutually useful service and often mingle like currents in a river.