YOUCAT Catechism +
Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 291
Ave Maria series
How can a person tell
whether his action is good or bad?
A person is capable of distinguishing good actions from bad
ones because he possesses reason and a conscience, which enable him to make
clear judgments. [1749-1754, 1757-1758]
Don L. Bragg with Oscar, the golden
retriever, in 2008. I have always prayed
that God would give me a heart that would blame me for my wrongdoings. So many are the days of my life in which better
actions were and still are urged by my conscience. …..291
The following guidelines make it easier to distinguish good
actions from bad ones:
(1) What I do must be good, a good
intention alone is not enough. Bank
robbery is always bad, even if I commit that crime with the good intention of
giving the money to poor people.
(2) Even when what I do is truly
good, if I perform the good action with a bad intention, it makes the whole
action bad. If I walk an elderly woman
home and help her around the house, that
is good.
But if I do it while planning a later break-in, that makes the whole action something
bad.
(3) The circumstances in which someone
acts can diminish his responsibility, but they cannot change at all the good or
bad character of an action. Hitting
one’s mother is always bad, even if the mother has previously shown little love
to the child. 295-297
“In the Christian tradition, ‘conscience’, ‘con-scientia’,
means ‘with knowledge’: that is, (we) ourselves, our being is open and can
listen to the voice of being itself, the voice of God…In the depths of our
being, not only can we listen to the needs of the moment, to material needs,
but we can also hear the voice of the Creator himself and thus discern what is
good and what is bad.” Pope Benedict
XVI, July 24, 2007
“His conscience is
man’s most secret core and his sanctuary.
There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.” Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes
[1749-1754, 1757-1758]
THE MORALITY OF HUMAN ACTS
1749 Freedom makes man a moral subject. When
he acts deliberately, man is, so to speak, the father of his acts. Human acts,
that is, acts that are freely chosen in consequence of a judgment of
conscience, can be morally evaluated. They are either good or evil. –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second
Edition
- the object chosen;
- the end in view or the intention;
- the circumstances of the action.
The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the
"sources," or constitutive elements, of the morality of human acts. –CCC
1751 The object chosen
is a good toward which the will deliberately directs itself. It is the matter
of a human act. The object chosen morally specifies the act of the will,
insofar as reason recognizes and judges it to be or not to be in conformity
with the true good. Objective norms of morality express the rational order of
good and evil, attested to by conscience. –CCC
1752 In contrast to the object, the intention resides in
the acting subject. Because it lies at the voluntary source of an action and
determines it by its end, intention is an element essential to the moral
evaluation of an action. The end is the first goal of the intention and
indicates the purpose pursued in the action. The intention is a movement of the
will toward the end: it is concerned with the goal of the activity. It aims at
the good anticipated from the action undertaken. Intention is not limited to
directing individual actions, but can guide several actions toward one and the
same purpose; it can orient one's whole life toward its ultimate end. For
example, a service done with the end of helping one's neighbor can at the same
time be inspired by the love of God as the ultimate end of all our actions. One
and the same action can also be inspired by several intentions, such as
performing a service in order to obtain a favor or to boast about it. --CCC
1753 A good intention (for example, that of
helping one's neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically
disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just. The end does not justify
the means. Thus the condemnation of an innocent person cannot be justified as a
legitimate means of saving the nation. On the other hand, an added bad
intention (such as vainglory) makes an act evil that, in and of itself, can be
good (such as almsgiving). ( Compare Matthew 6:24.)39 –CCC
1754 The circumstances, including the consequences, are secondary
elements of a moral act. They contribute to increasing or diminishing the moral
goodness or evil of human acts (for example, the amount of a theft). They can
also diminish or increase the agent's responsibility (such as acting out of a
fear of death). Circumstances of themselves cannot change the moral quality of
acts themselves; they can make neither good nor right an action that is in
itself evil. --CCC
IN BRIEF
1757
The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the
three "sources" of the morality of human acts. –CCC
1758 The object chosen morally specifies the act
of willing accordingly as reason recognizes and judges it good or evil. –CCC
People
Conscience Don L
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