Bible

 Comes from the Greek word “biblios” means library of books

 46 – old testament (written in Hebrew [Israel])
o 1400 – 80 BC
 27 – new testament (written in Greek)
o After his death
o 59 – 120 AD
o The new covenant is an agreement that God has made for all nations
 73 – total
Testament
 “covenant or agreement”
 I will be your God and you will be my people – Genesis 17:8
Dei Verbum
 God revealed himself to his people so that they can draw near to the father through Christ
in the holy spirit
 After the fall, God felt himself responsible for man and continued to take care of him in
order to give him eternal life and retain the relation with God
Dei Verbum
 The objective of the old testament is to prepare and declare in prophecy the coming of
Christ, and the messianic kingdom
 God revealed himself to his people, but he always expects an answer from them. This
answer is the obedience of faith
Dei Verbum
 The new testament is hidden in the old and the latter is manifested in the former, and this
is because the books of the old testament attain and display their full meaning in the new,
and in their turn, shed light on it and explain it
 They are our principal source for the life and teaching of the incarnate word
  He revealed that God was with his people through his words and deeds, his death and
resurrection
 God used certain men “inspired authors” in the composition of the Sacred Books, who
wrote only whatever God wanted to be written and no more, even if the writing was in a
human fashion with literary genres.
 Sacred tradition transmits the word of God entrusted to the apostles by Jesus and from the
apostles to their successors
 The magisterium of the church is not superior to the word of God but rather a servant,
and teacher only what has been handed to it.
Morality
 The quality of goodness or badness of human acts
 The rightness and wrongness of human acts as they conform or do not conform to the
standards
 Subjective – feelings
 Objective – facts
 Helps us to judge the difference between right and wrong
 Once we know the difference between the two, we can do what is right and avoid is
wrong
 The objective of morality is God
The Imperatives of Morality
 The existence of God or Supreme Being
 The existence of human freedom
 The existence of an afterlife
Existence of a God
 There is no reason for man to deny himself evil but pleasurable acts if there is no final
judge to dispense justice.
Existence of Human Freedom
 Morality would be meaningless if men were not free
 Freedom always involves an option whether to do or not to do
 Christian Freedom means to do what is good: true nature of a human person is goodness
and every time you do evil acts, you will be bothered
 Freedom – returning to our true nature
 Responsibility is an indispensable factor for morality
 Civil law around the world is based on responsibility which in return is based on freedom

Existence of an Afterlife
  The soul is immortal or that the soul will outlive the body is a postulate in morality
 If there is not life beyond the grave, there would be no point in discussing justice.
 Presupposed retribution – good acts deserve reward; bad acts deserve punishment
 Man is believed to have one life. After he dies, he either goes to heaven, hell or purgatory
based on his deeds

 We are human beings

 We are able to think about our behavior in order to decide what to say and what to do in
any given situation
 When we encounter moral situations, we can either act in a way that we know is right, or
we can do the opposite and act in a way that we know to be wrong
Immoral Person
 Knows the difference between right and wrong and chooses to do what is wrong.
 Example: villains
Moral Person
 Knows the difference between right and wrong and chooses to do what is right.
 Example: Heroes
Amoral Person
 Has no regard for any standards of right or wrong, and just does what he / she likes.
 Not accepted in morality
 Neutral in any decision making
 In morality there is no grey area, only black and white
 Example: Vigilante
Moral behavior can depend on…
 The consequences – what will happen if they do it / don’t do it
 Their emotions – how will they feel about their decision afterwards
 The situation – the background, what led up to it
 Laws and rules – if it is against the law or a rule
 Authority – if someone orders them, or forces them to do it
 Common practice – whether or not everyone is doing it
 Their conscience – something that tells them its right or wrong
Values
 Something that we think is very important and worthwhile.
 Values such as:
o To be popular
o To have lots of money
 o To have lots of friends
o To be respected
o To get good exam results
o To have a nice car
o To be good at sports
o To be happy and content
o To have strong faith
 Our values affect the way we think, what we say how we behave.
 Our values are not acquired by accident, we get our values from other people.
Steps in Moral Decision-Making
1. Facts
2. Options
3. Advice
4. Values
5. Prayer
6. Decision
People who can affect our Moral
1. Home and Family
 The home and family play an important part in influencing our moral outlook.
 Our parents were the first people to teach us the difference between right and wrong.
 As children we learnt that it is good to share our toys, to always tell the truth and not hit
other children.
2. Friends and Peers
 As we grow older, we begin to be influenced by others outside the home.
 Going to school, making friends and mixing with other children our own age meant we
encountered different types of values.
 Therefore, it can be said that our friends and peers also play an important role in
influencing our moral outlook.
3. Religion and Church
 People’s moral outlook is strongly influenced by the religion in which they have been
brought up.
 Many young people go to schools with a religious ethos where they are educated in their
faith.
 Therefore, the values they have received at home are reinforced by the teachings and
practices of their religion.
4. Society and the State
 The State passes the laws of the country.
 Society also plays an important role in influencing our moral outlook as it can decide
what is accepted as good or bad.
  Usually when the majority of society behave in a certain way then that behavior can
become acceptable.
5. Emotions
 We can be influenced by our emotions to behave in certain ways.
 This can have a positive impact on us in situations where we are moved by sympathy or
compassion to help somebody in need.
 However, emotions can also provide us with negative outcomes when we are driven by
anger of hatred when responding to certain situations.
Hence…
 Moral issues are not always simple a matter of stating what is right and what is wrong.
 Morality is about human beings and their relationships.
 We must remember that many factors can influence the way people behave.
4 Sources of Moral Theology
1. Scripture
 The bible took more than a thousand years to take shape.
 The bible does not have one theology; it has theologies. It does not have one ethical
perspective; it has a variety of ethical perspective.
 On one hand, the bible makes claims for special revelation – special knowledge given to
persons of faith ( 10 commandments given to Moses; revelations given to Abraham,
commands from God proclaimed by the prophets; God speaking to Zachariah, Mary,
Joseph; Paul’s conversion experience )
 This is the only source where God revealed himself.
2. Magisterium
 Church’s institutionalized teaching authority on matters of faith and moral.
 Used to refer to the hierarchy and their exercise of official teaching authority in the
church.
3. Experience
 Doctrinal development is growth in the Church insight into Christ; we grow in
understanding what it means to imitate Christ in our life as a Church.
 Since the time of the early Church, slavery had been accepted as a legitimate practice.
 Only in the 19th century that the world begun to stop the practice of slavery.
4. Natural Law
 Approach to ethic has the fundamental belief that God created an ordered universe with a
specific purpose.
 God created human beings with enough intelligence so that they can use their reason to
observe the natural world and make reliable judgements about God’s purpose and how
human behavior may cooperate with God’s plan.
Biblical Perspective of Sin
  Two important biblical metaphors in the Old Testament that enables us to understand sin
in its proper context: Covenant and Heart.
Covenant
 Expresses our personal relationship with God.
 God’s offer of love awaits our acceptance.
 Sin understood within the context of a covenant relationship between us and God.
 Sin in the Bible is not merely breaking the law. Sin is breaking or weakening the bond of
love we have with God.
Heart
 Divine love is either or embraced by the heart.
 It is where vital decisions are made; it is the center of feeling and reason, intention and
consciousness, decision and action.
 The moral vision of the bible sees good and evil not just in deeds but in the heart.
Original Sin
 Exist prior to our free personal acts.
 Deprivation of Original Holiness and Justice.
 It is the human condition of living in a world where we are influenced by more evil.
 Our whole being and our environment are infected by this condition of evil.
 Two Consequences: Death & Concupiscence.
 The doctrine of original sin tells us that we are not completely broken by sin.
 Jesus and Mary are excepted from original sin and in terms of death.
 Original sin can be washed away through the sacrament of baptism.
Mortal Sin and Venial Sin
 The term moral and venial sins came into use as a result of efforts to be precise about the
distinctions in the degree of sin.
 Mortal sin is a conscious decision to act in a way that leads to a turning away from
relating to God, to others, and the world in a positive and life giving away.
 Mortal sin involves the gravity of the objective harm that the action causes and how
deeply invested is the person in the action.
 Intrinsically evil – mortal sin
 Mortal sin includes the gravity is sin (quantity)
 Mortal sin – sacrament of confession
 Venial sin is called analogously.
 It wounds our relationship with God, others and the world but not radically break the
relationship.
 It is action inconsistently with our basic commitment but it does not spring from our
deepest level of our knowledge and freedom.
  Lying is only excepted only if the situation between life and death
Conscience
 Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience, when
necessary, speaks to his heart: do this, shun that.
 Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man.
 Sanctuary is a holy, sacred and safe place.
 If a sin is done repeatedly, it becomes a habitual sin where our hearts no longer hear the
voice of God since our heart is covered with a wall of sin.
Formation of Conscience
 Process of conversion and lifelong task.
 Through prayer and reflection.
 By allowing ourselves to be shared and inspired.
 By being open to dialogue with others.