Theology Notes
Theology Notes
Theology Notes
• Both morality and ethics loosely have to distinguishing the difference between "good and bad" or "right and wrong." Many
people think of morality as something that's personal and normative, whereas ethics is the standards of "good and bad"
distinguished by a certain community or social setting
• For example, your local community may think adultery is immoral and you personally may agree with that. However, the
distinction can be useful if your local community has no strang feelings about adultery, but you consider adultery immoral on a
personal level
• By these definitions of the terms, your morality would contradict the ethics of your community. In popular discourse,
however, we'll often use the torms moral and immoral when talking about Issues like adultery regardless of whether it's being
discussed in a personal or in a community based situation. As you can see, the distinction can get a bit tricky (Grannan, 2016)
Morality as PAGPAPAKATAO
• Fr. Carlos Ronquillo, one of the Filipino experts in moral Theology, proposes "Pagpapakatao" to refer to morality because this
term is close to the experience of the Filipino.
• Ang tao lang ang may kakayahang "magpakatao" dahil hindi pa ganap (complete) ang kanyang pagkatao.
• Ang hayop ay walang kakayahang magpaka-hayop dahil ganap na ang kanyang pagka-hayop. Samakatwid, ganap na siyang
hayop. (Walang moralidad sa daigdig ng mga hayop).
•Ang tao ay patuloy na naglalakbay patungo sa kaganapan ng kanyang pagka-tao. Pilit siyang namumuhay ng marangal.
But why is it important for us to know who the human person is?
• The source of morality is the human person (CFC no. 682), considered in the light of both reason and faith.
• The person is the object (goal) and the subject (agent) of morality.
• God enters the talk of morality only when the person believes in God. "For Christians, moral living is simply following Christ"
(CFC no. 674),
• It is a call to become loving persons, in the fullness of life-with others-in the-community before God, in imitation of Jesus
Christ.
• Synthesized by Belgian theologian Louis Janssen from the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes (Joys and Hopes): Pastoral
Constitution of the Church in the Modern World