8/2/2019 Moral Theo

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EREÑO, IRISH PAULINE L.

What is moral theology?

Answer: Moral theology is a term used by the Roman Catholic Church to describe the study of God from

a perspective of how man must live in order to attain the presence or favor of God. While dogmatic

theology deals with the teaching or official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, moral theology deals

with the goal of life and how it is achieved. So, the goal or purpose of moral theology is, simply stated, to

determine how man should live.

Moral theology studies and examines such things as freedom, conscience, love, responsibility, and law.

Moral theology seeks to set forth general principles to help individuals make the right decisions and deal

with the details of everyday living in a way that is in accordance with the Church’s dogmatic theology.

Moral theology is essentially the Roman Catholic equivalent to what Protestants usually refer to

as Christian Ethics. Moral theology deals with the broad questions in life and attempts to define what it

means to live as a Roman Catholic Christian. Moral theology seeks to define and address things such as

the different methods of moral discernment, the definitions of right and wrong, good and evil, sin and

virtue, etc.

http://www.gotquestions.org/moral-theology.html 

Moral theology has at times seemed to have been restricted in its scope to a consideration of those

thoughts, works, and actions that are viewed as offensive to God and spiritually harmful to human

beings—that is, an enumeration of sins. It was thus seen as a negative complement of ascetical

andmystical theology, which both presuppose a more positive orientation of the individual toward God.

Many moral theologians, however, have believed that it is more faithful to the spirit of the New

Testament and of early theology not to separate moral teaching from the religious anthropology that isimplicit in the message of the Gospels. This approach has been reflected in the traditional Eastern

Christian emphasis on the divinization of man through his association with Jesus Christ and in the

Protestant concern with the moral power of justification. Medieval and post-Reformation Roman

Catholic moraltheology tended to separate moral teaching from dogmatic theology.

The significance of the relation of moral teaching to divine revelation lies in the problem of determining

the nature of the particular “highest good” that characterizes any ethical system. Without such a

determination of the nature of this good, one could easily have the impression that morality is simply

obedience to a set of rules or laws the observance of which has been labeled, more or less arbitrarily,

good. In the light of revelation, sin is seen as a deterioration of the fundamental disposition of a person

toward God, rather than as a breaking of rules or laws. Virtue is viewed as the habitual capacity of a

person to respond freely and consciously to situations in a manner that reflects and intensifies his

conformity to Jesus Christ.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/391754/moral-theology