Akademi Kontra Indiferentisme

[DeusVult]

IOTA UNUM
Romano Amerio




p466-468

202. Moral life as a point in time.

This is an important religious truth, but it is also difficult, paradoxical and offensive to commonly held ideas. It seems unjust and unreasonable that a man's moral worth should be judged by reference to the state at the time he dies and not to an overall balance of good and evil in his life.

Nonetheless, the Christian religion teaches that one's eternal destiny depends on the moral state in which a man finds himself at the point of death: thus it does not depend on past historical state of affairs, but on the existing point that his moral life has reached when death overtakes him. The other view, that one's fate depends on a weighing up of good and bad deeds is attributed by Segneri[2] to some of the rabbis, and is also held by the Muslims, who refer to a mizan or balance of merits. But the teaching of the Catholic Church asserts the decisiveness of one's present moral state; and that teaching has been set forth in catechisms, preached in every pulpit and defined by a dogmatic decree of the second Council of Lyons.[3]

Rosmini explains this difficult truth very perceptively: "One should not consider a man's moral goodness like two qualities that exist contemporaneously, increasing and decreasing, canceling each other out; nor should one say that a man is damned when the quantity of evil accumulates and reaches a level established by God according to his free will and the law of his justice. The whole man is good or bad, quia nihil est damnationis in eis qui vere consepulti sunt cum Christo.[4] Good cannot really exist in a bad man, because quae societas Christi ad Belial?.[5] There are indeed venial sins in good men but these are not such as to make them cease being fundamentally good."[6] I know there are difficulties presented by common sense, and even biblical texts, as well by traditional depiction of divine judgment as a weighing up of souls. Nonetheless the importance of one's moral state at a particular point in time stems from a clear teaching of Christian religion. Moral action is a relation of man to his last end; it is not a relation with created things, or with worldly ends, or with the future of the human race. Now, the respect man owes to the law is owed and payable at every moment in time independently of every other. Past and future moments in life are absent here and now, but man's relation to his ultimate end, namely God, is always present, and it dominates what the whole of man is, and leaves no part of himself that he can give to finite things as subtracted from God. This is what gives moral life its seriousness. Not one instant of a man's life is free form him to devote to sin; this is a truth that has been preached in every age of Christian history. Every moment of wasted time has to be redeemed,[7] that is, put into relation with the transcendent apart from which there is nothing but non-being, whether metaphysical or moral.



Footnotes:
[2] Paolo Segneri S.J. (1624-1694) the most famous preacher in seventeenth century Italy. [Translator's note.]

[3] In 1274. See Denzinger, 464.

[4] Cf. Romans 8:1. "For there is no damnation for those who are truly buried with Christ".

[5] Cf. II Corinthians 6:15. "What company has Christ with the devil?"

[6] Rosmini, Epist., Vol. IV, p.214.

[7]Cf. Ephesians, 5:16.
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Mohon doa

[brother sun]

Pak DV, I would like to comment this post. Is it enable to relate this Christian religion teaching with the passage in the bible, ie. Mt 25:1-13?
Which we are always remainded to standby and watch because we never know the day nor the hour.

No matter how good our past historical state, which come after wighing up our good and bad deeds (which in the passage, I think, is symbolyzed by the lamps brought by five foolish virgins), our eternal destiny is not depends on it. But, it depends on our moral state at the time of our death (which in the passage, I think, is symbolyzed by the coming of the bridegroom). CMIIW.

So, every good deeds we do in our life function as preparation and exercise for us, that then we could have good moral state in the end of our life. If we never practice how could we win then race. CMIIW again.

That's all my opinion. I hope I'm not off topic. Sorry, if my english is not good.

Gbu
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SEMEL CATHOLICUS, SEMPER CATHOLICUS

[DeusVult]

Note: a translation in Indonesian of the above is available here. You could also discuss in Indonesian there.

brother sun wrote:

Pak DV, I would like to comment this post. Is it enable to relate this Christian religion teaching with the passage in the bible, ie. Mt 25:1-13? Which we are always remainded to standby and watch because we never know the day nor the hour.

That would be correct.

Quote:

So, every good deeds we do in our life function as preparation and exercise for us, that then we could have good moral state in the end of our life. If we never practice how could we win then race. CMIIW again.

Correct.
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Mohon doa

[brother sun]

Thanks a lot, pak DV. Unfortunately, right now I have no idea what to discuss (very poor of me ) . But, I will follow the discussion there. Hope, I can contribute later. Thanks again.
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SEMEL CATHOLICUS, SEMPER CATHOLICUS

Last edited by brother sun on Thu, 22-12-2011 1:59 pm; edited 1 time in total