Universal Ethic-Theoretical Foundations 3-Nature, Man, God

3.3. Nature, Man, and God: From Harmony to Conflict

69. The concept of natural law proposes the idea that nature is the bearer of an ethical message for man, and constitutes an implicit moral norm which human reason actualizes. The vision of the world, within which the doctrine of natural law has developed and finds still today its sense, implies the reasoned conviction that there exists a harmony between the three essences which are God, man, and nature. Within such a perspective, the world is perceived as an intelligible whole, unified, by common reference from the beings which compose it, to a founding divine principle, a Logos. Beyond the impersonal and immanent Logos proposed by Stoicism and presupposed by modern natural science, Christianity affirms that the Logos is personal, transcendent, and creative. "It is not the elements of the cosmos, the laws of matter, which ultimately govern the world and mankind, but a personal God governs the stars, that is, the universe; it is not the laws of matter and of evolution that have the final say, but reason, will, love—a Person.”(68) The divine personal Logos—the Wisdom and the Word of God—is not only the intelligible transcendent Origin and Model of the universe, but also the one than maintains it in a harmonious unity and which conducts it towards its end.(69) With the dynamism that the He has inscribed within being, the Creative Word orients it toward its full realization. This dynamic orientation is none other than the divine government which carries out in time the plan of Providence, that is to say, of the Eternal Law.

70. Every creature participates in its manner in the Logos. Man, since he is defined by reason or logos, participates in the Logos in an eminent manner. In fact, through reason, he is in a position of internalizing freely the divine intention manifested in the nature of things. He expresses it for himself in the shape of a moral law that inspires him and orients him to proper acts. In such a perspective, man is not “the other” of nature. To the contrary, he establishes with the cosmos a bond of familiarity founded upon a common participation in the divine Logos.

71. For different historical and cultural reasons, that are in particular associated with the evolution of ideas during the late Middle Ages, such view of the world has lost its cultural preeminence. The nature of things is no longer law for modern man and is no longer a reference for ethics. In the metaphysical level, the substitution of the concept of the univocity of being to the concept of the analogy of being and then nominalism has undermined the foundation of the doctrine of creation as a participation in the Logos which provided the reason for a certain unity between man and nature. The nominalist universe of William of Ockham reduces itself to a juxtaposition of individual realities without profundity, because every real universe, that is, all the principles of communion between beings, is denounced as a linguistic illusion. On the anthropological level, the developments of voluntarism and the correlative exaltation of subjectivity, defined as the freedom of indifference in front of every natural inclination, dug a chasm between the human subject and nature. Presently, some think that human freedom is essentially the belief that what man is by nature does not count for anything. Therefore, the subject ought to refuse whatever meaning he did not personally select, and that to decide for oneself is that which defines man. Man, therefore, has more and more understood himself as a "denatured animal," an anti-natural being that, the more he opposes himself to nature, the more he affirms himself. Culture, proper to man, is then defined not as a humanization or transfiguration of nature with spirit, but as a negation, pure and simple, of nature. The principle result of such evolution is the schism of the real into three separate, or rather opposed, spheres: nature, human subjectivity, and God.

72. With the eclipse of metaphysics of being, the only metaphysics capable of founding upon reason the differentiated unity of the spirit and material reality, and with the growth of voluntarism, the realm of the spirit was placed in radical position to the realm of nature. Nature was not considered any longer as an epiphany of the Logos, but rather “the other” of the spirit. It was reduced to the field of bodiliness (corporeity) and strict necessity, a bodiliness (corporeity) without depth, because the world of the body was identified with extension, certainly regulated by intelligible mathematical laws, lacking any teleology or immanent end or finality. Cartesian physics, and then Newtonian physics, spread the image of inert matter that obeys passively the laws of universal determinism which the divine Spirit imposed on it and which human reason can recognize and master perfectly.(70) Only man can infuse a sense and a direction to this amorphous and insignificant mass that he manipulates with technology toward its proper end. Nature ceased to be patroness of life and of wisdom, and became the place in which man affirmed his Promethean powers. This vision seemed to give value to human freedom, but in fact, opposing both freedom and nature, robbed human freedom of any objective norms for its conduct. This led to the idea of a human creation of total arbitrariness, or rather, to nihilism pure and simple.

73. In such a context, where nature does not contain any longer any immanent teological rationality, and seems to have lost all affinity or relations with the world of the spirit, the logical passage from knowledge of the structures of being to moral obligations appears to be effectively impossible, and falls under the criticism of “natural sophism or paralogism (naturalist fallacy)” as denounced by David Hume, and later, George Edward Moore in his Principia Ethica (1903). In fact, the good is divided from being and from truth. Ethics is separated from metaphysics.

74. The evolution of the understanding of the relation of man with nature has also translated itself in the revival of a radical anthropological dualism which opposes the spirit and the body, since the body is in whatever way the “nature” of every one of us.(71) Such a dualism manifests itself in the refusal to recognize any human and ethical significance in the natural inclinations that precede the decisions of individual reason. The body, a reality adjudged extraneous to the subjectivity, becomes a pure "to have," an object manipulated by technology as a function of the interests of the individual subjectivity.(72)

75. Besides, through the emergence of a metaphysical conception in which human acts and divine acts enter into competition, because they are understood in a univocal way, and are placed, wrongly, on the same level, the legitimate affirmation of the autonomy of the human subject implies that God has excluded himself from the sphere of human subjectivity. Every reference to a norm coming from God or from nature as an expression of the wisdom of God, that is, “heteronomy,” is perceived as a threat to the autonomy of the subject. The notion of natural law appears then incompatible with the authentic dignity of the subject.

(69) Cf. also Athanasius of Alexandria, Traité contre les païens, [Against the Pagans] 42 ["Sources chrétiennes", 18, 195]) : "Like a musician who accords the lyre in unison with the the art of sharp notes with flat notes, middle notes with other notes, in order to perform one melody, such is the Wisdom of God, the Word, who tends to the universe as if it were a lyre, uniting beings of the air with those of the earth, and the beings of the sky with those of the air, combining together the parts; leads all things with by its command and with its will; produces so all beauty and harmony, one world and one order of the world.”

(70) The physis of the ancients, taking action upon the existence of a certain non-being (matter), preserved the contingency of earthly reality and resisted the pretensions of human reason to impose upon reality a purely rational deterministic order. So it left open the possibility of a real action of human freedom in the world.

(71) Cf. John Paul II, Letter to Families to , n. 19: The philosopher who formulated the principle of "Cogito, ergo sum,” "I think, therefore I am," also gave the modern concept of man its distinctive dualistic character. It is typical of rationalism to make a radical contrast in man between spirit and body, between body and spirit. But man is a person in the unity of his body and his spirit. The body can never be reduced to mere matter: it is a spiritualized body, as man's spirit is so closely united to the body that he can be described as an embodied spirit.

(72) The ideology of gender, that denies any anthropological or moral meaning to the natural difference of the sexes, is based upon this dualist perspective. Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Man and of Woman in the Church and in the World, n. 2: “In order to avoid the domination of one sex or the other, their differences tend to be denied, viewed as mere effects of historical and cultural conditioning. In this perspective, physical difference, termed sex, is minimized, while the purely cultural element, termed gender, is emphasized to the maximum and held to be primary. . . . While the immediate roots of this second tendency are found in the context of reflection on women's roles, its deeper motivation must be sought in the human attempt to be freed from one's biological conditioning. According to this perspective, human nature in itself does not possess characteristics in an absolute manner: all persons can and ought to constitute themselves as they like, since they are free from every predetermination linked to their essential constitution.”

Universal Ethic-Theoretical Foundations 2-Nature, Persons, and Freedom

3.2. Nature, persons, and freedom

64. The notion of nature is especially complex, and is not completely unambiguous. In philosophy, Greek thought regarding physis plays a certain role. In it, nature refers to the principle of specific ontological identity of a subject, i.e., the essence by which it is defined together with its intelligible and stable characteristics. Such essence is given the name nature, above all when it is proposed as the internal principle of movement which orients the subject toward its realization. The notion of nature does not make reference to a static fact, but signifies the dynamic real principle of the development of the subject and of its specific activity. The notion of nature was developed initially with the thought of material and sensible reality, but it is not limited to such a “physical” ambit, and it applies analogically to spiritual reality.

65. The idea according to which beings possess a nature is imposed upon the spirit when it wants to give a reason of the immanent finality of beings and of the regularity which is perceived in their mode of acting and of reacting.(65) Considering beings as natures means recognizing their proper consistency and affirming that they are centers of relative autonomy in the order of being and acting, and not simple illusions or temporary constructions of consciousness. But these "natures" are not ontological unities closed within themselves and simply juxtaposed one against the other. They act upon each other, maintaining between themselves complex causal relationships. In the spiritual order, persons weave together in intersubjective relationships. Natures form therefore a net and, in the final analysis, an order, that is to say, a unified series which refers to a principle.(66)

66. With Christianity, the physis of the ancients was re-thought and integrated in a grander and more profound vision of reality. On the one hand, the God of the Christian revelation is not a simple component of the universe, an element of the great All of nature. To the contrary, He is the transcendent and free Creator of the universe. In fact, the finite universe cannot be founded upon itself, but it points towards the mystery of an infinite God, who through love has created it ex nihilo [out of nothing] and remains free to intervene in the course of nature any time that he wills. On the other hand, the transcendent mystery of God is reflected in the mystery of the human person as an image of God. The human person has the capacity of consciousness and of love; he is given freedom, is capable of entering into communion with others, and is called by God to a destiny which transcends the finality of physical nature. The human person completes himself in a free and gratuitous relationship of love with God who realizes himself in history.

67. With its insistence on freedom as a condition of the response of man to the initiative of the love of God, Christianity has contributed in a decisive manner to the place given to the notion of the person in philosophical discourse, so as to give it a decisive influence in ethical doctrine. In addition, the theological exploration of the Christian mystery has led to a very significant deepening of the philosophical subject of the person. First, the notion of a person serves to designate the distinctions of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in the infinite mystery of the one divine nature. Second, the person is the point where--with the respect to the distinction and the distance between the two natures, divine and human--the ontological unity of the Man-God, Jesus Christ, is established. In Christian theological tradition, the person presents two complementary aspects. On the one hand, according to the definition of Boethius take up by scholastic theology, the person is an “individual substance (existence) of rational nature."(67) This refers to the unity of an ontological subject which, being of spiritual nature, enjoys a dignity and an autonomy which manifests itself in a consciousness of himself, and in the oneness of a ontological subject that, being of spiritual nature, enjoys of a dignity and of an autonomy that is shown in the conscience of himself and in the free mastery of his own acts. On the other hand, the person manifests himself in his capacity of entering into relationships: the person exercises his acts within the intersubjective order of community and of love.

68. The person is not opposed to nature. To the contrary, nature and person are two notions which complement each other. From one perspective, every human person is a unique realization of human nature understood in a metaphysical sense. Form another perspective, the human person--in the free choices with which he answers in the concrete of his "here and now" to his unique and transcendent vocation--assumes the orientations provided by his nature. In fact, nature places the conditions on the exercise of freedom, and indicates an orientation with respect to the choices that the person ought to accomplish. Reflecting upon the intelligibility of his nature, the person thus there discovers the ways of his own realization.

(65) The theory of evolution, which tends to reduce the species to a precarious and provisional balance in the flow of what is to come, does it not replace perhaps radically this concept of nature? In fact, whatever may be its value on the level of empirical biological description, the notion of species responds to a permanent requirement of philosophical explanation of the living. Only recourse to a formal specification, irreducible to a sum of the material properties, is able to provide reasons of the intelligibility of the internal functioning of a living organism considered as one totally coherent.

(66) The theological doctrine of original sin highlights strongly the real unity of human nature. Human nature cannot be reduced to a simple abstraction of a sum of real individuals. Rather, human nature is indicated as a totality which embraces all men who share in the one same destiny. The simple fact of being born (you are born) puts us in lasting relations of solidarity with all other men.

(67) Boethius, Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius, c. 3 [PL 64, col. 1344]: “Persona est rationalis naturae individua substantia.” Cf. St. Bonaventure, Commentaria in librum I Sentantiarum, d. 25, a. 1, q. 2; St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Ia, q. 29, a. 1.

(68) Benedict XVI, Encyclical Spe salvi, n. 5.

Universal Ethic-Theoretical Foundations 1-Experience to Theory

Chapter 3:

The Theoretical Foundations of the Natural Law

3.1. From Experience to Theory

60. The spontaneous acquisition of fundamental ethical values which express themselves in the precepts of the natural law constitutes the point of departure of the process that leads the moral subject through the judgment of conscience which formulates what are the moral requirements that impose themselves in his concrete situation. It is the competence of the theologian and of the philosopher to take up this experience of the acquisition of first principles of ethics so as to establish its the value and found it upon reason. The recognition of these philosophical or theological foundations does not, however, make conditional the spontaneous adherence to common values. In fact, the moral subject can carry out practically the orientations of the natural law without being capable, on the ground of some particular intellectual conditioning, of comprehending explicitly the natural law’s ultimate theoretical foundations.

61. The philosophical justification of the natural law presents two levels of coherence and of depth. The idea of a natural law is justified first of all on the plane of observation as reflected in the anthropological constants that characterize a humanization of persons and a harmonious social life. The reflected experience, transmitted by traditional wisdom, philosophy, or from the human sciences, presents agreement as to some of the required conditions because some demonstrate better the proper human capacity in his personal and communal life.(59) So it is recognized that certain behaviors express an exemplary excellence in the way of life and are better able to realize one’s authentic humanity. These define the broad lines of a properly moral ideal of a virtuous life “according to nature,” that is to say, in manner that conforms to the profound nature of the human subject.(60)

62. Nevertheless, only the assumption of the metaphysical dimension of the real is able to provide to the natural law its fullness and complete philosophical justification. In fact, metaphysics proposes to understand that the universe contains within itself the ultimate explanation of its existence, and manifests the fundamental structure of what is real: the distinction between God, the self-existent Being, and those other beings that obtain from Him their existence. God is the Creator, the free and transcendent source of all other beings. These receive from Him, "by measure and number and weight" (Wisdom 11:20), existence according to a nature that defines them. Creatures are therefore the epiphany of the wisdom of a personal creator, of a foundational Logos that is expressed and is revealed in them. "Every creature is a divine word, because it is a word of God," writes St. Bonaventure.(61)

63. The Creator is not only the beginning of the creatures but also the transcendent end towards which they tend by nature. So creatures are enlivened by a dynamism that carries them to realize themselves, each it is own fashion, in the union with God. Such dynamism is transcendent in the measure in which proceeds from the eternal law, that is to say, from the plan of divine providence that exists in the spirit of the Creator.(62) But it is also immanent, because it is not imposed from the outside upon creatures, but it is inscribed in their very nature. The purely material creatures realize spontaneously the law of their essence, while spiritual creatures realize it in personal manner. In fact, they internalize the dynamisms which define them and orient them freely towards their own complete realization. These express themselves as fundamental norms of their moral acts—properly said, it is the moral law—and they freely undertake the effort to realize it. The natural law is defined as a participation in the eternal law.(63) It is mediated in part by the inclinations of nature, expressions of the creator’s wisdom, and in part by the light of of human reason which interprets and which is itself a participation created by the the light of the divine intelligence. The ethics thus presents itself as if it were a “participated theonomy.”(64)


(59) For example, experimental psychology highlights the importance of the active presence of the parents of one and the other sex for the harmonious development of the personality of the child, or still the decisive role of the paternal authority for the construction of his or her identity. Political history suggests that the participation of all in decisions that regard the community is generally a factor that favors social peace and political stability.

(60) At this first level, the expression of the natural law sometimes makes abstraction to an explicit reference to God. Certainly, being open to transcendence has a part in virtuous behaviors that ought to attend a complete man, but God is not necessarily recognized as the foundation and the source of the natural law, nor as the last end that mobilizes and hierarchizes the different virtuous behaviors. This inexplicit recognition of God as ultimate moral norm, seems to like moral rule last seems to prevent the "empirical" approach to the natural law of constituting itself as a moral doctrine properly so called.

(61) St. Bonaventure entarius in Ecclesiasten, cap. 1 («Opera omnia, VI», ed. Quaracchi, 1893, p. 16): "Verbum divinum est omnis creatura, quia Deum loquitur."

(62) Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Ia-IIae, q. 91, art. 1: “Law is nothing else but a dictate of practical reason emanating from the ruler who governs a perfect community. Now it is evident, granted that the world is ruled by divine providence . . . that the whole community of the universe is governed by a divine plan. Wherefore the very idea of the government of things in God the ruler of the universe has the nature of law. And since the divine plan’s conception of things is not subject to time but is eternal . . . therefore it is that this kind of law must be called eternal. (Nihil est aliud lex quam quoddam dictamen practicae rationis in principe qui gubernat aliquam communitatem perfectam. Manifestum est autem, supposito quod mundus divina providentia regatur [...], quod tota communitas universi gubernatur ratione divina. Et ideo ipsa ratio gubernationis rerum in Deo sicut in principe universitatis existens, legis habet rationem. Et quia divina ratio nihil concipit ex tempore, sed habet aeternum conceptum [...], inde est quod huiusmodi legem oportet dicere aeternam).”

(63) Cf. ibid, Ia-IIae, q. 91, art. 2: "Unde patet quod lex naturalis nihil aliud est quam participatio legis aeternae in rationali creatura.”

(64) John Paul II, Encyclical Veritatis splendor, n. 41. "The teaching on the natural law as the foundation of an ethics is accessible by reference to natural reason. History attests to it. But, in fact, this teaching reached its full maturity only under the influence of the Christian revelation. First of all, because the understanding of the natural law as a participation in the eternal law is closely bound to a metaphysics of creation. Now, this, although it is of accessible by philosophical reason, it is truly presented and explained only under the influence of biblical monotheism. And then because Revelation, for example through the Decalogue, explains, confirms, refines and entire the fundamental principles of the natural law.” {editor's note: This quotation is not from Veritatis splendor, n. 41}

Universal Ethic-Perception of Moral Values 6-Moral Dispositions and Concrete Acts

2.6. The moral dispositions of the person and his concrete acts

55. To arrive at a right evaluation of what to do, the moral subject must possess a certain number of internal dispositions that serve to allow him to be open to the demands of the natural law and also be well-informed about the facts of his concrete situation. Within the context of pluralism, which is our circumstance, we are more aware of the fact that one cannot construct a morality founded upon the natural law without reflecting on the inner dispositions or virtues that enable the moralist to elaborate an adequate rule of action. That is even truer for the subject who is impacted personally by the action, and who must formulate a judgment of conscience. So it is not unexpected that there has been a contemporary revival of a “morality of virtue” inspired by the Aristotelian tradition. Insisting thus on the moral qualities demanded by an adequate moral reflection, the important role that diverse cultures attribute to the figure of the sage is recognized. He enjoys a special capacity of discernment by the measure in which he possesses the inner moral dispositions required to formulate an adequate ethical judgment. A discernment of this type should characterize the moralist when he is forced to concretize the precepts of the natural law, just as every autonomous subject is required to do to make a judgment in conscience and to formulate an immediate concrete norm to govern his action.

56. Morality cannot therefore limit itself to producing simply rules. It must also favor the formation of the subject affected by the action so that he is able to adapt the universal precepts of the natural law to the concrete conditions of existence in different cultural contexts. Such capacity is assured by the moral virtues, in particular, that of prudence, which integrates the singularity needed to guide the concrete act. The prudent man should possess not only knowledge of the universal, but also knowledge of the particular. To indicate well the actual character of this virtue, St. Thomas Aquinas does not hesitate to say: "If one is to have only one of the two kinds of knowledge, it is preferable that he have knowledge of the particular reality, since it is closer to the action before him.”(58). Through the use of prudence one tries to penetrate with reason the contingency that is always mysterious so as to adapt oneself to reality in the most precise manner possible, to assimilate the multiplicity of circumstances, to record the most faithfully as possible a unique and indescribable situation. Such an objective requires diverse operations and abilities which prudence must actuate.

57. Nevertheless, the individual should not lose himself in the concrete and in the particular, as is the approach of "situation ethics." He should discover the "straight rule of action" and establish an adequate rule of action. This straight line is derived from first principles. He should think on the first principles of practical reason, but must also rely on the moral virtues to open and render the promptings of his will and sensible affections connatural with the various human goods. It is this which indicates to the prudent man what ends he ought to pursue in the daily flow of his life. At this point the individual will be in a position of formulating the concrete rule that is required and of conferring upon the given action a light of justice, of fortitude, or of temperance. One may speak here of the exercise of an "emotional intelligence": the rational powers, without losing their specificity, are exercised within the the emotional field, so that the whole of the person is pledged to moral action.

58. Prudence is indispensable to the moral subject because of the flexibility required in the adaptation of the universal moral principles to diverse situations. But such flexibility does not authorize seeing in prudence a sort of easy compromise with respect to moral values. To the contrary, it is precisely through prudent decisions that the concrete requirements of moral truth are expressed in the subject. Prudence is a necessary passage for authentic moral obligation.

59. Within a pluralistic society such as ours, this a perspective is invested with an importance that is unable to be overestimated without undergoing considerable damage. In fact, this perspective was born from the fact that moral science cannot supply to the subject agent a rule that can be applied adequately and, as it were, automatically to a concrete situation; only the conscience of the subject, the judgment of his practical reason, can formulate the immediate rule of action. But at the same time, this perspective does not ever abandon conscience to subjectivity alone: conscience opens itself to the moral truth in such manner that its judgment is adequate. The natural law is not able therefore to to be presented as a ready-fashioned ensemble of rules that are imposed a priori upon the moral subject, but is an objective source of inspiration for the process, eminently personal, of making decisions.

(58) Cf. Id., Sententia libri Ethicorum, Lib. VI, 6 (ed. Leonina, t. XLVII, 353-354): "Prudence does not consider only the universal, in which there is not action; but should know the particular, since it is active, that is to say, the principle of action. Now, the action is on the particular. So some that do not have universal knowledge are very active in some special reality in which they have a universal knowledge, because they have the experience of this particular reality. . . . Since therefore prudence is active reason, it is necessary that the prudent man have knowledge of both, namely of the universal and the particular; or, if he is to have one alone, it is better that he have knowledge of the particular, since it is is closer to the action. (Prudentia enim non considerat solum universalia, in quibus non est actio; sed oportet quod cognoscat singularia, eo quod est activa, idest principium agendi. Actio autem est circa singularia. Et inde est, quod quidam non habentes scientiam universalium sunt magis activi circa aliqua particularia, quam illi qui habent universalem scientiam, eo quod sunt in aliis particularibus experti. [...]. Quia igitur prudentia est ratio activa, oportet quod prudens habeat utramque notitiam, scilicet et universalium et particularium; vel, si alteram solum contingat ipsum habere, magis debet habere hanc, scilicet notitiam particularium quae sunt propinquiora operationi)".

Universal Ethic-Perception of Moral Values 5-Application of Common Precepts

2.5. The application of the common precepts: historicity of the natural law

53. It is impossible to remain on the general level which is that of the first principles of the natural law. In fact, moral reflection needs to lower itself and throw its light upon the concrete level of action. But the more it confronts concrete situations, the more its conclusions are characterized by a note of variability and uncertainty. It is not unusual therefore that the concrete application of the precepts of the natural law can take on different shapes in different cultures, or even in different periods within the same culture. It suffices to remember the evolution of moral reflection on matters like slavery, interest on loans, the duel, or capital punishment. At times, such evolution leads to a better understanding of the moral requisites. Also, at times, the evolution of the political or economic situation leads to a new evaluation of particular rules that had been established previously. In fact, morality occupies itself with contingent reality which evolves in time. Although he lived in a Christian time, a theologian of the likes of St. Thomas Aquinas had a very clear perception. “The practical reason,” he wrote in his Summa Theologiae, “is occupied with contingent matters, about which human actions are concerned: and consequently, although there is necessity in the general principles, the more we descend to matters of detail, the more frequently we encounter defects. . . . In matters of action, truth or practical rectitude is not the same for all, as to matters of detail, but only as to the general principles: and where there is the same rectitude in matters of detail, it is not equally known to all. . . . And this principle will be found to fail the more, according as we descend further into detail.”(57)

54. Such perspective renders an account of the historicity of the natural law, whose concrete applications can vary over time. At the same time, it opens a door to the reflection of the moralists, inviting dialogue and discussion. This is all the more necessary because, in moral matters, pure deduction by syllogism is not adequate. The more the moralist confronts concrete situations, so much the more should he run back to the wisdom of experience, an experience which integrates the contributions of other sciences and grows with contact with women and men affected by action. Only this wisdom of experience is able to consider the multiplicity of circumstances, and to arrive at an orientation regarding the way to what is good hic et nunc [here and now]. The moralist (this is the difficulty of his work) should return to the combined resources of theology, of philosophy, as well as human, economic, and biological sciences to recognize adequately the facts of a situation and to identify correctly the concrete requirements of human dignity. At the same time, he must be especially attentive to safeguard the basic facts with the precepts of natural law that remain unaffected by cultural variations.

(57) St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Ia-IIae, q. 94, art. 4: "Ratio practica negotiatur circa contingentia, in quibus sunt operationes humanae, et ideo, etsi in communibus sit aliqua necessitas, quanto magis ad propria descenditur, tanto magis invenitur defectus [...]. In operativis autem non est eadem veritas vel rectitudo practica apud omnes quantum al propria, sed solum quantum ad communia, et apud illos apud quod est eadem recititudo in propriis, non est aequaliter omnibus nota. [...]. Et hoc tanto magis invenitur deficere, quanto magis ad particularia descenditur.”