LEGAL THEORY AND CANON LAW CONSIDERATIONS ON MORALITY AND LAW FROM HISTORICAL
3. Meaning of Morals, Ethics and Law
1) Morality lays on obligations which spring from conscience of single people.37 Every human action has moral contents, even it is internal (interior) or external (exterior) act as St. Thomas Aquinas teaches.38 Both of them are essential the free working of will because this is the one which “humanizes” the human act (actus humanus). It is still firm belief of the Catholic Church that the described rule or prescription in a concrete norm – law – must have an internal harmony to that meaning which can be found in the moral order. This is the reason whereat in the canon law system – the ecclesiastical disciplinary order – is and shall be inseparable the canonical norm from the Church’s moral teaching, as indicated in crystal-clear form in the last canon of the New Code: “[…] keeping in mind the salvation of souls, which in the Church must always be the supreme law.”39 2) Ethics, as compared with morals is a discipline within philosophy.40 It defines those proper scientific methods and technic which can be used for the analysis of the ethical human act, never confused with the moral level of the human activity. An action can be ethical if the person has kept every precisely defined prescription, including those rules which protect within the human society the citizens against some intentional misleading or not allowed marketing manner.41
36 Suárez op. cit. 14.; cf. P. Pace: Suárez and the Natural Law. In: V. Salas – R. Fastiggi (ed.): A Companion to Francisco Suárez. (Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 53) Leiden, 2015. 274–296.
37 Cf. F. Compagnoni – G. Piana – S. Privitera (a cura di): Nuovo dizionario di teologia morale.
Milano, 1990.
38 Cf. I-II q. 71 a. 6: […] Quod autem aliquis actus sit humanus, habet ex hoc quod est voluntarius […] sive sit voluntarius quasi a voluntate elicitus, ut ipsum velle et eligere, sive quasi a voluntate imperatus, ut exteriores actus vel locutionis vel operationis […]. S. Thomae Aquinatis: Summa Theologiae. (Biblioteca de autores cristianos 466) II. Madrid, 1952. II. 475.
39 CIC Can. 1752 – […] servata aequitate canonica et prae oculis habita salute animarum, quae in Ecclesia suprema semper lex esse debet.
40 M. Vidal: La fundamentación de la ética teologica como respuesta al reto de la modernidad.
Moralia, 3., (1981) 419–446.
41 J. Haldane: Toward a renewal of Ethics in Public Life. In: E. S. Vizi – T. G. Kucsera (ed.):
Europe in a World in Transformation. (Conference at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 14th-16th December 2006) Budapest, 2008. 159–164., especially 163–164.
Legal Theory and Canon Law Considerations on Morality… 37
However, this does not make this action automatically moral, because perhaps the entire process was opposite to the conscience, therefore cannot be justified by the natural or divine law.
3) There are several definitions of law, norm, maxim or rule by many authors of our history. Nevertheless, here we would like to consider St. Augustin’s terminology which was used later on as basis for Christian thinkers.42 All of those earthly norms which do not derive from the eternal law (lex aeterna) cannot consider as real law.43 If we reflect to this principle, we can declare that the essential peculiarity of a real lawful norm its biding – directly or indirectly – to the eternal law which summarizes and keeps the will of God.44 Based on this we can distinguish:
a) Natural law (Lex naturalis), if we talk about the rational created human being who received through his/her nature the eternal law. This area of law has the closest and fundamental internal relation to morals and conscience.45
42 Sz. A. Szuromi: Legislazione civile – legislazione Canonica. In: L. Berkvens – J. Hallebeek – G. Martyn – P. Nève (ed.): Recto ordine procedit magister. Liber amicorum E.C. Coppens.
(Iuris Scripta Historica XXVIII; Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium) Brussel, 2012. 303–312.
43 Cf. De libero arbitrio, 1. 6: […] Nihil est enim tam arduum atque difficile, quod non, Deo adiuvante, planissimum atque expeditissimum fiat. In ipsum itaque suspensi atque ab eo auxilium deprecantes, quod instituimus quaeramus. Et prius responde mihi, utrum lex quae litteris promulgatur, hominibus hanc vitam viventibus opituletur. […] Cum ergo duae istae leges ita sibi videantur esse contrariae, ut una earum honorum dandorum populo tribuat potestatem, auferat altera; et cum ista secunda ita lata sit, ut nullo modo ambae in una civitate simul esse possint; num dicemus aliquem earum iniustam esse, et ferri minime debuisse? […]
Quid? Illa lex quae summa ratio nominatur, cui semper obtemperandum est, et per quam mali miseram, boni beatam vitam merentur, per quam denique illa quam temporalem vocandam diximus, recte fertur recteque mutatur, potestne cuipiam intellegenti non incommutabilis aeternaque videri? An potest aliquando iniustum esse ut mali miseri, boni autem beati sint; aut modestus et gravis populus ipse sibi magistratus creet, dissolutus vero et nequam ista licentia careat? […] Simul etiam te videre arbitror in illa temporali nihil esse iustum atque legitimum, quod non ex hac aeterna sibi homines derivarint: nam si populus ille quodam tempore iuste honores dedit, quodam rursus iuste non dedit; haec vicissitudo temporalis ut iusta esset, ex illa aeternitate tracta est, qua semper iustum est gravem populum honores dare, levem non dare:
an tibi aliter videtur? […] Cum ergo haec sit una lex, ex qua illae omnes temporales ad homines regendos variantur, num ideo ipsa variari ullo modo potest? […] Saint’ Agostino, Dialogi II (Opere di Sant’ Agostino III/2), Roma, 1976. 172–174.
44 S. Augustinus: Contra Faustinum, XXII c. 27.
45 S. Thomas, I-II q. 91 art. 2: […] Praeterea, per legem ordinatur homo in suis actibus ad finem […] habitum est. Sed ordinatio humanorum actuum ad finem non est per naturam, sicut accidit in creaturis irrationabilibus, quae solo appetitu naturali agunt propter finem: sed agit homo propter finem per rationem et voluntatem. Ergo non est aliqua lex homini naturalis. – Preterea, quanto aliquis est liberior, tanto minus est sub lege. Sed homo est liberior omnibus animalibus, propter liberum arbitrium, quod prae aliis animalibus habet. Cum igitur alia animalia non
b) Positive divine law (Lex positiva divina), which is given by the supernatural order and known from the divine revelation.
c) Positive civil law (Lex positiva civilis – Lex humanis) which is ordered by the competent civil authority. This by its essence can regulate only those external acts and relations which are within the expressed intention of the ruler.
The positive civil law indeed cannot be opposite to the natural or positive divine law – as we pointed out concerning St. Augustine’s concept – if we accept the natural law theory. Moreover, the positive law should be derived from natural law principles and applied to concrete human conditions. Before the domination of law-positivism (i.e. 19th century) this form of argumentation by natural law was obvious, like the accepting of legal theory of St. Thomas Aquinas or Francisco Suárez.46 The human society needed an extreme unhuman deep crisis to turns again toward the natural law theory as basis for civil legislation, which crisis happened in the first half of the 20th century. The trauma of the Second World War had showed how those concepts which lay merely on relativist, empiric or positivistic foundation could destroy the natural value of the human society, destroying the single human person.47 The formal criteria of the legislation process cannot be guarantee for their human contents, therefore the created law by the representative majority of the society or the ruler, without accepting some general principles can easily conclude into unlawful prescriptions. This unlawfulness is essentially opposite to the ontological peculiarities of the citizens as persons. Therefore, if we deny the existence of the natural law’s norms, it gives room for denying the objective right for life of human persons, because this right becomes only a changeable law – created by human legislator – which can be modified in any time by the same level of human authority. Gustav Radbruch (†1949), who studied at the Humboldt University of Berlin, at the University of Leipzig, and at the University of Heidelberg, was that particular legal-theorist who had realized this conflict as a former positivist in Germany48,
subdantur legi naturali, nec homo alicui legi naturali subditur. Summa Theologiae. Taurini – Romae, 1950. II. 414.
46 Suarez op. cit. I c. 10 n. 1–2., 16–17.; I c. 11 n. 1, 3; III c. 16 n. 3–4.
47 J. Delgado Pinto: Derecho. Historia. Derecho Natural. Reflexiones acerca del problema de la oposición entre la existencia del Derecho Natural y la historicidad de los Ordenes Jurídicos.
Anales de la Cátedra Francisco Suárez, IV/2., (1964) 73.
48 E. Wolf: Revolution or Evolution in Gustav Radbruch’s Legal Philosophy. Notre Dame Law School NDL Scholarship. Natural Law Forum (http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.
cgi?article=1024&context=nd_naturallaw_forum) [consulted on February 21st 2015].
Legal Theory and Canon Law Considerations on Morality… 39
to be a strong “echo” of the natural law theory in the USA and later on of the new natural law movement in Europe.49
d) Finally, here must be indicated the merely ecclesiastical positive law50, which is independent indeed from the former – positive civil law – category, because it comes in force by the legislative decision of the competent authority of the Church. Such a canonical norm – as we have already underlined – shall be always in direct or indirect connection with those norms which have been kept in the Bible and the Holy Tradition because these sources define in all times the essential and goal of the Church’s daily activity. It gives the fundamental reason, that the canonical norms to be legislated under the supreme governance and control of the Roman Pontiff.51