Education in the university is constituted not only by joint daily activities, but, under certain circumstances, it is itself an area for study and research. The education of the human being comprises such abundant and complex dimensions that its research approximation is necessarily limited. However, due to their importance some areas of education evoke particular interest, resulting from the profound repercussions they have upon individuals and societies. Without a doubt, one of these areas is moral education.

The university rightly engages in reflection and debate with regard to the public and explicit import of moral education, whose effect on the configuration of our future as persons and as human groups is evident. In effect, if the future is built on the foundations that are being laid today, and if the designs for tomorrow become a reality in the measure that we have carried out the blueprints and structural design, then moral education may be understood as a series of structural plans that will facilitate the careful construction of our future society. Obviously, it is the job of the university to design the plans for building the future and moral education is central to this essential task. Yet, it is difficult for the university to take a responsible part in building society without a prior and in-depth understanding of the structural forms which will support the future edifice. If the university does not as "universitas scientiarum" contribute the elements for carrying out the design, society will emerge with possible defects and deficiencies which could have been avoided.

We shall approach the topic of moral education in terms of its foundations and place it in an interdisciplinary context. This is because the design of human conduct that will serve as the basis for a future society necessarily depends on all kinds of human competencies -- and the sciences from which they spring -- that facilitate its design and development. Once an adequate interdisciplinary blueprint has been agreed upon, we turn to the subject itself. As a human activity moral education requires an adequate understanding of the principal actor in the educational process. On the other hand, as human behavior susceptible of development in the educational process comes from conscious experience, an interdisciplinary approach and moral experience are the two fundamental elements of moral education.

Toward this end, however, the university cannot ignore a dimension which pertains historically, culturally and anthropologically to our context, namely that of religion and Christianity. In any case, due to its universality the university engages all available resources, but in our milieu the fundamental contextual characteristics of the moral subject are tied to the socio-religious Christian phenomenon. Therefore, it is appropriate that the university utilizes the concepts of religious Christianity in its reflections.¹ Indeed, it may be argued that without compromising its proper limits philosophy historically has reflected passionately on religious phenomena in all its dimensions and very specifically in its relation to human moral behavior.

In order to characterize Christian moral identity reference frequently has been made to an evangelical precept: the commandment of love. From the early days of Christianity until now, this commandment has been understood as the key to Christian moral conduct. In order to reflect on the foundations of moral education within a Christian context, inevitably we consider the Christian commandment of love. However, many other aspects are to be considered separately in the analysis of this evangelical precept. First of all, a retrospective look is necessary to capture the historic dimension of Christian moral identity. Then it will be necessary to establish epistemological and hermeneutical criteria which permit a critical judgment of the past. From there it will be possible to formulate in terms of contemporary thought the Christian commandment of love as the groundwork for structural designs which can support the future edifice.

THE COMMANDMENT OF LOVE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE PAST

Approaching Current Moral Reality

Due to the great advances of modern technology and the broad capabilities of the mass media, it is possible to identify major problems that affect simultaneously large sectors of humanity. Important regions of the planet have been destroyed permanently by fratricidal war. There is evidence of commercial exploitation and economic dominance. The demographic growth of immense populations accentuates situations of extreme poverty in people already suffering from an endemic lack of resources which threatens their subsistence and development. The tireless struggle of economic powers for the exploration and domination of nations and continents has solidified structures of institutional injustice which are more and more resistant to all attempts at liberation.

In every kind of society a polarization or stratification is present between human beings with unequal possibilities; small groups control proportionately the majority of resources of whatever type, while the masses barely obtain minimal goods for their subsistence. Violence, in the form of political, military, economic, commercial and social pressures, is deployed against entire societies. The most elemental human rights are trampled upon flagrantly by the uncontested forces in power. The unchecked forces of capital exploit millions of workers in situations of unequal competition, thereby accentuating the distance between the social classes and establishing competitive pressures which lead to their mutual destruction. Science, technology and human creativity develop their inexhaustible potential while at the same time impotently contemplating the ecological deterioration resulting from their own inventions.²

If we descend from a global focus and concentrate instead on the units such as countries it is equally possible to detect a multitude of problems which on a daily basis violate individual and social existence. In such regions as Latin America, it is especially frightening to contemplate the impotence of masses of people in view of the daily situations they must endure:

o the merciless death of innocent children from hunger, malnutrition and sickness of every kind due to lack of the resources needed for survival;

o the permanent educational deficiency that subjects entire populations to an economic and social strata which becomes ever more difficult to overcome;

o the exhaustion of peoples resulting from inadequate public health services and the resources indispensable for maintaining a hygienic and healthy life;

o the weakened family structure torn by circumstantial economic pressures that impede a peaceful and stable common life;

o the violence affecting the family, as well as the political, economic and cultural life of small, unprotected societies; and

o the oppression of social and ethnic minorities and the mistreatment of the great majority of women in our society due to backward cultural traditions.³

This is but a sampling of the myriad of deplorable conditions to which for centuries our Latin American brothers have been subjected.

These factors and others are analyzed from many different scientific perspectives: sociology, political science, anthropology, economics, demography, history, law, etc. But from a philosophical and theological viewpoint, these matters require urgent ethical and moral attention. For regardless of the philosophical current to which one ascribes, one fact stands out clearly from the many problems listed above: the deterioration and breakdown of that which, although undefined, we call "the common good." By distinguishing between ethics as a philosophical discipline whose object is human conduct, and morality as a theological discipline whose object is human conduct from the viewpoint of religious phenomena, I take this problematic as an object of moral reflection.

Certainly, each of the issues mentioned has always been an object of study and definition from the moral theological viewpoint. Concretely, the Catholic Church has presented abundant documents dedicated to this issue and there abounds a lengthy theological bibliography in reference thereto. But it is of particular interest that in Latin America the above problems appear to spring from the actions of professed Christians, while the great majority of those affected by such actions also are Christian.⁴ Given that the global situations described are contrary to the common good but products of human action, we must label their authors immoral.⁵

If one accepts the hypothesis of an intrinsic morality in every religion, especially in Christianity, the paradox is clear, viz., the immorality of Christians in a Christian society. If such a simple presentation of an hypothesis be accepted, an important question follows: What has happened to Christian morality if, in spite of its supposed excellence, it does not cause Christians to act morally?⁶ By means of its documents it is possible to demonstrate that Christianity has always proposed a moral doctrine that condemns as openly immoral and against Christian principles human behavior responsible for problems such as those mentioned.

Yet historical events show that Christianity has lived a kind of theoretical-practical schizophrenia wherein one finds, on the one hand, a supreme moral doctrine and, on the other, an openly contrary behavior.⁷ This undeniable reality has given way to a justified criticism of Christianity as not living up to its own moral doctrine. This does not deny the marvelous contributions of this religion to the progress of humanity, both in the field of moral doctrine and in the practice of love and service to society. But the magnitude of Christian virtue practiced in the history of our religion does not hide the obvious scandal of a moral deficiency in part of the ecclesial community. This is especially apparent at the present time when the appreciation of the phenomena focuses on the social and fixes its attention on its structural, ideological and institutional aspects.⁸ With regard to contemporary moral theology, the treatment of such an aberration becomes inevitable and constitutes a challenge for justified self-criticism in an attitude of honesty before a world that inquires into the reason for this situation.

In considering the issue, we can reaffirm that Christian morality is synthesized in the Christian commandment of love. In the past, this commandment has remained largely unfulfilled by Christianity even to the point of producing present realities of obvious immorality. Where does one lay the blame: in the liberty of Christians who have simply disregarded the commandment of love; in the painful historical circumstances that have brought us to the present situation against our will; in the minority of followers of Christ who have been overthrown by superior forces in number and in power; in the lack of coercion by the ecclesial authorities; or in what theology calls "the force of sin" which has prevailed over the heroic goodness of our religion?

Without rejecting the relative value of such answers, contemporary moral theology has sought to articulate other possible causes for the moral inefficacy of Christianity. While contemplating the commandment of love and its treatment in the past, moral theology has dared to reflect on an aspect of unquestionable repercussion in the life of the ecclesiastical community.

Christian Moral Education until the Present

Moral theology considers Christian moral education as a hypothetical answer to the painful paradox of the moral inconsistency of Christianity. The suspicion that Christians in past centuries, as in our own time, have been morally educated in such a way that their behavior is nonetheless deficient or barely adequate is not inconceivable. Modern moralists have entered into a critical analysis of moral education in terms of its content, structure and key elements.⁹ They have detected some aspects which betray faults and inconsistencies in relation to the original postulates of the Christian faith and have also discovered elements foreign to the religion established by the person of Jesus Christ.¹⁰

A review of the works of moral theology used in clergy formation demonstrates the great preeminence of the ethical over the moral. Even worse, it presents the historical development of philosophy and its horizon in a manner which excludes pluralism of thought.¹¹ The primary postulates used in moral reflection became more the propositions born of pagan philosophy than actual experiences of the faith supported by Christian practice.¹² The almost total disregard for the scientific advances in all disciplines related to man and his relationship to the world produced a moral code that is extremely abstract and disconnected from vital human reality.¹³ The orientation of the moral formation for the sacrament of reconciliation schematizes great moral issues in very negative legal terms,¹⁴ while scriptural resources tend to operate mechanically as authoritative testimony oriented to demonstrate preestablished theses.¹⁵ Moreover, the preponderant methods employed in clerical formation are casuistic and a legal hermeneutics founded upon schools with relative authority.

This philosophy and theology have quite questionable characteristics. The philosophy in moral education is Aristotelian-Thomistic.¹⁶ With due respect to this valuable area of thought, various of its positions have produced characteristics in the moral scheme of Christians which have resulted in deficient moral behavior. Among such characteristics one can include a static understanding of the reality of the human being, the universality of principles in contrast to the accelerated evolution and variation of history, the immutability and inflexibility in abstract terms of basic principles distant from the stressful problems of everyday life, the essential abstractness of existential phenomena, the rigidity and fixation of moral norms in need of adjustment and adaptation to historical man, and the inexorable and extreme objectivism which lacks a systematic comprehension of the dynamic of unique subjective historicity.¹⁷

It is impossible not to find in all of this the influence of a metaphysics centered on universal concepts and on the individual existent as a participant in the world of essences.¹⁸ The rigid hylomorphism of Aristotelian philosophy results in similar anthropological perceptions and establishes fixed moral qualities of participants in the infinite goodness of pure act, while their corresponding intrinsic wickedness is in proportion to their potency; such elements color the perception of human spiritual and material dimensions.¹⁹ This hylomorphic anthropology is decisive for the interpretation of the human subject, but Platonic principles also play a role in relation to questions concerning origin and destiny, stressing a determinism which is far from the eschatological Biblical version.²⁰ The epistemological postulates of this philosophy inevitably served to mold the concepts of revelation and of faith with a cognitive emphasis and an objectivism arising from theories concerning the noetic identification of truth.²¹

Aristotelian ethics provided the basic structure for Christian moral knowledge as well as binding normative foundations of immutably innate primary principles, as well as outlines of freedom, conscience and law which constituted unchanging molds for Christian moral perception.²² Given that generations of Christians have been educated according to such rigid ethical-philosophical schemes and lack a specifically Christian experience of faith, the deficiencies of the Christian moral sense appear unavoidable. With a certain sense of relief, contemporary moral theology can justly place the blame for these and other not specifically Christian elements on those who forged traditional morality, including elements of Stoicism and Maniceism which, from early times, have affected Christian moral understanding.²³

For its part, theology, of course, has shaped Christian moral education. The above philosophical background came partly from a Christian educational patrimony whose theology had assimilated Aristotelianism in its methodology, epistemology and hermeneutics. Other theological characteristics upon which moral education is based are Judaism, spiritualism, historical maladaptation, interpretive literalism and impersonal rigorism.²⁴ In reality, in traditional Christian moral education, theology has been based on a written hermeneutics tied to historical literalism and fundamentalism.²⁵

In the same way, the teaching authorities frequently decreed in absolute terms to the detriment of the evolution of dogma; they mythified the tradition, stressing its value by means of pronouncements and postulates.²⁶ Thematically, fundamental theology projected a perspective of revelation and of faith oriented to strengthening the cognitive transmission of eternal truths and the immutable foundations of moral principles.²⁷ The concept of God frequently approached the philosophical propositions of an infinite and perfect Being brilliantly delineated in each of his unique attributes and capable of being assimilated, almost without any changes, to the theory of a First Cause or of a Cause of Causes.

A disencarnate Christology removed the concepts of nature and person from the historical Jesus of Nazareth in order that experts might atomize him in abstract conceptual references.²⁸ A theological anthropology was construed saturated with subtle scholastic distinctions and abstract realities that, prior to the conjugation of grace with liberty, dissected the moral human subject into separate compartments as many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle which in the daily flow of existence were very difficult to put together.²⁹

The above theological panorama has emphasized the negative aspects of Christian moral formation in order to underscore the weaknesses of past education responsible for the paradoxical deficiencies of Christian moral conduct. But this does not in any way mean that all has been deficient in the past, nor does it indicate ignorance of the marvelous theological work developed over the centuries in the Church. It is precisely to such work in theology and to the unquestionable support of Christian philosophical thought that the positive developments of Christian moral doctrine can be attributed, including the moral goodness realized by Christians throughout history. Neither would it be just to place the blame for the moral inefficacy of Christianity on the education of past epochs, obviously conditioned by their own temporal and cultural circumstances. One cannot expect the theology of that day to be in a position to analyze scriptures in accord with the critical tools now available with the advent of recently developed instruments.

Thus the relative culpability of a moral education structured along the lines of a certain philosophical and theological mentality cannot be charged as the sole and exclusive cause of the actual inconsistency in current Christian moral conduct. Yet, significant blame could be articulated against the moral inoperancy of Christianity if theological thought and philosophical pluralism underwent notable development while the educational scheme remained static and unaffected.³⁰ In any case, from an historical perspective Christian morality, synthesized in the commandment of love, was notoriously affected in its comprehension, development and execution by a limited moral education that delimited its characteristics. Additionally, it may very well be the case that in the area of education, although the Christian commandment of love, interpreted as an evangelical precept of great importance, derived its normative character from God via direct revelation, its application by the Christian was mediated by moral principles anchored within a philosophical-theological structure.³¹ In other words, the Christian commandment of love was absorbed within the strictures of a moral academy perfectly stratified and mediated to Christians in the form of catechesis, preaching, reception of the sacraments, magisterial documents and formal university instruction.³²

If contemporary moral theology has risked an honest self-criticism of its possible structural flaws and of its moral education, it has done so with the intention of recuperating lost ground in relation with the accelerated advance of the sciences in our current world.

EVENTS GENERATIVE OF CHANGE

The self-criticism effected by contemporary moral theology did not arise spontaneously but sprang gradually from two events taking place within the Church: Vatican II and liberation theology. These have brought about an enthusiastic process of reflection and rethinking of a multitude of theological questions. Although they may be situated within a specific historic moment, their antecedents represent the toil of many years and the sporadic initiatives of past epochs.

In particular, Vatican II was a response to the pressures of Christians and theologians who for years had been insisting on making their faith experience an occasion to return to the gospel and to a fundamentally Christian identity. The theology of liberation, on the other hand, emerged as a living process of the faith of an oppressed people who, in the midst of their struggle for survival, finally made their voice and thought heard in the Church.

These two events can be considered in parallel fashion. Their realization seems to spring from a common font, i.e., a Christian experience of faith committed to the historic necessities and exigencies of our world today. These two events have not only signified a radical revision of moral theology, its content, method and questions, but, above all, has generated a decisive change in the perception of the Christian identity that fully justifies our critical judgment and makes possible a future perspective grounded on the Christian commandment of love.

Vatican Council II

The Church as a total community came to consciousness of the moral inefficacy of Christianity in the Council, where it recognized that the moral education elaborated and realized for centuries had failed to bring about an effective morality in Christian societies. The fundamental direction of the counciliar documents invited the Church to restore Christian life and to formulate Christian doctrine in a manner similar to its origins. The way to deal with the problematic of the modern world plainly indicates that the prior focus of moral education had not achieved its objectives; indeed there is no shortage of instances of errors committed in the past.

From an analysis of the counciliar documents, a consideration of the Christian movements that gave way to the Council, and our previous theological reflection, it is possible to deduce that Christian morality possesses a specificity that in previous periods had not surfaced sufficiently. This was due to a symbiosis with a multitude of historical-cultural and philosophical elements of non-Christian origin, which not infrequently were contrary to the very dispositions of the gospel. Post-counciliar moral theology has boldly determined to purify Christian morality from spurious elements so as to render the identity of evangelical practice ever more in conformity with the most pristine and legitimate experiences of the primitive Christian communities. In this way moral theology has endeavored to assimilate with fidelity the call to "return to the original sources" promulgated by the Council. But not only did the Council attend to this historic communion with the genuine experience of Christian faith, it incited a resolute acceptance of the sciences and their autonomy and the adequate incorporation of their advances in the reflection and life of Christianity.³³

All this involves a profound rethinking of morality in epistemological and hermeneutic terms which makes possible a new perception of Christian identity and its conduct. This novelty should coincide with the original perception of the primitive community and the moral education that follows should embrace this new perception.

Some elementary epistemological and hermeneutic principles proposed by the Council provided criteria to confront the preconciliar moral perspective and the moral education it sustained. It assured the design of a different version of Christian practice and education for future generations. The acceptance of Biblical exegesis as an essential tool for interpreting sacred scriptures deserves special mention since it is responsible for a definitive rethinking of ecclesial doctrine that has revolutionized theological thought in all its divisions.³⁴

In the area of moral perception, it has made possible a grasp of Christian morality as a function of precepts revealed by God that obliges the Christian to construct moral criteriology from the vital faith experiences generative of specific moral behaviors during the time of the writing of scriptures, which later were formulated as precepts.³⁵ To recognize pluralism of thought as valid in the Church for the understanding of faith decidedly affects the epistemological foundations of ecclesial doctrine. Another dimension is the sphere of experience as a privileged place of faith and revelation. Here the structural notion of Christian truth receives a very different focus, given that the new foundation situates experiential orthopraxies first rather than noetic orthodoxy.³⁶

Liberation Theology

Before its explicit formulation this focus was present in moments and situations of the Latin American Church. From the earliest of times committed Christians have raised their voices and engaged in struggles of liberation that were in some way thematized.³⁷ Eventually, there emerged painfully a theological view within the corpus of Christian theology that contributed fundamental elements for a reconsideration of Christian identity, especially in our times. This suggested a possible moral education that could lead to moral efficacy in Christianity today.³⁸

If in the moral structure of the precounciliar era the protypical methodolgy consisted in a descent from a perfectly structured philosophy and theology to possible moral practice, the first and most fundamental contribution of liberation theology is a move from Christian praxis to a structured and thematic formulation of thought.³⁹ The Christian experience of praxis-faith becomes the determinating element of moral postulates in a manner similar to that in which the formulation of Christian principles took place in the primitive Church according to exegesis.⁴⁰ The interpretation of the history, social events, political phenomena, and cultural, ethnic and environmental circumstances of early Christians living their faith provided the resources constitutive of an intrinsic moment of moral thought. Without this permanent hermeneutic of situated existence, the formal thematization of moral thought becomes impossible.⁴¹

In this sense, the contributions of Vatican II and liberation theology have been responsible for the rise of a theological anthropology of a very different type than that present in precounciliar morality. In this anthropology the Christian identity is more adequately configured in terms of current reality; in other words, the Christian commandment of love as the synthesis of Christian morality begins to be viewed from an optic markedly different from that characterizing former times. The moral education which follows from this reflection is in conformity with this new perspective.

The challenge which the future presents to Christianity as regards morality should be addressed in the light of these new existential and doctrinal foundations. The fidelity of such foundations to the primitive experience of the gospel guarantees the moral effectiveness for Christianity which we have perceived as absent due to a former inadequate perspective of the Christian commandment of love.

THE COMMANDMENT OF LOVE IN FUTURE PERSPECTIVE

Keeping in mind the insights of Vatican II and liberation theology, the passionate work of postconciliar theology has been concerned with approximating the configuration of a fundamental Christian identity. The commandment of love is taken, necessarily, not as one more precept of New Testament writing, however transcendental it may seem, but as a symbolic formulation for a much more profound reality than a simple utterance of Jesus Christ. The moral task of the Christian does not proceed merely from following precepts or norms of conduct, but from the theological realities constitutive of Christian life as deduced from New Testament exegesis and other testimonies of the primitive community.⁴²

The Historical Existential Process of the Christian

Two postulates, one theological and the other taken from modern philosophy, contribute toward the establishment of a first element of the Christian identity. In contradistinction to the static essentialism of the Aristotelian anthropological vision, the human subject in modern philosophical versions is always conceived within an historic dimension and in continuous and permanent evolution. As a dynamic actor in one's own self-construction, each individual is situated in permanent relation to the historic past, his surrounding social environment and his continuous and creative projection into the future.

All these aspects which hitherto were considered accidentally or in a secondary sense are now considered as constitutive of one's existential being. Thus, one's social condition and the character of one's unfinished process in the existential passage of time are markedly accentuated. In perfect consonance with this image -- springing from modern thought with support from such sciences as psychology and sociology, as well as cultural anthropology -- theology apprehends the human person from Biblical data in a state of perpetual unfinished transition. Emerging as a replica of an infinite God, one's historic existence is proposed as a project of reproducing the divine features. This involves recognizing that a projective character, susceptible of growth and transformation, is expected to move in an ever more adequate assimilation of the divine image and its features. The human being, then, is in definitive tension, oriented toward a replication of the divinity in a metahistorical state.⁴³

In this view of man as a project in continuous development toward a greater likeness of his Creator and eschatological end one perceives constitutive human sinfulness. Tradition calls this original sin, as negation of the teleological similitude with God, or as the lack of the dynamic image of the divine features. Inherent to the subject by reason of one's state as creature and accented by one's freedom exercised in terms of a human-social prejudice, human sinfulness affects all existence. In a dialectics of less to more, it coexists with the positive likeness received from the Author of one's existence, which is further accented by the human social goodness proper to those who love.⁴⁴

In Pauline theology, the ontological justification of the subject is understood as a continuous Paschal passage from death to life, from evil to goodness, from darkness to light. This is to occur with an experience of faith in one who does not always achieve what he or she wants because of the strength of sin of the world. Vivified by the divine life of grace, the Christian subsists as a growing child until conformed to Christ, so that he no longer lives but Christ lives in him, i.e., until the features and sentiments of Christ are fully reproduced. In this Paschal dynamic of theological tension the Christian subject is projected eschatologically toward an entitative transformation that culminates in manifesting the likeness of God, whom we will see as He is because we shall be like Him.⁴⁵

The experience of Christian faith, from which one receives the specific identity of a follower of Christ, does not occur in a noetic acceptance of abstract truths, but in the religious experience of one's incorporation into the life of the Trinitarian God. Because of the free acceptance of Jesus as incarnate Son of the Father in dynamic mystical reproduction of his features, the very same love of the Father and the Son is poured into the heart of the Christian. This works mysteriously an interior transformation that St. Paul calls a metamorphosis of all his reality until the new man appears. Possessed by the love of God, he is similar to Christ, the only begotten of the Father. This changes his manner of looking at the world until he thinks with the same thought as God. The sentiments, thoughts, attitudes, perceptions and reactions of the new man -- which the New Testament presents as ongoing and in a permanent process of transformation -- are the same as those of Christ.⁴⁶ The Christian is, therefore, a subject who realizes daily his vital experience of faith in this continuous passage from a sinful constitution to an existential state of grace in a perpetual dynamic of justification.

How can one be Christian without experiencing this profound and marvelous process of transformation? The aforementioned paradox of the co-existence of Christianity with an immoral society is not so strange given the possibility that Christian life has not always reached its true plenitude, especially as it is merely mediated culturally in a manner which does not represent a deliberate existential acceptance of the Son of God, as took place in the first Christian epochs. The Christian who has experienced a transformation in the Son of God, can no longer be the same; all one's reality is affected in a continuous and permanent way by the personal presence of the infinite love of God which resides in one's interior and moves one into action that is decidedly Christian.

Conscience and Freedom

When from the perspective of moral theology one attempts to penetrate the interior events that result from the active presence of the Holy Spirit in each Christian, it is possible to so describe the Christian conscience and freedom, that the peculiar identity of the follower of Christ is made specific.

Following the testimony of St. Paul and the first Christian writers, the cognitive level of the Christian subject undergoes a profound modification. One's perception of reality occurs within a religious dimension in which the subject grasps the world and history inseparably in one's context as a creature and in terms of one's eschatological end. The critical process of conscience refers to the valuation of all being which occurs in proportion to the possession or lack of possession of divine reality. In matters of practical judgment, the Christian conscience proceeds in function of criteria and values originating in the infinite love of God present within. Love is the definitive parameter for conscience and its judgments. The conscience's work of discernment, given its constitutive reference to the love of God, proceeds by selecting that which is in conformity to this love.⁴⁷ Thus, the Christian commandment of love, understood in ontological terms as the operative presence of the Holy Spirit in the conscience of the subject transformed as child of God, constitutes the most intimate ground of the Christian identity.

The Christian subject does not deliberate in his or her conscience in terms of extrinsic norms, inherited cultural values, or philosophical postulates, nor in the face of elementary values present in the social environment. Rather, the Christian deliberates in the face of the absolute value of the love of God which is the reality of the Holy Spirit present within. This is the state of prayer of one who is attentive to his symbiosis with God himself and impels him to conform his behavior thereto.

For this reason the word 'liberty' in a specifically Christian context does not correspond to the simple designation of a human capacity to decide between possible options. On the contrary, the liberty proper of a child of God involves a voluntary adhesion to the infinite and personal love present within. It consists in the faithful and resolute following of love that impels one to a total offering of self for the benefit of others. Here a specifically Christian sense of liberty involves the complete transformation of human conscience in Christ, together with the inevitable communitary and societal connotations. Constitutively, it is a gift of oneself in total offering for the benefit of neighbor.⁴⁸ The Christian paradox is that one is freer to the extent that one places oneself in the service of neighbor, the more one gives to others. This commandment of love is summarized in the words of Christ: "there is no greater love than one who gives up one's life for others." This is the supreme Christian liberty evident in the same Christ "who loved me and offered himself for me," so that he is freest who best serves the Christ present in his neighbor in a state of total oblation.⁴⁹

Evidently, these features of Christian conscience and liberty are absolutely constitutive of the identity of a son of God. The moral inoperancy of Christianity is unthinkable when such fundamental elements are rooted in the deepest structures of the human person and sustained by the experience of a personal love of God. The Holy Spirit has been sent to each child precisely to fashion moral conduct until God himself is constituted as the definitive reference of the Christian's understanding of the world and moral life. In this respect, New Testament theology stands in notable difference from Judaic morality essentially in reference to law. Even recognizing the historic revelation of the God of Israel, St. Paul takes pains to contrast the old law with the new law of the Holy Spirit, viz., the commandment of love.⁵⁰ If the Christian functions morally in actions or attitudes exacted by the law, this results from the origin of such conduct and of the law itself, that is to say, the love of God. Occasionally, as exemplified by Christ himself in the gospel, the work of a child of God, in conformity to the impulse of the Holy Spirit, surpasses and even contradicts the precepts of the law.⁵¹ Indeed primitive Christianity did not take the Decalogue or the juridical corpus of Israel as its fundamental referent, but concentrated on God's law of love inscribed in the heart of the Christian. The law of love led to moral behavior vastly superior to that foreseeable in the normative formulation of the Old Testament. The love of God present in the Christian leads to plenitude and thus surpasses the law. Accordingly, for St. Paul the Christian is not subject to the law because, liberated from its yoke, he is called to live in the liberty of the children of God.⁵² This is to say that the constitutive feature of Christian identity coincides with the faithful observance of God's impulses of personal love in the interior of the believer.

Realization of the Person and the Common Good

This said, it is understandable why the primitive community did not view sin as a proper constituent of the Christian. The presence of constitutive sinfulness of all Christians undergoing a process toward permanent justification or conversion was never forgotten. But sin as a behavior contrary to love and justice could not be present in a subject occupied interiorly with the infinite love of God.⁵³ This made it possible for the moral efficacy of Christianity to become manifest: love was lived experientially. Given that this involves a complete offering of self to others, the Christian community was born as an ecclesial confluence of persons totally dedicated to neighbor. Love was plainly visible to the point that others exclaimed, "See how they love one another." This love not only generated a community, but completely regulated the social relation of the Christian with its surrounding world.⁵⁴

The common good, the good of the community, the good of society and the good of all fostered an understanding in which the realization of the person resided in being a self-gift. Justice was understood as that which promotes the benefit of all beyond particular interests, and this in contrast to the elemental juridical or legal criteria of civil society. Mutual concern, unanimous growth, harmonious development, equitable participation, and communal sharing of all kinds of goods are the fruits of love born of the Holy Spirit who configures the structure of the Church and the empire of Christian justice.⁵⁵

When one contemplates a reality so marvelous and then compares it with the actual state of Christianity, the hope is generated of a return to its constitutive identity as a child of God which in the future may render Christian morality efficacious. Certainly one cannot hope for a radical change of the present situation -- a liberation from the actual slavery of our peoples is unthinkable -- without a return to the specific identity of Christianity. The realization of the person in relation to the common good of society does not seem possible except as the result of a personal transformation as children of God and temples of the Holy Spirit. The commandment of love, understood as the experience of a genuine metanoia and metamorphosis of our being by the active presence of the Holy Spirit, presents itself as the plenitude of the human subject and as the guarantor of a morality whose end is the common good of society.

Future Christian Moral Education

If the commandment of love is lived in its true ontological dimension and not merely as a matter of precepts, Christian moral education differs markedly from instruction based on codes of conduct where by social or religious pressures are imposed in order to derive the desired behavior. The transmission of values and the justification of the same by rational means falls short of Christian moral education, which cannot be situated solely within the conceptual field given that Christianity is realized in much deeper dimensions of being. Without the explicit presence of a profound religious experience in which the process of conversion is realized and a participation in the divine life is achieved, one can only talk of a peripheral and hereditary Christianity transmitted via cultural conduits that does not attain a genuine Christian identity. The moral operation and social efficacy of Christianity depends on living a life of love which can occur only in the depth of religious experience, not as the result of mere compliance with legal dispositions; theological love can occur only in the profundity of religious experience.⁵⁶

Education and the moral education of the Christian come together in the religious experience we call faith. As a living event, faith involves a self-conscious and personal encounter with the humanized Son of God, Jesus Christ, in union with the Spirit of love and the Father.⁵⁷ This eminently communitary and social event, by reason of the relationality from which it originates makes impossible an experientially living love that is not in relation to others.⁵⁸ Christian moral education participates then in the characteristics of a truly educational process, which necessarily implies a community which participates in the same characteristics and converts itself into a natural environment wherein prayer, reflection and the formation of attitudes can take place.⁵⁹ Here Christian moral values, that come from the loving presence of God the Holy Spirit, are communicated not simply by instruction, but by a participation in the life of the community.

It is possible to detect throughout history some common characteristics of these Christian values that render them unmistakably Christian. Such values engender, for instance, a critical attitude toward social reality born of love experienced in community life. In effect, the transformed Christian is compelled in his conscience by the love of God and thus cannot be insensitive to the situations of injustice and suffering of the human person perceived in one's historic context. This sensitivity leads the individual in union with the community to a prophetic and courageous denunciation in resolute commitment to foster the liberation of the oppressed and mistreated persons or societies.⁶⁰ Love leads the Christian individual and community to a special option for the poor and marginalized, the oppressed and fragile, the weak and dispossessed minorities in favor of their continued permanence and development in history.⁶¹

Hence moral education is not a question of providing abstract instruction about the human being, it values and rights. Neither is the goal of moral education the mechanical performance of certain behaviors qualified as good. Rather, a living Christian moral education is realized when the subject in community develops one's potentialities to love in a manner that manifests itself in an unavoidable commitment to the process of human and social perfection.

CONCLUSION

It is difficult to establish in theory something as complex and immense in its dimensions as the "common good," which is also difficult to discern within a framework limited to the achievements of individuals or small groups. Notwithstanding, for Christianity both are possible not because it has a greater amount of data or mechanisms, but as a result of the realization of the Christian in love which stands as the final referent of moral action. Thus, the Christian commandment of love leads the Christian to personal plenitude in service to others, the common good. The commandment of love in its projection restores the hope of an efficacious Christianity in benefit of a society that lives in the paradox of a grave social immorality.

Pontificia Universidad Javeriana

1. See Puebla, especially nos. 1054 and 1060.

2. Vatican II, Guadium et Spes, nos. 4 to 10.

3. Puebla, nos. 27 to 70.

4. Puebla, Message to the Peoples of Latin America, n. 2.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid., n. 8.

7. The texts of Vatican II, and in the case of Latin America, the documents of Medellin and Puebla recognize the reality of the moral inoperancy of our Christianity.

8. Puebla, Message, n. 2.

9. See Marciano Vidal, Moral de la Persona (Madrid: PS Editorial, 1985), pp. 811ff.

10. Ibid., pp. 539ff. For the Stoic and neo-Platonic influences, ibid., pp. 509ff.

11. Consult the typological schemes of moral theology prior to Vatican II in Noldin-Schmitt, Summa Theologiae Moralis (Rauch, Oeniponte, 1962).

12. For centuries the moral theology taught in the Catholic Church followed the outline of St. Thomas, who, in turn, is indebted for a great number of his postulates to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.

13. The insistence of Vatican II to take seriously the sciences and their progress as an indispensable element for the understanding of man and the world can be understood only in terms of their notable absence until recently.

14. See, for example, Arregui-Zalba, Compendio de Teología Moral (Bilbao: Eléxpuru Hermanos, 1951).

15. Either in Noldin or Arregui one may confirm the use of Sacred Scriptures as a simple reference to substantiate the assertions of the authors.

16. As indicated in n. 12.

17. See Charles E. Curran, Principios Absolutos en Teología Moral? (Santander: Ed. Sal Terrae, 1970) from which the qualifications enumerated here can easily be derived.

18. For examples of references to essences with which a great deal of earlier moral theology is concerned, see Noldin-Schmitt, vol. 1, De principiis, n. 67.

19. The application of the hylomorphic theory to morality tended to understand matter as evil.The liturgy included prayers in which God was petitioned to teach us to abhor matter in order to love the spiritual. For its application in the area of sexuality, see Arregui-Zalba, op. cit., p. 224, n. 270.

20. See Vidal, n. 10. The concept of the origin of life by infusion of a precreated soul into a body "elaborated" by the progenitors and the concept of death as the separation of the soul from the body are classical formulations of traditional Catholic theology.

21. The concept of revelation as it appears in Vatican I manifests a clear Aristotelian-Thomistic epistemological influence. All this is in the context of a Biblical interpretation that supposed the direct transmission of noetic truths by a revelatory route.

22. See the definitions of law, conscience, or freedom in texts on moral theology prior to the Council.

23. For the Stoic influence in Christianity see Vidal, op. cit., p. 515. For the Manichean influence, especially in Augustinian thought, it is possible to derive an idea in the anthology of texts titled La Moral de San Agustín, a publication of Gregorio Armas de la Purísima Concepción (Madrid: Asilo de Huérfanos del S.C. de Jesús, 1955).

24. The famous treatises of neo-scholastic theology before Vatican II are a testament to this affirmation.

25. Recall the huge debates about the first chapters of Genesis generated in the 1940s as a result of the development of paleo-anthropology, prompting the encyclical Humani Generis of Pius XII. Biblical exegesis received legitimate citizenship only in Vatican II.

26. Carlos Bravo, S.J., in his article "Ciencia Teológica y Magisterio" presents interesting examples of this phenomena. Theologica Xaveriana, n. 64 (July-September 1982), pp. 209ff.

27. Brunsmann, cited by H. Fries in his Leherbuch der Apologetik, I (Vienna, 1930), 147, states, "Revelation consists in the verbal communication to men of some truths that serve so that they may know and attain their supernatural end."

28. The classical "treatises" of neo-scholastic theology abound in theses on nature and person in full philosophical debate.

29. Recall the celebrated dispute "De auxiliis" between the Dominicans and Jesuits.

30. The thesis of the International Theological Commission concerning theological pluralism (1976) made this evident in contemporary theology. Abundant bibliography can be found on this topic in Estudios Eclesiásticos, n. 222 (July-September 1982), pp. 337ff.

31. See P. Häring, La Ley de Cristo (Herder, 1968), pp. 302ff. Note Häring's evolution in his post-counciliar works.

32. For an example of this see M. Vidal's Moral de Actitudes I (Madrid: P.S. Editorial, 1981), pp. 105ff.

33. Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, n. 36.

34. Vatican II, Dei Verbum, n. 12.

35. This is clearly deduced from the context of the Dei Verbum.

36. Compare the definition cited in Vatican I with the text of Dei Verbum, n. 2 and 6.

37. From the great theologians of the patristic age to the valiant defenders of the human rights of the oppressed ethnic groups during the era of the conquest of Latin American, such as De las Casas.

38. In Moser-Leers, Teología Moral (Madrid: Paulinas, 1987) there is a recapitulation of the Moreno Rejon's bibliography of Latin American moral theology.

39. See Clodovis Boff, Teología e prática [Teología do politico e suas mediações] (Vozes: Petropolis, 1978).

40. See Karl Rumm, Cristianesimo como novità di vita (Morcelliana: Brescia, 1955).

41. A model of this is the famous "Discurso a Diogneto: moving document during the patristic period. See the text of Ruiz Bueno, Padres Apostólicos (Madrid: BAC, 1965), pp. 845ff.

42. Immensely illustrative of this is the work by Bernard Rey, Creados en Cristo Jesús: La nueva creación según San Pablo (Madrid: Fax, 1968).

43. The studies of neo-testamentary anthropology give support to these affirmations. See especially C. Spicq, Dieu et l'homme selon le Nouveau Testament (Paris: Du Cerf, 1961), pp. 194-95.

44. See my study on this topic, Pecado original desde el pecado personal (Bogota: Universidad Javeriana, 1983).

45. For a treatment of this aspect, I recommend the study by Lyonnet-Sabourin, Sin, Redemption and Sacrifice (Rome: BIP, 1970).

46. Illustrative articles may be found in P. Lyonnnet's Apóstol de Jesucristo (Salamanca: Sígueme, 1966).

47. An extremely profound exegetical-theological treatment of the specifically Christian conscience is found in C. Spicq, Théologie morale du Nouveau Testament (Paris: Babalda, 1970).

48. The liberty of the children of God is admirably treated by Lyonnet in his book, Libertad y Ley Nueva (Salamanca: Sígueme, 1964).

49. See L. Cerfaux's book's, Le chrétien dans la théologie paulinienne (Paris: Du Cerf, 1962), especially chapter X, "Le don de la justice," pp. 343ff.

50. In the same chapter, on p. 395, the author treats "L'abrogation de la loi ancìenne."

51. See P. Lyonnet, op. cit., pp. 107-08.

52. Lyonnet in the book cited in n. 47 states, "We repeat one more time that the Christian is not a man without a law. He has an internal law that is the very life of God in him, and, by means of this internal strength, he can fulfill all that God expects of him" (p. 172)

53. "Have no other debt other than love for one another, because he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law" (Romans 13:8). "We know that all who have been born of God do not sin" (1 John 5:18).

54. In this consists the unity among Christians: "And I have given them the glory which you have given to me, so that they may be one as we are one." In this consists the sign before the world of the divinity of Christ, of his divine mission: "So that the world may know that you have sent me." The unity consists in esse ad alium, totally ad alium. (Lyoneet, Apóstol de Jesucristo, p. 207).

55. C. Spicq, op. cit., T. II., pp. 165 ff: "La justice de la foi est la justice que vient de Dieu."

56. Ibid., "Formation de la conscience et christianisation du sens moral," p. 592

57. Ibid., Appendix I, "Vie morale: Christ et charité," vol 1, pp. 381ff.

58. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, n. 7.

59. See Jean Mouroux, L'experience chrétienne (Paris: Aubier, 1954).

60. Recall Puebla: "What does the commandment of love impose? Christian love surpasses all the categories of all the regiments and systems because it brings the unsurpassable strength of the Paschal Mystery, the value of suffering on the cross and the signs of victory and resurrection. Love produces communal happiness and inspires the criteria of participation" (Message, n. 8).

61. See Puebla, 1134.