Th 151

Edilberto C. Jimenez
Ateneo de Manila University
Academic Year 2017-2018

FULL COURSE OUTLINE

February 2018

I. BELIEVE: Answering the Call to Christian Commitment Today

A. Jesuit Education as Formation and Discernment towards Vocation and Magis. (August
9 – 24, 2017/January 17-30, 2018).

1. The Crisis of Careerism. Careerism is the attitude in which we make wealth, power and
prestige, i.e., “success,” the all-consuming goal of our career or job and use whatever
means to achieve it. Sometimes careerism is driven by excessive self-interest, but
more often it is driven by uncritical acceptance of family or social expectations in the
face of uncertain economic, political, social, cultural and religious environments.
Careerism’s disadvantages:
a. Anxiety over job and financial security, manifested in grade-consciousness.
b. Uncritical acceptance and lack of careful examination of career alternatives.
c. Premature overcommitment to an incomplete identity that will result in burnout
and “foreclosure.”
d. Excessive concern over one’s self over those of others makes it anti-Christian.

2. Vocation: Vocation is the response to God’s call towards absolute union with God
through one’s particular state of life and work towards the common good.
a. Walter Brueggemann: Human persons are grounded in Another who initiates
personhood and who stays bound to persons in loyal ways for their well-being.
Contrast to this is the modern self-groundedness which actually leads to
groundlessness. It is not that this person existed and then was claimed for God.
Rather, the act of claiming is the act of giving life and identity to that person.
Before being called and belonging to, the person was not. In the Bible, "person"
means to belong with and belong to and belong for. (“Covenanting as a Human
Vocation”)
b. Primary/Universal and Secondary/Specific Vocation. (Sharon Hartnett & Frank
Kline, “Preventing the Fall from the ‘Call to Teach’: Rethinking Vocation” Journal
of Education and Christian Belief 9:1 (2005) 9-20).
i. Primary vocation. “Our primary calling as followers of Christ is by him, to him,
and for him. First and foremost we are called to Someone (God), not to
something (such as motherhood, politics, or teaching) or to somewhere (such
as the inner city or Outer Mongolia).” (Os Guinness, The Call).
ii. Secondary vocation. Consequently, one’s profession and state of life is the
specific expression of the primary vocation. Our secondary vocation is to be a
person for others, through our particular profession or state of life. This
secondary vocation matches your personal gifs and talents with a specific
work or career that aims to make a difference in the lives of others.
iii. The secondary vocation is your concrete expression of your primary vocation
to God in your daily life. Also, the secondary vocation finds its ground and
source in the primary vocation: e.g., you cannot truly be a committed doctor,
or loving spouse unless you are grounded in God, who loves you.
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c. Protestant work ethic: Activity within the world was the supreme means by which
the believer could demonstrate his or her commitment to God. To do anything for
God, and to do it well, was the fundamental hallmark of authentic Christian faith.
(Alistair McGrath, “Calvin and the Christian Calling”)
d. Pope John Paul II on the primacy of the subjective value of work over the
objective: “As a person he works, he performs various actions belonging to the
work process; independently of their objective content, these actions must all
serve to realize his humanity, to fulfil the calling to be a person that is his by reason
of his very humanity” (Laborem exercens, 6). The subjective dimension of work
aims at the realization of the person through that person’s work.
e. Social dimension of work and vocation: “Commitment to the public good and not
simply the private good of their firms is at the heart of what it means to call their
work a vocation and not simply a career or a job” (U.S. Catholic Bishops,
“Economic Justice for All,” no. 111).
f. Frederick Beuchner: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep
gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet” (Listening to Your Life, p. 185).
g. Vocation exercise: Writing a mission statement, incorporating key values and
personal qualities that can guide important life decisions and trajectories
(Barbara and H. Russel Searight, “The Value of Personal Mission Statements for
University Undergraduates”)

3. Jesuit schools as institutions of vocational inquiry: Who are you going to be in the light
of who God calls you to be? (James Donahue, S.J., “Jesuit Education and the Cultivation
of Virtue”). Characteristics of Jesuit education:
a. Cura personalis (“care for the individual person”): Teachers and administrators,
both Jesuit and lay, are more than academic guides. They are involved in the lives
of the students, taking a personal interest in the intellectual, affective, moral and
spiritual development of every student, helping each one to develop a sense of
self-worth and to become a responsible individual within the community.
(International Commission on the Apostolate of Jesuit Education, “The
Characteristics of Jesuit Education”)
b. Total holistic formation: core curriculum. The aim of Jesuit education “has never
been simply to amass a store of information or preparation for a profession,
though these are important in themselves and useful to emerging Christian
leaders. The ultimate aim of Jesuit education is, rather, that full growth of the
person which leads to action—action, especially, that is suffused with the spirit
and presence of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Man-for-Others. (International
Commission on the Apostolate of Jesuit Education, “Ignatian Pedagogy”)
c. Tao para sa kapwa. “Today our prime educational objective must be to form men-
for-others; men who will live not for themselves but for God and his Christ —for
the God-man who lived and died for all the world; men who cannot even conceive
of love of God which does not include love for the least of their neighbors; men
completely convinced that love of God which does not issue in justice for men is a
farce.” (Pedro Arrupe, S.J.).
d. Faith and Reason as the path to the whole Truth. (Taken up in the next topic)
e. Magis; Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam: not “doing more,” i.e., through one’s own efforts,
but the “more” that carries us out to the end for which we are created (Spiritual
Exercises 23). God is “the more” (Deus semper major): it is the close personal
relationship, surrender and union with God, lived out in one’s daily life in one’s
commitment to the Other, that is the source, sustaining power and goal of vocation
and completes human self-realization. Magis then means in the second sense
choosing the option which serves the “more universal good,” i.e., that which makes
the wider impact on others, society and the world (Geger), that will give greater
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glory to God (A.M.D.G., Ad majorem Dei gloriam). “I will ask for an intimate
knowledge of Our Lord, who has become man for me, that I may love Him more
and follow Him more closely." (Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, 104). What
is your personal experience of magis in the Ateneo?

Required Readings:
• Donahue, S.J., James A., “Jesuit Education and the Cultivation of Virtue,” Thought
67:265 (June 1992), pp. 192-206.
• “Jesuit Education and the Discernment of Vocation” (PowerPoint presentation)

Recommended Readings:
• Atrow, Allan B., “Is Medicine a Spiritual Vocation?” Springer Science+Business Media,
February 23, 2013 (published online)
• Chamberlain, Gary L. “Protestant and Catholic Meanings of Vocation: Is Business a
True Vocation?” Business as a Calling: Interdisciplinary Essays on the Meaning of
Business from the Catholic Social Tradition, Naughton, Michael and Rumpza, Stephanie,
eds., e-book, University of St. Thomas, Center for Catholic Studies, John A. Ryan
Institute, 2004.
• Geger, S.J., Barton T., “What Magis Really Means and Why It Matters,” Jesuit Higher
Education 1:2 (2012), pp. 16-29.
• Newberry, Byron, “The Challenge of Vocation in Engineering Education,” Christian
Scholar’s Review 35:1 (2005), pp. 49-62)
• Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, “Vocation of the Business Leader: A
Reflection,” 2012.
• Reiter, Jendi, “Creation in Contradiction: Finding My Vocation as a Christian Poet,”
Georgetown Review 6:1 (Spring 2005), pp. 177-186.
• Searight, Barbara K. and Searight, H. Russell, “The Value of a Personal Mission
Statement for University Undergraduates” Creative Education 2:3 (2011), pp. 313-
315.
• Spohn, S.J., William C., “The Chosen Path,” America (July 28, 2003), pp. 10-13.
• Tripole, S.J., Martin R., “The Jesuit’s Taco Bell Humanism,” New Oxford Review, Sept.
2013, pp. 18-22.

B. Epistemological Principle: Faith and Reason as the Path to Full Truth (August 25 –
September 6, 2017/January 31 – February 9, 2018)

1. Bernard Lonergan, S.J.: Truth is the goal of our desire to know.

a. At the core of our consciousness is the restless desire to know: we move from
experience to understanding to judgment to decision. This is the common
epistemology of both faith and reason.
b. Thus “Genuine objectivity is the fruit of authentic subjectivity.” (Method in
Theology). Thus, truth is attained when an enabling subjective love for truth
drives the human knower to arrive at genuine objective truth.
c. It is only when all your subjective longings are in league with, and subordinated to,
your desire to know that the truth can come into view and set you free.
d. Science is an authentic and truthful unfolding of the pure desire to know, albeit
limited to the natural world.
e. Scientism/naturalism wagers on “nature is all there is” without scientific proof and
risks falling into reductionism, the desire to dominate and control, and self-
deception, i.e., basing one’s self-worth on a materialistic society’s standards:
despair comes to anyone who falls short of these standards.
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f. Haught: If you have been deeply moved by the self-revelation of Christ, you have to
ask yourself if this experience supports or frustrates your desire to know.

2. Christian Faith is the Deepest Fulfillment of Our Desire to Know, the Way to Deepest
Truth
a. Christian Faith is neither mere subjective metaphors of religious experience nor
mere rules of speech of a religious community. Christian Faith reveals the deepest
truths about humanity, society and creation (e.g., human dignity, human rights,
freedom, Church social teachings, humanity as stewards of creation).
b. Jesus Christ, the full Truth (Jn 1:14-16), the God who is Agape, self-giving Love, in
the Incarnation, is not just the center of Christian Faith but also the center of all
humanity, the whole cosmos, reason, morality and hope. This divine Agape has
the power to liberate humanity from self-deception, since God who is Love
embraces us in spite of what seems unacceptable to us. The God of revelation is
not an object to be mastered but a Subject who invites us to be mastered by an
infinite Love. Jesus’ Resurrection opens the whole universe to a future filled with
hope in even in an ambiguous universe.
c. John Haught: Our deeper truths are in the encounters with the other, whom we
know not by possessing or dominating them but by faith: allowing ourselves to be
claimed by them in love. This is the epistemology of faith, the epistemology of self-
giving love of the other and of the world, rather than will-to-power.

3. What is the authentic relationship between Christian Faith and human reason?
a. “In religion there are highly dangerous pathologies, which make it necessary to use
the light of reason as an instrument of control, to purify and order religion again
and again (as the Fathers of the Church envisaged). But in the course of our
reflections, we have also seen that there are pathologies of reason . . . , an
exaggerated arrogance (hubris) of reason, which is still more dangerous because
of its potential destructive force: the atom bomb, or the human being understood
as a product. This is why reason must similarly be conscious of its limits, learning
to lend an ear to the great religious traditions of humankind. When it is set
completely free, and loses its ability to learn in this reciprocal relationship, it
becomes destructive.” (Pope Benedict XVI, The Dialectics of Secularization)
b. “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the
contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know
the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men
and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.” (Pope John
Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 1).
c. “Although faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between
faith and reason, since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has
bestowed the light of reason on the human mind; and God cannot deny himself,
nor can truth ever contradict truth.” (Vatican I, Dei Filius, 4).
d. “They are of mutual aid one to the other; for right reason demonstrates the
foundations of faith, and, enlightened by its light cultivates the science of things
divine; while faith frees and guards reason from errors, and furnishes it with
manifold knowledge.” (Vatican I, Dei Filius, 4).
e. Avery Dulles, S.J.: “Reason prepares the way to faith, and when faith is attained,
reason helps the believer to understand what it believed. Faith and reason in
combination, enable the human spirit to soar to heavenly heights, preparing it for
eternal blessedness. Divorced from faith, reason falters and becomes enmeshed
in error.” (“The Voice of Reason and of Faith”)

Required Readings:
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• Dulles, S.J., Avery Cardinal, “The Voice of Reason and of Faith,” from Voices of the New
Springtime: The Life and Work of the Catholic Church in the 21st Century, ed. By Kenneth D.
Whitehead (South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press, 2004), pp. 1-27.
• Haught, John, “Scientific Truth and Christian Faith,” from Christianity and Science: Toward
a Theology of Nature (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2007), chapter 10, pp. 177-194.

Recommended Readings:
• Lundberg, Bruce N., “In Search of a Theology of Mathematics,” Journal of Interdisciplinary
Studies 23 (2011):165-186.
• Mahoney, S.J., Jack, “Evolution, Altruism and the Image of God,” Theological Studies 71
(2010):677-701.
• Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Joseph and Habermas, Jürgen, Dialectics of Secularization:
On Reason and Religion (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006).
• Tinder, Glenn, “Can We Be Good without God?: On the Political Meaning of Christianity,”
The Atlantic, December 1989.

Requirement:
• First Examination (written): September 7-8, 2017/February 12 – 13, 2018.

II. LOVE: Living the Christian Commitment

A. Freedom: The Capacity towards Commitment to the Other (Indwelling) (September

11 - 14, 2017/February 14-21, 2018)

1. Freedom is the capacity of the human person to achieve his final, irrevocable and
eternal self.
a. Karl Rahner: Freedom is “the capacity of the subject … to achieve his final and
irrevocable self …. It is the event of something eternal” (Foundations, 96). In
freedom “we are performing the eternity which we ourselves are and are
becoming” (Ibid.).
b. God is the ground and goal of our freedom, for only God’s love is able to embrace
ourselves as a totality: “it alone is able to unite all man’s many-sided and mutually
contradictory capabilities because they are all oriented towards God whose unity
and infinity can create the unity in man which, without destroying it, unites the
diversity of the finite” (Rahner, “Theology of Freedom,” 190).
c. Freedom thus includes, and is more than, “freedom of choice.”
d. Haughey: Life will be found when a person is willing to particularize his choices in
life. Our choices, more than any other act individuate and define us. Selfhood
comes to be primarily by choosing.

2. Freedom is for commitment. A person who has made permanent, irreversible

commitments, is going to experience greater freedom than those who deliberately
refrain from so doing.
a. The prime analogue of human commitments is the spousal commitment.
Commitment to God is a class by itself, but even in Scripture the spousal image of
one’s relationship with God is used.
b. Every commitment involves a promise. By a promise one projects oneself into the
future with another person or group of persons, a yielding to the other, creating a
network of permanent relationships. The capacity for human beings to make and
keep promises is the surest way to free themselves, to determine themselves
rather than be determined.
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c. A contemporary attitude: freedom is connected to tying no knots. The greater the

number of options a person leaves open, the greater his freedom will be; freedom
is the capacity for indefinite revision. But such a freedom which never comes to
choice will eventually cease to be. This is making freedom tantamount to
indetermination. To live “freely” in a state of constant indetermination is the
surest way of becoming “unfree,” because one will be determined by forces
outside oneself. The least free are the least committed and that without
commitment freedom is impossible.

3. Primordial commitment - the mysterious basic direction of our lives, which manifests
a rather consistent personal identity, and establishes a “horizon” within which we
realize ourselves through our individual acts of freedom. Our conscious primary and
secondary commitments are symbolic of this deeper direction one has chosen to take
in one’s life. The more we become aware of this subterranean and prethematic
intentionality, the more we are free and true to ourselves and choose the authentic
direction of our life.
a. A person’s primordial commitment can flow in only one of two directions: self-
donation, which leaves to salvation, and self-absorption, which leads to
damnation.
b. Though more tendential than volitional, primordial commitment naturally evolve
(horizontal freedom), or can be radically changed (vertical freedom), that causes
a complete horizon shift that creates new commitments and affect previous ones.

4. Indwelling is the radical act of vertical freedom wherein the entire reality of the person
has moved from being to being-in-love, from a solitary “I am” to a mutual “we are,”
consequently enriching, rejuvenating and becoming the paradigm of primary and
secondary commitments. Indwelling completes being and is its raison d’être.

5. Christian metanoia/conversion is an act of vertical freedom wherein one makes an act

of faith, which chooses God as one’s new horizon through indwelling in Christ (Jn
15:4-5), which is affirmed through daily individual acts of freedom.

6. Overcommitment is the investing of more of the self in the object of one’s commitment
than the object can or should deliver.

Required Reading:
• Haughey, S.J., John C., Should Anyone Say Forever? On Making, Keeping, and Breaking
Commitments (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 1975), chapters 1 & 2.

B. Conscience: The Human Person’s Core and Divine Sanctuary of Moral Creative
Liberty and Fidelity (September 15 - 28, 2017/February 22 – March 2, 2018)

1. “Conscience is the secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God,
whose voice echoes in his depths” (Gaudium et Spes, 16).
a. The subjective pole. Joseph Fuchs, S.J.: conscience “concerns not simply the
realization of one deed or another, but also, at the same time and very profoundly,
the realization of one’s very self” (Christian Morality, 124).
b. God’s presence in the depths of conscience means that the human person can
ground oneself only in the transcendent God, the intimior intimo meo.
• Thomas More: “I would … for mine own self follow mine own conscience, for
which myself must make answer unto God, and … leave every other man to
his own conscience” (Last Letters).
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• Terrence Merrigan: In the experience of conscience, the subject apprehends

not only itself but also itself as a subject in [close] relation to God.
• Newman: There are “two and two only absolute and luminously self-evident
beings, myself and my Creator …. If I am asked why I believe in God, I answer
that it is because I believe in myself, for I feel it impossible to believe in my
own existence (and of that I am quite sure) without believing also in the
existence of Him, who lives as a Personal, All-seeing, All-judging Being in my
conscience” (Apologia Pro Vita Sua).
• Merrigan: The God disclosed in conscience is the God whose presence is
always mediated, whose voice is never heard directly but only as it is
“echoed” in the chasms of our hearts and minds (GS 16).
• Merrigan: conscience is best understood as both the consciousness that
one exists in relationship to God as a responsible subject, or self, and the
summons to act in accord with this consciousness.

2. Conscience and Truth: Conscience’s Objective Pole

a. In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon
himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good
and avoid evil, the voice of conscience can when necessary speak to his heart more
specifically: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God. To
obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged. (Gaudium et
spes # 16)
b. Conscience does not mean that the subject is the sole author of its moral norms.
Conscience signifies the perceptible and demanding presence of the divine voice
of truth in the human subject itself, which overcomes mere subjectivity (Benedict
XVI).
c. Anthony Fisher, O.P.: “Conscience is only right conscience when it accurately
mediates and applies that universal moral law which participates in the divine
law; it is erroneous when it does not.”
d. Fuchs: Since the objective moral order is ultimately grounded in the relationship
God has with us, we do not find this moral order “out there” external to us, but in
the interior of the sanctuary of the person’s conscience. (Christian Morality, 124).
e. In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God
and neighbor (cf. Mt 22:37-40; Gal 5:14). In fidelity to conscience, Christians are
joined with the rest of men in the search for truth, and for the genuine solution to
the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals from social
relationships. Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more persons and
groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms
of morality. Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing
its dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and
goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a
result of habitual sin. (GS 16)

3. The primacy and inviolability of a human person’s conscience. Each “is bound to follow
his conscience faithfully in all his activity so that he may come to God, who is his last end.
Therefore, he must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience” (Dignitatis humanae,
3).
a. Lewis: The primacy of conscience has never been understood in a radically
subjectivistic sense, as though conscience were a law unto itself independently
determining moral good and evil or a purely arbitrary judgment tailoring the morality
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of one’s actions to one’s personal wishes. In arriving at a judgment of conscience one

must search for objective truth.
b. Lewis: Objective truth thus has a certain primacy, but “it is upon human conscience that
these obligations fall and exert their binding force”(Dignitatis humanae, 1). In other
words, no objectively true formulation can take the place of conscience, for it is
through the mediation of conscience that one “perceives and acknowledges the
imperatives of the divine law” (DH 3).
c. St. Thomas Aquinas: “a correct conscience binds absolutely and intrinsically … whoever
believes that something is a command [of conscience] and decides to violate it wills
to break the law of God and, therefore, sins” (Disputed Questions on Truth).
d. Fuchs: What makes us morally good is not the actual right act performed in itself, but
primarily the sincere effort and commitment to do what we honestly believe to be the
right thing.
e. Lewis: According to St. Thomas, the ultimate moral truth of human action is determined
not in the nature of the act in itself, but more in its intention of the author of the act,
as identified by one’s conscience. Traditionally this is expressed by speaking of
conscience as the proximate norm of personal morality. Moral truth, the goodness
or badness of a human action is formally constituted by the intention and judgment
of conscience; divine law is the “remote” and “material” norm and its moral value is
only activated and actualized in one’s conscience.
f. “Like the natural law itself and all practical knowledge, the judgment of conscience also
has an imperative character: man must act in accordance with it. If man acts against
this judgment or, in a case where he lacks certainty about the rightness and goodness
of a determined act, still performs that act, he stands condemned by his own
conscience, the proximate norm of personal morality. The dignity of this rational
forum and the authority of its voice and judgments derive from the truth about moral
good and evil, which it is called to listen to and to express. This truth is indicated by
the ‘divine law,’ the universal and objective norm of morality. The judgment of
conscience does not establish the law; rather it bears witness to the authority of the
natural law and of the practical reason with reference to the supreme good, whose
attractiveness the human person perceives and whose commandments he accepts.”
(VS 60)

4. The Church as the Servant, not Master, of Conscience

a. Anthony Fisher, O.P.: “Conscience is not infallible and sincerity cannot establish the
moral truth of a judgment of conscience; freedom of conscience is never freedom from
the truth but always and only freedom in the truth. The Magisterium does not bring
to the conscience truths which are extraneous to it, but serves the Christian
conscience by highlighting and clarifying those truths which a well-formed conscience
ought already to possess (VS 64). A well-formed conscience will seek to be both more
objective about morality and truer to the Christian tradition than any morality based
on sincerity or balancing acts can deliver.”
b. Christians have a great help for the formation of conscience in the Church and her
Magisterium . . . The Church puts herself always and only at the service of conscience,
helping it to avoid being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine proposed by
human deceit (cf. Eph. 4:14), and helping it not to swerve from the truth about the
good of man, but rather, especially in more difficult questions, to attain the truth with
certainty and to abide in it. (VS 64)

5. Stages of Conscience Formation (Louis Monden, S.J.)

a. Instinctive – decides on the basis of fear of breaking taboos or desire for affection.
b. Moral – chooses the good that leads to self-realization.
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c. Christian-Religious – living out the moral good as a yielding to indwelling with God
who is intimior intimo meo which leads to a higher and deeper self-realization, a real
divinization of man.
• “Law” is no longer “obligation” but “vocation,” a yielding in love to God
(indwelling).

6. John Glaser, S.J.: The danger of confusing moral conscience with psychology’s “superego.”

Required Reading:
• “Notes on Conscience Topic for Th 151”
• Monden, S.J., Louis “The Meaning of the Words,” Sin, Liberty and Law (New York:
Sheed & Ward, 1965), pp. 3-18.

Recommended Readings:
• Glaser, S.J., John W., “Conscience and the Superego: A Key Distinction,” Theological
Studies 32 (1971):30-47.

C. A Four-Sector Methodology of Moral Sources (October 2-3, 2017/March 5-6, 2018)

1. Scripture – the sacred text which has a special sacred claim on the Christian
community;
2. Tradition – which represents the lived wisdom of the Christian community;
3. Rational Reflection on the Normatively Human – e.g., human rights discourse,
moral philosophy and the whole tradition of natural law theory; and
4. Human Experience – involves not just individuals’ own experience, but the whole
range of scientific and social science disciplines that help us gather, organize and
interpret data drawn from our individual and collective human experience.
The first two are the Sacred Axis and the rest belong to the Rational Axis: This means
that moral discernment involves the necessary dialogue between Christian faith and
reason.

D. All these sources are subordinated to Jesus Christ and his Gospel message, the ultimate
source and norm of Christian moral life (October 4-6, 2017/March 7 - 8, 2018).
a. To regard Jesus Christ as the norm of the moral life is to enter the way of
discipleship, to faithfully and creatively live under the reign of God as he did
(imitatio Christi).
b. To be a disciple is, like Christ, to be caught up in God’s love, which enables him/her
to let go of all forms of self-made securities (renunciation), especially power that
promotes superiority/inferiority as the paradigm of human relationships, in
order to find true security in God and God’s love. A disciple, like Christ, exercises
power for hospitable inclusion, not cruel exclusion.

E. The Sermon on the Mount: the “Magna Charta” of the Christian Moral Life (Veritatis
splendor, 16) (October 9-13, 2017/March 9 – 13, 2018)
1. The Sermon on the Mount is not a law in terms of form, spirit and dynamism.
2. The Sermon is not a “law” in the sense of one is morally obliged to follow it using one’s
own resources. It turns the “justice of the world” upside down: it tells us not to insist
on our own rights but on unlimited concern for the good of others.
3. The Sermon is a call to faith (vocation), to “indwell” with God through Christ in the
power of the Spirit who gives the believer the capacity and power to live the demands
of the Sermon.

Required Readings:
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• Bretzke, S.J., James T., “Mapping a Moral Theology,” A Morally Complex World:
Engaging Contemporary Moral Theology (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2004),
pp. 9-41.
• Gula, S.S., Richard M., “Jesus and Discipleship,” Reason Informed by Faith: Foundations
of Catholic Morality (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), pp. 185-98.
• Hendrickx, C.I.C.M., Herman, “The Practicability of the Sermon on the Mount,” Sermon
on the Mount (Manila: East Asian Pastoral Institute, 1979), pp. 191-98.

Recommended Readings:
• Battle, John, “The Sermon on the Mount and Political Ethics,” Studies in Christian Ethics
22.1 (2009):48-56.
• Stassen, Glen H., “The Sermon on the Mount as Realistic Disclosure of Solid Ground,”
Studies in Christian Ethics 22.1 (2009):57-75.

F. Sin as Missing the Mark (October 16-18, 2017/March 14 – 16, 2018)

1. The loss of the sense of sin. The rise of the secular spirit with its moral relativism,
sending to irrelevance religious faith and reducing sin to a psychological or social
disorder.

2. Sin is fundamentally a religious reality. Sin makes no sense except as breaking a

covenant relationship of deep personal union with God that is the very ground of our
whole being and existence.
a. transcendent dimension - saying a selfish “no” to the invitation to live with God
in love; which in turn results in
b. immanent dimension – saying “no” to others out of self-absorption expressed
through the arrogance of exploitative, manipulative, and competitive power,
weakening or destroying our essential relatedness to the other.
c. “Sin is different from unavoidable failure or limitation … It is a spirit of selfishness
rooted in our hearts and wills which wages war against God’s plan of fulfillment.
It is a rejection, either partial or total, of one’s role as a child of God and a member
of his people, a rejection of the spirit of sonship, love and life.” (Sharing the Light
of Faith, 1979)

3. Biblical Perspective: sin as fundamentally hattah/hamartiah, i.e., missing the human

person’s goal that is God; the true meaning of sin is ingratitude to the gracious God
(Gen 1-11, 2 Sam 12; Ps 51; Hos 2; Hos 11).
a. From the covenant perspective: Israel broke the personal bond of love of
which the law was an external expression. Sin is breaking or weakening the
God-given bond of love which gave Israel its worth, solidarity and entrustment.
• Worth: Our self-worth is not a function of our own achievement but comes
from God’s free offer of divine love, like a child’s sense of self-worth (Mt 18:1-
5). But sin attempts at a false sense of self-worth by means of “surrogate
loves,” the idols of wealth, talents, beauty, achievements, intelligence, power,
prestige, etc.
• Solidarity: There is no other way to relating to God except in and through our
solidarity and interdependence with everyone else (Jn 15:12; Solicitudo Rei
Socialis, 39). Sin expresses our ingratitude to God by our attitudes of
domination, prejudice, exclusion and radical independence from the Other
and the larger human community and the planet (Mt 25:31-46).
• Fidelity/Mutual Entrustment: In a covenant, we entrust our whole selves to
God and to an Other, giving the other power over us. Sin abuses that power
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arrogantly by controlling, dominating and manipulating the other to serve our

own self-interest (Gen 3).
b. Sin starts from the heart of the person, which leads to sinful actions.
c. The Gospel message: God’s forgiveness through Christ, the divine power of
nutritive and integrative love, is greater than sin:
conversion/repentance/metanoia as joyful gratitude of once being lost but now
welcomed by the loving Father (Lk 15:11-32; 7:36-50; Rom 5:12-20; Eph 4:17-
24).

Required Reading:
• Gula, S.S., Richard M, “A Sense of Sin,” Reason Informed by Faith: Foundations of
Catholic Morality (Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1989), pp. 89-105.
Recommended Reading
• Vimal Tirimanna, CSsR, “The Concept of ‘Sin’ in Catholic Moral Theology,” Asia Journal
of Theology 15:1 (April 2001), pp. 52-66.

Requirements:
• Second Examination (oral): October 19, 20, 23, 24, & 25, 2017/March 19 – 23, 2018).
• Group Project
o Start: September 11 & 12, 2017/February 15 – 16, 2018.
o Proposals due: September 18 (MWF sections) & 19 (TTh sections), 2016/February
22 – 23, 2018.
o Required Consultations: September 25 (MWF sections) & 26 (TTh sections), 2016.
o Deadline: October 30 (TTh sections) & 30 (MWF sections), 2017/April 2 – 3, 2018.

III. Hope: Commitment towards Perfect Communion

A. Commitment and Indwelling: Should Anyone Say Forever? (November 2-3, 2017/April
2 – 3, 2018)

1. Only in the unconditional promise of loving “forever” the personal Other, an act of
indwelling through total self-donation, can a human person put down and deepen the
roots of one’s selfhood and thus can realize oneself and bear fruit.
a. Love is the only intentionality that warrants the outlay of one’s total self.
b. Marcel: “constancy” vs. “fidelity.” “Permanent” is the after-the-fact description of a
commitment that has been true to the communion within which it operated.
Permanence built on anything less than love can be cruel to all parties concerned.
c. Interpersonal commitments (indwellings) are rooted in love and ratified in freedom
rather than the solely the product of free will. Haughey: “Your choice of me in not
the stuff that holds our commitments together any more than my choice of you is.
The union that we have preceded our choices. … the fact that we both said and
continue to say yes does not produce that union.” Commitments arise from
mutual presence and not by choosing them for the focus on the other and not on
the commitment itself. Indwelling then is something one yields to rather than
something one makes (love more than just willpower).
d. Self-donation means a rising out of self-absorption into a fuller life of interpersonal
communion and dying to a solitary mode of being.
e. The perpetual adolescent withholds himself, refusing to put down roots. He dabbles
with life rather than living it.

2. The ambiguity of the post-modern “rootlessness” and ever-changing world: Sartre vs.
Marcel.
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a. Jean-Paul Sartre: “the fundamental project which I am.” The individualistic

determination of one’s whole self through constant revocation and “freedom
from” the determinations of others: “L’ enfer, c’est les autres.” Every human
interaction, including love, are attempts of one or more subjects to dominate or
be dominated by others. “Conflict is the original meaning of being-for-others.”
b. Gabriel Marcel: “there is only one suffering, to be alone.” Being as “with the other,”
“co-être,” intersubjective communion (I-Thou/Je-Tu). Love is not an attempt to
dominate others, but an attempt to enter into communion with them, to
participate in their very being. Love creates a “suprapersonal unity,” which
promotes the integrity and well-being of each person.

3. Ignatian Perspective: Commitment implies “downward mobility” (Brackley)

a. The “Standard of Satan”: riches, honor, and pride. “Swollen pride” (crescida
soberbia) refers to hubris, arrogance, contempt of others, selfish ambition, and
will to power, believing that we are more important than others. Attachment to
possessions and upward mobility detaches us from one another.
b. The “Standard of Christ”: poverty, insults, and humility. Christ calls each of us to
“highest spiritual poverty,” i.e., interior detachment from material riches.
Humility means I am not greater than even the least in society. Humility means
identifying with those whom the world deems unimportant. It means solidarity.
c. Poverty vs. riches is a matter of relationship with the poor. Honor vs. contempt is a
question of status: with whom do I stand? With those whom society honors or
with those it holds in contempt? Pride is contempt for others; humility means
identifying with the outcast.
d. The standard of Christ today is downward mobility: it means entering the world of
the poor, assuming their cause, and to some degree, their condition. Identifying
with the poor will help us detach ourselves from luxuries when we see them
deprived of necessities. For Ignatius, the goods of the earth are entrusted by God
to us for the good of all, especially those in need.
e. Jesus Christ is the source and ground of downward mobility, especially in his
kenosis, incarnation, passion and death. Through Christ, God suffers with sinful
humanity and through this death and resurrection, redeems them.

4. The Mystery of Fidelity (Haughey).

a. Fidelity as constant conversion: Faithful persons do not cease to resituate
themselves in the communion that they are in. There is no human love that is
without the tendency to fall away from presence; consequently, there is no
interpersonal commitment that can last without conversion. Fidelity involves
being willing to continually nurture the communion that is already present.
b. The ultimate criterion of fidelity: to continue a commitment is good only it has
produced, is producing, and gives promise of producing, self-donation, indwelling
and communion.
c. There is justification for withdrawal from a commitment in which no communion
has ever taken place and none can be hoped for; the “we are” has never, and does
not, exist.
d. Fidelity is a reflection of and a participation in God’s faithfulness (the biblical hesed)
to us, as witnessed in creation, in the history of Israel (Hos 2), and finally, perfectly
enfleshed in Jesus, perpetually made present in the Eucharist. Being in union with
Jesus is our way of having our lives reflect the hesed of God.

B. The Triune God, Final Ground of Fidelity and Commitment (November 6-10,
2017/April 4 – 11, 2018)
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1. The Triune God, a Relational Ontology: The personhood of each of the three divine
Persons is constituted by their complete self-donation to one another towards mutual
indwelling (perichoresis, περιχώρησις).
a. The one God, or divine unity, is not to be interpreted exclusively in essentialist
terms, as a unity of nature of substance, but is also to be understood as a unity
established through the interrelationship or koinonia (“fellowship,” St. Basil the
Great) of the three distinct and equal divine Persons who share a single will and a
single energy (Ware).
b. Haughey: The Father eternally confers the fullness of divine being on his Son. The
Son of Man receives “dominion, glory and kingship,” the very things that
constitute the Ancient One’s own kingship (Dan 7:9-14; Phil 2:6-11).
c. Edwards: Perichoresis is a word used by John Damascene to describe the being-in-
one-another, the mutual dynamic indwelling of the trinitarian persons (Jn 10:30;
14:9; 17:21). It comes from perichoreo, meaning to encompass, and it describes
reciprocal relations of intimate communion. The word suggests a communion in
which diversity and unity are not opposed. Rather it is a unity in which
individuality finds full expression. Perichoresis expresses the ecstatic presence of
each divine person to the others, the being-in-one-another in supreme
individuality and freedom. It points to a relationship in which each person is
present to the other in a joyous and dynamic union of shared life.
c. Haughey: Jesus’ total and free self-donating commitment to his Father was always
in process during his human life, creating an ever greater capacity to love and
commit himself to others, culminating in the cross.
d. St. Augustine: This self-giving love which binds the Father (“Lover”) and the Son
(“Beloved”) is itself subsisting divine person, the Spirit as “Love” shared by both
the Father and the Son.
e. St. John Damascene: The Persons of the Trinity are “united yet not confused, distinct
yet not divided.” God is a triunity of persons loving each other, and in that
reciprocal love the three persons are totally one without losing their specific
individuality.
f. Richard of St. Victor: If God is love, God has to be at least three Persons loving each
other; love is not only mutual, but shared. Where love is perfect, the Lover (the
Father) not only loves the Beloved (the Son), but wishes the Beloved to have the
joy of loving a Third, jointly with the Lover, and of being jointly loved by that
Third, the Holy Spirit, the “Co-Beloved,” condilectus (the one who is loved by
another (Ware)

2. Theology leads to anthropology: The Triune God is the final ground of human fidelity
and commitment, as well as the heart and source of all creation and redemption. The
Triune God as the radiating event of Love to humanity and to the world. Each human
person is called to be a living “icon” of the Trinity, signifying and participating in the
divine unity (Ware).
a. God creates the world “out of love” (ex amore) and not just ex nihilo (Ware). The
God of Trinitarian Love creates the world so that others besides Godself would
share in the movement of divine love (Ware).
b. Catherine LaCugna: “God’s To-Be is To-Be-in-relationship, and God’s being-in-
relationship-to-us is what God is.” The fundamental cosmological principle of
evolution and of the whole universe is relational because God is Persons-in-
Relation. Every creature springs from, depends upon, and in a creaturely
way participates in, the being of divine Persons-in-Relation. It is communion
that makes things be. Nothing exists without it (Edwards).
c. John McMurray: “The Self exists only in dynamic relation to the Other. … The Self
is constituted by its relation to the Other … ‘I’ need ‘You’ in order to be myself.”
 14

Precisely because God is Trinity, I need you in order to be myself. To be a “person”

after the image of God is to be a person-in-relationship. Without Trinitarian love,
we cease to be truly human (Ware).
d. Noncommitment: (the rich man, Mk 10:17-31): The obstacle to commitment—self-
absorption in gathering religious and material wealth for oneself; only self-
donation leads to eternal life; “follow me”: one has to entrust oneself to another,
someone beyond himself, where one will find true treasure outside of oneself
(Haughey).
e. The evolution of Mary’s commitment: from Mary as the Jewish mother of Jesus to
Mary, the “Woman,” the first disciple, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May
it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).
f. Paul’s symbiotic commitment to Jesus: “I live now not I, but Christ lives within me”
(Gal 2:20); commitment to the whole Christ leads to commitment to his Body, the
Church.

3. The revolutionary dogma of the Trinity is the foundation of the liberating and
transfiguring vision of humanity as participation in this divine community of self-
giving love (Migliore).
a. The dogma of the Trinity constitutes a revolution in our understanding of God.
Falsely we think of God as superior, controlling and dominating power. Such a
false theology is a reflection and projection of false anthropology of being human
as will-to-power. Juan Luis Segundo: Some sort of degradation of humanity lies
buried within every deformation in our idea of God.
b. The Trinity is the revelation of God in concrete history as God who is eternally self-
giving and abiding Love. The Trinity is liberating because it stands in opposition
to existing society and especially to those in power and think they are gods.
c. Genuine faith in the Triune God leads to economics and politics based on mutuality,
participation and sharing of power and wealth.

C. The Gospel of John: Believe and Abide in Jesus Christ, the Son of God (November 13 -
17, 2017/April 11 – 13, 2018)

1. The Gospel of John, an Invitation to Believe: “But these are written that you may come
to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you
may have life in his name” (Jn 20:31).
a. Historical context, a conflict of commitments: late first-century Jewish Christians
threatened with the choice of abandoning Judaism or their faith in Jesus of
Nazareth as the promised Messiah.
b. “To believe” means openness to the truth which makes a person capable of seeing
the glory of God whenever and wherever it is revealed, most particularly in Jesus:
“Did I not tell you that if would believe you would see the glory of God?” (Jn 11:40);
or else one falls into unbelief, i.e., self-deception, blindly “seeking one’s own glory”
rooted in idolatry (Jn 5:44).
c. “The Jews” (Jewish religious leaders), because of their idolatrous attachment to
the Jewish religious traditions rendered them blind to the truth that is Jesus: they
are “committed to the commitment” (e.g., Jn 2 and 5).
d. “To believe in” Jesus in John means to commit to Christ with the totality of one’s
being (self-donation towards indwelling): “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” (Jn
9:35).
e. All our other commitments are to be judged as authentic as long as they are
expressions of our absolute commitment to God through Christ.
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f. How does this discussion on commitment in the Gospel of John enlighten you about
your own situation of “conflict of commitments”? What should be our criterion in
distinguishing authentic commitments from inauthentic ones?

2. The Gospel of John, a Call to Abide in Christ: “Abide in me, as I abide in you” (Jn 15:4).
a. According to John, “God is love” (1 Jn 4:7-8), and the Love of the Son and the Father
is a dynamic and eternal (Jn 17:24) relational life of mutual indwelling (“abiding”)
which reaches out and embraces us (1 Jn 4:16) (Edwards): “As the Father has
loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love” (Jn 15:9).
b. The divine “I am” grounds the human’s “I am.” The mutual abiding of the Father
and the Son in the Spirit is the source, archetype and pattern for the abiding of the
community (Lee): “love one another as I love you” (Jn 15:12, 17).
c. Jesus is the icon of divine (vertical) and human (horizontal) abiding, since in his own
flesh he is the abiding place of God among people (Jn 1:14) and establishes the I-
Thou union of persons (Lee): “That they may all be one, as you, Father are in me
and I in you, that they also be one in us” (Jn 17:21).
d. Abiding, the force of life (Jn 6:27, Jesus as “the food that abides for eternal life”),
does not bypass suffering and death: the vinedresser prunes, the world pours
scorn, the seed “dies,” the Son creates abiding community with his dying breath
and pierced side (Lee).
e. Abiding defines the divine-human relationship as subject to subject, face to face, I-
Thou, redeeming the world from objectification (subject-object), alienation and
the fear of alterity. Christian Redemption is thus understood as “relational.”
Abiding brings stillness and contemplation, rather than external achievement and
activism: co-operative “being” rather than competitive “doing.” Yet abiding is not
passive: it is fertile and creative, bears fruit in love. External activity flows from
intimacy (Lee).

Required Readings:
• Haughey, S.J., John C., Should Anyone Say Forever? On Making, Keeping, and Breaking
Commitments (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 1975), chapters 3,4, 5 & 6.
• Brackley, Dean, “Downward Mobility,” The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times: New
Perspectives on the Transformative Wisdom of Ignatius of Loyola (New York: The
Crossroad Publishing Company, 2004), pp. 79-185.
• Metropolitan Ware, Kallistos, “The Holy Trinity: Model for Person-in-Relation,” The
Trinity and an Entangled World: Relationality in Physical Sciences and Theology, John
Polkinghorne, editor (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmanns Publishing Company,
2010), pp. 107-129.
• Schneiders, I.H.M., Sandra M., “Reflections on Commitment in the Gospel According to
John,” Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible and Theology 8(1978), pp. 40-48.
• Lee, Dorothy A., “Abiding in the Fourth Gospel: A Case-Study in Feminist Biblical
Theology,” Pacifica 10 (June 1997), pp. 123-46.
Recommended Readings:
• Edwards, Denis, “Evolution and the God of Mutual Friendship,” Pacifica 10 (June 1997),
pp. 187-200.
• Migliore, Daniel L., “The Trinity and Human Liberty,” Called to Freedom: Liberation
Theology and the Future of Christian Doctrine (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster
Press, 1980), pp. 63-79.
• Pope Benedict XVI, “What It Means to Be a Christian: Over Everything: Love,” Credo for
Today: What Christians Believe (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009), pp. 7-18.

Group Project Presentations: November 20 – 29, 2017/April 16 – 20, 2018

 16

Final Comprehensive Examination (Oral): December 1, 4-7, 2017/April 24 – 28, 2018.