Building a creative conscience:

...In their view the search for underlying unity among varied traditions is inherently suspect, leading necessarily to compromise and error, and the conception of conscience as creative is equated with lawless individualism...

...The Christian discovers the law written in his or her own heart, and reaches his or her own theonomically based autonomy, only to the extent that his or her conscience really becomes con-scientia, syn-eidesis, a knowledge and apprehension of the good in solidarity with all people...

...52:13-53:12) and even moreclearly in the life and suffering of Christ...

...49:l-9a...

...When Onan's brother Er died childless, their father Judah instructed Onan to "perform the duty of a son-in-law and raise up offspring for your brother...

...The conscience is truly on the path toward "autonomy"-that is, toward achieving a personal life lived according to the law of love-insofar as it allows itself to be led by God's Spirit, which works in everything, through everything, and wherever it wants...

...The God in whom we believe is the God of history and of historical action...

...This is not a mere academic dispute over fine points of methodology in ethics...

...The Second Vatican Council put it this way: "By faithfulness to conscience, Christians are connected with other people in the search for truth and for a truthful solution to all the many moral problems arising in the individual's life and in life in a society with others...

...Those who make these attacks, notably Monsignor Carlo Caffarra of Rome, would restrict the quest for truth in behavioral matters to methods that are solely speculative and deductive...

...When we form our consciences primarily in response to the guiding laws of the Gospel and the Beatitudes, and devote ourselves unflaggingly to putting them into practice as best we can, we will continually make new discoveries, and they will be seen not as onerous or demanding but as invitations to growth...

...If, on the contrary, the very notion of encouraging the formation of creative consciences is officially, forcefully, and effectively discouraged, along with the quest for commonality in the planet-wide search for worthy moral goals, we Catholics will be led into refusing a duty imposed by history, an invitation extended by Jesus...

...for she cannot simultaneously nourish two children, one at the breast, one in the womb, without threatening life...

...For the moralists whose views are embedded in Casti connubii, this was a condemnation of contraception...

...It has to do with basic attitudes toward the world and the meaning of human life...

...Christian theology cannot afford to flee from such historical realities by deriving its moral precepts only from abstract reflection on biological processes...

...50:4-9...

...But polemicists who deny their relevance must somehow explain how the norms evolved and have persisted with sacral sanctions over whole continents and through many centuries-or so long as the socio-economic, cultural, and demographic-political situation does not change fundamentally...

...The capacity to love dies out...

...The approach which Caffarra challenges here has been developed by Alfons Auer, Franz Brockle, and many others: An understanding of morality that is autonomous in the context of faith and the faithful community, and that is concerned with the "world ethic"-that is, with Christian responsibility in the formation of the world and in the temporal sphere, in which we must work together with other people...

...Even without the benefit of skilled biblical criticism, however, it is clear from the text that what is branded evil, "detestable," is rather the refusal of the levirate obligation, which was legally bound with polygamy...

...THE EDITORS wo concepts regarded as useful, indeed critically important, by a majority of Catholic theologians today have recently come under attack, though in caricatured form...

...Every mother knows she is obligated to teach her daughter before marriage how to help her husband interrupt intercourse on time...

...in the face of the constantly new challenges posed by love of neighbor, such a person asks not so much, "Must I do this...

...The solution combines two methods: strong, consistent nursing (which impedes ovulation) and coitus interruptus...

...His moral sensitivity taught the West: If you do not free yourselves from the ideology of war and of violence and adopt nonviolent conciliatory love in its stead, there will be no more salvation for you...

...Ought we not join with all our strength and vision in the invention of nonviolent means of common security, entailing as it does the pursuit of worldwide justice and of a responsible stance toward God's creation...

...They scourged heartless legalism, they deplored senseless battles over human statutes and moribund traditions...

...Faith therefore includes historically based thinking...

...We emphasize constantly that the autonomy meant here is grounded theonomically: for we know that God wants us to try to realize in history the commands for love, goodness, mercifulness, justice, and freedom, while trusting in God's Holy Spirit and engaging in humble dialogue with our fellow Christians and all fellow humans...

...With nearly flawless clarity he showed humanity that nonviolent liberation exists, that nonviolent solutions to conflict are possible...

...Where there is conflict between two or more norms, the conscience will be confused...

...The law of love is indeed universal...

...All this has been opposed, indeed denounced, in the writings, speeches, and interviews of Monsignor Carlo Caffarra, whose views must be given attention because of his position and because of his reported closeness to the pope...

...Even in Immanuel Kant, who coined the phrase autonomous morality, there is no suggestion of a "negation of the truth of creation...

...Such a commitment is an essential testimony of Christians, a saving truth for humankind...

...If, in contrast, a behavioral norm is drummed in, in a one-sidedly authoritarian manner and with the use of fear-evoking terms ("opponent of God, enemy of being, of life, of love...

...it will usually choose the path of least resistance, of the lesser evil, but with feelings of ambiguity, fear, and guilt...

...When conscience is so understood that the relationship with God is conceived in terms of literal obedience to static, inflexible norms, it places such high demands on the well-intentioned person that he or she can hardly conceive any new ideas leading to spontaneous generosity...

...Overcome by this "rigorism," they live in constant torture and fear of wrongdoing, but lack the power to see opportunities for doing good above and beyond the law...

...Good lives of saints are an inexhaustible source for the stimulation of an increasingly creative conscience (and for the training of moral theologians...

...Why has this norm maintained a strong consensus over such a huge continent right up to the present...

...as "How can I best repay the Lord here and now for all the goodness God has shown me...

...The fostering of consciences spontaneously responsive to the law of love in differing circumstances is not to be equated with a "negation of the truth of creation...

...even for him autonomous conscience was based in theonomy, in belief in the Creator...

...Bernard Haring, a Redemptorist priest, was formerly professor of moral theology at the Academy Alphonsianum in Rome and is the author of a number of works in widespread use as textbooks in his field...

...Consider two examples, both having to do with Africa, both concerned with the regulation of birth, both reflecting the ethical significance of historical circumstance...

...For all of us the context is always that of faith, nourished by the word of God in solidarity with the entire community of believers, with the entire people of God, with all the redeemed, and obviously also with the pope and the bishops...

...Conscience was for them the eye of love that discerned new paths toward the historical realization of the kingdom of law and justice...

...a standard that is entirely capable of gaining approval even beyond the bounds of the Catholic church-but only if in this area as in others one recognizes the generally accepted criteria of medical ethics, and only if one refrains from distortion, exaggeration, legal threats, and the like...

...And today, in dealing with the control of fertility, it must acknowledge the colossal ecological crisis that rises in great part from propagation...

...See also Commonweal, February 10...

...and without consideration of personal and historical consequences, it becomes ever less capable of winning assent, even for those aspects of the norm that are correct...

...Today such norms strike us as strange...

...It is published here in a translation by Ingrid Knapp, with adaptations by the editors...

...And, if we are able to approach this now crucial topic with reasonable arguments and realizable proposals, as well as with testimony to our specific Christian beliefs in the nonviolent Son of God and Redeemer, then old problems like that of meaningful family planning can be solved with relative ease...

...For this view signifies a total-I repeat, a total-deformation not only of Christianity but of religion itself, because it is connected to the negation of the truth of creation...

...Such situations are not rare, and they do not arise only in the bedroom but also in the many dilemmas encountered by parents, politicians, doctors, nurses, workers, executives, pastors: by every human person...

...And yet, the creative conscience exists for all who have understood what Paul said in the baptismal lesson: "You are not subjects of a regime of law, but rather one of grace" (Romans 6:14...

...Confronted with the need to choose-as we all are daily and hourly-the healthily raised Christian focuses his or her gaze on God's grace and benevolence...

...BUILDING A BERNARD HARING CREATIVE CONSCIENCE RESISTING MORAL RIGOR MORTIS he following article originally appeared, in somewhat different form, in an April issue of the German Catholic weekly Christ in der Gegen-wart...

...Behind this specific form of contraception stands the high value of life, a value experienced as holy...

...Conscience-building is primarily a mediation of values and an introduction to the recognition of values in the light cast by the love of Christ...

...Whoever refuses it because of the church's condemnation loses his good name and is plagued by his conscience...

...At most, he or she will try to perform works of "supererogation," as legalistic morality describes actions beyond the call of strict duty, in order to achieve the "state of perfection...

...Mohandas Gandhi, who examined the Sermon on the Mount daily, and who accepted into his own conscience all that the sacred writings of Hinduism and Buddhism expressed about nonviolence, is a clear example of the creative conscience...

...What [these] people really want is to uphold the principle: Truth emerges by consensus...

...These concepts are the principle of "consensus" and the idea of the "creative conscience...

...When behavioral norms differ, one must ask whether the differences rise out of historical circumstances, and whether, despite the differences, the norms themselves serve the law of love...

...The lives of all our saints-canonized or not-are a clear testimony to creative freedom and creative faithfulness...

...In the world today there exists no better or more urgent example of the need for consensus-seeking than the still nascent movement to establish nonviolence as the only appropriate, sensible, tolerable, moral response to conflictual situations...

...Autonomy does not oppose God's law of love but rather it opposes heteronomy, external determination by mere ideology...

...for me the answer can only be Yes...

...If church morality is to be proclaimed as operative for the entire populated earth, we require a deeper understanding of the historicity of human culture, including revised behavioral norms-an understanding, for example, that for millennia a need existed to exploit fertility to the utmost in order to assure the survival of clan and tribe, indeed of the human race...

...Doing this is not manufacturing truth but earnestly trying to find it...

...Not rarely their insights led to the abandonment of hardened and unnecessarily rigid norms-a course always found objectionable by legalists...

...Interestingly, the levirate obligation exists to this day in almost all tribes of black Africa...

...In a recent interview (Rheinische Merkur, March 24), he is quoted to this effect: The idea of the autonomous conscience that ultimately produces the truth about good and evil creatively and by itself-a notion that is generally taught and propagated today-may under no circumstances be brought into discussion...

...Missionary doctors and native nurses have described to us how guilty young mothers feel, how strongly and publicly they are reproached, if a pregnancy comes about within the critical interval...

...Building a creative conscience means getting to know Jesus, and through him the meaning of love...

...Whenever possible, such a conscience will hold itself literally and precisely to norms that are presented as completely inflexible...

...With the help of missionaries, catechists, and others, we examined the methods of birth regulation traditionally followed by African peoples...

...As yet this truth does not command an adequate consensus, but it is my conviction that one day it can...

...More will be said of this below...

...it rescues us from mechanistic images of the conscience and immunizes us against fanatical legalism...

...Should we not be all united in the creative search for the complete truth of evangelical nonviolence, of the conciliatory love that is the sign of the true Christian, the mark of the redeemed...

...In all the Bantu tribes (which constitute about half of black Africa) and also in many other tribes, a sacral norm requires that a new pregnancy may not occur while the mother is breastfeeding a child...

...Called upon by Christ to achieve a healthy conscience, a redeemed autonomy, free from external determination, we can reach that goal only when we make honest efforts to understand the convictions and statements of others, and to invite them to join with us in understanding and reconciling our differences...

...Monsignor Carlo Caffarra, prominently mentioned in the article, is president of the John Paul II Institute of the Lateran University and a consultant to the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith...

...ny imputation that concern for consensus means acceptance of the supposition that "truth emerges by consensus" is similarly ill-grounded...

...In my own work in therapy and spiritual direction, I have often dealt with victims of this conception of the inflexibility of all norms...

...Gandhi was able not only to share this conviction with friends and followers, but to teach them how to become creative in discovering in each situation the correct and practical means of expressing nonviolence, of bringing conciliatory love-both of justice and of opponents-to bear...

...But Yahweh was displeased with what he had done...

...On the first point: Pace Monsignor Caffarra, consensus-seeking is not nose-counting-determining moral truths by the numbers...

...We Christians must unite ourselves in this with the best representatives of Taoism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam-with all people of good will...

...Rather, it rests on the mystery of the law of love and life, which is written in the heart and echoes in the core of conscience...

...as will be seen, however, they hold a broader significance...

...An apt example is the norm that calls for "family planning as much as possible through natural methods corresponding to the rhythms of fertility...

...The conscience challenged by norms that are contradictory, and yet that seem not to allow flexibility (no exceptions, no epikeia, no oikonomia), is literally sickened, with devastating consequences for the relationship with the lawgiver God...

...To make our message of nonviolence heard, we must ourselves listen, acknowledging the difficulties, admitting any demonstrated flaws in our own reasoning...

...But always and everywhere, this law is read in a historical situation, and the consequence is a pluralism whose legitimacy can be denied only through a naive impulse to impose one's own opinion on all ages and all cultures...

...oncerning the second question-is there a "creative conscience...

...and therefore he let him die...

...Pace Caffarra (again), nobody is talking about a creative production of the truth about good and evil-an absurd notion-but about the step-by-step discovery of that truth: the discovery of our collective responsibility, the finding of correct and adequate means to serve the goals of love, justice, and peace...

...It happens that these criticisms, to use the mildest possible term for them, have been brought into play in the context of the dispute over the morality of contraception...

...Neither is it theological log-rolling-trading concessions for the sake of an inauthentic unity...

...In doing so we must not impute to those who remain convinced of the need to rely on military means of defense the status of being "opponents of God, enemies of creation, of love, of justice, of peace...

...An example of urgent importance now is the precept of nonviolence, the redeeming and healing love of conciliation, as it is illuminated in the four Songs of God's Servant (Is...

...But: "Since Onan knew that the offspring would not belong to him, he let his seed fall to the ground whenever he slept with his brother's wife, in order not to provide descendants for his brother...

...What we are saying is that moral standards must be proposed and defended with arguments grounded in common experience and reflected upon in solidarity, in such a way that they are capable of engendering consensus or become increasingly so...

...For the Catholic and Evangelical ethicists who speak of an autonomous conscience or an autonomous morality, faith is indeed a strong and joyous thing, and rootedness in the community of believers is a matter of course that is nevertheless often emphasized...

...They have been linked together in a misrepresentation according to which conscience alone is held to "create" the norms of good and evil, and moral truth is "determined" by consensus, or concurrence...

...42:1-9...

...All the true prophets of Israel were gifted with a creative conscience...

...Monopolists of "The Truth" who do not believe they must join with all other people in the world in the search for a better understanding of truth are not good discoverers or disseminators of truth...

...Anyone who has sought to work therapeutically with the paranoid and the guilt-ridden knows that a conscience saturated with strict prohibitions becomes sterile, the opposite of creative, and so does the life of the person thus governed...

...Coitus interruptus was of course condemned in the encyclical Casti connubii (1930), the forerunner of Humanae vitae (1968), on the basis of what was considered to be revelational proof in the book of Genesis (38:6-11) of the absolute evil of contraception...

...Consider, first, the opposite case, that of a person whose conscience is wholly occupied with constrictions and prohibitive norms...