When we struggle to lead a good moral life,
we are struggling
to be all that we can be.

How to be happy
every day of your life
By John Gerard Nestor

  It is probably true to say that most people regard morality as a list of do’s and don’ts, which restrict us from doing what we might otherwise do. They may feel that they have to follow moral law for the sake of appearances, to avoid a guilty conscience, or simply because they believe that we have to follow the rules.

    If such people have any religious commitment, they probably believe that God has revealed the moral law to humanity; hence morality is about obeying God. There is nothing incorrect so far; but this is an extremely limited view of morality. Unfortunately, many Catholics may share this limited view. It is a problem because it underestimates the importance of struggling to live a moral life.

Morality as a restriction

    Of course, acceptance of morality—however viewed—is better than immorality, the idea that “ought” and “ought not” have no meaning. If people avoid doing evil, for whatever reason, they come out ahead. But believing that morality is a restriction on us, is likely to lead to a desire to be rid of the restriction. For example, if young people believe that the moral system expected by parents is just a restriction, they are prone to look forward to the time when, away from parental control, they can throw aside these imposed restrictions.

    A similar view, among basically moral persons, is that morality is necessary to keep any society functioning (which is true), but that cutting corners is all right, as long as no one finds out. This sort of thinking betrays a mind set that morality is an imposition, even if it is a necessary evil.

    In the best possible light, this view is of morality as a highway speed limit. Overall, it cuts down on accidents; but many of us may feel that we do not really need it. If we are sure there are no police around, we might ignore it and get to our destination a little earlier. To continue the analogy, if the conditions change, the speed limit may need to be altered. And similarly, we are familiar with calls for moral law to change, to reflect new “lifestyles.” This view of morality is pervasive. We in the Church have, I believe, unwittingly encouraged this by a view of morality which concentrates too much on obligations. Certainly, the moral law imposes an obligation; but morality is not a mere restriction. To stop at this level would be like seeing a spouse as merely someone to whom we have certain obligations.

    Spouses see each other as a special gift to themselves, someone who helps them to be all they can be; someone without whom life could never be complete. In a similar way, morality helps us to be all we can be, to avoid the pitfalls which might retard us from reaching our full potential. In other words, morality shows us how to lead a happy life. For a Christian, morality is part of that response to the gift of Faith which ensures we live happily here on earth, and in even greater happiness with God forever.

Morality is about being free

    There are basically two ways of viewing freedom. The first—and unfortunately, most common—is to see freedom as a state of permanent options. As adults, we might tend to look back to the days when we were old enough to have a certain degree of independence, but young enough to have not yet gained major responsibilities. We can tend (unrealistically) to wish life could always be that way.

    When I was a teenager, my father worked for the state rail system; so in vacations, I could take off to any part of the state without a moment’s hesitation. Time almost had no meaning in those years. Options were always open.

    The first way of viewing freedom can be like this; we are free when we are unrestricted, when options are open. On this basis, morality is a restriction because morality signals one option, and closes off other options. Morality definitely reduces our freedom, if we regard freedom as about keeping our options open permanently. This view of freedom is deficient because the only good in having options is in order to choose one. Choices are useless unless, at some point, a person chooses!

    The second way of seeing freedom is as an ability to BE something more than we are now. For an embryo, freedom is not to be thrown out of the restricting womb prematurely, but to be allowed to develop into a child. Father Pinckaers, in his remarkable book Sources of Christian Ethics, calls this second view, “freedom for excellence.”

    When we struggle to lead a moral life, we are struggling to be all that we can be; we are rejecting the counterfeit images of ourselves, tinged by corruption, sensuality, greed, etc. We are refusing to be slaves of our lower inclinations and instead, reaching for the stars.

    It is sad for a young person to die; at such times, family and friends are likely to think of the potential which was never reached. But how much sadder is the life of a person who never achieves what they are capable of—not due to accident or imposition, but due to their own bad choices. There are so many things we will never be able to do, unless we struggle to make every decision a morally good one.

    So morality is about being free. Sin, which can sometimes seem to be so inviting, is a dead end which stops us being all we can be. Morality points us forward towards our full potential—firstly in this life, but also in the next, permanent life. By making good choices, we are free to be all we can be; bad choices restrict our freedom by stopping us reaching that potential.

    Because human persons should be able to walk, we feel sorry for someone who is unable to walk; we should feel a greater sorrow for someone unable to tell the truth because he has become a liar, unable to love because of sins of sensuality, unable to pray because of neglect of his religious duties. Such people are retarded from their true human potential. Morality shows us how to achieve what we are meant to be.

How moral choices make us who we are

    In Veritatis Splendor (#71), Pope John Paul II quotes St. Gregory of Nyssa: Thus we are in a certain way our own parents, creating ourselves as we will, by our decisions. This statement makes a fundamental point.

    We can tend to see morality as a series of decisions which are entirely separate. This is only part of the story. Every moral decision changes us; after every single moral decision we make, we are a somewhat different person. If it is just a small matter, admittedly we are not much changed; but even in small matters, each decision, be it good or bad, changes us in a way which predisposes us for the next decision.

    If a person tells a small lie, he is predisposed to tell another; after a series of lies, that formerly truthful person, is now a liar. Similarly, each good decision forms us more into the generous, religious, industrious, etc. person intended by our creator. So each moral decision on which we ponder is not a consideration about something “out there,” something distinct from ourselves; it is consideration about what is to be our future selves. Each moral decision is about who we intend to be. Morality is thus not just about what we do (or think, or say); it is about what we are: What kind of person we are making of ourselves.

    To take a small example: Faced by hardship and unfairness at work, a person can react positively; or he can allow jealousy, backbiting and depression to take him over. The second approach will make the person less; the first approach will make the person more than he was prior to the moral decision. There is no moral decision which leaves us unchanged. Sin inevitably changes us—but so do virtuous acts.

Morality is dynamic

    A line somewhere in Shakespeare says “sin plucks on sin,” or in more modern language, one sin leads to another. By our good choices, our decisions to choose good rather than evil, we make good choices easier, more “natural” to ourselves. In other words, we develop virtues, or stable dispositions towards good choices in the different areas—honesty, truth, generosity, chastity and so on.

    Few of us ever find doing good always easy; but the more we choose good, the easier it becomes. It becomes “natural” to make virtuous choices. When a good person commits sin, he often feels uncomfortable even in doing the action (or word or thought) itself, let alone afterwards. This is an encouraging thing. On the other hand, a criminal often feels quite comfortable in doing violence; years ago, I heard a juvenile delinquent boasting of how he had locked a cab driver in the trunk of his car and set it alight. “He deserved it—he wouldn’t give us the money,” he said to a friend.

    Such a callous disregard of life, indicates a movement well along the continuum towards complete depravity. Most people will, thank God, never fall so far. Perhaps we could ask ourselves how “easy” is it for us to tell a convenient lie. Each moral decision makes evil—or good—easier for us in the future. This is the dynamic of moral choice.

Development or deformation
of the conscience

    Every moral choice has another effect—the formation or deformation of conscience. Conscience is one of the human person’s most delicate organs. I like to compare it with the eyes, in terms of its delicacy. The eyes are so easily damaged; one viewing of an eclipse can permanently damage them; so can a physical injury which, in another part of the body, would be easily healed. Working with an electric arc welder or even in toxic fumes can, unprotected, cause irreparable harm to the eyes.

    Like the eyes, the conscience should be protected and exercised, so that it sees clearly towards what is right; as we all know, this requires formation by listening to a moral authority—ultimately for us Catholics, the Church. But like the eyes, a good conscience also needs exercise: to be used to choose the good. Like the eyes, if it is damaged by bad choices, it will gradually lose its ability to distinguish good from evil. The formation of conscience is not just about learning what is right; we need also to actually make good choices.

    On the other hand, each bad moral decision damages the conscience, making it less able to distinguish what is good from what is bad. As we all know, doing what is right can be hard enough at times; how much harder it is when we do not even know what is right, at least in some particular area. This can be caused by an ignorance of the teachings of the Church or of Natural Law—but it can also be the effect of a deformed conscience: Deformed by choosing evil.

Feeling good

    Feelings have got a justifiably bad name among many of us in recent years. But there is a truth out there which should not be lost. St. Ignatius Loyola speaks of the discernment of the fundamental option of our lives: If it is towards good, we will usually feel good or happy when we do good; we will feel uncomfortable when we make evil choices—even though we expect them to give us pleasure or ease. A person whose fundamental option is towards evil, will often feel uneasy or uncomfortable when he does good.

    We cannot make feelings the determiner of the way we act; they are too fickle, since we are not confirmed in virtue! But by striving to do good, we gradually “educate” our feelings towards good: we gradually feel natural about good moral choices. Evil has less appeal to us.

    On the other hand, the choice of evil, even in small matters, leads us down a one-way street. It becomes “natural” to do evil; virtue seems so dull, unattractive and unattainable. Recently I was talking with a young lady about getting drunk; although she receives Holy Communion each week and comes from an excellent family, she could not see the problem of getting drunk at parties, so long as she is with people she trusts. The prospect of sobriety in her social life held absolutely no attraction; in fact, she seemed unable to accept that such a life would be bearable; social inebriation had become “natural” to her.

    Morality shows us how to be free from the restrictive deformity of sin. To choose good involves struggle, but brings happiness even in this life, a happiness unknown to those who do not struggle to be good. Each good choice makes the effort to be good a little easier. On the other hand, to choose evil, even in small things, opens us to a spiral which can lead almost imperceptibly towards discontent, weakness and unhappiness. Each moral choice is not about something we do, but about who we are.

    I believe that those who have a teaching role in the Church—especially priests—have to make sure that Catholic morality is firmly understood. Let us explain it clearly and repeat it often. But it is also important to occasionally explain it from the slightly different angle I have used here. Morality is humanity’s perception (and God’s revelation) on how to be happy. To reject it, is not only to court disaster in the next life, but in this life too.   

Reverend John Gerard Nestor worked as a Passenger Business Manager of the New South Wales Railways before beginning studies for the priesthood. In 1989 he was ordained for the Diocese of Wollongong, Australia. In addition to normal parish duties, he has worked in University and High School chaplaincies. In 1996 he earned an M.Th. at the John Paul II Institute in Washington, D.C. while working in a parish of the Arlington Diocese. Fr. Nestor has also appeared in a series of Catholic television shows.

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