DESIRE FOR HAPPINESS AND THE COMMANDMENTS

IN THE FIRST CHAPTER OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR^*(1)

Livio Melina

Pontificio Istituto Giovanni Paolo II

Rome, Italy

"THE DESIRE for happiness" and "the commandments" seem to constitute two irreducible alternatives, representing an contrariety that separates the classical conception of morality from the modern. The choice that Catholic post-Tridentine handbook theology made to remove the treatise on happiness from moral theology and to focus on the commandments appears unavoidable, even to contemporary moral theology. The perspective of the desire for happiness, which is thought to bind the ethical imperative to an empirical element that is indeterminate, subjective, and, above all, self-interested, has been eliminated from the ambit of moral thinking as incapable of guaranteeing the absolute and unconditional character of morality. This has been achieved by means of a philosophical critique that appears not to have lost currency and persuasiveness.⁽²⁾ Moreover, from a theological point of view, the perspective of the desire for happiness seems unwittingly to risk turning God, the end of all, into the means of "my" self realization.⁽³⁾ Faithfulness to Biblical inspiration, rather than to Aristotelian schema, seems necessarily to privilege the commandments as the original form of morality.⁽⁴⁾

It is therefore surprising to note how the Encyclical Veritatis splendor, in its evocative rereading of the dialogue between Jesus and the young rich man (in Mt. 19:16-21), reintroduces the category of the "desire for happiness," characterizing it as the proper content of the moral question. The Encyclical also, however, associates this perspective with that of the commandments when it cites the response of Jesus, who, after having invited the rich man to turn his gaze toward the One who alone is good, directs the young man to observe the Decalogue. This is not simply a juxtaposition of different and mutually incompatible perspectives. While it is not obliged to provide a theoretical and systematic justification, the papal document does solicit attempts to grasp the constitutive connections that would provide for an integration of these two categories; this is specifically the task of the moral theologian. Thus, when the Encyclical suggests that the question about happiness--as the question "about the full meaning of life," and as prior to the question "about rules to be followed"--is the "echo of a call from God who is the origin and end of man's life" (n. 7), it situates itself within the perspective of the renewal to which the Second Vatican Council called moral theology, which, in its theoretical exposition, will have the task of illustrating "the lofty vocation which the faithful have received in Christ, the only response fully capable of satisfying the desire of the human heart" (n. 7).⁽⁵⁾

This article intends to accept the invitation of the Encyclical and the Council by thematizing the relation between the desire for happiness and the commandments. Starting from the indications of the first chapter of Veritatis splendor, moral theology is called to establish this relation at a fundamental level. I shall develop my reflection on this theme in three stages. In the first place, I shall present an examination of the three terms at issue (desire, happiness, and commandments) with the intention of grasping the similarities and dissimilarities between them. In the second place I shall take up the global context within which Veritatis splendor situates the relation between these terms, and which is provided by the link between freedom and truth. Finally, the specific theme of the first chapter of the Encyclical will be put into relief by displaying the novel points of departure of the framework it presents.

I. Preliminary Consideration of the Terms of the Problem

"Desiderium "

Already the ancients associated the term "desire" with sidera, the stars.⁽⁶⁾ What does desire have to do with the stars? The original semantic environment seems to be the sacred language of the oracles, hence, of an anxious search in the stars for some sign of assurance that that for which the heart hopes will be fulfilled. With respect to the verb considerare, which has the same root, desire would therefore be a moment of disappointment, the downward glance of a gaze originally turned toward the stars. In this way the characteristic ambiguity of desire may be appreciated. On the one hand there results a compromise of its original yearning for the heavens (the infinite), hence a restless wandering among earthly objects, unable to find in them either an adequate satisfaction of its aspiration or a sure sign that the hope inscribed in one's heart will come true (this wandering has rightly been called the "nomadic character of desire").⁽⁷⁾ On the other hand, one can observe that desire, although poised towards the finite, continues to bear within itself the memory of, and the nostalgia for, the infinite: in every one of our desires this Sehnsucht for the heavens remains as a secret yearning, never attained in the finite.

The category of desire, therefore, shows itself to be anthropologically revelatory of the creaturely indigence constitutive of the human being, a being thrown into the world with the original promise that his thirst for the infinite will be quenched, but who inevitably runs up against disappointment. If the reality that man encounters awakens the promise, it also painfully denies it, such that in the face of desire one is obliged to make a fundamental choice of attitude. One must either affirm and confirm the native promise of the heart, notwithstanding disappointments, maintaining an openness to the possibility of fulfillment (which is not brought about by any human "doing"); or one must renounce the promise of the infinite, and adapt to the finite. The reasonableness of the former attitude is evident in the fact that it does not entail a rejection or negation--as does the latter--of any element of human experience. Above all it does not require one to censure the most interesting and decisive element of the heart: the promise.⁽⁸⁾ If, on the one hand, faithfulness to that promise requires the affirmation of the existence of an answer adequate to our desire, and if, on the other hand, realism excludes that such an answer be situated within the horizon of human doing, then it follows that the answer can only be given in the form of a gift from Another. The fulfillment of desire can only be believed and awaited, not projected and constructed as some work to be done. ⁽⁹⁾

The great poet Dante has expressed with unsurpassable verses desire's original tension as well as its temptation to turn in on itself:

Everyone confusedly apprehends a good in which the mind may be at rest and desires it, so that each strives to reach it, and if the love is sluggish that draws you to see it or gain it, this terrace, after due repentance, torments you for that. Other good there is which does not make men happy; it is not happiness, it is not the good Essence, the fruit and root of every good.⁽¹⁰⁾

The aspiration for total fulfillment dwells, in a confused manner, within the restless searching of the human heart, a heart that desires in every thing loved that final end that alone grants happiness. The ascent of purgatory is essentially the purification of desire because, freed from bonds of limited and apparent satisfaction ("pure and ready to mount to the stars"),⁽¹¹⁾ it can be assumed into the same movement by which God moves the universe; so, finally, it can there find its peace, contemplating "the Love that moves the sun and the other stars."⁽¹²⁾

From this comes the need for an education in desire. Such an education, by renouncing the immediate appeasement of the finite, once again orients the gaze and the tension of the heart towards the heavens, towards the stars; the heart thereby recuperates its global horizon, the fullness of satisfaction. In order to be saved, then, desire needs to entrust itself to a promise of fulfillment, and to find a personal reference point that, in accompanying desire, allows for its purification.

Happiness

Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz, in a classical study of the term "happiness,"⁽¹³⁾ has shown its extreme semantical complexity. There seem, however, to be two principal conceptions of happiness that he brings to the fore. In the first place there is the modern conception ("happiness"⁽¹⁴⁾), which he interprets as satisfaction with one's own life, taken as a whole. What is in question here is a subjective perspective, in which the one, unquestionable criterion for happiness is the judgment of the subject, who does not therefore have to distinguish between true and false happiness. The single criterion for this definition of happiness is psychological: the saturation of desire. In the second place, there is the classical conception (eudaimonìa or beatitudo), which he takes as the perfection of life in the objective sense. In this view of things it is not only possible but also necessary to refer to objective and rational criteria in order to establish what is true happiness.

Saint Augustine, in the De Trinitate, offers a definition of that which constitutes happiness in the objective sense: "A happy man is one who has all that he wants and, at the same time, wants nothing bad."⁽¹⁵⁾ The two elements complete each other, and serve to define happiness as the correspondence of the tending of the subject with the presence of its proportionate object. For happiness, in fact, the state of subjective satisfaction (having all that one wants) is not enough; rectitude of the will (not wanting anything bad) is also necessary. And here it is the object that decides: "it is the good that causes the happiness of the happy man." For the Doctor of Hippo happiness has, therefore, an objective character: one can distinguish between true and false happiness on the basis of the object of the will, the Good.

For his part, Saint Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa, places the criterion for the determination of true happiness within the subject: "To desire happiness is nothing other than to desire the satisfaction of the will."⁽¹⁶⁾ He then affirms, however, that only the true good can satisfy the will fully. Here he recuperates the totality of the horizon of desire, tied to the will (i.e., the appetite guided by reason), which preserves its openness to the infinite. For Thomas, too, happiness has an objective character, for it is connected with the goodness of the object; on just this basis the goodness of the subject and his happiness is defined. Beatitude has an objective meaning (finis cuius) and in this sense is identified with God, the Summum Bonum and final end. But beatitude also has a subjective meaning (finis quo) and in this sense it coincides with an activity of the subject.⁽¹⁷⁾ To be truly happy one must become the kind of person who loves the good, wherein true happiness is found, and in this way become himself good.⁽¹⁸⁾

At this juncture surfaces the theme of the structural disproportion between desire, which animates human action, and its object. Desire cannot be fulfilled by the possible objects of action: it is made for the stars. As Maurice Blondel has pointed out, between the volonté voulante (willing will) and the volonté voulue (willed will) there exists a structural disproportion,⁽¹⁹⁾ which action attempts in vain to overcome. The desire for happiness, i.e., the desire for the complete fulfillment of the will in its openness, the secret spring of every action, must be guided by reason. At the same time, however, the truth about the Good is always beyond any rationalistic pre-comprehension that would attempt, prior to our actions, to seize it in a concept. It is therefore necessary to entrust oneself to praxis, to live action with a trusting "pre-sentiment" of complete fulfillment. Action seems to have to function as reason's guide in its tending towards its proportionate object. But action so understood takes the form of a practical "entrustment" to a promise, in order to receive its fulfillment as a "gift."

The Commandments

A conflict of principle between desire for happiness and the commandments is necessarily implied by the legalistic conception of modern moral thinking⁽²⁰⁾ and by the correlative subjectivist conception of happiness. The commandments, even if reabsorbed into the autonomy of an interior norm, continue to be opposed to desire, now reduced to the empirical sphere of the passions (Kant). This contraposition is not, however, the necessary consequence of classical ethics, provided this ethics is not interpreted in a "rationalistic" manner.

In the ethics of classical inspiration, and in particular in Thomistic ethics, the concept of lex is secondary and subordinate to that of virtus. ⁽²¹⁾ The law, which maintains an irreducible character of exteriority, but which at the same time is recognized in its intrinsic rationality, has as its aim the guidance of men towards virtue.⁽²²⁾ As such the law is reformulated and is understood to have as its finality the education of desire. In fact, we might say that virtue is desire educated to see the stars: appetite molded by reason, which maintains its intentional openness to the final end. Therefore, the commandments exist in function of an education of desire. So, on the one hand, they posit the external limits of its immediate satisfaction, in order to save its total openness; on the other hand, they forge its aspirations in conformity with their authentic ends. The commandments deny our urges towards partial satisfaction so as to protect our secret and ultimate longing. Impeding the reduction of desire or its collapse into itself, the commandments guide desire towards the stars.

The priority of virtue over the commandment is a decisive characteristic of the "ethics of the agent-subject" or "ethics of the first person" vis-à-vis the "ethics of the observer" or "ethics of the third person."⁽²³⁾ For the former, the agent subject is at the center, with his aspiration towards the good and towards happiness; for the latter, an external regulation of behavior, by means of norms and precepts, is at the center. Veritatis splendor explicitly makes the former framework its own when it affirms that in order to grasp the object that morally specifies action it is "necessary to place oneself in the perspective of the acting person" (n. 78). Moreover, this is also the orientation of its first chapter, which emphasizes as the origin of morality the question the young man puts to Jesus : "Master, what good thing must I do to obtain eternal life?" Precisely by starting with this question Veritatis splendor reintroduces the desire for happiness as the original experience and foundational principle of morality, within which the commandments, in their turn, find their proper place and significance.

II. The Global Context of Veritatis splendor:

The Connection between Freedom and Truth

Veritatis splendor situates the problem of the relationship between desire (for happiness) and the commandments within the more comprehensive thematic of the connection between freedom and truth (nn. 4 and 84), whereas that which connotes the specifically theological dimension of the problem, namely, the connection between faith and morality, is set in the background. This framework, centered on freedom, is characterized as "modern," for within it are gathered the most debated questions of contemporary moral reflection (n. 31). Nevertheless, freedom is reunited to truth from within (n. 34) as the condition of its authenticity. In order to grasp the significance of this contextualization, so decisive for the Encyclical's perspective, it is necessary to consider the conception of freedom and truth proposed by the pontifical document.

Truth

The truth of which it speaks is not the object of a merely "speculative" knowledge, in which reason alone is at play. It is rather a matter of a practical truth: a truth on which one's personal life depends, a truth that is not only to be contemplated, but to be done, and that therefore is given to be known only in the form of a "re-cognition," i.e., only insofar as one's freedom is engaged with it.⁽²⁴⁾ In this regard, Saint Thomas Aquinas speaks of a veritas vitae⁽²⁵⁾ as the complete correspondence, both interior and exterior, of the whole of man's being with divine truth; the individual virtues bring this correspondence to fruition within the specific ambits of their competence. At issue here is a principle of general rectitude, which sustains and grounds the whole of human existence, in conformity with the divine law.⁽²⁶⁾ Man assents to moral truth only by virtue of his freedom and with the whole of his being, which must be shaped by the virtues: "the virtuous man judges everything rightly, and in each thing the truth appears to him . . . he being the canon and measure of them."⁽²⁷⁾ It is precisely the decisive function accorded to the appetite in regard to moral knowledge that characterizes the classical position of Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas, and that differentiates them from every intellectualistic reduction of virtue to a merely executive role.⁽²⁸⁾

Veritatis splendor discusses this theme in reference to conscience (n. 64), recalling the indispensable connaturality required for the knowledge of the concrete good and citing Jn. 3:21: "He who does what is true comes to the light." But also in regard to the final end, happiness, the decisive criterion for its determination cannot but be practical reason (cf. n. 40).⁽²⁹⁾ It seems to me that the Encyclical acknowledges this practical connotation of the decisive theme of truth when it notes that the moral question is a question "about the full meaning of life" (n. 7). This signifies quite a different thing than a purely theoretical or rationalistic truth; it expresses, rather, the relation established between a particular action and the whole. An action is meaningful only insofar as it becomes intelligible; and this is achieved when it is connected with the ultimate end of existence, and therefore with reality as a whole, understood as the expression of a divinely sapiential design. The moral question cannot be limited to "moralistic" terms, i.e., as the mere conformity of an action with a rule. Rather, it must be viewed more radically as a question about the identity of the person (veritas vitae), about the link that connects his action to his end, which gives meaning to his life. "There exists a connection between the moral good and the fulfillment of his own destiny" (n. 8). In this tending towards truth, where what is in play is the meaning of one's life as a whole, even knowledge is attained only through the whole person, who must be in harmony with the good, and who, in the engagement of his freedom, risks by entrusting himself.

Freedom

The relativity of freedom to truth, according to the attestation of the gospel "the truth will make you free" (Jn. 8:32), also necessarily implies a reinterpretation of the modern conception of freedom. Freedom is not "indifference,"⁽³⁰⁾ but love for the true good. The theme of the desire for happiness is integrated into morality as the original and constitutive inclination of freedom, but this is oriented in turn by the judgment of reason. Reason regards the desire for happiness not as an empty psychological formula left up to subjective interpretation. Rather, desire is viewed as the tension towards the ultimate end of man's aspiring, guided by reason.⁽³¹⁾ Desire, once it is brought fully back into the dynamic of freedom and morality, is not a naturalistic passion of only empirical and psychological relevance, but the conscious openness to the fullness of the horizon of the Good. At the root of all diffidence about desire and the natural inclinations is perhaps the prejudice of a reductivistic interpretation that places them at the level of merely sensible experience. What is decisive, therefore, is the rediscovery of their properly spiritual dimension: The desire for happiness is the expression of our natura spiritualis in its spontaneous aspiration for the true and the good.⁽³²⁾ Such a nature, theologically understood as a manifestation of the image of God, far from leading one to the particularism of sensible experience, opens the person to the universality of the spirit.

The truth concerning the good thus mediates between desire and its full satisfaction, between native aspiration and its final fulfillment. Freedom is animated by an aspiration restored and maintained in its original openness: the commandments and the virtues have this purpose.

In conclusion, it may be useful to touch on the thesis of the philosopher Karol Wojtyla concerning the truthful integration of desire,⁽³³⁾ which can perhaps be identified as the underlying philosophical background to the Encyclical, permitting us to grasp the meaning of this thematic. The freedom of man is made for the gift of self to the other; in this gift even desire is integrated, which, by submitting itself to the truth, agrees to acknowledge the primacy of the other and so to realize itself ecstatically. At issue here is a gradual process that assumes instincts, impulses, emotions, and sentiments, but that can bring about their integration only within the truth. The reference to the truth, in fact, conditions the authentic freedom of self-determination and permits a transcendence with respect to various forms of determinism. The virtues have a decisive role in this process, for they are precisely the formation of desire in the light of the openness to the truth.

III. Novel Points in the First Chapter of the Encyclical

In the first chapter of Veritatis splendor the connection between desire for happiness and the commandments is grasped in the concrete dynamic of the encounter and dialogue between the rich young man and Jesus (Mt. 19:16-22). This original perspective allows certain novel points to emerge--points that are important for the renewal of moral theology at its very foundation.

A) The Moral Life as "Encounter" with Jesus Christ

The moral path is grasped at its genesis as an "encounter" with Jesus (n. 7), an encounter in which the desire of the young interlocutor (but in him also human beings of all ages) is aroused with all of its force, as aspiration for eternal life, for the "fulfillment of his own destiny" (n. 8). It is on account of the "attractiveness of the person of Jesus," a promise intuited in his words and in his actions, that the question is reawakened with all of its openness.

In this way man's ethical dimension is situated within the concrete context of a personal relationship, a relationship that develops dialogically in history. From this is derived an emphasis on the fundamental value for moral theology of categories such as "vocation," "covenant," "promise," "trust," "companionship," "hope," and "gift." Such categories are well represented in the Sacred Scriptures, but for centuries have been obscured by the systematic moral theology of the handbooks; indeed, they have remained irrelevant even in the elaboration of post-conciliar normative ethics. The concentration on the commandments, or on norms, has favored a reductive focusing of the debate on the autonomy of moral reason, which has overshadowed and rendered essentially pleonastic all reference to revelation and, in particular, to its contents.⁽³⁴⁾ The reinsertion of these contents into moral theology, under the auspices of Optatam totius, n. 16, requires not so much a reproposal of Holy Writ according to the modes of persuasive or "narrative" discourse (so fashionable today) as a fundamental reflection, on the basis of a phenomenology of the ethical experience of man as such, that grasps its transcendental categories in their structural connections⁽³⁵⁾ and, above all, that provides a properly theological hermeneutic, in reference to Christ. It is, in fact, in Him, in the encounter with Him, "true light which illumines everyone" (Jn. 1:9, cited in Veritatis splendor, n. 1), that the solution can be found for the problem in theological anthropology so decisive today for moral theology, the problem concerning the relation between nature and grace.⁽³⁶⁾

In the encounter with Jesus, desire is saved from its withdrawal into itself and lifted up towards a goal, in which one can find fulfillment in a form heretofore unknown. Christian revelation proposes a surprising and superabundant fulfillment of the desire for happiness; and this resolves the paradoxical tension between the necessity of finding an answer for living and acting reasonably and the impossibility of full satisfaction of this desire in this world. To linger with the metaphor that, beginning with the etymology of desire, accompanies the thread of our reflection, we could say that the stars have come to earth in order to encounter and save the errant and vagrant desire of man.⁽³⁷⁾

At the same time, this encounter so full of promise, which occurred as an unexpected and unthinkable grace, demands the reformulation of the young man's original question. If one's expectation is to be fulfilled, one must accept that it be surpassed. From out of the sphere of human "doing," Jesus invites man to turn his gaze to the fount of goodness, to Him who, being the absolute Good, constitutes the final end of action. Only in total and disinterested love for this end does moral initiative and the question of eternal life make sense. In the encounter with Jesus, the young man discovers the depth of his own desire; on the other hand, he is invited to let that desire be reformed through education, by means of the commandments and the following of Christ. In fact, the Encyclical underlines the fact that the dynamic of the dialogue, beginning with the ardor of love for the absolute and final good, continues to recall the commandments, those "paths" towards the fulfillment of the desire for eternal life, and then the following of the very person of Jesus (discipleship), after having abandoned everything for him.

B) The Christological Dimension of the Commandments

"From the very lips of Jesus, the new Moses, man is once again given the commandments of the Decalogue" (n. 12). Jesus confirms and proposes the commandments to men of every age as the way and condition of salvation. In this way the connection between commandment and promise is established from within the relation of the covenant. In fact, since the time of the Old Testament, the context in which the commandments are given to us has been that of the Covenant:⁽³⁸⁾ they have the form of a gift offered by God out of love, and received by His people in trust on the strength of a promise. Through the commandment the people of Israel entrusts itself to its Lord, who will guard and bring its desire for happiness to fruition (cf. Dt. 6:3). The commandment is the typical form of the education in desire that is realized by means of faith within the historical relationship of the covenant. The exterior dimension of obedience is lived in the attitude of trust. In sum, even the commandments of the Old Covenant are a way of imitating God in his salvific action towards the people.

But, once again, the full form of the commandment is personal. Veritatis splendor reproposes the affirmation of Saint Ambrose according to which "plenitudo legis in Christo est," asserting that "he himself becomes a living and personal Law" (n. 15). In the face of man's desire there is no longer the abstract and impersonal expression of the law, but the concrete and personal form of Jesus, who, according to the Balthasarian formula, is "the concrete categorical imperative,"⁽³⁹⁾ since he lived his eternal filial obedience to the will of the Father in a human existence wholly the same as ours. In its definitive Christological dimension, the commandment is revealed to be in function of the imitation of Christ, and so in perfect and free conformity to that archetypal Image, in which and for which man was created.

The original vocation inscribed from the image of God encounters the wholly unprecedented eschatology of the Son made man: the human desire for happiness encounters a gratuitous reality exceeding every human expectation and project, a reality of fulfillment through participation in the life of the divine. Christ in his humanity becomes the "way," the synthesis of every preceding moral law, the definitive hermeneutic of every commandment.

In this way the dialectic of autonomy and heteronomy is also surpassed. "In Christ" the law is perceived as the expression of the will of the Father and embraced in a filial way; in the Spirit, while remaining heteron (something other) with respect to God, we are assumed gratuitously into a filiation that makes us also heteros (someone other). In the Spirit, the Christological commandment is interiorized and becomes the new law of love, without, however, completely eliminating on earth the exterior elements (cf. n. 53),⁽⁴⁰⁾ which are nevertheless subordinated in function of the interior element (lex nova Spiritus Sancti ).

C) The Commandments in the Itinerary Towards the Perfection of One's Personal Vocation

In Veritatis splendor the commandments are seen not only as the way to the end (n. 12), but also as a stage leading towards the maturation of freedom (n. 13), or rather leading towards perfection (n. 17). Now, the perfection of freedom is realized in the "gift of self," in charity (nn. 18 and 87). This is the imitation of God and has the measure of God. N. 18, connecting by way of interpretation Lk. 6:36 with Mt. 5:48, places Christian perfection, the imitation of divine perfection, within mercy. Charity is the fullness of the law (Rm. 13:10) and according to its Christological reference, it is the "new" commandment (Jn. 13:34). In it is surpassed the presumed conflict between the (egotistical) quest for one's own happiness (eros) and the gratuitous dedication "to the glory of God" (agape) (n. 10).⁽⁴¹⁾ The desire for happiness, whose objective value has been entrusted to and protected by the commandment, reveals and nourishes its ecstatic character: it becomes charity, which affirms Another.

For this reason beatitude and charity are ultimately one. It is this authentically Thomistic conception of happiness that liberates happiness from every suspicion of egotistical interest.⁽⁴²⁾ In fact, for Thomas beatitude is, on the one hand, an activity, the most perfect activity of a person who has reached the highest level of development possible for a human being; and this activity is identical with charity perfectly realized. On the other hand, charity, as friendship with God, is our happiness in as much as it is that type of life in which the original potentialities of man are actuated to the highest degree in the gift of self to God and to neighbor. Therefore, the desire for happiness, which is an expression of creaturely indigence and the beginning of the moral journey, culminates in charity, which is the affirmation of an Other and the perfect availability to receiving its form. The paradox of the Christian moral life is that it is precisely through welcoming the initial need for fulfillment and in allowing oneself to be educated by the presence of God in Christ that the human being is guided beyond himself, to be fulfilled in the gift, receiving from God even his very capacity to love.

At the same time the perfection of freedom is the fulfillment of the person in his unique and unrepeatable vocation (n. 17 and n. 85). In the call of the Good one can hear, in fact, the echo of a personal vocation (n. 7) that concerns the "fulfillment of his own destiny" (n. 8); this call is a journey of freedom, in which "the good of the person" is affirmed (n. 13). The personalistic visage of the moral life is evident, in an ever more decisive way, in the encounter with Jesus as the movement from the commandments to the following of His person.

It must also be said that the sequela Christi, proposed by the Encyclical as the "essential and original foundation of Christian morality" (n. 19), fully protects the dimension of personal singularity belonging to the truth of morality, a dimension about which our contemporary mentality is particularly sensitive. The moral life does not consist only in the fulfillment of the universal regulations contained in the commandments; more importantly, it is a matter of the realization of the person, in his unique and unrepeatable vocation, which emerges from the most personal encounter with Christ. The contingency of the different calls implied by differing vocational circumstances requires us to accord the virtue of prudence its full value. Prudence is "in Christ," a real participation in His wisdom, which through the gifts of the Spirit makes us attentive and sensitive to every suggestion of the Friend and enables us to act according to the end gratuitously given us.⁽⁴³⁾

D) The Ways Towards the Fulfillment of the Desire for Happiness

The first chapter of the Encyclical appears now, at the end of this reflection, as the proposal of a moral itinerary that, taking up the desire for happiness, reconciles it with its authentic and original horizon (the stars) and opens it to the gratuitous fullness of the divine life.

The commandments of God are the first "way" indicated by Jesus for obtaining eternal life (n. 12). Inasmuch as they are a negative "limit," they block false aspirations by turning desire away from the dead-ends of the finite and by orienting it elsewhere, namely, towards the infinite object for which it is made. The commandments, however, are also and above all "a path involving a moral and spiritual journey towards perfection, at the heart of which is love" (n. 15). In this second sense the commandments are at the service of the practice of love (n. 17); they educate desire to open itself up to love.

Yet the truly great Way to the fulfillment of the desire of life is Jesus Himself. Through the gift of the Spirit there is now the possibility of following Christ, the "living and personal law," and fulfilling the commandments--which represent partial stages leading up to that fullness which He is (n. 17).⁽⁴⁴⁾ Nonetheless, even under the regime of the new law the commandments remain necessary reference points, since we possess only the first fruits of the Spirit.⁽⁴⁵⁾ In any case all of the paths converge in the end, so as to bring to fruition in the moral subject the intimate conformation of our desires to those of Christ (Phil. 2:5-8, cf. n. 21).

The intrinsic link between the desire for happiness and the fulfillment of the moral life is indicated by the Encyclical with the theme of the beatitudes (n. 16), a theme that has been overlooked by modern moral theology, but that is well represented in the great theological tradition.⁽⁴⁶⁾ These mark the gratuitous anticipation of the end within Christian action: they are a foretaste of the eternal along the journey. Veritatis splendor recalls their Christological character (the beatitudes "are invitations to discipleship and to communion of life with Christ," since they are a "sort of self-portrait of Christ") and their indication of a promise that opens up in the disciple hope for the fulfillment that will be realized fully in the future Kingdom. By following Christ, in the paradoxical form of obedience and the abandonment of everything, man's desire for happiness already mysteriously participates in that beatitude of the Kingdom of heaven to which he aspires and which is given him gratuitously.

1. Translated by Margaret Harper McCarthy.

2. Cf. Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. James W. Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1981), 7-43.

3. Cf. Hans Urs von Balthasar, "Homo creatus est," in Homo creatus est, vol. 5 of Skizzen zur Theologie (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1986), 9-26.

4. Cf. G. Angelini, Il senso orientato al sapere: L'etica come questione teologica, in G. Colombo, ed., L'evidenza e la fede (Milan, 1988), 387-443, esp. 414-19.

5. Cf. The Decree on Priestly Formation,Optatam totius, n. 16.

6. Cf. A. Ernout - A. Meillet, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine: Histoire des mots (Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1932), 897; Thesaurus linguae latinae, vol. V, pars I, D, (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1909-34), 697-710. The ancients to whom one should refer are: Paul. Fest., 75; Prisc., Gramm. II, 274, 19; Isid., Orig. 10, 76 The original meaning deduced from the etymology is: "amissum vel absentem requirere," "libido absentem videndi."

7. F. Botturi, Desiderio e verità: Per un'antropologia cristiana nell'età secolarizzata (Milan, 1985), 124-26.

8. These anthropological perspectives are evocatively outlined by L. Giussani in his writings, particularly in Morality: Memory and Desire, trans. K. D. Whitehead (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986) and in The Religious Sense, trans. J. Zucchi (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990).

9. Cf. Angelini, Il senso orientato, 416.

10. Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia, Purgatorio, Canto XVII, vv. 127-35: "Ciascun confusamente un bene apprende / nel qual si quieti l'animo, e disira: / per che di giugner lui ciascun contende. / Se lento amore in lui veder vi tira, / o a lui acquistar, questa cornice, / dopo giusto pentér, ve ne martira / Altro ben è che non fa l'uomo felice; / non è felicità, non è la bona / essenza, d'ogni ben frutto e radice." The English translation given here and throughout this article is that by John D. Sinclair (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961). I owe the suggestion of this citation once again to L. Giussani, Si può vivere così? Uno strano approccio all'esistenza cristiana (Milano, 1994), 67, in the context of a particularly interesting meditation on freedom (62-79). For a study on desìo in Dante's work, see M. Camisasca, Riflessioni de medio corso (Forlì, 1994), 19-33.

11. Purgatorio, Canto XXXIII, v. 145: "puro e disposto a salire alle stelle."

12. Paradiso, Canto XXXIII, v. 143-5: "Ma già volgeva il mio disìo e il velle, / sì come rota ch'igualmente è mossa, / l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle" (but now my desire and will, like a wheel that spins with even motion, were revolved by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars).

13. W. Tatarkiewicz, Analysis of Happiness, trans. Edward Rothert and Danuta Zielinskn (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1976), 1-36.

14. The author employs the English word here.--Trans.

15. St. Augustine, De Trinitate, XIII, 4, 7-9, 12.

16. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 5, a. 8.

17. Cf. Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 1, a. 8.

18. Cf. P. J. Wadell, the Primacy of Love: An Introduction to the Ethics of Thomas Aquinas (New York: Mahwah, 1992), 44-62.

19. M. Blondel, L'action (1893): Essai d'une critique de la vie et d'une science de la pratique, 3rd ed. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1973), 132.

20. Cf. G. Grisez, "Legalism, Moral Truth and Pastoral Practice," in T. J. Herron, ed., The Catholic Priest as Moral Teacher and Guide (San Francisco, 1990), 97-113. For a historical judgment on the question of legalism in the post-tridentine handbook tradition, see L. Vereecke, Da Guglielmo d'Ockham a Sant'Alfonso de Liguori: Saggi di storia della teologia morale moderna (1300-1787) (Rome, 1990) and S. Pinckaers, Les sources de la morale chrétienne: Sa méthode, son contenu, son histoire (Fribourg, 1985), 258-82; English translation (ET) by Sr. Mary Thomas Noble, The Sources of Christian Ethics (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 254-79.

21. Cf. G. Abba', Lex et virtus: Studi sull'evoluzione della dottrina morale di San Tommaso d'Aquino (Rome, 1983). See also two other recent interpretations of Thomist ethics: E. Schockenhoff, Bonum hominis: Die anthropologischen und theologischen Grundlagen der Tugendethik des Thomas von Aquin (Mainz: Matthias-Grunewald-Verlag, 1987); M. Rhonheimer, Praktische Vernunft und Vernünftigkeit der Praxis: Handlungstheorie bei Thomas von Aquin in ihrer Entstehung aus dem Problemkontext der aristotelischen Ethik (Berlin: Akademik Verlag, 1994).

22. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 107, a. 2: "Finis vero cuiuslibet legis est ut homines efficiantur iusti et virtuosi."

23. This shift of the principle point of view according to which ethics is elaborated and which indicates a decisive fracture between ancient and medieval ethics on the one hand and modern ethics on the other, has been articulated by S. Hampshire in his study of 1949, reprinted in A. MacIntyre and S. Hauerwas, eds., Revisions: Changing Perspectives in Moral Philosophy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983) and by E. Pincoffs in his "Quandary Ethics," Mind 80 (1971): 552-71.

24. In this regard, see my La conoscenza morale: Linee di reflessione sul Commento di San Tommaso all'Etica Nicomachea (Rome, 1987). On the subject of conscience see also E. Schockenhoff, Das umstrittene Gewissen: Eine theologische Grundlegung (Mainz, 1990), 115-33.

25. In IV Sent., d. 46, q. 1, a. 1; Summa Theologiae, I, q. 16, a. 4, ad 3; II-II, q. 109, a. 2, ad 3; II-II, q. 109, a. 3, ad 3. Contrary to E. Schockenhoff's argument in Das umstrittene Gewissen (90-91, 129-33), the veritas vitae is not for Thomas set against the veritas doctrinae as a merely self-referenial factor of personal authenticity. Life is "true" when it brings about that to which it is ordained by the divine intellect and reflects therefore that fundamental divine truth, which is at the heart of the truth, be it the truth of life, or the truth of doctrine.

26. Cf. R. Cessario, The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 21.

27. Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, III, 4, 1113a, 29-35.

28. Cf. Cessario, The Moral Virtues, 79-90.

29. Cf. Abba', Felicità, vita buona e virtù, 45.

30. Cf. Pinckaers, Les sources de la morale chrétienne, 329-54; ET, 327-53.

31. Cf. M. Rhonheimer, La prospettiva della morale: Fondamenti dell'etica filosofica (Rome, 1994), 45-49.

32. Servais Pinckaers has opportunely attracted attention to this in his La morale catholique (Paris, 1991), 71-88.

33. K. Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, trans. H. T. Willetts (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1981), 114-18; The Acting Person, trans. A. Potocki (London: D. Reidel, 1979), 231-34.

34. Cf. W. Kerber, "Limiti della morale biblica," in K. Demmer and B. Schüller, eds., Fede cristiana e agire morale (Assisi, 1980), 129-43; J. Endres, "Genügt eine rein biblische Moraltheologie?" Studia Moralia 2 (1965); J. Fuchs, "Christian Morality: Biblical Orientation and Human Evaluation," Gregorianum 67/4 (1986): 745-63. For a panoramic view of the current debates and problematics in fundamental moral theology, see my Morale: tra crisi e rinnovamento: Gli assoluti morali, l'opzione fondamentale, la formazione della coscienza (Milan, 1993), 7-39.

35. Cf. Angelini, Il senso orientato al sapere, 420-25.

36. Cf. the articles of R. Tremblay on Veritatis splendor: "Le Christ et la morale selon l'Encyclique de Jean Paul II Veritatis splendor," Lateranum 60 (1994): 29-66; "Jésus le Christ, vraie lumière qui éclaire tout homme: Réflexions sur l'Encyclique de Jean Paul II Veritatis splendor," Studia Moralia 31 (1993): 383-90.

37. Cf. St. Leo the Great, Sermo XXIII, III in Nativitate Domini, 3: PL 54, 199-203.

38. Cf. J. L'Hour, La morale de l'Alliance (Paris, 1985, originally published in 1966).

39. H. U. von Balthasar, Neuf thèses pour une éthique chrétienne (Bologna, 1979), 612-45.

40. Cf. St. Augustine, De Spiritu et littera, PL 44, 201-46, CSEL 40, IV, I; St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, qq. 106-8; E. Kaczynski, La legge nuova: L'elemento esterno della legge nuova secondo San Tommaso (Rome, 1974).

41. Cf. Balthasar, "Homo creatus est," 9-26.

42. On this theme see R. Guindon, Béatitude et théologie morale chez Saint Thomas d'Aquin (Ottawa: Editions de l'Universite d'Ottawa, 1956); P. J. Wadell, Friendship and the Moral Life (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), 120-41.

43. Cf. Cessario, The Moral Virtues, 60, 76-79.

44. The Christocentric perspective of morality and the elements for a possible Christological integration not only of the commandments of the Old Law but also of Natural Law are offered in I. Biffi, "Integralità cristiana e fondazione morale," Scuola Cattolica 115 (1987): 570-90, as well as in G. Chantraine-A. Scola, "L'évenement Christ et la vie morale," Anthropotes 1 (1987): 5-23, and in R. Tremblay, L'"Homme" qui divinise: Pour une interprétation christocentrique de l'existence (Montreal, 1993).

45. Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Super Ep. ad Romanos, c. XII, lect. I (Turin: Marietti, 1953), n. 971.

46. See St. Augustine, De sermone Domini in monte, PL 34, 1229-1308, CC 35; St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 69. Opportunely, S. Pinckaers has directed attention to this theme in Les sources de la morale chrétienne, 144-94; ET, 134-90.

Copyright © 1997 The Thomist Press. All rights reserved.
Revised: August 15, 1997.