All Catholic moral theology and ethics boils down to one basic premise. Human beings are made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27). What does that mean? The understanding held by most Christians over the centuries is that God is rational, and God is a free agent. Thus, what is most divine in a human being is the ability to think rationally and to choose our course of action.
The idea that God is rational means that God thinks logically. God thinks in ways that are like the way we think. God’s thought uses patterns that can be identified and flow from premise to premise to conclusion. In being rational, God has knowledge and can use that knowledge.
To claim that God is a free agent, doesn’t mean that he is an athlete who can be picked up by another team. Rather, it means that God can make choices among various options. God is not constrained by fate or anything else, except for what he allows to constrain him. God decides his own path and accepts full responsibility for those choices.
When we say that we are made in the image and likeness of God we mean that human beings have the capacity for reason and freedom. That is, we have the capacity to think rationally and to make free choices. We don’t always live up to the freedom and rationality that we have been given but the capacity is inherent within us.
Many of the Church Fathers also argued that since God is love (1 John 4:8), when our lives embody love then we are a particularly powerful image and likeness of God because God is present in us as love. At this point we are not just dealing with an image but with the divine Reality.
When a person can act with knowledge and in freedom, he or she is able to choose between good and evil and bears responsibility for the choice and subsequent actions. Such actions are called “human actions” because they flow from the fundamental humanity of the person; his or her ability to make moral choices.
The implication of this is that there is an inherent dignity in every person. That dignity is the result of the divine image that the person is, as well as the presence of divinity in the person (1 John 4:8). Considering this, Pope Saint John Paul II wrote that the human person is not a means to an end but an end in itself. The human person has inherent value regardless of any external determination of value.
The dignity of the human person must be honored in all circumstances. The failure to do so is a grave moral wrong. Such a failure occurs when a person is treated as an object, rather than as a person. Such a failure occurs when a person’s ability to act with knowledge or freedom is curtailed to the point that he or she is unable to act rationally or in relative freedom.
The implication of this for social policy is the necessity of honoring the dignity of the human person under all circumstances. Any social policy that treats the human person as an object that can be manipulated and controlled by another is fundamentally wrong. Any social policy that unjustly restricts the ability of the human person to act with knowledge and freely is fundamentally wrong. So, for example, the Church opposes abortion because it treats a human being as an object (the unborn child), a piece of trash that can be disposed of at will. When abortion is available with few restrictions as a social policy, then it isn’t just those directly involved with the abortion who share responsibility for the moral wrong that is being done but society shares in responsibility for the evil.
Another important concept that we encounter in Catholic ethics and social teaching is conscience. The conscience is how the person discerns the moral law and then applies it to oneself. A person is morally good because he strives to discern the good and to do it, and to uncover evil and avoid or minimize it.
The conscience must be the ultimate moral authority as it is internal to the person and recognizes his moral autonomy and free will. That is, it acknowledges the person’s humanity and ability to perform human/moral acts.
Any ultimate source of authority external to the person dehumanizes the person, preventing her from performing human acts. Such a source of authority attempts to present itself as a god, which is idolatry. St. Thomas Aquinas argued that even if an individual were to be excommunicated from the Church for holding a position in conscience, that individual must follow his or her conscience, since the ultimate judge and savior is not any earthly individual or institution, but God himself. The Teaching office of the Church plays an important role in informing our conscience, but the ultimate authority must be submission to the voice of God speaking in our conscience. Even when a person’s conscience is in error or poorly informed, a person must not be forced to act contrary to their conscience. The only constraint upon conscience is the common good.
While one must follow his or her conscience, even if it is poorly formed, each person has an obligation to form and inform his or her conscience. Indeed, they are responsible for their actions and the resulting consequences no matter what. So, a well formed and informed conscience is important to good and moral decision making.
Most ethicists stress conscience as integral with the person’s self-awareness and self-realization. The emphasis here is that conscience is not merely concerned with navigating specific decisions on how to act in situations but is the realization of one’s self. It is the realization of our core nature. Conscience is us seeking to be our very best selves.
A few paragraphs back I said that the only constraint upon conscience is the common good. So, it is important to explain what is meant by the common good, as it is an essential tool by which to evaluate any social policy.