Being Good

Tuesday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time C-2

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Sir 36: 18 Give peace, O Lord, to those who wait for you, that your prophets be found true. Hear the prayers of your servant, and of your people Israel.

Collect Look upon us, O God, Creator and ruler of all things, and, that we may feel the working of your mercy, grant that we may serve you with all our heart. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.

Scripture today: Proverbs 21:1-6.10-13; Psalm 118; Luke 8:19-21

The mother and the brothers of Jesus came looking for him, but they could not get to him because of the crowd. He was told, ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside and want to see you.’ But he said in answer, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice.” (Luke 8:19-21)

Being Good Ethics is at the centre of human thought. A major current in philosophical thought over the last couple of centuries, since Jeremy Bentham’s An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), has been Utilitarianism. Since Bentham, prominent Utilitarians have included John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick, R.M. Hare and in our own day the Australian Peter Singer. This view posits the consequences of an action as being the standard of right and wrong, and more specifically its utility. It is good if it is useful – usefulness being described and defined in various ways. The other major influence during this same period has been Kant (who was critical of Utilitarianism). He was influential especially in his ethical theory. Two of his important works were, The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and The Critique of Practical Reason (1787). For Kant what makes an action good is the motive: duty. It is the motive of duty (in one’s action) which makes an action good, and this duty is an unconditional imperative which reason dictates. Kant gave his rule to determine what one ought to do in any situation. It is this: "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." In 1958 Elisabeth Anscombe published her well-known paper titled "Modern Moral Philosophy" attacking both currents, and it set the course for a new spread of virtue ethics. She took her cue from Aristotle, and hoisted the mast of character, virtue and flourishing. Especially influential in her line has been Alasdair MacIntyre. Where the Utilitarians and Kantians concern themselves with the moral action (as they conceive this to be), virtue ethics sees itself as concerned with the good life and what kinds of persons we should be. I myself prefer the approach of John Henry Newman who, as part of the Oxford Movement and an Aristotelian, stressed the importance of virtue in knowing what is morally good. There is not much chance of the confirmed bad man being able to judge well and consistently on what is ethically right. A man’s moral ethos will be decisive even in his knowing what is right, let alone his doing it. It is the good man who best knows what is good, though he becomes good by choosing to do what is good. The dynamic between character and choice of action is reciprocal.

All this philosophical discussion is useful. Kant argued against the Utilitarian position with his stress on the imperative character of duty, irrespective of what is deemed to be its utility. He seems to have forgotten to stress, though, that the accurate perception of one’s duty will depend very much on one’s moral character, and that in a certain sense moral character is the end of doing one’s duty. Be all this as it may, the vast multitude of the human family who are not philosophically inclined have the resounding benefit of their natural moral instincts and divine revelation. There are two things man naturally knows he is called to. Put simply, he is called to do good and he is called to be good. He is called to choose right action and to be virtuous in character. He knows he is morally obliged to do what is good and avoid doing what is evil, and by this means to be virtuous as a person. He also has the sense that in some way he will be rewarded for this. He senses that if he consistently does what is evil he will be evil in character, and as a result be punished. These are the basic issues and it is difficult for a person not to know this. He naturally knows it – however he might philosophize and provide a theory about it. Now, over and above this natural knowledge which is instinctive to a normally functioning human mind, there is God’s revelation. God has said, Be holy, for I am holy. God has revealed that he is holy in character. He is morally good in a superlative sense – and he demands that we his creatures choose to be good and holy as well. So there we have, in revelation, the emphasis on character and virtue. But this involves keeping the Commandments – which is to say, doing what is good and avoiding what is evil by following in one’s action what God has revealed. But God has opened up for man a marvelous way for his moral flourishing. He is called and empowered to be united with the Son of God made man, to share his life, and to grow in the divine life. This begins with his act of faith in Jesus Christ and baptism. But then he must strive to do God’s will. That is the ongoing essential thing. He must endeavour to know what God wants, and then do it. This is the path to holiness. As St Paul writes, this is the will of God, your sanctification. We are made holy by the grace of God, but our own resolution to do what is God’s will is also essential.

Pope Benedict XV (1914-1921) stressed that God’s will is expressed in one’s duties of state. He taught that sanctity consists in striving to fulfill one’s duties of state as perfectly as possible for love of God. So it is that we are brought to our Gospel today (Luke 8: 19-21), in which our Lord tells us who is the person who is closest to him, to him who is the absolute embodiment of holiness. Jesus Christ is the perfectly good character, the one who possesses full perfection in virtue. The person who is his brother and sister and mother is the one who hears the will of God and puts it into practice. Let the best philosophers of any age listen to the Son of God made man. As the Father said from the cloud on the Mountain in the presence of the three Apostles: "This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him!"

(E. J. Tyler)

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