conciencia en gaudium et spes

8/11/2019 Conciencia en Gaudium Et Spes

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"Practical reason" describes knowledge of something true precisely from the aspect of "truth

as good, truth as valuable" and hence to be pursued, promoted and performed. This

description is based on a distinction between "speculative" and "evaluative" knowledge

(respectively cognitio speculative! and cognitio aestimativa). The first denotes information or

understanding that, considered in itself, does not carry a deeply felt significance (although it

may do so for a particular individual). Evaluative knowledge, alternatively, involves an

estimation or appreciation of something true as involving some value which a person

appropriates as being personally significant. It is this that guides our decision and actions1.

Lewis notes the two levels of conscience found in the Bible and later in, for instance, the work

of Aquinas2. Conscience, in its proper sense, is "situational" as denoting the judgment about

the morality of a particular act [syneidesis). Conscience understood as "foundational"

[synderesis) is "the habitual and ineradicable grasp of fundamental moral principles" (love and

do good, shun evil, seek truth) that is natural and innate and which judgment needs as abenchmark and a guide3. Lewis suggests that foundational conscience is "somewhat akin to the

sense of moral value4." Foundational conscience seems to be, for Lewis, as for Aquinas, the

developed, habituated form of this sense of moral value or of what we refer to above as

"primordial moral awareness5."

For Gaffney and Ratzinger, the thought and language of this text of GS draws on John Henry

Newman6. Traces of Aquinas are evident but within a framework of inferiority.15 In this text,

foundational moral consciousness emerges not primarily by way of interaction with the outer

world but by attentiveness to the inner world through self-reflexivity. Earlier [GS 14), modern

insights into inferiority ("interior qualities*' or interioritas) are acknowledged. This form ofunique self-awareness, while couched in affective language, in fact connotes the deepest core

of the reflexive self. Interioritas is the "distinctively human capacity" enabling the human

person to outstrip "the whole sum of mere things."16

1See Timothy E. O'Connell, Making Disciples: A Handbook of Christian Moral Formation (New York:Crossroad, 1998), 29, 70.2Brian Lewis, "The Primacy of Conscience in the Roman Catholic Tradition," Pacifica 13 (2000): 299-306.

Also Dennis J. Billy, C.Ss.R., "Christ's Redemptive Journey and the Moral Dimension of Prayer," StudioMoralia 37 [1999): 127-152, at 146.3Lewis, The Primacy, 300.4Id.

5Compare O'Connell's threefold distinction comprising synderesis, moral science and particular

judgment (syneidesis). See Timothy E. O'Connell, Principles for a Catholic Morality, rev. ed. (HarperSanfrancisco, 1990), 109-113. O'Neil and Black speak of the four "moments" of conscience. Thefoundational level is "conscience as desiring and knowing the good" followed by conscience asdiscerning the particular good, as a judgment for right action, and finally as self-evaluating. See Kevin 0Neil C.Ss.R & Peter Black, C.Ss.R., The Essential Moral Handbook: A Guide to Catholic Living (Liguori,Missouri: Liguori Publications, 2003), 58-83, at 60.6James Gaffhey, Matters of Faith and Morals (St. Louis: Sheed & Ward, 1987), 130. Also Joseph

Ratzinger, "Introductory Article and Chapter I: The Dignity of the Human Person," in Herbert Vorgrimler,Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II (New York: Herder & Herder, 1969), 134-5.


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Ratzinger comments that GS 14 is influenced by two aspects of an Augustinian synthesis of a

more historically-oriented biblical anthropology with a modified metaphysical conception.

First, the distinction between "homo interior" and "exterior" (rather than body/soul) sees the

person in historical and dynamic terms and "introduces a greater element of personal

responsibility and decision regarding the direction of life." Second, for Augustine, the biblical

understanding of the heart "expresses the unity of interior life and corporeality7."

Aquinas' approach is built on three dimensions of connaturalitythe ontological, the habitual

and, bridging the two, the epistemological. For Aquinas, suggests Tallon, living beings are

drawn to respond to the surrounding world. It is connaturality that makes our "faculties"

operate with spontaneity, responsive to what is akin to them, befitting them. Our eyes do not

need to know that light, colour and harmonious form are good for them, but in the presence of

the visible they naturally act and experience fulfillment (complacentia)8. This is ontological

connaturality. For sentient and animal creatures, it has an incipiently rational expression in

emotions and instinct. Its fuller expression is in humans where the cognitive, affective,

volitional operations of rational consciousness respond to their proper objects (being as true

and good) because of their "cor-respo/iri-ence with their proper objects." This is the

epistemological form of an experienced befittingness, belongingness, affinity, attunement9.

For practical reason, he normally uses the phrase ratio practica. However, Maguire notes that,

twice in the treatise De Malo, Aquinas, in the one context, uses the phrase "practical or

affective reason10." In other words, it is a form of affective knowing.

For Aquinas, one is not capable of moral virtue without an awareness of primary moralprinciples. In his treatment of this, while he uses the metaphor of the "heart" as the site of this

knowledge11, there is no explicit use of the phrase "connatural knowledge" or its equivalents

noted above. This foundational awareness is not one of ratio or discursive,

Intuitive insight, then, is a form of cognition that involves an immediate grasp of what is true

which, in its habitual form (epitomized in the gift of understanding) denotes "a certain

excellence of knowledge that penetrates into the heart of things12." Here it is an intuitive

appreciation of the truth precisely as a good that is fitting and congenial to being authentically

human. It is the epistemological expression of ontological connaturality.

La causa del orden es, a la vez, principio de las cosas que son, precisamente aquel principio

de donde les viene el movimiento a las cosas que son.

7Ratzinger, "Introductory Article and Chapter I," 128.8Andrew Tallon, Head and Heart: Affection, Cognition and Volition as Triune Consciousness (NY:

Fordham University Press, 1997), 235.9Andrew Tallon, Head and Heart, 235.10Daniel Maguire, The Moral Revolution: A Christian Humanist Vision (San Francisco: Harper and Row,1986J, 258, citing de Malo, Q, 16, a 6 ad 13 and ad 8 for the phrase "ratio practica seu affectiva."11

In S. Th. 1. 2. 94 especially article 6.12ST. 2.2 8.1 ad 3.


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Cabra suponer que el primero que busc tal cosa fue Hesodo, o cualquier otro que puso al

Amor o Deseo como principio de las cosas que son, al igual que tambin Parmnides. ste,

desde luego, al compone la gnesis del universo todo, dice quepuso el Amor el primero de

todos los dioses; y Hesodo dice que antes que todas las cosas fue el Caos, despus la Tierra de

ancho seno y el Amor que sobresale entre los inmortales, como que es preciso que se d, en

las cosas que son, alguna causa que mueva y componga las cosas13

En este sentido se dice que es causa aquel constitutivo interno de lo que algo est hecho14

(materia como causa). Tambin en la Metafsica: Se llama causa, en un primer sentido, la

materia inmanente de la que algo se hace ( aquello de lo cual se hace algo, siendo aquello

inmanente en esto;en latn: Causa vero dicitur unoquidem modo ex quo fit aliquid [-]

inexistente)15

Materia como principio: aquello desde lo cual, siendo intrnseco a la cosa, sta comienza a

hacerse ( lo primero a partir de lo cual se hace algo, siendo aquello inmanente en esto;en

latn: unde primum generatur inexistente)16

Lo comn a todo tipo de principio es ser lo primero a partir de lo cual algo es, o se produce, o

se conoce. Y de ellos unos son inmanentes y otros extrnsecos17

Por consiguiente, la causa del accidente ser la materia en cuanto capaz de ser de otro

modo18

Ciertas cosas son uno numricamente, otras especficamente, otras genricamente y otras

por analoga: numricamente lo son aquellas cosas cuya materia es una19

13Aristteles, Metafsica,984b, 20-30: , ' , , , ', ' ...' , ,

' .14Aristteles, Fsica, 194b, 24: . Ennota a pi de pgina, Guillermo R. de Echanda, que traduce la obra para Gredos (Madrid, 2002), dice:aquello desde lo cual, permaneciendo intrnseco a lo que deviene, es engendrada la cosa, es decir, lacausa material. La expresin , es decir, causa intrnseca, suele significar la materia ().La es lo que permanece (), el sujeto o sustrato () que es determinado por laforma.15

Metafsica, 1013, 24: 16

Metafsica, 1013 a, 4 17Id, 1013a, 15-20: . - .18

Id. 1027a, 14: 19Id. 1016b, 32-33: ' , ', , ',


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Calias y Scrates, que se diversifican por la materia (pues diversa)20

Elemento es, por su parte, aquello en que la cosa se descompone y que es inmanente en ella

como materia, por ejemplo, de la slaba, la a y la b21

Y llamo materia aquello que en acto no es algo determinado, pero en potencia es algodeterminado22

Las entidades, por su parte, son tres: la materia, que es un esto slo en apariencia (en

efecto, materia y sustrato son todas las cosas que estn sin formar, sin embargo, una unidad

natural); la naturaleza, la cual es un estoy cierto estado al cual se dirige la generacin; la

tercera, en fin, es la individual, compuesta de aquellas, como Scrates o Calias23

La materia no se mueve a s misma24

Aristteles,Acerca del alma,' , ,

' , ' *412a.19+ . *412a.20+

. ' .

, , ' .

, *412a.25+ '

, '

.

.

Y puesto que se trata de un cuerpo de tal tipoa saber, que tiene vidano es posible que elcuerpo sea el alma: y es que el cuerpo no es de las cosas que se dicen de un sujeto, antes al

contrario, realiza la funcin de sujeto. Luego el alma es necesariamente entidad en cuanto

forma especfica de un cuerpo natural que en potencia tiene vida. Ahora bien, la entidad es

entelequia, luego el alma es entelequia de tal cuerpo.

Pero la palabra entelequia se entiende de dos maneras: una en el sentido en que lo es la

ciencia, y otra, en el sentido de en que lo es teorizar. Es, pues, evidente que el alma lo es como

la ciencia: y es que teniendo alma se puede estar en sueo o en vigilia y la vigilia es anloga al

teorizar mientras que el seo es anlogo a poseer la ciencia y no ejercitarla. Ahora bien ,

tratndose del mismo sujeto la ciencia es anterior, desde el punto de vista de la gnesis, luegoel alma es la entelequia primera de un cuerpo natural que en potencia tiene vida.

20Id. 1034a, 7: ( )21

Id. 1041b, 31: ' , .22Id. 1042 a, 27: 23Id. 1070a, 9-12: , ( , ), '

, .24 1071b, 29:


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