FUNDAMENTAL OPTION

Some of our moral choices are very broad in scope. They can be called fundamental choices or options. They are not choices to do a particular kind of action, like swearing falsely or giving alms to a poor man; rather, they are concerned with the ordering of our whole lives to all that is good, and to God.

A “decision of faith” is an instance of such a fundamental option. For example, a repentant person advancing toward adult Baptism might come to decide to commit all his life to God in a fundamental choice of faith: He might resolve to give his life faithfully to the Lord, to believe all that Christ teaches in his Catholic Church, and resolve to live in all circumstances as love of God and neighbor require (cf. Pope John Paul II, The Splendor of Truth, Veritatis Splendor, 65-70).

Through a positive fundamental option of this kind one formally and explicitly reorients one’s whole life, from alienation from God to the “obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5). A negative fundamental option can be equally decisive. Thus someone who had lived in grace might come, after many lesser infidelities, to reorder all of his life, to cease believing in God or caring at all about living in ways that please God.
Such acts are “fundamental” in their scope and radical in their consequences. Other moral acts are acts of more specific and particular kinds. Some tendentiously call these “peripheral” acts, suggesting that they are universally of lesser moral significance; and indeed the immediate thrust and aim of such acts is not to reorient one’s whole life but to accomplish a far more limited end. Thus some, but not all, fundamental option theorists hold that fundamental decisions about the whole orientation of our lives are not readily accessible to clear everyday consciousness, as the choices of particular acts are. These fundamental decisions are said to be real and extremely important personal decisions, but to take place within a deeper level of our being, not clearly accessible to our ordinary consciousness.

The Question of Mortal Sin • A question raised in recent decades has been: Can a particular and “peripheral” act, like fornication or perjury, of itself and independent of some distinct fundamental choice (a radical and deep decision to alter one’s relationship with God, which could accompany the performance of a particular act), be a mortal sin and have the tragic effects of a true mortal sin?
Some have argued that the answer is no. For example, some would claim that an act of fornication is itself a “grave sin,” a seriously wrong kind of deed; but of itself, even if done deliberately and with full knowledge, it does not have the tragic effects of mortal sin. Nevertheless, it could in some circumstances occasion the decisive, distinct act of a fundamental choice against God. Some would call “radical” those fundamental option theories that incorporate this revisionary teaching on mortal sin.

Different kinds of reasons have been given for this position. One set of reasons is associated with somewhat dualistic presuppositions about man identified with Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and others. The core of a man’s being, his spiritual center, such theories would say, is not closely related to his ordinary everyday choices, even choices of very important concrete matters. They argue that the radical orientation of a person toward or away from God can only be made in the core of one’s being, and in a formal and free choice of precisely this sort.

Others have more pastoral reasons for denying the received teaching on mortal sin. They judge that it would seem too severe today, and hardly credible to many, to maintain the received Catholic teaching that all that is required for a true mortal sin is: that one perform a gravely wrong kind of act, with sufficient knowledge and freedom. Hence they argue that a person does not commit a mortal sin unless, in a profound way, he formally wills to turn the orientation of his life from God.

The Church has firmly rejected such suggestions. Pope John Paul II, in his apostolic exhortation On Reconciliation and Penance in the Mission of the Church Today, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (1984), section 17, and in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor (1993), sections 65-70, has explicitly reflected on this suggestion concerning fundamental choices and mortal sin, and has reaffirmed the traditional Catholic teaching on mortal sin.
The reasons for this are decisive. The fundamental teaching of the Church on mortal sin has been taught insistently by the Church, and it has deep roots in Scripture. It has been taught by the Church with the degree of universality and firmness associated with infallible teaching of the ordinary Magisterium (cf. Vatican Council II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 25; CCC 2032-2035). Moreover, the Church has solemnly defined the teaching that the tragic effects of mortal sin follow not only those sins by which one explicitly turns from God (as in apostasy) but the deliberate doing of any sin that faith has identified as mortal sin (Council of Trent, cf. Denzinger-Schönmetzer, 1544, 1569).

Obedience to the commandments of God in specific matters is no peripheral matter. Christ himself taught that those who wish to have everlasting life must keep the commandments, and he referred to the specific commands of the Decalogue. Scripture reminds us: “Whoever says, ‘I have come to know him,’ but does not keep his commandments, is a liar” (1 Jn 2:4). The Ten Commandments, rooted as they are in precepts of love (cf. Mt 22:36-40), express not mere rules, but duties that one must honor so as to be faithful to what love firmly requires. Deliberately and knowingly to perform acts incompatible with love of God is to withdraw oneself from the love of God.

The obligations that faith teaches to be seriously binding are such as are essential for supporting the rights of men, for building a just society, for shaping hearts that live in friendship with God. Theories lacking roots in the sources of faith, and opposed to the firm teaching of Scripture and the immemorial witness of the Church, will not bring about good pastoral results for the faithful.
See: Absolute Moral Norms; Choice; Conscience; Freedom, Human; Moral Principles, Christian; Mortal Sin; Sin; Ten Commandments.

Suggested Readings: CCC 1451-1452, 1756, 1857-1867. John Paul II, On Reconciliation and Penance in the Mission of the Church Today, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 17; The Splendor of Truth, Veritatis Splendor, 65-70. G. Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, Vol. 1, Christian Moral Principles, Ch. 16, B, C, D, and Ch. 30, I.

Ronald D. Lawler, O.F.M. Cap.




Russell Shaw. Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine. Copyright © 1997, Our Sunday Visitor.

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Last Updated: Sunday, April 01, 2001 01:25:11 PM