One of the commonest observa-
tions made by opponents of religion
is that we don’t need God in order
to have a coherent and integral mo-
rality. Atheists and agnostics are ex-
tremely sensitive to the charge that
the rejection of God will conduce
automatically to moral chaos. Con-
sequently, they argue that a robust
sense of ethics can be grounded in
the consensus of the human com-
munity over time or in the intuitions
and sensibilities of decent people,
etc.
What I would like to do is lay out, in very brief com-
pass, the Catholic understanding of the relationship be-
tween morality and the existence of God and to show,
thereby, why it is indispensably important for a society
that wishes to maintain its moral integrity to maintain,
at the same time, a vibrant belief in God.
Why do we do the things that we do? What moti-
vates us ethically? Right now, I am typing words on my
keyboard. Why am I doing that? Well, I want to finish
my weekly column. Why do I want to do that? I want
to communicate the truth as I see it to an audience who
might benefit from it. Why would I want that? Well,
I’m convinced that the truth is good in itself. Do you
see what we’ve uncovered by this simple exercise? By
searching out the motivation for the act of typing words,
we have come to a basic or fundamental good, a value
that is worthwhile for its own sake. My acts of typing,
writing, and communicating are subordinate, finally, to
the intrinsic value of the truth. Take another example.
Just before composing that last sentence, I took a swig
of water from a plastic bottle on my desk. Why did I do
that? Well, I was thirsty and wanted to slake my thirst.
But why did I want to do that? Hydrating my system is
healthy. Why is health important? Because it sustains
my life. Why is life worth pursuing? Well, because life
is good in itself. Once more, this analysis of desire has
revealed a basic or irreducible good. Catholic moral
philosophy recognizes, besides truth and life, other
basic values, including friendship, justice, and beauty,
and it sees them as the structuring elements of the moral
life.
When Pope Benedict XVI complained about a “dic-
tatorship of relativism” and when Catholic philosophers
worry over the triumph of the subjective in our culture,
they are expressing their concerns that these irreduc-
ible values have been forgotten or occluded. In her great
meditations on the sovereignty of the good, the Irish
philosopher Iris Murdoch strenuously insists that the
authentic good legitimately imposes itself on the human
will and is not a creation of that will. At the limit, con-
temporary subjectivism apotheosizes the will so that it
becomes the source of value, but this puffing up of our
freedom is actually ruinous, for it prevents the appro-
priation of the objective values that will truly benefit us.
This “basic goods” theory also grounds the keen
Catholic sense that there are certain acts which are
intrinsically evil, that is, wrong no matter the circum-
stances of the act or the motivations of the agent. Slav-
ery, the sexual abuse of children, adultery, racism, mur-
der, etc., are intrinsically evil precisely because they
involve direct attacks on basic goods. The moment we
unmoor a moral system from these objective values, no
act can be designated as intrinsically evil and from that
state of affairs moral chaos follows.
So far we have determined the objectivity of the
ethical enterprise, but how does God figure into the
system? Couldn’t an honest secularist hold to objective
moral goods but not hold to God’s existence? Let’s re-
turn to our analysis of the will in action. As we saw, the
will is motivated, even in its simplest moves, by some
sense, perhaps inchoate, of a moral value: truth, life,
beauty, justice, etc. But having achieved some worldly
good -- say of writing this column, or slaking a thirst, or
educating a child -- the will is only incompletely satis-
fied. In point of fact, the achievement of some finite
good tends to spur the will to want more of that good.
Every scientist or philosopher knows that the answering
of one question tends to open a hundred new ones; every
social activist knows that righting one wrong awakens a
desire to right a hundred more. Indeed, no achievement
of truth, justice, life, or beauty in this world can satisfy
the will, for the will is ordered to each of those goods
in its properly unconditioned form. As Bernard Loner-
gan said, “the mind wants to know everything about ev-
erything.” And as St. Augustine said, “Lord, you have
Why goodness depends on God
Word on
Fire
Fr. Barron
See fr. barron, page 7
In the Chinese culture in which I grew up, it is con-
sidered bad luck to have an empty rice container. Even
today, my husband and I always replenish the vessel and
have an extra bag of rice in store. This is symbolic of a
life of plenty and a practical measure to not go hungry.
By some estimates, more than 840 million people,
one in eight in the world, go to the bed hungry every
night. While hunger is generally associated with devel-
oping countries, about 15 percent of families in the U.S.
are classified as “food insecure,” meaning they suffer
from hunger.
The United Nations rates malnutrition as the single
biggest contributor to disease. Almost 7 million chil-
dren under 5 die every year of hunger-related ailments:
one-third due to malnutrition. Iodine deficiency is the
greatest cause of mental disabilities and brain damage.
With a call to action by Pope Francis, Caritas In-
ternationalis (the Vatican-based federation of Catholic
charities), launched the “One Human Family, Food for
All” campaign to end hunger by 2025.
The Catholic Church believes that there is sufficient
food for everyone and views hunger as a problem that
we can end.
The causes of hunger are many. Poverty prohibits
access to food, and hunger in turn traps people in deeper
poverty by significantly reducing their ability to func-
tion, work, go to school or fight dis-
ease.
Small-scale farmers or landless
laborers represent 75 percent of
those who go hungry, according to
Bread for the World Institute
. Gener-
ally, they do not have capital to in-
vest in equipment, tools, irrigation,
seeds for new crops and training that
would allow them to earn a living.
Calamities from drought, floods,
pests or climate change put food out
of reach for those who rely on the land to sustain them.
Wars and violent conflicts displace farmers and
herders from their land, and starvation is sometimes
used to eliminate the enemy. Volatile prices exacerbate
the problem affecting rural and urban poor.
One-third of food produced is never consumed, says
the U.N. Much cannot get into the market because there
are no roads, warehouses and post-harvest production
facilities. There is also waste from our tables and refrig-
erators when food is tossed away.
A comprehensive discussion of ways to end hunger
is not possible in a short essay. The important point is
that solutions are needed.
It could mean coming up with transformative means
such as resistant varieties and diversification of crops. It
could mean government investments in agriculture in-
frastructure or private investment that provides afford-
able capital and insurance to small farmers, protection
of farmer land rights for men and women, or efficient
food aid that increases flexibility and builds up local
markets.
Programs that enhance crop resilience and incomes
for small-scale farmers also would help, as well as a
provision of nutrition for the first 1,000 days of life
(from conception to 2 years of age).
We can solve the problem. We must. Food is a re-
quirement for life and for human dignity. It is not op-
tional and ultimately it comes from the bounty of God.
Pope Francis in addressing the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations last June said we
fight to end hunger in order “to satisfy the demands of
justice, fairness and respect for every human being.”
Support your local food bank, do not waste food,
stand up against policies that reduce food assistance
to the poor, whether in the U.S. or overseas, and sign
up for Catholics Confront Global Poverty at
-
frontglobalpoverty.org.
Dr. Carolyn Woo is the president and CEO of Catho-
lic Relief Services.
Our Global
Family
Woo
Finding big and small ways to end hunger
4
Gulf Pine Catholic
•
January 31, 2014
