Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Jaime Luciano Balmes

229. Morality can, therefore, be expressed in an absolute proposition. It is in itself, in an infinite degree, an absolute truth; it implies an identity whose opposite is contradictory: it is not less connected with the principle of contradiction than all metaphysical and geometrical truths. Its simplest formula is: the infinite loves itself.

230. God in his intelligence sees from all eternity an infinity of possible creatures. Containing in himself the ground of their possibility and of all their relations among themselves or to their Creator, nothing can exist independent of him; hence it is not possible for any being to cease to be directed to God. The end which God proposed in the creation can be no other than himself; since before the creation only God existed, and after the creation there were no perfections in creatures which were not contained in God in an infinite degree, either formally or virtually. Therefore this direction of all creatures to God as their last end, is a condition inseparable from them, and seen by God from eternity in all possible worlds. Whatever is created or may be created is a realization of a divine idea, of that which was represented in the infinite mind, with the absolute or relative properties which pre-existed in that representation. Therefore whatever exists or may exist must be subject to this condition, it must be directed to God, without whom its existence would be impossible.

231. Among the creatures, in which is realized the representation pre-existing in the divine mind, there are some endowed with will, which is an inclination to what is known, and, by means of an act of the understanding, becomes a principle of its own determinations. If the creature knew God intuitively, the acts of its will would be necessarily moral; for it would necessarily be an act of the love of God. The rectitude of the created will would then be a constant reflection of the infinite holiness, or of the love which God bears himself. The moral perfection of the creature would not in that case be free, though it would still be an eminent degree of moral perfection. There would be a perpetual conformity of the created will to the will of God, for the creature loving God by a happy necessity, could will nothing but what God wills. The morality of the created will would be this constant conformity to the divine will, which conformity would not be distinguished from the essentially moral and holy act, by which the creature would love the infinite being.

But since the knowledge of God is not intuitive, since the idea which the creature has of God is an incomplete conception involving many indeterminate notions, the infinite good is not loved by necessity, because it is not known in its essence. The will has an inclination to good, but to good indeterminately; and therefore it does not feel a necessary inclination to any real object. The good is presented under a general and indeterminate idea, with various applications, and to none of them is the will inclined necessarily; hence proceeds its freedom to depart from the order seen by God as conformed to his sovereign designs; when freedom, far from being a perfection, is a defect arising from the weakness of the knowledge of the being which possesses it.

232. The rational creature conforming in its acts to the will of God, realizes the order which God wills; loving this order, it loves what God loves. If, although realizing this order, the creature in its freedom does not love the order, but acts from motives independent of it, its will, performing the act materially, does not love what God loves; and here is the line which divides morality from immorality. The proper morality of an act consists in explicit or implicit conformity of the created will to the divine will; the mysterious perfections of moral acts, that loveliness in them which charms and attracts us, is nothing else than conformity to the will of God; the absolute character which we find in morality is the explicit or implicit love of God, and, consequently, a reflection of the infinite holiness, or of the love by which God loves himself.

By applying this doctrine to facts, we shall see more clearly still its perfect exactness.

233. To love God is a morally good act; to hate God is a morally evil act, and of the most detestable character. Where is the morality of the act of loving God? In the act itself, the reflection of the infinite holiness, which consists in the love which God has for his infinite perfection; here is a palpable proof of the truth of our theory. The love of the creature for the Creator has always been regarded as an essentially moral act, as the purest morality; which shows that in the secondary and finite order, this act is the purest and most faithful expression of absolute morality.

234. If we ask why we must love God, we are ordinarily reminded of the benefits which he has conferred upon us, of the love which he bears us, and even of the example of the love which we owe to our friends and benefactors, and especially our parents; these reasons are certainly very useful in order to make the morality of the act in some sense palpable, and to move our heart; but they are not completely satisfactory in the field of science. For, if we could doubt that we ought to love the infinite Being, the author of all beings, it is clear that we should also doubt that we ought to love our parents, our friends, or our benefactors. Therefore our love for them must be founded on something higher, or else, when asked why we love them, we must remain without an answer.

235. To wish to perfect the understanding is a moral act in itself. Whence proceeds the morality of this act? God, in giving us intelligence, evidently wished us to use it. Its use, therefore, enters into the order known and willed by God; in willing this order, we will what God wills; we love this order which God loved from all eternity, as a realization of his supreme designs; if, on the contrary, the creature does not perfect his intellectual faculties, and making use of his freedom leaves these faculties unexercised, he departs from the order established by God, he does not will what God wills, he does not love what God loves.

236. A man may perfect these faculties merely for the sake of obtaining the pleasure of being praised by others; in this case he realizes the order in the perfection of his understanding, but he does not do so from love of the order in itself, but from love of something distinct which does not enter into the order willed by God; for it is evident that God did not endow us with intellectual faculties for the fruitless object of obtaining each other's praise. Here, then, is the difference which we know, which we perceive between two equal actions done with different ends: the will in one perfects the understanding as a simple realization of the divine order; perhaps we may not be able to explain what there is there, but we know for certain that this will is right; in the other the will is the same, it wills the same thing, but it suffers something foreign to this order to mingle with it; and the understanding and the heart both tell us this act which does something good, is not good, it is not virtue,—it is meanness.