QUESTIONS FOR THE ORAL EXAMINATION

1. What is the relationship between freedom and commitment? Can one be free and uncommitted
at the same time? NO
2. Discuss the dynamics of primordial commitment. What is the goal of primordial commitment?
3. Is conscience a tyrannical social construction or the subjectivistic self set against a truthless
world? What is conscience, then?
4. What is the meaning of the primacy of conscience? Does it mean that conscience is superior
even to the Church and its moral teachings?
5. What does it mean to identify Jesus as the ultimate norm of moral life?
6. Discuss the ethical demands of the Sermon on the Mount. Why is it said that the Sermon on the
Mount “turns the justice of the world “upside down”?
7. Is the Sermon on the Mount practicable?
8. Discuss sin as primarily a religious reality by means of a specific biblical passage or narrative.

THESIS STATEMENTS

1. Vocation is the response to God’s call towards absolute union with God through one’s
particular state of life and work towards the common good. – FIND A BIBLE VERSE
I. INTRODUCTION
A. It is about the dilemma of choosing the path between vocation and career,
faced by each and everyone of us today, especially ateneans, seniors even,
now, were on the last few months, we don’t realize but this is a real
problem.
B. Current Context of society is focused on Careeristic Mode, and the
choices faced by everyone is either Vocation or Careerism, one or another.
A lot of people choose career out of fear of competition, fear of failure,
anxiety, and the severity of the situation of political, economic, and social
conditions. Unexamined life is not worth living.
I. Imposed by society. External factors
II. Vocation was an unfamiliar.
C. However, Inclination towards a careeristic mode enables several
disadvantages.
I. Lack of critical exploration of alternatives to the accepted career
path; Premature overcommitment – rushing into things; Deep
sense of confusion with urgency; Careerism: Self-oriented,
Vocation (Christian): other-oriented, Therefore, careerism is anti-
Christian at its core.
II. BODY
A. Therefore, we need to shed light on the true definition and clarify
understanding of Vocation. Often mistaken as _____________. To
contextualize, an in relation to TS#2, Jesuit Education invites us to
perceive Vocation as an answer to the Question “who are we going too be
in the light of who God calls you to be?
B. Basically, in essence, Vocation is the calling from God. Defined by many,
a. Place of utmost responsibility where on stands before God in
readiness for future service in obedient love
 b. In my own understanding, vocation is the response to God,
manifested in the direction we want to pursue in our life.
- Union with God: Aligning our purpose with the
purpose of God. Our primary and universal calling
is to be in Union with God. BY HIM, TO HIM, and
FOR HIM.
- We are called to someone (primary
vocation)
- Our secondary vocation is just a
reflection or manifestation of the
primary vocation. (person for others)
through our particular career. It must
respond to humanity. Towards the
common good
- We are called to be for other People, God’s people
- Vocation as call to live Christ: I have called you by
name, I live, no longer I, but Christ live in me
C. State of life: transcends a narrow focus on the I/Me in a particular time
and place and think of the other
a. Move beyond limitations of self, narrowness of perspective and
challenges us to envision our path and direction in the context of
larger community  for the common good, especially the well-
being of the poor.
b. Orchestration of life aspects for the purpose of serving God and
Neighbor. It must reflect our personal and social concerns in
relation to where we stands in our society.
c. Put emphasis on community, People forget that our decisions have
implications on the social people.
III. CONCLUSION
A. It is worth noting that people must choose vocation, theres nothing wrong
with the career, an amalgamation of the two is possible. Personal
Experiences: As a DS Major, the perfect example, is that my career is also
my vocation.
a. Career is not bad if it does not satisfy personal needs, it becomes
hollow and unfulfilling, but work towards the improvement of the
whole community.
b. At its core, DS work relates to humanity and, without it, its

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2. Jesuit education forms and helps its students discern their vocations through cura personalis,
total holistic formation, developing them to be persons for others, dialogue between faith
and reason, and magis.
I. INTRODUCTION
A. It is about how Jesuit Education promotes vocational inquiry among its
students
B. Donahue: the Primary Goal of Jesuit Education is to instill in the students
and universities the skills and abilities to respond in their own unique ways
 to God’s call to them for the realization of their own authenticity (concrete
examples: Components, and elements, etc)
C. It operates on the framework of the different components of Jesuit
Education that manifest:
D. All center on the process of detecting God’s movements and presence, how
to respond to God’s call in action. Jesuit Education provides an effective
framework on how can we come to know God’s will in the light of our
capacity and larger community
a. It makes us ask these questions: What are you planning to do with
your life? What kind of person you desire to be? What values do
you believe in and want to live your life by? Who are you going
to be in the light of who God calls you to be?
b. Jesuit education is most itself when it asks these kinds of questions
to the students (Meaning, Purpose, Direction)
II. BODY
A. Jesuit Education invites us to have a deeper understanding of our vocation.
a. The Vocation is integrated with the practices of the university or
institution. Influence decisions on curriculum, resources, etc
b. Vocation – heart of Jesuit Education. How is it being manifested
in the university? Manifested in the way
ii. In the ways students are taught and encouraged to talk
about certain issues
iii. What style of analysis is used in teaching and research.
E. However, the concrete components.
ii. God is present in all things, Commitment in developing a sense of
justice (important)  fight for people, their life of service to others
iii. Relationship between Intellect and Reason, Importance of interior life
or the inner journey of faith: Spiritual Exercises attempt to develop
the ability to cultivate life of faith, grow their understanding of how
they come to know God, or understanding of how God is present in
all our lives, Discernment in the development of knowledge and faith:
decision-making choose which is God’s will.
A. Specifically, cura personalis, total holistic formation, developing them to
be persons for others, dialogue between faith and reason, and magis.
a. Cura Personalis
ii. The way teachers teach, not just subject matter, personal
development – help in self-worth
iii. I talk to my professors about life, I cried in front of my
professors. My professor’s favorite mode is through
simple conversation, outside the classroom and
iv. I can feel it in my department that they care not just for
the academics but personal and career development
a. Magis
v. Magis is God, not doing more effort, it is what more
carries out to the end for which we are created
 Close relationship and union with God, and live
out in our daily lives.
 vi. To live Magis is to liveone’s life in close relationship with
God
vii. More loving choice that makes the greatest impact? Sir
Leland said, in our interview, that struck me the most was
that sometimes magis is sometimes less, and it resounded
to me the most because I have been putting so much in my
plate, that sometimes ubos na ako… no
viii. Uniting your life with God
a. Reason and Faith
ix. To the whole truth
a. Tao para sa Kapwa
x. Love of God and neighbor must go together, being a man
for others.
xi. Men who will not live for himself but for God, and
neighbor
a. Total Holistic Formation concretized in the curriculum (fullest
possible development)
xii. We form PEOPLE. Full growth - action
xiii. Mam Czar: When life hits you and all your plans and
aspirations have been battered and you're questioning
what the hell all your efforts and hard work are for and
you're crying in a corner sing-sobbing "now life has killed
the dream I dreamed", guess what will save you? Theo and
Philowhat I observe with some confidence is a crisis of
well-being. Anomie is becoming more real. Identities and
choices, because both are increasingly becoming
complex, forces the soul into confronting the most
fundamental of all questions – you are not your car. Who
are you? Who you are is tied to your WHY.
III. CONCLUSION
A. Through Jesuit education, it is anticipated that students challenge the way
we think about careerism. Careerism affects social order (social sin)
B. Process of self-realization: Anxieties and conflicts within
C. By Providing an environment and structuring a mode of inquiry in which
critical questioning is valued – practice critical inquiry and patience.

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3. Faith in God is the authentic subjectivity that leads to genuine objective Truth. It is through
dialogue between faith and reason that enables humanity to reach the fullness of truth.
Divorced from faith, reason falters and becomes enmeshed in errors such as reductionisms and
self-deception.
I. INTRODUCTION
A. This is about the issue on the factuality of Faith as opposed to Reason in
relation to finding the truth.
II. BODY
 A. According to Dulles, it has been argued that Faith has no objectifiable
content, it is just symbols and metaphors, ineffable, cannot represent
objective realities, which permits no impact on human society. It is harder
to provide the truth and thus irrelevant.
B. Meanwhile, in similar way, According to Haught, posits that naturalists
denies the factuality of faith for it is empirically untestable according to
scientific naturalism, furthermore it cannot support the quest for scientific
truth because it cannot open the mind to the totality of being, dulls
intellectual curiosity and reject the implications of evolution and
cosmology. therefore, is faith just an illusion?
ii. Counter-argument
A. However, the very nature of revelation is beyond the scope of
scientific certification
B. Naturalists claims cannot be confirmed either
A. What is Truth?
i. Traditional – correspondence of the mind (what is)
ii. Implication:objectively attained by eliminating the subjective
(knower’s mind and knower)
iii. Lonergan: offered an alternative definition: Truth is the goal of our
desire to know. Desire is from the person, not the object
- CORE TEACHING: Steps: Experiencing (attentive),
Understanding (intelligent), Judgment (Critical), Decision (be
responsible)  Genuine Objectivity is the fruit of authentic
subjectivity
- These steps are imperatives of our desire to know. It entails a
process of attaining the truth by enabling subjective love for
truth that drives the human knower to arrive at genuine objective
truth.
- Being a lover of truth, being faithful to your desire to know. 
requires to submit to the imperatives
- Other imperatives but only your desire to know can bring you in
touch with the truth. (all are in league dapat, then desire to know
can set you free)
- Trust that allows you to take hold of the image of God can
function to liberate and promote the interests of your desire to
know.
- Allowing yourself to be moved deeply will have satisfied the
fundamental criterion of truth (major criterion – fidelity to your
desire to know), then you are on your way to truth and freedom
iv. Note: You can never possess truth, it must possess you (surrender to
the imperatives, and image)
B. Faith and Reason: How can these help us in achieving the truth?
- Preconditions: the personal exercise requires faith. Faith is the
ultimate concern. Take the leap for faith
- Life of faith can be one that supports the desire to know and the
demands of reason
 - Christian Faith reveals the deepest truths about humanity,
society and creation (e.g., human dignity, human rights,
freedom, Church social teachings, humanity as stewards of
creation).

In dulles, he included that Bonhoeffer stated that Jesus is the center of bible, humanity, reason, justice
and culture. Jesus Christ, the full Truth (Jn 1:14-16), the God who is Agape, self-giving Love,
in the Incarnation, is not just the center of Christian Faith but also the center of all humanity,
the whole cosmos, reason, morality and hope.

It might be easy to say that faith is adequate to arrive at truth however, how can human reason go into
the picture? There is an important relaitonhip between the two

“In religion there are highly dangerous pathologies, which make it necessary to use the light
of reason as an instrument of control, to purify and order religion again and again (as the
Fathers of the Church envisaged). But in the course of our reflections, we have also seen that
there are pathologies of reason . . . , an exaggerated arrogance (hubris) of reason, which is
still more dangerous because of its potential destructive force: the atom bomb, or the human
being understood as a product. This is why reason must similarly be conscious of its limits,
learning to lend an ear to the great religious traditions of humankind. When it is set
completely free, and loses its ability to learn in this reciprocal relationship, it becomes
destructive.”

Church adores reason as gift of God’s creative love (what makes human)

Although faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and
reason, since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of
reason on the human mind; and God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth.”
(Vatican I, Dei Filius, 4). d. “They are of mutual aid one to the other; for right reason
demonstrates the foundations of faith, and, enlightened by its light cultivates the science of
things divine; while faith frees and guards reason from errors, and furnishes it with manifold
knowledge.” (Vatican I, Dei Filius, 4)

1. Raise reason up through the leaven of faith, reason

prepares way to faith, when faith is attained, reason helps
the believer to understand and therefore, faith and reason
are needed to enable humans to soar heavenly sights
2. Divorced from faith, reason falters and becomes
enmeshed in error
- For example, disciplines on their own, go astray and
move into the vacuum, use own methods which are
unsuited
- Same reality but different questions (What vs. Why?)

Furthermore, God cant be obtained within human categories

 ii. The God of revelation is not an object to be mastered but a subject
who invites us to be mastered by an infinite love.
A. This will come to us only if we allow it
iii. Is trust in God opens or closes our minds to the truth?
A. Revelation is a promise – prospective, never fully confirmed
once the promise is fulfilled.
B. Christians must open their minds, no hesitation
 Implications of revelation
a. Truth of revelation  trust the God provides self-giving love
rather than a will to control
b. Do not reduce love to something elemental, if this happens,
cosmos will permit emerging freedom,
c. Power can be transfigured by an endlessly self-giving love.
xiv. Worst obstacle to liberation of the desire to know and
most difficult.
 Self-deception – caused by fear, conform to an
ideal and coming short; contingent on living up to
the standards of some sort.
 Solution – perfect/selfless love
xv. The image of God – vulnerable, self-giving love, and has
the power to remove the stigma of shame that leads to self-
deception, power of renewal.
 In service of the desire to know
 By trusting in him, we are able to fulfill the
criterion of truth

What if reason lang?

F. What cripples trust

 Will to power, will to absolute control
 Can be taken hostage by the impulse to control, when it inhabits
other disciplines, it ensues evil.
 Concrete example of threat: Absolutist reductionism
a. Harmful because it reduces what is
elemental into a fundamental
b. Suppression of layered explanation
c. Manipulative suppression
d. Science – reductive method talaga to
focus on a manageable set of data, if
taken hostage, world shrinks, then
science is no longer of expanding
knowledge but instead putting arbitrary
limits on what can be taken true or real
(manipulable machinery, scientific
hegemony)  Materialism (nihilistic,
death of nature)
A> Purely objective is destructive
 B> Only agape, the self-giving
love has the

III. CONCLUSION
A. Faith in God  function to liberate the desire to know from the self-deception
that stands in between itself and truth.
B. The way I understood is the Process: Allow image of God  surrender to the
claim of revelation  strengthen imperatives of mind  ask now whether it
frustrates or supports your own desire to know  truth
C. A concrete example: how can your particular field or discipline be
enriched through dialogue with Christian Faith?
i. Faith – be disturbed,
ii. Reason – emotional cant reach you anywhere

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4 Freedom is the human person’s capacity to achieve his final, irrevocable and eternal self.
Authentic freedom directs one’s primordial commitment towards indwelling. Only in the
unconditional promise of loving “forever” the personal Other can a human person realize oneself
and bear fruit through fidelity.

I INTRODUCTION

A. The Thesis Statement is about the demythologize of the modern preconception of

commitment and freedom.
iii. Commitment is obligation, less freedom. It has been so easy to
dismiss the importance of commitment. INCOMPATIBLE
iv. In brief, if you want freedom, do not commit
v. Freedom is preserved by tying as few knots as possible and that
perfect freedom means tying no knot at all.
- The greater the number of options, the greater the freedom
- Freedom is ability to always do something different
- We can only settle for one or the other

II BODY

B. However, Haughey argues that if you want freedom, noncommitment is not a

choice for it is destructive of the individual.
i. This can be inferred from the verse: Matthew 7: 13-14 enter by the narrow
gate since this leads to life. (unaccompanied by possessions)  Life will be
found when a person is willing to particularize his choices in life; Therefore,
commitment is a choice, most formal choices, promise.
ii. Our choices reflect our self-udnerstanding/self realization.
iii. People must be able to choose.
 iv. Haughey: Life will be found when a person is willing to
particularize his choices in life. Our choices, more than any other
act individuate and define us. Selfhood comes to be primarily by
choosing
C. Therefore, Noncommitment: Refusal to choose, kind of inaction that has a moral
dimension, it leaves something of creation itself unfinished and therefore, God’s
glory incomplete. Evil in itself.
i. Evil of indecision: Refusing to exercise cocreatorship, call of God is
being rendered void by man
- Image: enveloping himself in the world of possibilities and
imposing the form of indefiniteness upon the definiteness
of the moment.
D. Freedom and Commitment
i. Basically, freedom is the capacity towards Commitment to the other.
Capacity for human beings to make and keep promises or formal
commitments, which entails beyond obligation, is also the surest way
they have to free themselves, to determine themselves rather than be
determined. Why is he free?
- He is able to be in-charge of his own life and thus freely chooses
to use his freedom to project himselfinto the future. He gives his
word because he is free to do so and does so freely.
- By withholding one’s word one withholds one’s self.
- Promise – communion with others; free us from being locked
into the present.
ii. Refusal to make commitments and unfaithfulness in keeping
commitment that have been made are usually the consequence of the
notion of freedom the person entertains.
iii. A person who has made permanent, irreversible commitments, is
going to experience greater freedom than those who deliberately
refrain from so doing.
E. Freedom can refer to the individual’s capacity to be self-determining. (or others
define it as number of options)
- Freedom must be exercised in order to be. Freedom is not the
capacity for indefinite revision for always something different
but the capacity that creates something final, something
irrevocable and eternal.
- Once one’s capacity for self-determination is exercised, the
object chosen will in determine the person. We become what we
love.
- Misuse of freedom: Original Sin. (blurring our perceptions of
what is good)
F. To attempt to live one’s life in a state of indetermination is the surest way of
becoming unfree. Why?
- One will be determined by forces outside oneself.
- Are uncommitted people freer? Where’s the depth?
 G. Rahner: Our freedom exists in order to create something irrevocable and eternal. It
is the event of something eternal. Freedom is the capacity to ultimately say yes or
no to God

Discuss the dynamics of primordial commitment. What is the goal of primordial commitment?

H. On a further level, beyond, promises and choices, commitment has several

more components
- “To whom and/or to what are you committed?” Commitments
cannot be made wholly conscious;
- what one is conscious of is symbolic of the deeper direction one
has chosen to take in one’s life  formal commitments
1. Symbols – commitments that are fomally made and
the actions undertaken as a result
2. Contents of the deeper level include dynamism of
primary and secondary commitments,
consciousness
I. Primordial Commitment – the level of commitment, the dynamism from
which our conscious commitments arise; The thrust one gives to one’s being,
the way one chooses to face reality to pursue the fullness one sees oneself
capable of
- This is where our moral responsibility resides
- Not to something to oneslf but of oneself in the direction in
which one perceives a transcendent food.
- Commitment in this sense if more felt into than made. Chosen.
More discovered than made.
- It approximates the fundamental moral option of St. Thomas
(similar)
- Primordial Commitment: Bring us closer to consciousness.
1. Psychology: Intentionality
- Intentionality of our being underlies all our intentions.
Undergirds all our decisions.
- May would put it this way: The problem isn’t whether to commit
myself to this or that, or to commit myself at all, but to discover
what the flow of my being already is and, having seen that, to
choose this or that direction more consciously or reject it now
with greater freedom and greater awareness
- If our choices complement our flow of being.
- the person who is attempting to resolve questions about
commitment for himself should not focus exclusively on the
level of conscious choice but should seek to understand the
dynamism and flow that underlie his behavior patterns
D. a person’s primordial commitment can flow only one of two
directions. If one’s behavior is one of self-donation, one is likely to
save what one is giving, i.e., oneself. If one’s behavior, on the other
hand, shows no sign of this but appears to be self-absorbing, one is
likely to lose what one is trying to hold on to.
 J. Primordial Commitment – depth and breadth

A. One’s primordial commitment faces one into a horizon. The

horizon gives one of visio which opens out to a number of
possibilities and closes out to others.
- Source of conscious formal commitments
- New horizons, new commitments. (shift – one’s previous
perspective I transcended) the reality, principles and
judgments changed.
B. Horizontal freedom vs. Vertical Freedom
- Horizontal: exercise of freedom that concentrates on objects
which present themselves in the context
- Vertica;: make new horizon their own.
E. Breakthroughs to new horizons
- Meaning: future judgments is made according to different
principles.
- Value: value of before will be obsolete thus discarded
- Conversion: passage from nonbelief to belief (vertical
freedom)

K. INDWELLING

- Vertical freedom (move that place of making the new horizon

your own), entire reality of the person has moved from being
to being in love
- The two shall become one, horizon fuses with one
- Ex. Falling in love – disruptive experience (result is
indwelling)
ii. Ultimate example: MARRIAGE
- Communion: I am – we are

A. Indwelling -compleetes being

a. Bible Verse: John 15: 4-5 Make your home in me, as I
make mine in you,
i. Therefore, Indwelling can be intramundane (God
and human beings) Each one of use and one in the
other
B. How does indwelling relate to commitment?
a. Indwelling is the paradigm by which we measure the
value of our commitments
b. Falliing in love vs. Being in love – the difference is the
commitment and choice, formally and fully chosen.
c. Sign of indwelling: reinforces the identity and life
situation each has chosen for himself prior to the
indwelling. Must flower in a larger communion
C. Over commitment is a sin
 a. Definition: exclusive commitment, horizons narrow,
investing more self in the object than the object can
deliver  Socially destructive
b. Places the object in a position that the person should be
responsible for.
c. Lose all perspective
d. All consuming
e. Identity merges rather than develops
f. Examples: Asking too much from partner in a marriage,
profession, institutional over commitment, ideological
over commitment
g. Commitment should not make up for needs we cannot
supply. Anytime the other or the object of one’s
commitment is being burdened with and made responsible
for the self, we are in the area of overcommitment.
D. Over commitment is also a sign for lack of faith
a. Seeks for objects that only God can supply
E. Remedy: Perception, simple recognition, differentiation,
withdraw from the commitment.

IV. CONCLUSION
A. We have seen that this aspect of a person’s life lies deeper than the objects to
which he is consciously committed whether these be personal or impersonal.
In turn, we looked at the horizon of possibilities every person faces into
because it is within this horizon that the objects of one’s commitments are
discovered.

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5. Conscience is the secret core and sanctuary of the human person, where he is alone with God,
whose voice echoes in his depths. Thus, as the proximate norm of morality, a correct conscience
must be obeyed above all else under God in order for the human person to realize one’s authentic
self through concrete actions that conform to the objective divine moral order.

V. INTRODUCTION
A. The thesis statement encapsulates the deeper meaning of conscience in
relation to God and morality.
B. What is conscience? That saying that defines what we neeed to do, what
is right and wrong, that is from conscience.
i. In the depths of the man, he detects a law by which he did not
impose but must be obeyed. It tells him to do good and avoid evil
ii. Voice echoes to his heart
iii. That law in his heart is written by God – dignity of man to obey
(gaudium et spes)
VI. BODY
A. Conscience is the secret core (subjectivity and truest self) and sanctuary of
human person (in communion, indwelling with God/intimacy, whole being
 tied up with God)….. because there he is alone with God wherein the law
which is fulfilled by love of God and Neighbor is revealed.
i. It is not about the realization of the action as good or bad but also
realization of one’s very self. (subjective) God’s presence in the
depth of conscience means that the huam nperson can ground
himself only in the transcendent God
i. Bretzke: Conscience is sanctuary (holy place and right of sanctuary)
- Holy place: Most privileged location where the individual meets
God. Before God who alone is our absolute.
- Right of sanctuary: No external force, no outside authority may
enter justifiably. Moral belief: God is the final and ultimate judge
of each and every person.
ii. Sanctuary of Conscience = Autonomy of Conscience
- Autonomy: discerns and then apply the law to himself/herself.
- Moral Autonomy: Sanctity of Conscience
- Morally Good if you strives to discern the good and do it .
iii. For example, More’s sense of self
- More’s appeal to conscience: affirmation of relationship between
self and creator; expression of sacred space within himself
- For More, conscience is understood as both the consciousness that
one exists in the relationship to God and the summones which is
to act in accord with the consciousness.
B. Where we are alone with God
i. Lewis: Conscience is transcendence of the person; one meets God
in one’s inner depths.
- Interiority of conscience is communion and dialogue,
- Under obligation to be a certain kind of person, loving,
relating person.
- Fundamental conscience is a decision about being. It
reaches the ultimate level of reality  faith recognizes the
mystery of Christ
- Law of love be known fully only by conscience
iv. Newman: Conscience is nearer to than any other means of
knowledge
- Existence of God is something more intimately connected with the
nature of the human mind itself than anything else.
- God  Self  World
- Two evident beings: Self and Creater
1. Belief in own existence wont be possible without
believing in His existence in my conscience.
2. In the experience of conscience, the self does not
only apprehend itself but also itself as a subject in
relation to God
3. God is closer to me than I to myself
B. Conscience and Morality:
i. Moral law is inside us, in our conscience.
 ii. Objective moral order is grounded in the relationship God has with
hus, therefore, we do not find moral order out there but in the
interior of the person’s conscience.
iii. It is a proximate norm of morality. Why?
A. What makes us morally good is not the actual act but
the effort and commitment to do what we honestly
believe
B. Not based on actions but whether or not, we followed
our conscience.
C. = Pre morality because (intention  act 
circumstance)
iv. Aquinas – application of what one knows to the moral evaluation
of a particular act, done or to be done.

Lewis: According to St. Thomas, the ultimate moral truth of human action is
determined not in the nature of the act in itself, but more in its intention of the author
of the act, as identified by one’s conscience. Traditionally this is expressed by
speaking of conscience as the proximate norm of personal morality. Moral truth, the
goodness or badness of a human action is formally constituted by the intention and
judgment of conscience; divine law is the “remote” and “material” norm and its moral
value is only activated and actualized in one’s conscience.

“Like the natural law itself and all practical knowledge, the judgment of conscience also has
an imperative character: man must act in accordance with it. If man acts against this
judgment or, in a case where he lacks certainty about the rightness and goodness of a
determined act, still performs that act, he stands condemned by his own conscience, the
proximate norm of personal morality.

v. Basic law of love influence her moral thinking and judging, what
is right and wrong
C. Correct Conscience
- More right conscience holds sway, the more people is guided by
the objective norm of morality
- Fisher: It is only the right conscience when it accurately mediates
and applies that universal moral law which participates in the
divine law.
- Conscience is fragile and thus it is constantly challenged by lack
of moral sense, false ideas, prejudice, social pressures, negligence,
etc
- There is a right conscience – judgment of morality is in accord
with the objective truth. It obliges of itself and always. (wrong
obliges in a negative sense)
1. Morally Good – done for good intention

What is the meaning of the primacy of conscience? Does it mean that conscience is superior even
to the Church and its moral teachings?
B. First of all, the conscience is the law written by God (to all). Each is bound
to follow conscience faithfully in all his activity so that he may come to
God. NO ONE MUST BE FORCED TO ACT CONTRARY TO HIS
CONSCIENCE
C. Conscience = moral compass despite the variation in religion
D. Moore, faced by the dilemma, all options exhausted, the options were
only: He could act, as he put it, against his conscience and lose his SOUL,
or according to his conscience and lose his BODY. In brief, for Christ or
not.
E. Lets say that conscience is not considered as primary. And the ultimate
authority relies outside the person. What will happen?
- Problems on authority and mature human action
- Heteronomy  making something a god that is not truly a God,
therefore it is considered as Idolatry. (false God)
- Thomas: No eternal salvation outside the church
F. Church and Conscience
- Church is just the servant of Conscience, not the master, it just
highlights the freedom in truth
- Must follow conscience at all times. Why? Ultimate Judge is not
on earth but in heaven. (in conscience, we are before God [face to
face])
- Key moral relationship between God and the individual is held in
conscience.
- Basic teaching: we are bound to follow our conscience failthfully
in all our activity even if our conscience be incorrect, incompletely
formed. BUT LIMITED BY COMMON GOOD. (no one will be
hurt)
G. Core Teaching: If conscience is removed or displaced as our interior moral
guide, another guide, an external, will illegitimately grab its role, (state,
correctness, peer pressure, even the Church). Nothing should ever be
elevated to the role of the highest guide. If you did, that’s a violation of
the fundamental dignity and whole notion of human personhood.
H. Lewis:Primacy of conscience never understood in a radically subjective
sense. (arbitrary judgment of which is morally good or evil)
- Cannot say, I have the right to do it because my conscience said
so, but one must search for the objective truth.
- We should be guided by the objective norms of morality
- Aquinas: ultimate truth of human action is determined by the
intention of the object of the act. Anyone who vilates it wills to
break the law of God and therefore sins.
- Moral truth is not an application of the impersonal norm. it is truth
of fidelity to conscience.
1. Whether in all our moral decisions, we express being in
Christ
2. The moment of inner conviction is the moment of truth,
moral truth. Its about discerning the harmony or
disharmony of anat with the person’s actual intention at
the time and one’s personal well-being.
 3. Decision of conscience – informed conscience.
VII. CONCLUSION
A. Dignity – human person to engage freely in a sincere search for the moral truth
of his or her situation
B. No one is forced to act against conscience. Freedom that is subject to personal
and social responsibility. Respect others
C. AUTHENTIC SELF

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6. Jesus is the ultimate source and norm of Christian moral life by way of discipleship, i.e.,
to be like Christ, and more, to be caught up in God’s love, enabling oneself to renounce self-
made securities that create dominating and excluding power and replace it with self-giving
crucified love that creates hospitable inclusion.
II. INTRODUCTION
2 It aims to give answer to the question, what does it mean
to identify Jesus as the ultimate norm of moral life?
i. We would like Jesus to inform our moral reasoning
(character and action)
6. Answer the question, who do you say I am?
7. I am God’s fullest revelation of the invitation of
divine love to us, and you are the fullest response
to God.
III. BODY
2 Jesus as the norm of moral life
5. He is the norm not because of what he teaches,
but on the basis of who he was and is. We feel the
presence of God through Jesus (God with a face)
a. Sums up the divine invitation and the
human response in a way which makes
him the new covenant, the fullness of
what Christian moral life ought to be.
b. He is the model of what sort of actions we
need to do
6. Gustafson: what he means and symbolizes has
authority for me, he is the standard by which my
purposes are judged. Authority to influence my
activity
7. Christian morality is not the laws, principles,
strategies but attending to the life of Jesus
Nazareth so as to exhibit one’s life the virtues
which Jesus had to inform moral discernment
a. Jesus and Moral character
i. Christian Moral Character is
formed by committing our
freedom to Jesus and
internalizing the images, stories,
and traditions which
 communicate his cause. – to
proclaim God’s kingdom and
reign
ii. Jesus’ life – glimpse of what is it
like for someone who is
committed to God. (as a response
to gift of divine love)
iii. Influence on Moral Character:
(perspective, dispositions,
affections, intentions)
1. The intention to do all
for the glory of God is
evoked by the affection
of gratitude for the
experience of God’s love
aroused by meeting
Jesus healing and
forgiving the sinner
8. Character of one committed to Jesus: search out
for the invisible in society. Sensitive to human
suffering, emphatize, strong trust in people,
9. If Christian moral life, Jesus is the image. His
stories and beliefs. A person’s character and
actions are informed by Beliefs and stories of
Jesus
10. Recall him in our decisions. What did he do?
What would Jesus do. His experiences of divine
love
a. Divine love – mystery of Kingdom of
God
3 To regard Jesus Christ as the norm of the moral life is
to enter the way of discipleship which entails to
faithfully and creatively live under the reign of God as
he did.
4 A portrait of Discipleship – imitate, and to be caught
up in divine love., and to let fo of all forms of self-made
securities (renunciation)
5. It is a matter of answering the invitation of Jesus
to take an adventure to live under the reign of God
just as he did.
6. To regard him as the norm of moral life is to enter
the way of discipleship  forming a Christian
imagination and converting our loyalty to God in
Christ
7. Descending Christology: Word was made flesh,
therefore every being bears a dignity beyond
compare
 8. Ascending Christology: moving toward God
(jesus of Nazareth) LMRD
9. Way of discipleship is way of imitation of Christ,
not equal to mimicry (copying point by point)
a. Imitation = involves fidelity and
creativity (It takes a lot of creativity to
live like Jesus today)
b. To be indwelling with God – caught up in
his divine love
5 Renunciation of Self-made securities
5. We become disciples by following the way of
renunciation (Mark 8:34)  surrender surrogate
loves and surrender to the offer of divine love
a. You cannot have two masters (money or
God)
b. Need: self-donation
6. Being a disciple is letting of whatever occupies
our hearts so that we may have room for divine
love. Leave all and follow Jesus. (Mark 10)
7. The disciple is to let go of all forms of self-made
securities in order to be secure in divine love.
8. Bible verse (Mark 10:17-27) Young man asking
what does he need to share in everlasting life.
Give up all things.
9. Challenge of discipleship: Make God the focus of
our loyalty and hope. proper perspective
10. Make our hearts free to be filled with divine love.
Power – power of love.
IV. CONCLUSION
2 Reign of God
3 Practices Not for cruel exclusion but hospitable
inclusion (it involves people who usually excluded)
4 In summary, discipleship = make Jesus way of life our
own, it is a community effort

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7. The Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7) invites us to indwell in God through Christ. The Sermon
reorients and empowers the believer through God’s Spirit towards unlimited concern for the
good of the other even at the expense of one’s own rights, thus turning the justice of the
world upside down.
I. INTRODUCTION
i. Sermon on the Mount is perceived as demanding. How can anybody even the
most committed Christians can practice these seemingly impossible demands?
If not achievable. Why Preach them?
1. Bible Verse: Matthew 5-7
2. Two points: Issue on practicability and Essence of Christianity
II. BODY
 a. Different answers
2. Martin Luther: Disciples must act according to these rules. (chief of
police) but no distinction stated in Matthew.
3. Reformation: Demands must be fulfilled. However, message is the call
of faith, faith that grow in freedom.
4. Lutheran: Jesus knew it can be fulfilled.

Maybe it’s a call to a new way of life or looking at the world.

ii. Invites us to dwell

i. Jesus’ message is directed to everyone: Matthew 28:20: All that I have
commanded you
iii. Is the Sermon on the Mount practicable?
1. Basic assumption: We cannot live up to these demands.
2. Possible another starting point: One man, Jesus, was able to realize
this, and he wanted others to live the Sermon together with him
3. Sermon on the mount is does not stand in itself, it is part of a greater
reality
a. Proclamation of the Gospel, account of God’s saving action in
Jesus
b. Set people free
4. Sermon is preceded by the gospel, and conversion.
5. Matthew began with beatitudes which are proclamations
6. Not an abstract doctrine but a message. It calls for IMITATION>
iv. Context: Jesus is the authority of the Sermon
1. With him, it becomes a promise and a demand from God who speaks
in and through Jesus.
2. You are saved by Jesus and therefore things can start changing, you
can adopt new priorities in life.
3. THE SERMON CALLS US TO JOIN JESUS
i. If we live by the Spirit, things will change.
ii. Practice through trust and faith.
v. Passage of the sermon: Summons to faith.
a. Invitation to total trust
b. Father as center

What do we really mean by practicability?

1. Modern notion: Can we keep it? Feasible?

2. First, Sermon is not a collection of laws, established already, not to be used to judge
others
3. What is it then? It is an expression of the dynamism of the Kingdom of God.
a. Practicability: Do we really give priority to seeking the kingdom of God in all our
decisions in life?
b. Or Are we willing to gravitate towards one goal??? Realization of Kingdom of
God on Earth and to have complete trust in him.
c. This concept of practicability is not narrow  Seeking the kingdom of God and
his righteousness
 d. The answer we cannot find on our own that’s why Jesus invites us to join him
e. Can we, as a community commit to the priorities of the kingdom? Do we want it?

Discuss the ethical demands of the Sermon on the Mount. Why is it said that the Sermon on the Mount
“turns the justice of the world “upside down”?

2. Is it a law? No, because:

a. Form: formulation
b. Spirit: Minimum vs. Maximum (Jesus and with an open roof)
c. Dynamism: Ethic of the kingdom, does not issue directives but gives direction.
3. Christian Ethics  in its essence, imitate jesus
a. Evangelical, ethical stimulus: valid for all Christians and for all times, not just a
counsel which one is free to follow or not.
b. NOT MEANT TO BE A STRICTER LEGAL ETHIC, also NOT the law of
Christ
c. The demand, the directive: Everyone is called, to everyone salvation is offered,
without any prior achievements, and the directives themselves are consequences
of his message of the kingdom.  DISCIPLESHIP
4. Upside down
a. Proclamation of the Kingdom of God  new horizon of the question about
Justice  Justice of God
b. Bible Verse: Mt 5:21-48 They tell us not to insist on our own rights and refer us
to the unlimited concern for the good of others.
c. Strength is found Heavenly Father (ask and it will be given, seek and it will be
found)
III. CONCLUSION
i. Direction, does not precisely tells us what to do but provokes our imagination
and be disturbed.

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8. Sin is the ungrateful missing the mark of the human person’s goal that is God, the source of
personal worth, social solidarity and mutual entrustment. Sin in turn results in disordered
relations to others. Only God’s reconciling and forgiving love can overcome sin.
I. INTRODUCTION
i. Lost of Context of the sense of sin due to secularization (Pope John Paul)
1. It reduced sin to a form of psychological or social order. They see
people as victims of unconscious influences than as gents of free
actions. However, Psychologists don’t give full account. Sin is real
and we need a fresh way to get at it and call it what it is.
II. BODY
i. Sense of sin = sense of responsibility = theme of Christian faith and central
characteristic of moral life.
1. Niebuhr: Agents actions are a response to an action upon him in
accordance with his interpretation of the latter action and with his
expectation of response to his response.
 i. We are never not in the presence of God God is acting
in all our actions upon you. So respond to all actions
upon you as to respond to his action
ii. Hence, responsibility sums up the quality of character
of Christian Moral living  Sin is the failure to be
fully responsible
2. Responsibility = motif for moral life.
ii. Sin: The Biblical Perspective
1. Sin is fundamentally a religious reality – breaking the covenant
relationship of deep personal union with God that is the very ground
of our whole being and existence. (transcendent – no to God,
immanent – no to others)
2. The relationship we establish with God in and through our responses
to all things becomes the focal point of our moral life.
3. Cannot have a proper understanding of sin unless we have a proper
understanding of the nature of the covenant God has established with
us.
i. It provides the horizon by which we recognize sin
iii. Covenant
1. Sin in OT – violation of relationships
i. Hattah – miss the mark
ii. Pesa – rebellion
2. Sin in NT – hamartia
3. Covenant expresses the most personal kind of relationship between
God and us.
i. God’s love is complete grace and gratuitous love
ii. His offer of love awaits our acceptance. Once e
accept, we commit ourselves to living as the covenant
requires.
4. Sin beyond legal framework  level of a personal relationship with
God
i. Bible verse (exodus 32): Israel golden calf. They
broke the personal bond of love.
ii. Law should not be the object of their fidelity, God was
iii. Sin in the bible is not merely breaking a law. Sin is
breaking or weakening the God-given bond of love
iv. Law was an aid and pointed to the responsibilities of
being in relationship to God.
a. If law was the end, it was sin because
it became the idol of the law.
b. Legalism replaced the religious
foundations of sin with juridical
ones.  Sin became a legal code
rather than a failure to respond to
God. It misses the aspect of sin as a
religious and relational reality which
expresses our refusal to respond
appropriately to God’s love and
 mercy. Sin simply put, is refusing to
live out the gift of divine love.
v. Respect the worth of others, live in solidarity, develop
fidelity
iv. Worth – self worth not a function of our achievement but comes from God
1. The mere fact that we are offered the gift of divine love, expresses our
great value, not conditioned by our achievements.
2. Divine love – source of worth and security (Isa 43:1) not from
ourselves but from God
3. Sin refuses this and places our worth on the basis of surrogate loves.
(created by ourselves)
4. Creating surrogate loves is the sin of idolatry
i. When we fill up our lives with theses, no room for
divine love.
ii. Poor people (blessing) – they cannot establish
themselves on any grounds of their own. Out of
abundance not from out of achievement.
iii. Rich (curse) no room in their lives for such love, but
achievements, etc
5. We hang on to these surrogate loves out of fear that if we let go we
will lose our worth and value
i. But surrendering is the only way for us to secure in
divine love
6. Establish on achievements – not free, trapped in self-absorbing fear.
v. Solidarity
1. Divine love  relationships with other people and rest of creation
2. The way of relating to God is through our relationships with
everything else.
3. God’s love is directed towards all creation (nothing exists as
independent)
4. We are responsible for all.
i. Other – neighbor, helper,
5. Fruit of convental solidarity is shalom.
6. Sin affects all relationships. Not limited to breaking the law but sin is
against people and through people, against God. (failing to respect
what God loves)
7. Human Solidarity is one piece of our relationship with God. To betray
a social commitment demanded by justice is betray God and
perpetuate social sin
vi. Fidelity – we entrust our whole selves to god
1. Loyalty, not sacrifice
2. Live a life that demonstrates hesed, faithful love for us.
3. Trust is key
a. Garden of Eden – trust broken  they weren’t vulnerable
anymore
b. Garden of Gethsemane – Jesus trusting God by not
abandoning his mission of living to make everyone a friend of
God and of one another.
 i. Judas – image of betrayal, violate fidelity is to violate
the call to follow jesus
ii. Sin – power play of infidelity, it is refusing that God
can be trusted and that others are more worth trusting
iii. In covenant we trust one another something of
ourselves. We entrust them with power. Hoping it
wont be abused. But sin abuses that power.
iv. Sin is infidelity – abuse of power, suspicion
vii. Context of sin is covenant, context of divine love is heart
1. Heart is seat of vital decisions, center of feeling and reason
2. Heart is the ultimate locale of virtue and sin
3. Sin starts from the heart of the person

Mark (Mk 1:15) – call of a new heart, very essence

4. Metanoia – live with a new heart, demands are meant to shock the imagination and to
reorient the heart
5. Heart – openness to God, receive divine love
a. Where your heart is, there will be treasure (Mt 6:21) the misdirected heart
produces sin

Discuss sin as primarily a religious reality by means of a specific biblical passage or narrative.

Sin: The arrogance of Power

6. Sin is fundamentally a religious reality

a. It makes no sense apart from the presence of God in Christ and
through the Spirit, andour awareness of being relationship to
God.
b. If an action is not against God, it is not Sin
c. It is a matter of the quality of our relationships in the covenant
suggest both a transcendent and immanent dimension to sin.
i. Transcendent dimension – break in our relationship to
God
ii. Immanent dimension – importance of human
community; no to relations with neighbors, sin is self-
absorption
7. Sin is selfishness – matter of heart, before it ever becomes manifest in
external actions. Refuse to respond, cut off the dynamic of giving and
receiving love.
i. Selfishness is self-absorption
8. Reality of sin as selfishness within the context of covenant and heart.
i. Sin is arrogance of power.
ii. Covenant says we are already established as person of
worth but the heart panics. It does not trust that we are
creatures of gracious God.
iii. Life is too ambiguous to assure the heart of being
loved without achievement.
 iv. May: all of us have power, not all is demonic, love
and power are not opposites. We need power to be
able to love in the first place.
1. Types of power: Exploitative and
manipulative, competitive, nutrient,
integrative
2. Only god’s love free us from the dynamic of
sin
III. CONCLUSION
1. Reconciliation is a concrete sign that God’s love is being offered to us
and that is cannot be defeated even by our own sin. Through
reconciliation, life-giving relationship we share with God and with
others is strengthened.
a. Reconciliation – indwelling with God
2. Divine love is the only love which will satisfy our longng hearts.
Opens our hearts to nurture the life-giving potential in ourselves and
in oters so e might transform human relationshops.
3. Bible Verse (John 15:15): No longer do I call you servants, I call you
friends.
9. The one God is Love, and thus God is the unity of the three divine Persons, each constituted by
the complete self-donation to other two towards indwelling (perichoresis). The Triune God is
the final ground and archetype of human fidelity and commitment: we are called to be an icon
of the Trinity.
I. Self-donation

Only in the unconditional promise of loving “forever” the personal Other, an act of
indwelling through total self-donation, can a human person put down and deepen the roots of
one’s selfhood and thus can realize oneself and bear fruit. a. Love is the only intentionality
that warrants the outlay of one’s total self. b. Marcel: “constancy” vs. “fidelity.” “Permanent”
is the after-the-fact description of a commitment that has been true to the communion within
which it operated. Permanence built on anything less than love can be cruel to all parties
concerned. c. Interpersonal commitments (indwellings) are rooted in love and ratified in
freedom rather than the solely the product of free will. Haughey: “Your choice of me in not
the stuff that holds our commitments together any more than my choice of you is. The union
that we have preceded our choices. … the fact that we both said and continue to say yes does
not produce that union.” Commitments arise from mutual presence and not by choosing them
for the focus on the other and not on the commitment itself. Indwelling then is something one
yields to rather than something one makes (love more than just willpower). d. Self-donation
means a rising out of self-absorption into a fuller life of interpersonal communion and dying
to a solitary mode of being. e. The perpetual adolescent withholds himself, refusing to put
down roots. He dabbles with life rather than living it.

10. The Gospel of John is a call to believe, i.e., to be open to the truth that is the glory of God
revealed through Christ, which leads the believer to commit one’s entire self to life-giving
abiding union with Jesus, the Son who abides with the Father and with all humanity through
the Spirit. Thus, redemption is relational.
Guidelines for the Final Oral Examination

1. You are only allowed to bring a hard copy Bible to the oral exam venue. Use markers to easily
access key passages associated with some of the thesis statements. You do not have to use the
Bible for all the thesis statements—only some thesis statements refer to Scripture as source.
2. State what the thesis statement as a whole is about. Then describe the role of each sentence
reltive to the thesis statement. Define key words. Cite the thesis statement’s sources.
3. For your preparation, use the course outline, then the articles and your classnotes.
4. Superior grasp involves using concrete examples, or extra sources that illustrate, complement
and affirm the thesis statement, but not to replace it or cover up one’s lack of knowledge of it.
Also, be able to relate the thesis statement to one or two thesis statements in the course. Magis:
personal appropriation or rejection of the claims of the thesis statement.
5. Time per student: 9 minutes (1 minute for entrance/exit). It is recommended that you allot
yourself 5-6 minutes for exposition and the remainder for discussion between you and the
teacher.