How to Make a Moral Decision | Dr. Cary Dabney

[00:00:11] Speaker A: Doctor Kerry Dabney, it's an honor to have you back here, man. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:00:15] Speaker A: Yeah. We were just talking before rolling about Dr. Dabs, your side hustle, first of all. [00:00:23] Speaker B: Oh, man, I put that on the back of my car because my last name is Dabney. [00:00:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:29] Speaker B: Someone walked up to me and I didn't realize that that also could be a reference to some funny plants that grow that if you light them up, some interesting effects can happen. Had no idea that that was a connection. [00:00:43] Speaker A: So it's fun getting older, isn't it? Because I didn't either. I always thought my kids like dat. You dab, right? Yeah, that's all I know. And hey, apparently it's a special funny [00:00:53] Speaker B: lettuce teaching that [00:00:57] Speaker A: teaching at a university. Shout out to Walsh University. It keeps you grounded in a lot of reality, current trends and all that stuff. Yes, very important. Have you since changed your license plate or do people come up to your car window and say, hey, you got this? [00:01:11] Speaker B: The ladder is usually what happens. So I have to make some changes. I got to make some changes. [00:01:16] Speaker A: That's awesome. All right. You're going to give us a crash course. One of the things you teach is moral theology. [00:01:22] Speaker B: Yes. [00:01:23] Speaker A: To college students. And one of the things I really. I was really touched at Walsh University, and I didn't know much about them before going there for the honorary doctorate. And it was so cool to go and see the incredible things happening, you know, because I get myopic with my alma mater in Steubenville, you know, a couple hours away, you know, and your president, you know, Tim, talking to Father Dave Vanko all the time. And, you know, just like there's. It's an incredible thing, but a beautiful charism, I think it's grown at Walsh is that it's super faithfully Catholic and yet really uniquely evangelistic. Because the student body, it's all over the board, you know, but it's not all over the board insofar as there's a ton of kids who are anti. That doesn't shape the atmosphere there at all. They're open, you know, because it's, you know, this is blue collar central man in Ohio. You know, they're not all agenda driven. It's like we're just trying to survive. That's a luxury for people, you know, to have crazy agendas. But yeah, so you're getting kids in those classes as you're teaching moral theology who are super devout, and that's a big part of the student population, but a lot of kids who are just on the fence. And you got to put this in language that anybody can understand. So when you told me when I was out there that you're teaching this, I thought, let's put it in language everybody can understand. And you sum it up with, if it feels good, do it right. [00:02:46] Speaker B: Not at all. [00:02:46] Speaker A: No, that's not it. Oh, dang. I thought it was follow your heart. [00:02:50] Speaker B: No, no, none of that. None of that. But so what I try to frame moral theology is, first of all because of, like you said, you've got, basically, I call it four categories or four buckets of students at Wallace University, obviously. [00:03:04] Speaker A: And watching our show. [00:03:06] Speaker B: Watching our show. Right. [00:03:07] Speaker A: So we love all the buckets, [00:03:10] Speaker B: but the one bucket you are going to have are the students who intentionally come to Walsh intentionally because of the Catholic atmosphere. They have been highly catechized, regular Mass attenders. Their parents had them, you know, regularly involved in the faith. Very strong faith for those students. If we came in and talked about moral theology, I could probably come right in with my St. Thomas Aquinas, guns blazing, and they'll be able to latch right on. But like you said, you got three other buckets that's there, too. Right. One bucket is the. What I call the casual Catholic who is faithful in the sense of they're cultured Catholic. They go to Mass consistently. Maybe not as regularly as the first bucket. Right. They did some catechesis, but they may not have been as catechized as before. [00:04:02] Speaker A: Yep. [00:04:02] Speaker B: But they'll know who Thomas Aquinas is, and they'll know some of the language. But then you have the other two buckets. Yeah, the one bucket, which they may be churched in a sense, from our Protestant brothers and sisters, but they're not going to know the Catholic language around moral theology. They're not going to know that. And then, of course, you have the fourth bucket, which are completely unchurched. It could be either unchurched, or we do have a significant international student population. They may not just be familiar with Christianity, believe it or not. Right. Because they're coming from other countries in which Christianity in general is just not central to their social life. So you got these four buckets. That's there. So in order for me to start talking with them about moral theology, I start off with a very simple question. How do we determine what we should do and should not do? Because that's really. When you're talking about morality, that's what's trying to determine. [00:04:55] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:04:55] Speaker B: How do I. How do I make a decision that's either going to Move me towards my greatest end, which is God, or make a decision that's going to move me away from it. So how do I make that determination? So usually when I start off the class, I don't really start off with anything that is explicitly theological. I talk with them as you talk about anywhere from the age of 18 to 23 in the classroom. Let's just have a conversation. How do you determine what you should do? Should I do? So we give them case studies, right? Just say, hey, in this situation, how many of you, what would you do in this situation? Right? And we have a conversation about it. Because what they don't understand is how they determine what they should do or should not do. It does fall into, usually an emphasis on. On one of the three fonts of choice. [00:05:50] Speaker A: One of the three fonts of choice. [00:05:52] Speaker B: Of choice. So St. Thomas Aquinas. [00:05:54] Speaker A: And by the way, I love how this is right away. It shows people how theology is not just a theoretical thing. I mean, some of it. Some of it is speculative, and not everybody's called to it. It doesn't. Doesn't. It's not. Some people think like, if you want to go deeper in your faith, learn more theology, we'll say, Therese didn't, you know. But here's the part that we all. Nobody gets a pass in this. You've got to know how to. How to act and make decisions. [00:06:16] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:06:16] Speaker A: So the three fonts of choice. [00:06:18] Speaker B: So St. Thomas Aquinas, and then obviously affirmed by the catechism, says there's three fonts or three elements of choice. You have the intention, you have the object of the act, and you got the circumstances. Intention, intention. Think of intention as like your personal end. This is the reason why I'm doing it. Right. And then you got the actual object of the act, meaning this is what I'm actually doing. And then you have the circumstances, like the who, what, when, how. Right. Usually when there's a disagreement on what to do in a situation, it's usually because I don't think it's because a person is intentionally being immoral. So in other words, we may see people do things in the world today, or the responses to a case study in class may be something that by definition we would say is an immoral act. But I genuinely believe people aren't intentionally doing immoral acts. It's because they're looking at these three fonts and they're making a choice based upon what they feel is the correct thing to do. So, for example, the tension is the biggest one. Right. So Your intention. This is what I mean to do. This is the end I'm trying, my personal end that I'm trying to reach, you know, the one that I. Obviously this is low hanging fruit, but it's easy. Layman's term. Robin Hood. What was Robin Hood known for? [00:07:53] Speaker A: Stealing from the rich to give to the poor. [00:07:55] Speaker B: That's a very honorable intention. [00:07:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:59] Speaker B: He witnessed what he saw as an injustice. [00:08:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:03] Speaker B: And he took money from the rich to give to the poor. [00:08:07] Speaker A: Wow. [00:08:08] Speaker B: But what was he actually doing? [00:08:09] Speaker A: Stealing? [00:08:11] Speaker B: So the question. So it depends. All right. [00:08:14] Speaker A: So it depends. You just killed a sacred cow right there. You're gonna get some hate mail. [00:08:19] Speaker B: Right. But the point is. And again, and in the class, I never lead the students, except for intrinsically evil acts, which we can get to if you want, but I never lead the students into saying anything. I don't tell them what's right, what's wrong. What I want to provide for them is the process on how to discern what is right, what's wrong, but illuminating to them. What you're doing, you're moving around these three fonts. Right. You're moving around the object, intention, and the circumstance. Because sometimes people think the circumstances can justify doing something that's immoral. That's immoral. Right. So we use not. I don't use very deep case studies early on. I'll use something like stealing signs from pictures. Stealing signs. Right. Or so something that doesn't seem so earth shadowing in the beginning just to get the wheels turning. And then as we progress through the course now, we get a little bit more, you know, spicy with the examples. Right. Eventually we may land on immigration. Yeah, we may land. And the point is, what I want to point out to them is that. Yeah. Because a lot of these are not as black and white as we would like for them to be, there is some discerning that has to happen and you understand why there has to be conversation in determining a lot of these topics. What we shouldn't do or should not. [00:09:50] Speaker A: Hey, guys, thanks so much for watching the show. Our mission at Real Life Catholic is to help people come alive in the life that God made them for. I know you're passionate about that life. That's why you're watching. Help other people find that life too. Click below this video. Become a missionary of joy today. Your monthly gift keeps the show going and so much more. The confirmation program we're creating for teens right now to help them find who they are by learning whose they are. The work we do for the poor the full time doctor we have working in Haiti. The work we do by traveling the country every single week and doing outreach events to help people who aren't engaged to find true life in Jesus Christ and so much more. All that's kept going with an army of people who gets behind this work with a small monthly gift. Get off the sidelines and help us make a difference again. Click below this video. Become a missionary. Joy today. God love you. [00:10:43] Speaker B: So again, the point, and I think this is Walsh in general, is that we don't want to be just generating answers. We're not just transmitting information. In addition to transmitting some information, we want to teach you how to critically think and have dialogue about these topics. Because when you get out there into the real world, you're going to have to have conversations with those and work alongside those who may not have the same perspective as perspective as you, but you need to be able to have conversation about it. [00:11:15] Speaker A: And you got to be able to teach your kids too. Parents watching, like. [00:11:18] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:11:18] Speaker A: Otherwise their default is always going to be I'll follow my gut, which always defaults to if my intentions are good. [00:11:25] Speaker B: That's right. [00:11:25] Speaker A: Therefore nothing else matters. Especially anything goes really. [00:11:30] Speaker B: Especially in the world that we have today. Because what's pushed is relative. Relativism is what's pushed. So the idea that there is an objective right and wrong is not what's pushed. So by instructing and showing students how to determine that, it helps, I guess you want to say, assert that there is an objective. [00:11:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Which goes into the second font. Right. So the first one people have kind of a grasp for. Spell out a little more what the second and third are. Help us think through that. [00:12:05] Speaker B: Let me. We'll do object last because that's probably the most complicated. We'll go to circumstances next. Circumstances is pretty straightforward except one thing that I want point out to them is that a circumstance can never change the morality or the righteousness of an act. It can change the degree of righteousness or morality of an act, but not. [00:12:30] Speaker A: Or your culpability, like your personal guilt if you correct right. [00:12:34] Speaker B: Which is associated with the right. [00:12:36] Speaker A: So Robin Hood probably was not in mortal sin. You know what I mean? Like there's the personal guilt based on the circumstance. [00:12:44] Speaker B: He was in the example I like to use. [00:12:47] Speaker A: Sorry, I had to go back to defending Robin. [00:12:48] Speaker B: No, I guess, you know, the example I like to use when I talk about circumstances is I always use my son as an example. So let's say I get a phone call from the deacon at the church that Says we had to call law enforcement on your son because he vandalized something at the church. There's no question that him vandalizing some object of the church is wrong. [00:13:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:17] Speaker B: But when I ask what. I'm asking the circumstances, what did he vandalize? He spray painted on the front door. Okay. That's different than if the deacon would have said to me. He went and knocked over the tabernacle. [00:13:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:34] Speaker B: That changes the gravity of it. [00:13:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:36] Speaker B: Do you know what I'm saying? So. So again, I try to help them. See, neither one justifies anything, but it can change the gravity. So that's why I explained to them about certain cities. So then I go to the object and the object I spoke to him about. In order to talk about object, you have to talk about an end. So we kind of pause for a moment, and I have to give them the idea that we are all moving towards an end. [00:14:04] Speaker A: And by object, say that in a different, more layman's terms, it's what you're actually doing. Okay. What you're actually doing. The act itself. [00:14:14] Speaker B: The act itself. So think the way. So the word object, if you break it down to Latin, it's ab and Jayson, which means you're throwing against. Okay? So the reason why I say I like to talk about the end is that in order for you to know what you're doing, you've got to throw it against something. So in other words, that act that you're doing, how is it connecting to an end? So to keep with the theme of four, since we've said four buckets earlier, I'll say, even though we identify more, there's four ends that St. Thomas Aquinas would identify. Preservation of life, building off of society, procreation of the species and truth. If your object. [00:15:02] Speaker A: Say this again. Take notes, kids. [00:15:05] Speaker B: Preservation of life. [00:15:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:07] Speaker B: Procreation of the species, building up of society and truth. If what you're doing when you throw it up against those four ends, if it doesn't connect or head towards those ends, then it's an immoral action. Doesn't matter what your intention is. Doesn't matter what the circumstances are. If you do it, when you throw it up against those ends, it's right or wrong. Does that. [00:15:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:38] Speaker B: Does that make sense? [00:15:39] Speaker A: If it's creating chaos in society, then [00:15:42] Speaker B: it doesn't matter what the intention is. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are. It's wrong. Now, in class, I have not even. I haven't brought St. Thomas Aquinas up. We're just Analyzing how we make decisions. And the reason why I do that is now once you get them saying, okay, oh no, I can. I understand that now. Now they're understanding there's an objective right. Or I should say, I should say right or wrong, righteous or unrighteous act, or moral or immoral act, they recognize objectively, they can. It's a science. I can say this action that I did, it either is tending towards a good or is tending away from a good. Now we can start putting on top [00:16:26] Speaker A: of it, separate from your intentions. You got to look at each thing distinct, right? [00:16:30] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:16:31] Speaker A: But the end doesn't just justify the means. Right? Correct. The end meaning what you want to do, your hoped for intention doesn't just justify the thing you're doing to get there, the object. [00:16:40] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yep. So now we can start layering on theological terms. Now you can say, okay, so how do we. What resources do we have that have been provided to us as Catholics? Well, actually as Christians, I say as human beings in general. [00:17:03] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [00:17:04] Speaker B: There's a particular way that we've been designed as human beings that we can use our reason to identify some of those ends. Because if you notice, the ends that I said, with the exception of truth, they're not ends any different than any other civilized society. Right? [00:17:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:28] Speaker B: Preservation of life is reasonably a good end. [00:17:31] Speaker A: Right. [00:17:32] Speaker B: If we want to grow in our existence, we have to procreate. The species communities have to grow, society have to grow. How does society grow? Through education. Okay, well then what's the education? Gotta be committing the truth. So these are. I haven't again, I'm slowly building up to punchline is Jesus. But you gotta start off with. Because remember, you got all these different buckets in the room. You want to start off with something we all have in common. You don't even have to make a proclamation or a statement. We have human reason. We can reasonably identify what's a moral and immoral act. Then you go from reason to. Now we want to talk about again, let's just think logically. If the Christian tradition says that all things came in existence by a creator, then that Creator is going to know what is the best means in which his creation is to fulfill their existence. I always pick up my phone and I say, hey, if I created the iPhone, if I was a creator of it, I don't care how much you guys use it, you can't know more than me as a creator about how best to use it. Yeah. So if Christianity makes. Actually, I don't even say Christianity. I say The Abrahamic faiths make the claim that God is the Creator, because that way, again, I'm. I'm narrowing in, right? So I'm trying to catch as many as I can going up. Then that means there is a way in which God knows we are to be. How do we figure that out? [00:19:15] Speaker A: Acts that fit the way we're designed are good, are going to be bad. Right. It's not just like a good bad. This is about fulfilling your purpose. [00:19:24] Speaker B: Correct. [00:19:25] Speaker A: Gas is good for a car. [00:19:27] Speaker B: And the reason why I'm using that language is because eventually when you get to actual acts and you start talking about things that are emotionally driven, like the LGBTQ community, or things like abortion, [00:19:41] Speaker A: things like bombing a Nagasaki, Hiroshima, all [00:19:44] Speaker B: this, all these things. Now, we're not. You take the emotion out of it because we're doing a literal critical discernment on what that act does towards an end. You see what I'm saying? You're taking the emotion out of it. You recognize emotion may be associated with it, but that's not how we're determining the morality of an end. Because then you're not taking the morality or immorality and attached it to an individual. You're saying, it's just. It's the way God knows the existence to be. Then you can use words like disorder. And you're not calling them disordered. It's disorder in the sense of it's not according to the way we were designed. Does that make sense? [00:20:35] Speaker A: 100%. [00:20:36] Speaker B: So all of that, it takes the emotion out of it and it's not. It takes a threatening language away from it. You may have those in class who still do not agree, but they're not ever gonna come to you and say that you're doing it out of an emotion. You're clearly articulating. This is how we discern righteousness and unrighteousness. [00:20:59] Speaker A: If we don't get our articulation of this right, the world's conclusion, as you [00:21:04] Speaker B: guys are hateful bigots, that's the reason why I approach it the way I approach it. Because if you come in first with your St. Thomas, Augustine, I mean, St. Thomas Aquinas things, guns going off the wall, is immediately going to go up. But if you approach it in a way, no, let's have a conversation first. And then you eventually start layering it on, they have to determine, wait a minute. Where did I just. Where did I not agree? Because they were agreeing most, in a way, they have to admit that when they don't agree, it's not because of an intellectual discernment. It's something else that you're disagreeing with. [00:21:44] Speaker A: You're giving back the ability to have intelligent conversations on issues to these kids. [00:21:47] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:21:48] Speaker A: To anybody who's listening, frankly. [00:21:49] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:21:50] Speaker A: Because if there is no objective truth in this area, then there's no calm and cool. When people get together and debate math, they're not getting all pissed off at each other. [00:21:58] Speaker B: Right? Absolutely right. Yeah. [00:21:59] Speaker A: Because people think, well, there's objective truth here. We just look at it. But in this area, if it's just relativism reigns supreme and there's no truth, then it's, well, my strong feelings against your strong feelings and who feels stronger? And who are you to judge me? [00:22:12] Speaker B: Well, the funny thing about that, for someone to make a statement that relativism reigns supreme, guess what you just did? You made an objective statement. [00:22:23] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [00:22:24] Speaker B: That won't work unless objective truth is real. Right. You know what I mean? So that can't be the case because that would be. [00:22:34] Speaker A: You're self contradicting. [00:22:35] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Self contradicting. Right. So I want to go. So after we talk about that God has created us. So you have our own reason. Now we also have. This is simply by using our reason, recognizing that there's a way that God knows the world to be. Well, then how did he tell us that? Now you have divine revelation, which is scripture initially. But what is the fullness of God's divine revelation? [00:23:05] Speaker A: Jesus. [00:23:07] Speaker B: So by the end of class is where we're ending with Jesus. [00:23:11] Speaker A: That's a masterpiece right there. [00:23:13] Speaker B: That's how the class. [00:23:14] Speaker A: And so they're all, okay, that's a masterpiece. [00:23:15] Speaker B: And the last thing I do in class, the last thing I do in class, I actually go back to the judging of the nations parable. Because after we end with Jesus, so we're all in agreement at the Christian moral way of life, the epitome. If we want to look at God's full of divine revelation, it's in Jesus. Okay, so let's talk about how Jesus determined. What did Jesus say? How did he evaluate a person's action, a person's behavior? [00:23:51] Speaker A: Love. [00:23:52] Speaker B: Love. Yeah, it wasn't in this. [00:23:55] Speaker A: But nervous isn't just a feeling. [00:23:56] Speaker B: That's like, you got to do something, you got to. There's action that's associated with that. And this is what I always point out, the reason why Jesus is one of the most powerful examples. He was a Jew. How did the Jewish community determine a successful way of life? They had a law. Jesus didn't contradict the Law. But he also said it's not just about just the law. You have to understand what is the law trying to move the people to do. So, to me, you're both addressing the relativism. Peace. But you're also addressing those that want to say it's only purely what the decalogue says. The decalogue is important. Don't misunderstand me. It is a phenomenal guide, and it does outline what intrinsic evil acts are. It's a lot of stuff that's not explicitly said in the decalogue that we deal with in the 21st century. Right. So you got to be able to have this ability to have the conversation both. Again, it depends on where you are in life. Personally, you gotta have that conversation. When you become part of the family, you gotta have the conversation with the family. And then out there in the world, depending on what you do for a living, you gotta have those conversations and [00:25:25] Speaker A: you gotta have it with yourselves. You know how to act. [00:25:27] Speaker B: Well, absolutely. [00:25:28] Speaker A: Right. Personally. [00:25:29] Speaker B: Yeah, but I mean, could you imagine if the leaders of our nation had this conversation before they made decisions? Yeah, that's the point. It would be a completely different thing. [00:25:43] Speaker A: Let's hold up international affairs to the determinants of a moral act. [00:25:46] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:25:48] Speaker A: Okay, I want to see this in action right now. I'm a student. I'm a little confused. [00:25:51] Speaker B: Okay. [00:25:51] Speaker A: Let's talk about a couple issues here. Okay, look, abortion. I mean, it's gonna. If I don't get an abortion, I can't finish college. I'm doing this for my future. What do you say? And who are you to judge me? [00:26:05] Speaker B: Well, first of all, I'm not judging anybody. If you come. If a student came to me, I would say, let's talk about it. All right, so let's slow this down. Why are you considering abortion? [00:26:19] Speaker A: Well, I. Just. To secure my future. [00:26:22] Speaker B: Secure your future? [00:26:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:24] Speaker B: And that is a laudable. That's a laudable intention. However, what are one of the ends of society? What is will we safeguard the most Human life? Human life. If you did an abortion, what would the act be that you're doing? [00:26:52] Speaker A: I'd have to end a life to secure my future. [00:26:58] Speaker B: Is that act a righteous act, or would you say it's an unrighteous act? [00:27:02] Speaker A: Unrighteous act, yeah. Now, of course, the conversation wouldn't actually go this way, but. Because I start coming out. But then if you're. Well, you box. [00:27:10] Speaker B: I do? [00:27:11] Speaker A: Yeah. The whole game. The whole game is to keep focus somewhere. I need it. [00:27:17] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. [00:27:18] Speaker A: Right. And so if Even if I was coming at a million angles, you'd hold that line. Now, this is not a personal judgment. [00:27:25] Speaker B: Correct. [00:27:26] Speaker A: That's one like, I'm not hating on you. [00:27:27] Speaker B: Correct. [00:27:27] Speaker A: Because if someone feels hated on, it's like, why am I going to talk to you? [00:27:30] Speaker B: Correct. [00:27:31] Speaker A: I'm not hating you. And then we got to distinguish between the end and the means. [00:27:37] Speaker B: The pastoral side of me. [00:27:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:40] Speaker B: What will be different in this conversation. [00:27:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:27:43] Speaker B: Is I would address the. The. I shouldn't say address, but be open to acknowledging the genuine concerns that they have which has brought them in front of me. Right. So I wouldn't have just brushed that off, obviously. I would acknowledge that as a genuine concern. Especially if you're young. Right. [00:28:02] Speaker A: And it's a good concern. [00:28:04] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:28:04] Speaker A: You know, like, somebody might also want to have an abortion because they think my kid will suffer. I mean, we could answer these things in all sorts of ways, but a bottom line is like, your good intentions don't make ending a life okay. [00:28:19] Speaker B: And that's where being even working as a academic in a university is still a calling in theology. Because you're going to have conversations that, quite frankly, my colleagues don't have to have. If I'm a chemistry professor, guess what? I don't have to have a conversation with you. Matter of fact, they more than likely are going to come to you about having that conversation. They are going to come to the theology professor who just taught moral theology. Right. So you want to acknowledge it. You want to acknowledge that you understand that there's a charitable nature that that's coming out of, but you also recognize, like a referee in a game, at some point you're going to have to tell them the truth. The truth. You're going to have to. And I think that even again, and I say this from experience, even students who have come to me with various questions, they may not have liked the answer, but they respected it. [00:29:16] Speaker A: You know, one place I think is kind of a blind spot for a lot of Americans is the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. You know, you have. I mean, Mother Teresa said the fruit of abortion is nuclear war. But I also. And that's true. If you devalue human life in general, that's where it ends. But I think the flip side has also been true, that dropping nukes has paved a society where we've justified doing something because we thought the end justifies the means. The end is good. The end is, I want to end a war. [00:29:49] Speaker B: It's funny you say that, because that's actually one of the Examples I use in class. [00:29:51] Speaker A: Is it. Yeah. Tell me how you spelled that out. Because people will be hearing this right now and be upset because the circumstances made it so that grandpa, who maybe was one of the guys carpet bombing Tokyo, his culpability is greatly diminished. The circumstances were extraordinary. So we're not judging any people right here, but we got to think through this with a cool head to know how to act. But, yeah, how do you dive into this with students? [00:30:16] Speaker B: So I want to mention, remember, I don't tell them exactly unless they ask. I don't tell them exactly where, what my conclusion is. I want them to form it, work through the process themselves, form it. And then part of the evaluation is you tell me what you think the morally right thing to do. And the reason why that's a perfectly good example is I'll tell you some of the. And I get it. There can be an argument on what the object actually was. Because on one end you could say, well, the object is you just killed hundreds of thousands of people. There's others who say, well, the object was actually preserving life because the way that war was going, they were not going to stop. So there may have been even more millions who would have died for the prolonging of the war. You see what I'm saying? So again, that's why you play with this idea of you need to tell me, what are you identifying as the object. Yeah, right. There's no question about the intention is. There's no question about the circumstances. It's what are you saying the object is? And so again, I don't give them what the answer is. I want them to articulate to me what the object is. Now, I may not agree with them what the object is, but if they've demonstrated from the course. But of fact, that is the case. One of the case studies I give them on the final exam is really. That's the one. I don't use Nagasaki, I use Hiroshima. But it's the same. It's the same idea. So it's about how are they articulating the object? I'm simply testing to see whether or not you're using the skill set that we developed this entire time. That's what I'm grading on, not on your. [00:32:01] Speaker A: They're learning how to think, and that's [00:32:04] Speaker B: think and have dialogue. That's all I want them to be able to do about these topics. Because if we don't, we wind up what we have in society today, which is everybody going to these silos and echo chambers and no one is actually having a conversation. [00:32:17] Speaker A: Benedict XVI wrote about how relativism isolates people from each other. [00:32:21] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:32:21] Speaker A: We're all literally silos. [00:32:23] Speaker B: Intuitively, you would think it would be different if you're relative, but it's not. He's exactly right. [00:32:30] Speaker A: No, literally, we've won. Relativism's won the day with the rallying cry that this will unite people who are divided by objective truth. Right. Isn't that funny? [00:32:39] Speaker B: Right. [00:32:40] Speaker A: And now we can't even have a conversation anymore. [00:32:41] Speaker B: Not at all. We cannot go across the aisle and have a conversation. [00:32:45] Speaker A: Yeah. If a meeting ground is like, there's a truth that I didn't create, we can debate about that with a cool head and come up with different conclusions and still respect each other. [00:32:53] Speaker B: I was about to say, or when you do recognize what objective truth is, we may have a discussion on how to get there, but we both recognize this is the objective we're trying to get to. But now, whenever these relative. We're not even. We're not even shooting at the same target. We're not trying to reach the same thing. We're still trying to determine what is good for our communities, which it's clear what is. But again, when it's relative, everybody can go in their own little spots and just isolate themselves. [00:33:27] Speaker A: Give us a summary one last time. I want to land on it the 92nd. You're in an elevator with a teenage kid. No, because if a parent doesn't walk, I know there's gonna be parents watching this. Who would think I want to be able to talk? My kid, well, she's dating her boyfriend. It feels right to sleep together before the prom. Or after the prom. It feels right. Or I'm debating my grandkid about abortion and they're arguing intentionality. Again, let's solidify this in people's heads. Again, the tools to talk about the church's teachings. Otherwise, everyone's gonna say, well, you're just judgmental, bigoted and hated. And you're judging me. So the simplest language possible. [00:34:04] Speaker B: The aim of the Church is to help accompany us to our greatest end, which is communion with God. Along the way, we have to make decisions. Those decisions that you make either move you towards God or move you away from God. By the way, side note, moving away from God, that's what sin is. That's what sin is. You're moving away. Because we're designed to move towards God. So if you're moving away from him, that's sin. Okay. There are three things you should think about whenever you make A deter or identify. Whenever you're making a choice, be honest with yourself and what your attention is. Look at the circumstances. But what's most important is what is the object of the act? What is it that you're doing? How is it going to affect yourself, your community and your relationship with God? If it damages any of those things, weakens it, There are certain things that can completely sever it. But if it weakens any of those things. You need to have a pause before you do that. I mean, it's that, I hate to say it's that simple because the conversation in yourself, in your mind, is not that simple. But it does come down to that. And then it's about us overcoming our own, you know, the proverbial Adam and Eve with the fruit thing, right? You. You have to overcome your desire and submit to what is objectively makes us happy. Not pleasurable, but happy. [00:35:52] Speaker A: And that's why it's not simple. [00:35:54] Speaker B: That's why it's not simple most of the time. What is for your happiness or your joy? I think you said joy when you came to visit us. The joy is not always what's pleasurable. [00:36:06] Speaker A: No, that's why we complicate it. Because if I don't want it to sum up Aquinas in stupid language, sin makes you stupid. [00:36:14] Speaker B: Right? [00:36:17] Speaker A: If there weren't pleasure attached to sex, debating any of the sexual stuff or abortion or anything connected with reproduction would be the easiest conversation to have with a cool head. [00:36:28] Speaker B: That's right. [00:36:29] Speaker A: But there's pleasure attached. So then it's like, well, then I could literally get all wrapped up in my own logic. It's like, but it's okay with my girlfriend. I might marry her someday. Like, dude, really, I think I know what's going on here. [00:36:39] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:36:40] Speaker A: It's called testosterone. [00:36:41] Speaker B: Right, Exactly. [00:36:44] Speaker A: But then having the humility when you mess up to be like, okay, I gotta look at those three things again. [00:36:49] Speaker B: That's it. [00:36:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it wasn't the right thing to do. [00:36:51] Speaker B: Humility. And not that this is a moral theology piece, but I think it helps humility when you make a mistake. And also know that there's always the option of reconciliation is always there. You can't mess up enough that God is gonna be like, that's your last one. [00:37:18] Speaker A: I love how you started it before the three things just now with, does this bring me closer to or away from God? Because what Jesus does when the word is made flesh, it brings it from these rules that are important to think through these qualifications to a personalization that's right. Christianity is an enfleshed personalization of what might have been. The law or the rules or the theories. It's like, no, this is about flesh and blood. [00:37:48] Speaker B: In class, I say Jesus is the pattern of righteousness. [00:37:51] Speaker A: Yeah. That cuts through the noise. [00:37:52] Speaker B: He's given us a pattern. So, yeah. [00:37:57] Speaker A: I mean, that can cut through. That can cut through the confusion we cause ourselves when a kid's about to go on a prom date, and it's like, think about the Lord Jesus on the cross dying there to love for you. That's right. [00:38:08] Speaker B: For you. [00:38:08] Speaker A: For you. [00:38:09] Speaker B: And if it was nobody else in [00:38:10] Speaker A: the world, he still would have did it for you. Because it's easier to lie to myself than it is to look at him and lie. [00:38:16] Speaker B: That's right. Absolutely. [00:38:17] Speaker A: Dang, That's a heavy thought, man. Thanks for the wisdom. [00:38:21] Speaker B: No problem. [00:38:22] Speaker A: I know this is going to help people. I thought we just had one interview. We got to squeeze in this, like, just get. Just a show full of wisdom and practical insight and how to talk through some important, complex things, and we're having you back sometime. I love hanging with you. Yeah. God bless you, man. [00:38:37] Speaker B: Thanks for that. [00:38:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Have a blessed summer at Xavier University, too. [00:38:40] Speaker B: I will. I will. [00:38:41] Speaker A: That's incredible. Yeah. Thanks so much. And thanks for. Thanks for his family, for letting him go. Though your wife might be like, no, I actually enjoyed the night off. I was shocked when Covid hit and I realized, wait, my wife likes me being gone one night a week preaching. This is a time to, like, get takeout and sit in my bed with no one around. Not even you. What? I love you guys. Thanks so much for watching. See you next time.