Beatitude (Illustrated)

— A Classic — Includes Active Table of Contents — Includes Religious Illustrations

Moral theology, then, stands on a higher level than natural ethics. Natural ethics guides man to his last natural goal, which consists, not in the beatific vision and supernatural love, but in the knowledge, perfect but abstract, of God as the author of nature, and in the consequent natural love of God above all else. Ethics, properly speaking, does not deal with man as the image of the triune God. In the definition given above, many theologians avoid the phrase “that part of theology,” substituting for it “that branch of knowledge.” Hence arises the following question: Does moral theology differ specifically from dogmatic theology?

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