Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

398 BRIAN JOHNSTONE
other, or subject and object, were seen as inter-related through
their joint participation in the unifying reasoned will of God. 29
As this vision broke down, the subject and object were
increasingly detached. More and more, significant thinkers
looked for the sources of morality, not in the now “separated”
objects of the world of nature, or in subject as inherently related
to the object, as for St. Thomas, but in the separate subject.
This change can be discerned within Western culture in general,
but it had its influence on Catholic moral theology.
There were numerous subjective currents in Catholic spirituality
and theology in this period. An interesting example is
provided by the noted Dominican theologian Cajetan (d. 1534).
Cajetan argued for a consideration of the subject in the evaluation
of actions, however, for his pains he was suspected of promoting
moral relativism and laxism. 30 The spirituality of St.
Ignatius , which stressed the search for the will of God in the life
and inner world of the individual, seems to have been suspected
as being a kind of mystical subjectivism. Suarez, at the behest of
his superiors, and from personal interest, set himself to counter
such criticism. Accordingly, he sought to synthesize the subjective
with the objective, particularly in the moral realm. 31
The dominant theory within the Catholic tradition, however,
was characterized by a stress on the objective, and in particular
on objective morality. This theory was strongly supported by
Church authority, no doubt for what I have called prudentialpolitical
reasons, namely the fear of subjectivism and the consequent
relativism which threatened to undermine social order.
However, a moral theory with its own arguments was also devel-
29
I have sought to provide a more detailed outline elsewhere. See Brian
V. Johnstone, “Objectivism,” “Basic Human Goods,” and “Proportionalism”:
An Interpretation of the Contemporary History of Moral Theology,” Studia
Moralia 43 (2005) 97-126.
30
Romanus Cessario, O.P., “Moral Absolutes and the Civilization of
Love,” in Veritatis Splendor and the Renewal of Moral Theology, ed. J. A.
DiNoia, O.P. and Romanus Cessario, O.P. (Princeton, N.J.: Scepter
Publishers, 1999) 195.
31
Elisabeth Gemmeke, Die Metaphysik des sittlich Guten bei Franz
Suarez (Herder: Freiburg, 1965) 16.