Lecture Three: Preface (§1-§5)
Study Questions
1. What is meant by the assertion in Genesis that the human being is “made in the image and according to the likeness of God”? What significance does this assertion have for insight and wisdom in moral matters?
2. In what ways are the ethical insights of any moral theory are dependent on its understanding of the human person and of being in general? Provide some examples, especially for the views of the Catholic Church as articulated in Veritatis splendor.
3. Pope John Paul II often discussed the ways in which Jesus Christ “shows man to himself.” What is it about Jesus as the Incarnate Word, the Son of God in human flesh, that has special relevance for our knowledge of the moral order?
Suggestions for further reading:
J. Budziszewski. The Line through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction. Wilmington: ISI Books, 2009.Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P. Christ and Spirituality in St. Thomas Aquinas. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011.
Alasdair MacIntyre. Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues. Chicago: Open Court, 1999.
