Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

234 JOSEPH CHAPEL
heart of sin. Ebner argues that one is not good or evil in relation
to oneself, but only in relation to another. Therefore, sin is not
an “idea” but is concretely an issue of broken relation, of turning
from authentic I-thou dialogue with God and neighbor. This
has been the heart of the Fall from the beginning: in trying to be
absolutely “free” in the sense of absolute independence, man
turns away for the other, avoiding the Thou. In trying to be more
free and independent, man ends up less so.
The understanding that God’s word can be expressed in
some fashion in human language, as the Holy Father notes,
points up the importance of philosophy for moral theology’s
treatment of, “moral law, conscience, freedom, personal responsibility
and guilt, which are in part defined by philosophical
ethics.” 74 All of these are mediated in language and the path back
to God in the moral sphere is through the word. In Ebner’s
terms, because every aspect of spiritual life, including sin, has a
direct relationship to the word, because all life is created
through the word: “All being, which has fallen from God and has
become wordless, is destined to return again to the word – in
man and through him.” 75
Thus the moral core for Ebner is this: we are created in the
Word, God calls to us in love, and we are free to respond to that
love or not. Our choice to respond or not respond is a moral
stance toward relationship with God and others, or toward a retreat
into self. This is a freedom that can be misused. There is an
ethical or “responsible” dimension in the fact that unlike animals,
we speak: speaking orients us toward the thou; we do not
speak as isolated individuals but within relationships and we are
“good” or “bad” within relationships, which of itself suggests our
human orientation not to solitary isolation, but to communal
life.
In considering the relationship between faith and reason
and the need for a revitalized dialogue in which philosophy will
once again assist theology in discovering the proper place of
faith in understanding our very existence, this article has not at-
74 FR, 66.
75 GREEN, 266; WR, Schriften 1:320.