Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

CAN ANYTHING GOOD COME OUT OF POSTMODERNISM?... 251
Supreme Good (§ 57). The goodness of God is therefore both the
ultimate horizon in which the goodness of human actions is to
be discerned and the goal to which they aspire. Right reason
guides the human being in the choice of particular actions
which will lead to a life in conformity with the truth of Revelation.
Within this schema the false autonomy of reason which
leads to rationalism and possibly totalitarianism is replaced by
the free choice of the human being to obey, in trust, the one authority
of the truth (§ 79).
Over against this account of how things should be the encyclical
presents a description of the “nefarious separation” by
which reason has assumed an illegitimate and destructive autonomy
(§ 80). Cut off from the guidance and inspiration of the
truths of faith, reason slips into various forms of aberration,
most notably that of nihilism (§§ 90,98). This is construed as the
denial that any universal truth can be known or that any opinion
is of more value than another. Such a nihilistic stance within
philosophy is thus an example of the kind of “presuppositions
and conclusions” which are incompatible with christian faith
(§ 50).
The encyclical specifically rejects a concept of truth as consensus
and the utilitarian and pragmatic modes of ethical thinking
which follow from this:
In brief, there are signs of a widespread distrust of universal
and absolute statements, especially among those who think that
truth is born of consensus and not of a consonance between intellect
and objective reality. (§ 56)
The ultimate expression of the harmony between faith and
reason finds expression in such a science as moral theology. In
view of the particular challenges presented by postmodern culture,
the primary call has to be the production of a “metaphysic
of the good” based on a recognition of the truth of Revelation
and the truth of reason (§§ 67, 68, 98). Only such a vision of the
good will be able to withstand the pressures of subjectivist, utilitarian
and pragmatist ethics.
Thus far our attempt to articulate the moral import of the
teaching of Fides et ratio.