257. The Order and Suitability of the Decalogue

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Hierarchical Order of the Decalogue #

• The Ten Commandments are arranged according to the order of reason itself, not arbitrarily
• First Three Commandments: Ordered to God as the ultimate end and common good
• Last Seven Commandments: Ordered to neighbor, beginning with those to whom man is most indebted (parents)
• The principle mirrors military order: a soldier must first be faithful to the leader, then coordinate with fellow soldiers

Why God Before Neighbor #

• Objection: The neighbor is more known to us by sense; therefore love of neighbor should come first (referencing 1 John 4)
• Answer: Although the neighbor is more known sensibly, the reason for loving the neighbor is the love of God. When giving the reasons for things, God must come first
• Two modes of teaching: one leads by the hand (via sense experience); the other gives reasons from principles to conclusions
• Example: Peter’s confession ascends from Christ’s humanity to divinity; John’s gospel descends from divinity to humanity. Both orders are valid, but reasoning requires starting with first principles

The Gravity of Sins and Order of Precepts #

• Among precepts to neighbor, the order follows the gravity of violation:
  • Murder: Most grave (directly against life itself)
  • Adultery: More grave than theft (destroys certitude of paternity; person is more valuable than property)
  • Theft: Grave but less so (concerns exterior goods)
  • False Witness: Concerns words rather than deeds
  • Desire/Coveting: Least grave (concerns the heart alone)
• General principle: Sins of deed > sins of word > sins of desire
• Exterior actions show evil more clearly to reason than interior emotions

The Affirmative Precepts (Honor Parents; Keep Sabbath) #

• Only two affirmative precepts appear in the Decalogue
• Honor thy father and mother: Corresponds to God as universal beginning of being; parents are particular beginnings of being
• Keep the Sabbath: Commemorates past divine benefit (creation)
• These require affirmative precepts because their transgression induces less guilt than violations of negative precepts
• Affirmative precepts can be dispensed in particular cases (e.g., necessary work on Sabbath); negative precepts cannot

Key Arguments #

Why Particular Precepts Are Laid Down #

• To the First Objection (love of neighbor seems prior):

  • Although the neighbor is more known secundum viam sensus (according to sense experience), the love of God is the ratio (reason) for the love of neighbor
  • Precepts concerning God must be ordered before those concerning neighbor
  • This reflects the principle that the end comes before the means

• To the Second Objection (shouldn’t we have negative precepts first to remove evil?):

  • God is the universal beginning of being for all things; the Father is the beginning of being for the Son
  • Therefore, suitably after precepts pertaining to God come precepts pertaining to parents
  • Although practically we remove vice before implanting virtue, in knowledge virtue precedes vice (through the right is known the oblique)
  • The law teaches through knowledge of the good and knowledge of what opposes it

• To the Third Objection (why are precepts about desire last?):

  • Sin of the heart, although first in execution (one desires before acting), comes last in reason (in explanation)
  • The exterior evil is seen more clearly as evil than the interior emotion
  • Anger may lead to murder, but murdering is more obviously and gravely wrong than being angry

Why Only Two Affirmative Precepts #

• Affirmation presupposes negation, but negation does not presuppose affirmation
  • It follows: if white, then not black
  • But it does not follow: if not black, then white
• The negation of injury extends to many persons and many acts
• The affirmation of service/honor extends only to those to whom man is in debt
• Man is sufficiently never able to repay debt to: God and parents
• Therefore only these two receive explicit affirmative precepts

Why Promises Attach Only to First and Fourth Commandments #

• Men order their acts chiefly to what is useful
• The First Commandment (prohibition of idolatry): appears to impede usefulness men seek through pacts with devils
• The Fourth Commandment (honor parents): offers no apparent usefulness (one receives no benefit from parents in return)
• Therefore, promises are needed for these to encourage observance
• Other commandments (against murder, theft, adultery) are naturally seen as beneficial because they preserve what is good

Why Threats of Punishment Attach Only to First and Second Commandments #

• Punishments are especially necessary against those to which men are prone to evil
• Men were prone to idolatry on account of the custom of nations
• Men were prone to perjury (violation of the second commandment) on account of its frequency
• To the first and second precepts alone are threats of punishment added

Why Memory is Mentioned Only in the Third Precept #

• The precept about the Sabbath pertains to commemoration of a past benefit (creation)
• Memory must be retained lest we forget to thank God
• The precept also has a special determination (a particular day is set aside) not derived purely from natural law
• Therefore this precept especially needs the admonition about memory

Important Definitions #

Modus et Ordine (manner and order) #

• The precepts are given not merely in wisdom but in the manner and order befitting supreme wisdom
• God disposes all things according to number, weight, and measure (Wisdom 11)
• The precepts reflect both the what and the how of divine law

Praevius (previous/prior) #

• Used to describe logical priority (the road that comes before)
• The love of God is praevius to the love of neighbor in reason, even if neighbor is more known to sense

Peccatum vs. Culpa #

• Peccatum: More general; can apply even to defects in nature (a deformed birth is a peccatum in nature, not culpa in the person)
• Culpa: Specifically peccatum in the human will; failure to properly will
• In this context, peccatum sometimes better translated as “failure” or “defect” rather than “sin”

Dictamen Rationis (dictate of reason) #

• The natural law principle that expresses what reason commands
• It is a dictate of reason that man is a debtor of service to those from whom he has received benefits
• Parents and God are the two to whom man can never fully repay this debt

Examples & Illustrations #

The Military Analogy #

• In an army ordered to a leader as end:
  • First: the soldier must be faithful to the leader (no pact with enemy)
  • Second: the soldier must show reverence to the leader
  • Third: the soldier must provide service to the leader
• Unfaithfulness to the leader is gravissimum (most grave); irreverence is grave; deficiency in service is less grave
• This mirrors the ordering of the first three commandments
• Aristotle uses this comparison in discussing the order of the universe (the army is more clearly ordered than the city)

The Child Stealing Story #

• A child asked: “Why is adultery wrong?”
• Answer given: “It’s like stealing somebody’s mother or father”
• This is appropriate for a child’s understanding and captures something true: adultery deprives a person of their parent
• Illustrates that adultery is worse than theft because a person is more valuable than property

Tyrants and Their Children #

• Reference to book Children of the Monsters studying children of Stalin, Hitler, Assad, Kim Jong Il
• Some continue their parents’ crimes; others reject them and recognize that “you have to live by lies” to accept your parents (Solzhenitsyn)
• Fidel Castro’s daughter fled to the United States and wrote about the horrors of the police state
• Even tyrants love their own children as extensions of themselves
• Illustrates the natural love father has for son as something of himself

The Mafia Family Example #

• C.F.R. Friar: born into English/American mafia family; had to flee to England; grew up with petty crimes; experienced conversion and became a fine friar
• Shows a son rejecting the ways of his father despite family tradition
• Illustrates the struggle between family influence and free choice
• Also shows the connection between father and son: teachers worry about promising students being “led astray” by family tradition

The Restaurant Owner #

• Rosalie’s student, always smiling, but with mafia family tradition
• The teacher worried he would be led astray
• Shows the tension between personal virtue and family obligation/influence

The High School Homeroom Lesson #

• Teacher (brother of the bishop) says money isn’t everything
• Student replies: “But what it is, it’ll buy”
• Illustrates how wealth appears to be desirable for its own sake because of what it can obtain
• Shows why the commandments against coveting neighbor’s wife and possessions must be explicit

Pope’s Gift to Fidel Castro #

• Pope met with Fidel and gave him CDs or recordings of sermons/lectures from a priest who taught the Pope when in LA
• The priest (now elderly, in Miami) publicly said: “Anytime Fidel wants to come, confess your sins. But you must do public penance because the sins are public”
• Illustrates that even for tyrants, there remains the possibility of repentance and reconciliation
• Shows the Church’s teaching on penance and the conditions for reconciliation

Notable Quotes #

“The husband and wife are more two in one flesh of their child than they are in the marriage act, right? Because the marriage act is transitory, right? But the husband and wife are joined in the one flesh of the child.”

“God is the universal beginning of being for all things, right? He is also the Father. Also, the Father is a beginning, a certain beginning of being for the what? Son. And therefore, suitably after the precepts pertaining to God, is laid down the precepts pertaining to parents.”

“The reason why I love my neighbor is because I love what? God, huh?”

“Through the right is known the oblique, as is said in the first book of the Deanimus Aristophees, right? And you might say that through order is known disorder.”

“Although in the carrying out of work, first should be, what? Vices, then the inserting of what? Virtues, huh? According to that of Psalm 33. Decline from evil and do good.”

Questions Addressed #

Main Question: Are the Precepts of the Decalogue Suitably Ordered? #

Objection 1: The neighbor is more known to us than God; therefore, the precepts ordering man to neighbor should come before those ordering him to God (references 1 John 4:20 on loving the visible brother and invisible God)

Answer: Although the neighbor is more known to sense, the love of God is the reason for the love of neighbor. When proceeding by reason from principles to conclusions (rather than leading by the hand through sense), God must come first. The precepts are ordered according to rational priority, not sensory priority.

Objection 2: If we must repent and remove evil first (as Matthew says “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”), shouldn’t negative precepts come before affirmative ones?

Answer: While practically we remove vices before implanting virtues, in the order of knowledge the good comes before the evil (through knowledge of what is right, we know what is wrong). Moreover, God as universal beginning of being must have precepts ordered to Him before precepts ordered to creatures.

Objection 3: Since sins of the heart precede sins in word and deed temporally (one desires before one acts), shouldn’t precepts against desire come before precepts against word and deed?

Answer: Although the sin of the heart is first in execution (in time and causality), it comes last in reason (in explanation and intelligibility). The exterior thing shows itself as evil more clearly to reason than interior emotions do. One understands immediately that murder is wrong; understanding that anger is wrong requires more subtle reasoning.