An
Assignment
On
Religion
And
Moral Theology

Submitted
To
FR.KAREKATT RAPHAEL MSFS


By
Sanil Micheal scj (T04/451)

On
18-3-2005.






Introduction.
What is religion?
What is moral theology?
Region as a source of moral theology.

Introduction
Mostly the people are divided into two categories in our world. And those are Theism and Atheism. Theism holds that there is God and atheism holds that there is no God. Those who believe in God are also gathered and say different ways to reach God. And those are divided into different religions according to the concept of God in each of them. And Christianity is one of these many religions in our world.
And how this helps us to build a moral life is the question. And surely religion play a big role in our formation of moral life. And also our social life. And
What is Religion
Religion, is the key of history.
Religion as a "route-finding" through the severest barriers interfering with the continuity of human life. Religion formulate "ways" to move us past the most frustrating "compounds of limitations"
According the oxford dictionary religion means ‘belief in the existence of God, especially the belief that they created the universe and gave human beings a spiritual nature, which continues to exist after the death of the body. Particular system of faith and worship based on religious belief.
In all ages the first creative works of a culture are due to a religious inspiration and dedicated to a religious end. The temples of the Gods are the most enduring works of man. Religion stands at the threshold of all the great literatures of the world. Philosophy is its offspring and is a child, which constantly returns to its parent. And the same is true of social institutions.
As far as I am concerned religion would mean to me belief in the existence of God and living that faith in day today life and in the next to come. Religions generally attempt to reconcile people to the facts of their existence here and now. So religions must be of both- of this world and the next one to come.
Moral theology
Moral theology is a branch of theology, the science of God and Divine things.
Moral Theology is the Roman Catholic equivalent to what Protestants commonly call Christian ethics. It is related to dogmatic theology and moral philosophy in Catholic tradition in ways parallel to the Protestant relationship of Christian ethics to systematic theology and philosophical ethics.
General moral theology deals with the broad questions of what, from the point of view of moral agency and moral action, it means to live as a Christian. Its questions address methods of moral discernment, the definitions of good and evil, right and wrong, sin and virtue, and the goal or end of the Christian life. Special moral theology addresses specific issues of life such as justice, sexuality, truth telling, and the sanctity of life.
Ethics is the practicing of moral reasoning, or making sense of the way in which we make sense of the way in which we live. When we begin to practice ethics, we ask ourselves fundamental questions that are linked directly to our faith. Ethics makes us ponder whether we are living life to our fullest, whether we are living a life we are happy with, or whether we are living a life that we are proud to live.
Moral theology points us to making sense of the human story and to make sense of life and how we, coupled in divine union with God, can make sense of that story and ensure that the stories of our lives are made more happy and more meaningful.
Moral theology makes us begin to try and understand more about our faith by making us question whether everything in our human story lines up with happiness and meaning. When we begin to take the different questions that we are asking of ourselves within ethics and begin to make sense about those questions, then we are truly practicing moral theology.
Traditionally moral theology was based on the authority of reason, natural law, canon law, and the tradition and authority of the Roman Catholic Church and its magisterium. While Scripture has always been acknowledged as divine revelation, it is only in the new Catholic moral theology that the whole shape as well as specific content of moral theology has been aggressively reworked in relationship to authoritative Scripture.


Religion as a source for morality
From the beginning of the Holy book we see that God gives commandment to the people and from that could be the origin of morality and thus could arose the laws and norms for the society.
From the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation we see a lots of norms and laws given by God and also by Prophets and leaders. And even there is Ten Commandments and many other laws that we see in the Bible and that could be the origin of the norms and laws. And this is most of the thing that we need to emphasis on importance of religion and a source of Morality. Because there are a lot of atheists and theists who holds that the religion is not import for a moral life.
When people were leading primitive barbarian life there could be no morality and social order and it is mainly from the history it is the Jewish religion which speak of a laws and norms. And when Jesus come it is He who gives more orientation and more meaning to the Old Testament rules. And it also it is he who gives more explanation and examples for the norms and laws of the Old Testament.

Perhaps the most basic, commonly used arguments for religion being essential to morality is that without God, there's no ultimate reward or punishment. In our world, people who are bad quite often get away with it, or even get ahead because of it. With religion, all this is solved: God judges everything; if you're good, you go to heaven; if you're bad, you go to hell.
It is also we get more of the meaning of laws and morals in terms of life from Jesus. So the conclusion is that we get morality from religion and it is through that we get foundation for our moral life.
Conclusion
The conclusion is that we get more or less the foundation of moral life we get from religion. But it is important to keep in mind that we never need religion for a moral life. But the foundation and root of morality is from religion. So these two are co related. And it is also important to keep that we need to be a religious man or woman in order to be a moral person. So these two are going hand in hand. And thus a religious person must a moral person and a moral person must be a religious person.
Yet another thing that I gained from this paper is that Morality changes from place to place. So there was no norms or laws in the beginning of the time surely there was morality among the people. So the reality of norms and laws came after the fining out of the printing machines and so on. The conclusion could be mean that it is through the coming of Religion and religious ideas that we get more about morality and moral values in a fixed manner.
So without religion there can not be morals. Because when every one want to do what ever one desire to do and there is no fixed norms and laws and regulation for a society or for congregation there could be chaos and darkness. And it through religion the "light" comes. And it is through the religions that we continue to hold the morals and norms of the society.