Choosing Good
The majority of the New Testament is devoted to exhorting us to do good and avoid evil. Evil enters us through our will. Once we choose it, we become evil doers. This simple principle sounds good but is too easy to ignore reject. It is the nature of evil to attract under the pretext of good, and it is through this illusion that temptation enters. Every sin I have ever committed I committed under the pretext that I was seeking the good. The CCC teaches, “Freedom makes man a moral subject. When he acts deliberately, man is, so to speak, the father of his acts. Human acts, that is, acts that are freely chosen in consequence of a judgement of conscience, can be morally evaluated. They are either good or evil” (#1749). How do we evaluate actions morally? What tells us that this act is good and to be done, or evil and to be avoided? Before answering this question, let’s call upon the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and soften our resistance so that we can receive His truth.
#1750 of the CCC says, the morality (goodness) of human acts depends upon three things:
The object chosen; what are you doing
The end in view or the intention; why did you do it - motive
The circumstances surrounding the action
A good act requires the goodness of
The moral Object – what you are doing
The Intention – why you are doing it
And the Circumstances.
All (3) must be good for the action to be good. Thus, intending to do good or having a good consequence while choosing an evil means to attain it do not make a bad act good. As St. Paul says, we cannot do evil so that good may come from it. (cf. Rom 3:8).