Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Jas 2, 10-11 You have become a transgressor of the law

(Jas 2, 10-11) You have become a transgressor of the law
[10] For whoever keeps the whole law, but falls short in one particular, has become guilty in respect to all of it. [11] For he who said, "You shall not commit adultery," also said, "You shall not kill." Even if you do not commit adultery but kill, you have become a transgressor of the law.
(CCC 2069) The Decalogue forms a coherent whole. Each "word" refers to each of the others and to all of them; they reciprocally condition one another. The two tables shed light on one another; they form an organic unity. To transgress one commandment is to infringe all the others (Cf. Jas 2:10-11). One cannot honor another person without blessing God his Creator. One cannot adore God without loving all men, his creatures. The Decalogue brings man's religious and social life into unity. (CCC 2070 The Ten Commandments belong to God's revelation. At the same time they teach us the true humanity of man. They bring to light the essential duties, and therefore, indirectly, the fundamental rights inherent in the nature of the human person. The Decalogue contains a privileged expression of the natural law: From the beginning, God had implanted in the heart of man the precepts of the natural law. Then he was content to remind him of them. This was the Decalogue (St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 4, 15, 1: PG 7/l, 1012). (CCC 2071) The commandments of the Decalogue, although accessible to reason alone, have been revealed. To attain a complete and certain understanding of the requirements of the natural law, sinful humanity needed this revelation: A full explanation of the commandments of the Decalogue became necessary in the state of sin because the light of reason was obscured and the will had gone astray (St. Bonaventure, Comm. sent. 4, 37, 1, 3). We know God's commandments through the divine revelation proposed to us in the Church, and through the voice of moral conscience. (CCC 2073) Obedience to the Commandments also implies obligations in matter which is, in itself, light. Thus abusive language is forbidden by the fifth commandment, but would be a grave offense only as a result of circumstances or the offender's intention.

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