Thursday, October 5, 2017

Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 351.



YOUCAT Question n. 351 - Aren’t the Ten Commandments outmoded?


(Youcat answer) No, the Ten Commandments are by no means the product of a particular time. They express man’s fundamental obligations toward God and neighbor, which are always and everywhere valid.

A deepening through CCC

(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 2072) Since they express man's fundamental duties towards God and towards his neighbor, the Ten Commandments reveal, in their primordial content, grave obligations. They are fundamentally immutable, and they oblige always and everywhere. No one can dispense from them. The Ten Commandments are engraved by God in the human heart.

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) The Ten Commandments are commandments of reason just as they are also part of the binding Revelation of God. They are so fundamentally binding that no one can be dispensed from keeping these commandments

(CCC Comment)

(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.  

(The next question is:  What is the meaning of the commandment, “I am the Lord, your God” (Ex 20:2)?)

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