VERRUIMDE HUWELIJKSMORAAL EN AUGUSTINIAANS VERZET IN DE 17e EEUW

Abstract

SUMMARY The expanded horizons of the 17th century were evinced in moral theology by the positive evaluation given to the subjective motivations for the marriage act, specifically regarding sexual pleasure. One name associated with this problem is the Spanish Augustine Basilius Ponce de Leòn (1569(70)–1628). He taught that the marriage act can morally justified “propter solam voluptatem”. Juan Sanchez († 1624) also follows this argumentation, though he speaks only of “concubitus habitus gratia captandae voluptatis”. Various authors of the 17th century have followed in their footsteps, giving this teaching a certain probability. The study shows that several important questions of fundamental moral theology applying to a so called expanded conjugal morality have their kernel in Gabriel Vazquez's work (1549–1604). B. Ponce de Leòn had already applied Vazquez's principle: that the actual intention of the good purpose is no longer necessary for the moral justification of an act, rather the habitual intention is sufficient. Other important results of Vazquez's work are: the possibility for a person to perform morally indifferent acts and the evaluation of pleasure in natural and moral order. While these questions of fundamental moral theology were important presuppositions, the deeper reasons why the wider standpoints regarding conjugal morality could be justified and propagated are found in another area of theological thinking namely: that which was clearly naturalistic. The opposition to this expanded conjugal morality expressed by the Theology Faculty of Louvain finds its chief support in Augustine's view on man and his moral activity. Man is not a “pure natural being” but has as his fundamental base an orientation toward divine life. This deepest orientation must find its expression in the order of activity. Therefore, recourse to God through love is, for ever activity, including sexuality, the ultimate criterium for morality. Given this background, 3 professors at the Louvain Theological Faculty applied to Rome between 1677 and 1679 (the so called Louvain Deputation) to have condemned that doctrine which accepts, without moral fault, the consummation of marriage “propter solam voluptatem”. This proposition is one of the 65 so called “lax moral propositions” which were censored as “scandalous and dangerous in practice” by Innocent XI on March 2, 1679.