Thursday, May 21, 2020

True or False Obedience

From The Fatima Center:
In the first part of this article, we learned that the virtue of obedience is grouped as one of the virtues which falls under the cardinal virtue of justice. In fact, St. Thomas quoting St. Augustine famously stated, lex injusta non est lex (an unjust law is no law at all). We also explained how there are some situations in which one is not obligated to obey his superior. This, of course, includes unjust laws which do not carry the moral force of true law. Furthermore, there are some situations in which one is obligated not to obey a superior. The most obvious case is when the superior commands something sinful. No one may ever justly command another person to disobey God. And one may never justify his sin before God by claiming ‘I was just being obedient.’ We all recognize this truth in the following simple example. If a father commanded his son to help him steal cars and murder innocent people, the son would actually have to refuse. While he may appear disobedient to his father, the son is actually exercising the true virtue of obedience because he is obeying God and faithfully following the Natural Law. The father might rant and rave, might accuse the son of disobedience, and might even punish him, but the truly obedient son would endure this unjust persecution for the sake of truth, goodness and His love of God. (Read more.)
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