A survey lead by the Catholic professor William D. Antonio found that 88% said that what you do matters, not what you believe.
As long as I’m good, it doesn’t matter what the church teaches.
What really matters is to be a good person.
It’s a clear favoring of ethics over doctrine.
Kant said religion comes down to ethics. Kant drove a wedge between doctrine and ethics. Kant approach to ethics had a profound impact on contemporary thought and society.
Kant believed that moral reasoning should be autonomous and independent of external authorities or doctrines. He argued that individuals should use their rational faculties to determine what is morally right, rather than relying on prescribed doctrines.
We can see here his subjective approach to morality. He believed that external doctrines or authorities were a coercion on true moral action made freely and rationally. He believed in a moral law, moral principles that should apply to all rational beings in all situations; contrasting with doctrines, which may be specific to particular cultures, religions, or contexts.
He argued that rational beings have the capacity to discern universal moral laws through the use of their rational faculties.
In essence, Kant believed that moral principles are not derived from external sources, such as religious doctrines or societal norms, but from the inherent rationality and autonomy of individuals. This rational foundation for morality allows for the establishment of universal and objective moral laws that apply to all rational beings.
Kant’s approach neglect the reason’s limit and objective truth.
Ethics, however, are in fact funded on fundamental doctrine. So when doctrine becomes marginalized, we are in fact undermining those ethical principles.
Being a good person is being a loving person.
What is love? It is not a feeling or a sentiment, not a private subjective conviction. Love is willing the good of the other as other. Love gets you out of the black hole of your own subjectivity, your own ego centrism. If I’m kind to you so that you might be kind to me it is not love, it is just indirect egotism. Real love is I want your good for you, period, no reciprocation required.
Love is a participation in God’s way of being. We can love the other as other as participation in God’s own love. Love we so admire in ethical order is a theological reality described by doctrinal truths. Aristotle’s virtues did not mention love.
To love is to respect the dignity and the freedom and the inherent worth of every individual. This is not self-evidently true. What makes it true is a theological doctrine: every person has been created by God and destined for eternal life.
Taking God out of the equation, one has Socrates, Aristotle, Plato who believed that people should do what they are told, that malformed children can be left to die, that slavery was natural. Then in our time you have Lenine, Hitler, and Mao Tse Tung who with their atheist regimes left 10 of millions corpses. Lenine said if you want to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs.
What you believe always depends on certain doctrines.
Yes, what you believe does matter.
