| A | B |
|---|
| actual grace | the supernatural help from God to do good and avoid evil, to enable us to save our souls. |
| christian morality | the part of theology that specifies the moral norms derived from the new being that the Christian-because of his incorporation into Christ in baptism-needs to follow,with the hope of imitating Jesus' life to the point of identifying with him. |
| christian vocation | God's call to the human being by which he is incorporated into Christ through grace and becomes a member of the mystical body of Christ. as one of God's people he partakes in the life of the Church. |
| christianity | the way of life lived as Jesus Christ the son of God lived in word and action. |
| disciple | a follower who adopts another person's way of life, taking on his particular type of discipline. |
| free will | a gift from God to make possible the free choice to love God. |
| freedom | the power rooted in reason and the will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. |
| holiness | the free dedication of oneself to the will of God, and the participation in the life of grace offered to the christian. This dedication to God affects a moral transformation in the life of the individual. |
| humanism | a moral system that denies belief in God and view humanity as the highest form of existence. |
| law of Christ | An interior law that stems from grace-in connection with life in Jesus-and becomes a norm or impulse for imitating Christ and acting like him. |
| love (charity) | The theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God. |
| moral law | the objective standards authored by God and taught by Church authority. |
| morality | The standards by which we judge our actions to be good or evil. Morality looks to those human acts that impact the totality of our (personness) and which affect our final end. |
| new being in Christ | the supernatural condition of the baptized by which they participate in the life of Jesus. |
| original sin | The sin committed by Adam and Eve. |
| positive morality | a moral code that prescribes what ought to be done. |
| sanctifying grace | the share in the diving life of God infused into us at baptism. |
| sins of omission | failure to do what is known to be right, good, or required. |
| virtue | a habitual and firm disposition to do good. |
| amorality | an attitude that lacks any moral orientation dispensing from all moral norms. |
| catholic moral theology | a science that enables the human mind to make correct moral choices guided by principles set forth by the magisterium. |
| fundamental morality | the part of moral theology that studies the nature of the moral act and the conditions that make a concrete action moral. |
| grace | the free gift of God's own life that God makes to each person in baptism; it is infused into the soul by the holy spirit to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. |
| immorality | behavior that goes against moral norms. |
| infallibility | immunity from error and any possibility of error. |
| magisterium | the name given to the ordinary and universal teaching authority of the pope and bishops in communion with him who guide the members of the church without error in matters of faith and morals. |
| materialism | a belief that matter is only reality and that everything can be explained only in terms of matter, and that comfort, pleasure, and/or wealth are the only or highest goods or values. |
| moral theology | a science which accepts and examines divine revelation while at the same time responding to the demands of human reason. |
| natural law | the participation of human beings in the plan of God in relation to human life and action in so far as the human mind can grasp that plan. the objective order established by God that determines the requirements for humans to thrive for and reach fulfillment. |
| philosophical anthropology | the part of philosophy that studies the specific nature of people. |
| pluralism | the existence of a variety of opinions or ideas within human society, some of which may contradict or oppose one another. |
| revelation | the truths about God and his will which he has communicated freely to humanity by means of sacred scripture and sacred tradition. |
| sacred tradition | the word of God entrusted to the apostles and their successors by Christ and the Holy Spirit, and transmitted by their teaching to each generation of Christians. |
| secularism | the system of doctrines and practices that rejects any form of religious faith and worship. |
| sociobiology | the study of mankind as genetically determined. |
| theological anthropology | the part of theology that studies the nature of mankind according to revelation. |
| theological virtues | virtues infused in the soul at baptism that enable each person to share in the divine nature of God - faith, hope, and charity. |
| tradition | those truths passed from generation to generation in oral or written form. |
