Peter Kreeft - Making Choices: Practical Wisdom for Everyday Moral Decisions

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From Servant Publications

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Copyright 1990 by Peter Kreeft
All rights reserved.

Scripture texts in this work, unless otherwise indicated, are
taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible,
copyright 1946,1952, and 1971, by the Division of Christian
Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in
the U.S A., and are used by permission.

Cover design by Steve Eames

Published by Servant Publications

P.O. Box 8617

Ann Arbor, Michigan 48107

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 0-89283-638-5

00 01 02 03 16 15 14 13

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kreeft, Peter.

Making choices: practical wisdom for everyday moral decisions / by Peter Kreeft.

p. cm.

A Redeemer book.

ISBN 0-89283-638-5

1. Christian ethicsCatholic authors. 2. Spiritual life-Catholic authors. I. Title.

BJ1249.K774 1990

241-dc20 89-78401

CIP

Dedication

For Jake and Marge

THIS IS ABOOK ABOUT ETHICS, OR MORALITY. But it is different from most books on this subject.

Most books on ethics focus on controversial issues like war, capital punishment, or euthanasia, and try to resolve these issues by moral reasoning. In other words, most books offer the reader the fruits of the authors discernment, by which he applies principles to hard cases.

This book does not focus on that aspect of morality for three reasons. First, because controversial, hard cases are usually rare (abortion is a notable exception), and the average individual only very occasionally confronts such choices. The vast majority of our moral choices concern the old, ordinary, noncontroversial, forgotten truths that I have tried to recall and restore in this book.

Second, because I want to leave most particular discernments up to you, as God left it up to us. I cannot and will not be your conscience for you, especially on matters I am unsure of myself.

Third, and most importantly, because I wanted to call attention to those aspects of practical morality most forgotten and most needed in our immoral society: character building, principles, absolutes, the end and meaning of life, our societys blind spots, the source of power to practice moral ideals, and the need to be counter-cultural in our spiritual warfare. I think these are the most practical and most needed parts of morality today, not clever and controversial moral reasoning about specific, uncertain, currently fashionable issues.

So here is an old-fashioned book for you.

Contents

1. Our Immoral World:
Are We More Barbaric Than Our Ancestors?

2. Decisions, Decisions, Decisions:
How to Grow a Moral Backbone

3. Are There Any Moral Absolutes?:
Finding Black and White in a World of Grays

4. The Foundation for Moral Absolutes:
Can You Be Moral without God?

Problems: The Modern
Moral Crisis

Our Immoral World:
Are We More Barbaric
Than Our Ancestors?

The times are never so bad that a good man cannot live in them.

-St. Thomas More

THE TIMES ARE BAD

The naive optimism of the sixties is dying because our civilization is dying. And our civilization is dying because its fundamental foundation and building block, the family, is dying.

Parents know today that its a moral jungle out there. They fear for their childrens safety, their survival, and their very souls. Body, soul, and spirit are all threatened; health, happiness, and holiness are very difficult to maintain.

A survey of high school principals in 1958 asked this question: What are the main problems among your students? The answer was:

1. not doing homework

2. not respecting propertyeg., throwing books

3. leaving lights on and doors and windows open

4. throwing spitballs in class

5. running through the halls

The same survey question was asked a mere thirty years (one generation) later, in 1988. The answers were startlingly different. Here are the main problems of todays high school students:

1. abortion

2. AIDS

3. rape

4. drugs

5. fear of violent death, murder, guns and knives in school.

Parents are no better off than kids. The family is falling like Humpty Dumpty, and all the kings horses and all the kings men havent been able to put it back together again. And the family is the only place most people can learn lifes single most important lesson, unselfish love.

Half of all American marriages end in divorce. Most kids have one parent or none at home, not two. Many marriages, even when they hold together, are full of tension, bitterness, resentment, and depression. Ann Landers asked married readers to respond to the question: If you had to do it over again, would you marry your spouse? She was astonished at the volume of the reply, and even more at the fact that over seventy-five percent of them said no. If half of all marriages end in divorce and three quarters of those that dont are unhappy, that means only one marriage in eight is a good one. Hey, kids, seven chances out of eight youre going to learn you cant find trust, love, security, or happiness anywhere, not even in your own home. What kind of a society can be built out of those building blocks?

Fidelity in marriage and chastity outside it are no longer the norm, but the exception. The majority of todays unmarried teenagers have lost their virginity; in fact, many teenagers no longer understand what that word even means, literally. Sex is now so common that the thrill is gone, so (according to another survey) the biggest thrill in life for most women in America, especially teenagers, is not sex but shopping!

Greed for things tops even lust for sex. Our whole economic system is based on greed. This is so taken for granted that we hardly ever think of it. More people-young, middle-aged, and old alikeworry more about money than anything else, even death. Political candidates, at every level of government, emphasize their economic policies as the number-one reason for voting for them. Its the only subject no candidate can ever possibly ignore and still hope to be elected.