Moral culpability : a theological understanding informed by psychological principles

Abstract

Catholicism, throughout its history, has been at the forefront of integrating various dimensions of faith and reason. At the end of the nineteenth century, in its embryonic stage, psychology sought to become a scientific discipline and looked to understand human reasoning and behaviour in a much deeper way than hitherto. This dissertation notes that psychology often adopts a person-centred approach to therapy. This was found to be lacking in helping people understand the reasons for sin and culpability within the pastoral realm. Notably, one psychological approach maintains that clients would be better helped if they were encouraged to focus on their current subjective understanding rather than on some unconscious motivation or someone else’s interpretation of their situation. This paper reveals that, in part, this psychological understanding is very much in line with Pope Francis and his understanding of accompanying, discerning and integrating weakness. By applying psychological research to the Catholic theological and moral understanding of culpability, this paper explores helping people experience true freedom thereby ‘helping each person find his or her proper way of participating in the ecclesial community and thus to experience being touched by an “unmerited, unconditional and gratuitous” mercy’.