ON MORAL PHILOSOPHY ADEQUATELY CONSIDERED

5. Is moral science taken in its integral sense -- alone capable of standing in gradu scientiae as a regulative knowledge of human conduct -- exclusively set up by the moral branch of theology? Or ought we to split it in two, so to speak, and distinguish, on two differing levels of knowing, between moral theology on the one hand and a philosophical ethics subalternated to theology on the other? I have already replied no to the first of these questions and yes to the second.

Objection will doubtless be made that in such case these two sciences, one philosophic, the other theological, cover the same domain, and that both make use of the same faculty of knowing and distinguishing: ratio fide illustrata. Hence that which we call practical philosophy subalternated to theology^{7} would in reality be nothing else but moral theology itself.

{7} The various modes of subalternation of one science to another will be examined later (p. 82 ff.). Then it will be seen (p. 89) that moral philosophy adequately understood ought to be considered as subalternated to theology on account of principles, and in a pure and simple way, which, however, is not radical or originative but completive and perfective.