A Moral Framework Grounded in Properly Ordered Love

In a culture flooded with moral confusion, ethical shortcuts, and ideological polarization, it is vital to ground moral reflection in something deeper than mere intuition or social consensus. The model outlined here is a three-part ethical framework built upon the foundational principle of Properly Ordered Love. It provides a structure for understanding moral values, moral duties, and the path to moral knowledge, all while remaining faithful to Christian revelation, reason, and grace.

I. Moral Values: The Worth of Things (Good and Evil)

Properly Ordered Love affirms that reality itself has a structure, and that structure is moral. Goodness is not an arbitrary label but a reflection of how things are when rightly ordered in love—love for God, neighbor, self, and creation.

• Moral goods are those things which express or support properly ordered love.

• Moral evils are distortions, privations, or violations of love’s proper order.

Love, then, is not merely an emotion or sentiment. It is a pattern of right relations, where the value of things and actions is measured by how they align with love’s order.

For example, marriage is a good not because it produces happiness per se, but because it reflects the one-flesh union designed by God as a sign of Christ and the Church. Betrayal is an evil not just because it causes pain, but because it violates the ordered trust that love demands.

II. Moral Duties: What We Ought to Do (Right and Wrong)

Moral values are not enough. We must also ask what is right and wrong in particular situations. Here the model distinguishes between the worth of things (value) and our obligations (duty). These obligations arise when properly ordered love demands specific actions toward others in specific contexts.

• Right actions are those which fulfill the moral demands of love in a given situation.

• Wrong actions are those which betray or violate those demands.

Not every evil action is morally wrong in every context. For instance, lying is intrinsically evil in that it disorders the faculty of communication. But in certain rare situations—such as deceiving a murderer at the door to save innocent life—the greater demands of love may render that lie the right action.

The model therefore avoids both strict moral absolutism and unmoored moral relativism by clearly distinguishing between absolute moral truths—those rooted in God's unchanging character and revelation—and contextual moral judgments, which depend on the circumstances in which love must be applied. This distinction allows the framework to uphold unchanging standards while remaining sensitive to moral complexity. It recognizes that some moral truths are absolute—such as the wrongness of cursing God—while also affirming that some moral judgments depend on context and circumstance. Properly ordered love serves as the guiding principle that helps discern when moral obligations shift, and when lesser evils may be permitted in the service of greater goods.

III. Moral Epistemology: How We Know and Apply Moral Truth

Humans are finite and morally fallible. As such, we need trustworthy sources to inform us about what properly ordered love looks like and what it demands.

This framework affirms several means of moral knowledge:

• Revelation: God reveals the structure of love through Scripture and the life of Jesus Christ. Because we are finite and morally fallible beings, we cannot map the moral landscape accurately on our own. Only an omniscient being truly knows what properly ordered love looks like in every circumstance. Therefore, divine revelation is not just helpful but essential for moral clarity and guidance. When revelation appears to conflict with reason or conscience, it serves as the final authority—though not in a way that dismisses the value of reasoned understanding or the inner witness of conscience. Instead, all sources must be brought into harmony, with revelation as the anchor that helps refine and correct our moral intuitions and reasoning over time. Therefore, divine revelation is not just helpful but essential for moral clarity and guidance.

• Reason: We can discern purposes and ends in creation (teleology), helping us to align actions with design.

• Conscience: Our inner sense of right and wrong, though fallible, reflects moral reality. This is closely related to what people often call "moral intuition." However, our intuitions are not infallible or fixed—they are shaped by our intellect, knowledge, experience, and wisdom. Moral intuition must be trained and formed by the truth; it is not a reliable moral guide on its own, but a faculty that must be shaped by properly ordered love and divine revelation.

• Wisdom: Acquired through experience and faithful community.

• Grace: Because we often fall short, love itself demands that we extend grace—to ourselves and others—when error is made in good faith.

The goal of moral epistemology is not certainty in every case but faithful discernment rooted in humility, community, and divine guidance.

Case Applications: Testing the Model

Here are some examples showing how this framework can guide people through some morally complex situations:

• Lying to Save a Life: Though lying is evil in itself, properly ordered love may render it the right action when protecting the innocent from a murderer, for example. Properly Ordered Love permits (and arguably demands) a lie or intentional deception in this specific case, because the duty to protect innocent life outweighs the duty to speak truthfully when the truth would be used for murder. The act of lying remains tragic but justified. This discernment is made possible through the formation of conscience and the cultivation of wisdom, both of which are essential aspects of moral epistemology. A well-formed conscience—shaped by divine revelation, reason, and community—helps the moral agent recognize when an exception is warranted. Wisdom, gained through experience and prayerful reflection, allows for sensitive application of moral principles in real-life circumstances. This system avoids the cold rigidity of a moral system like classical natural law, which might say lying is always intrinsically evil, while also avoiding full-blown consequentialism. This model is not saying, “Lie whenever it works,” but rather: “Love, rightly ordered, may require exceptions in certain cases—because truth exists to serve love, not the other way around.”
  

• End-of-Life Ethics: In the case of a terminally ill unbeliever, assisted suicide cannot be justified. While utilitarian arguments often emphasize reducing suffering or maximizing autonomy, such arguments are limited to temporal considerations and lack full consideration of possible eternal consequences. Properly Ordered Love takes into account not only physical and psychological suffering but also the spiritual destiny of the person. In these difficult end-of-life scenarios, grace and pastoral care become crucial. Grace does not ignore suffering, but enters into it with compassion and presence. Pastoral care, rooted in truth and mercy, offers support through prayer, listening, and shared endurance. It reminds the suffering person that their dignity is upheld not by control over death, but by being loved, seen, and accompanied through the valley of pain with eternal hope in view. Without knowing that Hell does not actually exist, ending a life in this context risks compounding suffering rather than relieving it, particularly if it results in eternal separation from God. Therefore, properly ordered love prioritizes presence, compassionate care, and a faithful witness.
  

• Remarriage After Abandonment: When a Christian spouse is abandoned by an unbeliever, and that unbeliever has since remarried or permanently severed the marital bond, the original covenant is no longer intact in either form or function. In such cases, properly ordered love recognizes that the abandoned spouse is no longer bound in covenantal obligation (1 Cor 7:15). If the individual seeks remarriage in faith and with a desire to honor God, the new union may align with the goods of covenantal fidelity, mutual service, and spiritual partnership. The remarriage becomes a redemptive act of love not because it erases the past, but because it participates in restoring what was lost through covenantal betrayal. A 'redemptive act of love' is one that reclaims and realigns a person's life with the goods intended by God—in this case, covenantal fidelity, companionship, and spiritual unity—after the disordering effects of sin or abandonment. It allows love to be expressed in a new context that now aligns with divine purposes and proper order.
  

• Same-Sex Romantic Relationships: While emotional care and dignity are real goods, properly ordered love requires that these goods be expressed within relationships that align with God’s design for human sexuality and covenant. According to the biblical and teleological vision, romantic and sexual union is ordered toward the one-flesh complementarity of male and female, symbolizing the covenantal relationship between Christ and the Church. Same-sex romantic and sexual relationships, however sincere, do not reflect this order. Thus, even when such relationships exhibit genuine affection and fidelity, they remain disordered in form because they deviate from the created purposes of sexual union and covenant. A relationship is considered 'disordered in form' when its structure—its foundational purpose and expression—does not align with God's revealed design for love, particularly in the realms of sex, covenant, and symbolic representation. In this case, same-sex unions lack the complementarity and procreative orientation embedded in the male-female covenant, and thus cannot fully manifest the one-flesh union or typify the relationship between Christ and the Church. Properly ordered love therefore requires the church to lovingly call for repentance and reorientation, not affirmation, when such relationships are maintained without repentance.

Final Reflections

This framework offers a path for ethical reflection grounded in the conviction that rightly ordered love is both the structure of moral reality and the key to moral wisdom. It avoids the rigidity of legalism without surrendering to the uncertainties of subjectivism. It holds fast to truth while never letting go of grace. And it calls us not merely to feel love, but to shape our entire lives according to the pattern of love revealed in Jesus Christ.

As illustrated in the case studies, this model provides clarity amid moral complexity: a lie may be justified to protect innocent life; assisted death must be refused when eternal consequences hang in the balance; remarriage can signify covenantal restoration when the original bond has been rightly dissolved; and same-sex romantic relationships, though often marked by sincere affection, call for pastoral correction formed by both biblical truth and grace.

Readers are invited to make this framework their own. Begin with Scripture. Reflect prayerfully on what love requires in each circumstance. Seek counsel from a faithful Christian community. Let revelation, reason, conscience, wisdom, and grace work together—under the lordship of Christ—to guide your moral discernment.

When faithfully applied, this model empowers us to say, even in the most difficult situations:

“This is what love requires—not merely love as I feel it, but love as it truly is.”

Or even better yet:

"What Would Jesus Do?"