Tit 3, 9 Avoid foolish arguments, genealogies, rivalries

(Tit 3, 9) Avoid foolish arguments, genealogies, rivalries

[9] Avoid foolish arguments, genealogies, rivalries, and quarrels about the law, for they are useless and futile.

(CCC 1960) The precepts of natural law are not perceived by everyone clearly and immediately. In the present situation sinful man needs grace and revelation so moral and religious truths may be known "by everyone with facility, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error" (Pius XII, Humani generis: DS 3876; cf. Dei Filius 2: DS 3005) The natural law provides revealed law and grace with a foundation prepared by God and in accordance with the work of the Spirit. (CCC 1961) God, our Creator and Redeemer, chose Israel for himself to be his people and revealed his Law to them, thus preparing for the coming of Christ. The Law of Moses expresses many truths naturally accessible to reason. These are stated and authenticated within the covenant of salvation. (CCC 1962) The Old Law is the first stage of revealed Law. Its moral prescriptions are summed up in the Ten Commandments. The precepts of the Decalogue lay the foundations for the vocation of man fashioned in the image of God; they prohibit what is contrary to the love of God and neighbor and prescribe what is essential to it. The Decalogue is a light offered to the conscience of every man to make God's call and ways known to him and to protect him against evil: God wrote on the tables of the Law what men did not read in their hearts (St. Augustine, En. in Ps. 57, 1: PL 36, 673). (CCC 1966) The New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ. It works through charity; it uses the Sermon on the Mount to teach us what must be done and makes use of the sacraments to give us the grace to do it: If anyone should meditate with devotion and perspicacity on the sermon our Lord gave on the mount, as we read in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, he will doubtless find there… the perfect way of the Christian life…. This sermon contains... all the precepts needed to shape one's life (St. Augustine, De serm. Dom. 1, 1: PL 34, 1229-1230). (CCC 1986) Besides its precepts the New Law includes the evangelical counsels. "The Church's holiness is fostered in a special way by the manifold counsels which the Lord proposes to his disciples in the Gospel" (LG 42 § 2).