man’s freedom is limited and fallible
Saint Irenaeus wrote that “Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.”[1] Much of current scientific thought, quite to the contrary, would deny the existence of the divine and thus call into question the remainder of just such a statement. If there is no God, then it follows that man could not be a creature of a non-existent God and therefore not bound by any law instituted outside human construct. “Without its Creator the creature simply disappears… If God is ignored the creature itself is impoverished.”[2] Without God, free will becomes meaningless for the sole purpose of free will is so man “might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him.”[3]
Freedom is never free
What is commonly assumed to be free will or freedom is quite simply the ability to act as one would please without considering the merits of one’s action. Any limitation or restriction placed upon one’s desires is contra-freedom and unjustified, including any duty or responsibility that should be demanded by such an act. Such freedom must be unencumbered for it to be truly free.
Unfortunately, despite the evident popularity of such a notion of free will, nothing could be further from the truth. “The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to the slavery of sin.”[4] Freedom to do anything one should desire, without considering whether the act is a good act or an evil act, is not freedom but mere mindless, amoral, irrational conduct.
“Freedom makes man responsible for his acts to the extent that they are voluntary.”[5] But doesn’t that mean that freedom isn’t completely free? That is exactly what it means. Freedom isn’t free, contrary to what Janis Joplin professed when she sang “freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose. Nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free.”[6] The truth is that man’s freedom is both limited and fallible. There is no such thing as unlimited freedom; we have no inherent right to do whatever we desire, whenever we desire it, without regard for the consequences.
“God left man ‘in the power of his own counsel’ (Sir 15:14) that he might seek his Creator and freely attain perfection. Attaining such perfection means personally building up that perfection in himself. Indeed, just as man in exercising his dominion over the world shapes it in accordance with his own intelligence and will, so too in performing morally good acts, man strengthens, develops and consolidates within himself his likeness to God.”[7]
What should be increasingly apparent is that much of our current understanding of and epistemology concerning freedom and free will are abjectly and objectively foreign to anything approaching what is true. Created by God with free will, our freedom is limited to performing morally good acts which bring us closer to the image and likeness of God.
[1] St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haeres. 4, 4, 3: pg 7/1, 983.
[2] Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, §36.
[3] Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1730.
[4] CCC §1733.
[5] CCC §1734.
[6] Janis Joplin, Bobby McGee.
[7] Pope Saint John Paul II, Veritas Splendor, Encyclical Letter, §39, August 6, 1993.
