ARTICLE 3 - MAN'S FREEDOM
1730 God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a
person who can initiate and control his own actions. "God willed that man
should be 'left in the hand of his own counsel,' so that he might of his
own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed
perfection by cleaving to him."[26]
Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and
is master over his acts.[27]
1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to
act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own
responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a
force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its
perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.
1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate
good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and
evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This
freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or
blame, merit or reproach.
1733 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."[28]
1734 Freedom makes man responsible for his acts to the extent that they
are voluntary. Progress in virtue, knowledge of the good, and ascesis
enhance the mastery of the will over its acts.
1735 Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or
even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate
attachments, and other psychological or social factors.
1736 Every act directly willed is imputable to its author:
Thus the Lord asked Eve after the sin in the garden: "What is this that
you have done?"[29] He asked Cain the same question.[30] The prophet
Nathan questioned David in the same way after he committed adultery with
the wife of Uriah and had him murdered.[31]
An action can be indirectly voluntary when it results from negligence
regarding something one should have known or done: for example, an
accident arising from ignorance of traffic laws.
1737 An effect can be tolerated without being willed by its agent; for
instance, a mother's exhaustion from tending her sick child. A bad effect
is not imputable if it was not willed either as an end or as a means of an
action, e.g., a death a person incurs in aiding someone in danger. For a
bad effect to be imputable it must be foreseeable and the agent must have
the possibility of avoiding it, as in the case of manslaughter caused by a
drunken driver.
1738 Freedom is exercised in relationships between human beings. Every
human person, created in the image of God, has the natural right to be
recognized as a free and responsible being. All owe to each other this
duty of respect. The right to the exercise of freedom, especially in moral
and religious matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of the
human person. This right must be recognized and protected by civil
authority within the limits of the common good and public order.[32]
1739 Freedom and sin. Man's freedom is limited and fallible. In fact, man
failed. He freely sinned. By refusing God's plan of love, he deceived
himself and became a slave to sin. This first alienation engendered a
multitude of others. From its outset, human history attests the
wretchedness and oppression born of the human heart in consequence of the
abuse of freedom.
1740 Threats to freedom. The exercise of freedom does not imply a right to
say or do everything. It is false to maintain that man, "the subject of
this freedom," is "an individual who is fully self-sufficient and whose
finality is the satisfaction of his own interests in the enjoyment of
earthly goods."[33] Moreover, the economic, social, political, and
cultural conditions that are needed for a just exercise of freedom are too
often disregarded or violated. Such situations of blindness and injustice
injure the moral life and involve the strong as well as the weak in the
temptation to sin against charity. By deviating from the moral law man
violates his own freedom, becomes imprisoned within himself, disrupts
neighborly fellowship, and rebels against divine truth.
1741 Liberation and salvation. By his glorious Cross Christ has won
salvation for all men. He redeemed them from the sin that held them in
bondage. "For freedom Christ has set us free."[34] In him we have
communion with the "truth that makes us free."[35] The Holy Spirit has
been given to us and, as the Apostle teaches, "Where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is freedom."[36] Already we glory in the "liberty of the
children of God."[37]
1742 Freedom and grace. The grace of Christ is not in the slightest way a
rival of our freedom when this freedom accords with the sense of the true
and the good that God has put in the human heart. On the contrary, as
Christian experience attests especially in prayer, the more docile we are
to the promptings of grace, the more we grow in inner freedom and
confidence during trials, such as those we face in the pressures and
constraints of the outer world. By the working of grace the Holy Spirit
educates us in spiritual freedom in order to make us free collaborators in
his work in the Church and in the world:
Almighty and merciful God, in your goodness take away from us all that is
harmful, so that, made ready both in mind and body, we may freely
accomplish your will.[38]
IN BRIEF
1743 "God willed that man should be left in the hand of his own counsel
(cf. Sir 15:14), so that he might of his own accord seek his creator and
freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him" (GS 17 #
1).
1744 Freedom is the power to act or not to act, and so to perform
deliberate acts of one's own. Freedom attains perfection in its acts when
directed toward God, the sovereign Good.
1745 Freedom characterizes properly human acts. It makes the human being
responsible for acts of which he is the voluntary agent. His deliberate
acts properly belong to him.
1746 The imputability or responsibility for an action can be diminished or
nullified by ignorance, duress, fear, and other psychological or social
factors.
1747 The right to the exercise of freedom, especially in religious and
moral matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of man. But
the exercise of freedom does not entail the putative right to say or do
anything.
1748 "For freedom Christ has set us free" (Gal 5:1).
1749 Freedom makes man a moral subject. When he acts deliberately, man is,
so to speak, the father of his acts. Human acts, that is, acts that are
freely chosen in consequence of a judgment of conscience, can be morally
evaluated. They are either good or evil.
1750 The morality of human acts depends on:
- the object chosen;
- the end in view or the intention;
- the circumstances of the action.
The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the "sources," or
constitutive elements, of the morality of human acts.
1751 The object chosen is a good toward which the will deliberately
directs itself. It is the matter of a human act. The object chosen morally
specifies the act of the will, insofar as reason recognizes and judges it
to be or not to be in conformity with the true good. Objective norms of
morality express the rational order of good and evil, attested to by
conscience.
1752 In contrast to the object, the intention resides in the acting
subject. Because it lies at the voluntary source of an action and
determines it by its end, intention is an element essential to the moral
evaluation of an action. The end is the first goal of the intention and
indicates the purpose pursued in the action. The intention is a movement
of the will toward the end: it is concerned with the goal of the activity.
It aims at the good anticipated from the action undertaken. Intention is
not limited to directing individual actions, but can guide several actions
toward one and the same purpose; it can orient one's whole life toward its
ultimate end. For example, a service done with the end of helping one's
neighbor can at the same time be inspired by the love of God as the
ultimate end of all our actions. One and the same action can also be
inspired by several intentions, such as performing a service in order to
obtain a favor or to boast about it.
1753 A good intention (for example, that of helping one's neighbor) does
not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and
calumny, good or just. The end does not justify the means. Thus the
condemnation of an innocent person cannot be justified as a legitimate
means of saving the nation. On the other hand, an added bad intention
(such as vainglory) makes an act evil that, in and of itself, can be good
(such as almsgiving).[39]
1754 The circumstances, including the consequences, are secondary elements
of a moral act. They contribute to increasing or diminishing the moral
goodness or evil of human acts (for example, the amount of a theft). They
can also diminish or increase the agent's responsibility (such as acting
out of a fear of death). Circumstances of themselves cannot change the
moral quality of acts themselves; they can make neither good nor right an
action that is in itself evil.
1755 A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end,
and of the circumstances together. An evil end corrupts the action, even
if the object is good in itself (such as praying and fasting "in order to
be seen by men").
The object of the choice can by itself vitiate an act in its entirety.
There are some concrete acts - such as fornication - that it is always
wrong to choose, because choosing them entails a disorder of the will,
that is, a moral evil.
1756 It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by
considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances
(environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply
their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently
of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of
their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may
not do evil so that good may result from it.
IN BRIEF
1757 The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the three
"sources" of the morality of human acts.
1758 The object chosen morally specifies the act of willing accordingly as
reason recognizes and judges it good or evil.
1759 "An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention"
(cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Dec. praec. 6). The end does not justify the
means.
1760 A morally good act requires the goodness of its object, of its end,
and of its circumstances together.
1761 There are concrete acts that it is always wrong to choose, because
their choice entails a disorder of the will, i.e., a moral evil. One may
not do evil so that good may result from it.
1762 The human person is ordered to beatitude by his deliberate acts: the
passions or feelings he experiences can dispose him to it and contribute
to it.
1763 The term "passions" belongs to the Christian patrimony. Feelings or
passions are emotions or movements of the sensitive appetite that incline
us to act or not to act in regard to something felt or imagined to be good
or evil.
1764 The passions are natural components of the human psyche; they form
the passageway and ensure the connection between the life of the senses
and the life of the mind. Our Lord called man's heart the source from
which the passions spring.[40]
1765 There are many passions. The most fundamental passion is love,
aroused by the attraction of the good. Love causes a desire for the absent
good and the hope of obtaining it; this movement finds completion in the
pleasure and joy of the good possessed. The apprehension of evil causes
hatred, aversion, and fear of the impending evil; this movement ends in
sadness at some present evil, or in the anger that resists it.
1766 "To love is to will the good of another."[41] All other affections
have their source in this first movement of the human heart toward the
good. Only the good can be loved.[42] Passions "are evil if love is evil
and good if it is good."[43]
1767 In themselves passions are neither good nor evil. They are morally
qualified only to the extent that they effectively engage reason and will.
Passions are said to be voluntary, "either because they are commanded by
the will or because the will does not place obstacles in their way."[44]
It belongs to the perfection of the moral or human good that the passions
be governed by reason.[45]
1768 Strong feelings are not decisive for the morality or the holiness of
persons; they are simply the inexhaustible reservoir of images and
affections in which the moral life is expressed. Passions are morally good
when they contribute to a good action, evil in the opposite case. The
upright will orders the movements of the senses it appropriates to the
good and to beatitude; an evil will succumbs to disordered passions and
exacerbates them. Emotions and feelings can be taken up into the virtues
or perverted by the vices.
1769 In the Christian life, the Holy Spirit himself accomplishes his work
by mobilizing the whole being, with all its sorrows, fears and sadness, as
is visible in the Lord's agony and passion. In Christ human feelings are
able to reach their consummation in charity and divine beatitude.
1770 Moral perfection consists in man's being moved to the good not by his
will alone, but also by his sensitive appetite, as in the words of the
psalm: "My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God."[46]
IN BRIEF
1771 The term "passions" refers to the affections or the feelings. By his
emotions man intuits the good and suspects evil.
1772 The principal passions are love and hatred, desire and fear, joy,
sadness, and anger.
1773 In the passions, as movements of the sensitive appetite, there is
neither moral good nor evil. But insofar as they engage reason and will,
there is moral good or evil in them.
1774 Emotions and feelings can be taken up in the virtues or perverted by
the vices.
1775 The perfection of the moral good consists in man's being moved to the
good not only by his will but also by his "heart."
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