FORMATION FILES: Collected Reflections III. Free Will, Part I: "The beauty of our choices depends on love."
Fred Conforti, MD, OFS
FREE WILL, Part I:
"The beauty of our choices depends on love."
Witnessing to the good yet to come and obliged to acquire purity of heart because of the vocation they have embraced, they should set themselves free to love God and their brothers and sisters.
OFS Rule, 12
Rule 12 speaks of some powerful elements — witness, purity of heart, vocation, liberation. All agree that without free will — the ability to choose wisely and with self-determination — it is impossible to give witness to the Gospel, acquire purity of heart, embrace our Secular Franciscan vocation, and liberate ourselves to love God, our brothers and sisters (Fratelli tutti), indeed every element of Creation.
These sessions on free will are devoted to accomplishing two things: (1) a fundamental understanding of free will, using The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) and our own Franciscan sources, and (2) a Franciscan strategy for making moral decisions using our free will with an entirely God-centered approach.
We have free will because we are made in the image and likeness of a Loving God, Who has free will, in fact, in a plan to perfectly share His Love, He freely willed us into being as part of His Creation. He also freely willed the Incarnation, from time out of mind. The Incarnate Christ entered a Creation that had been fashioned expressly for Him (see Colossians 1: 15-17). And Christ entered Creation only because our Mother Mary made a beautiful choice which depended on perfect Love: She responded “Yes!” to the most important request ever made of any human being. Her decision was completely directed “toward God, the sovereign Good” (CCC, 1744)1, and she remains our paradigm for the exercise of free will.
Quoting Gaudium et spes, the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, 17 § 1, CCC tells us: “God willed that man should be left in the hand of his own counsel (cf. Sirach 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” (CCC, 1743).
Ever since God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden He has respected, and continues to respect, human free will by never denying anyone free will — even the free will to commit sin. While Baptism erases the stain of Original Sin, fallen human nature inclines to moral turpitude which is frequently fueled, sometimes furiously so, by the misdirected use of free will.
One the most profound and enduring voices on the matter of free will has been that of our own Blessed John Duns Scotus. Profound is used here in the sense of insightful, and while Scotus’s insight can sometimes be difficult to fathom, it can nonetheless be distilled into digestible components. This is the kind of distillation for which Scotus scholars like Sr. Mary Beth Ingham, CSJ, PhD2 are renowned. We rely on her at this juncture to guide us through some basics about the Franciscan notion of free will.
Now, formation is not about accumulating knowledge. That said, understanding free will and its primary role in making morally responsible decisions demands a certain amount of essential knowledge. In the discernment of vocation, whether in Initial or On-Going Formation, there is a useful maxim to keep in mind: “You have to know in order to grow.”
What is the highest form of freedom? First, it is necessary to understand the difference between intelligence and rational behavior. Intelligence works much as our eyesight does. If an object is placed in front of us and our eyes are open, we cannot not see it. Of course, we can close our eyes and not see it, but closing our eyes is a freely willed, rational behavior, i.e., we freely control the decision to open or close our eyes. Intelligence may to some extent influence the decisions we make, but it does not control our behavior when it comes to making a decision and acting on it. Hence, we can have artificial intelligence (AI) but we cannot have artificial rationality. An AI device is able to make “decisions” based on an “if-then” scenario platform; it is, however, impossible to create a device that can make freely willed decisions on the same basis. The “decisions” of an AI device are autonomous: The robot acts as if it is free because it appears to be its own master. But it is only its own master because it is a slave to its programming (it is, when all is said and done, an automaton). So, autonomy is not the highest form of freedom.
This distinction goes all the way back to St. Augustine, whose thought had a deep impact on the development of the Franciscan tradition. Augustine, never one to avoid a thorny problem, spent a great deal of time thinking about the Trinity. Augustine’s reflections on Trinitarian relationship figured largely into Scotus’s insight (and to that of his Franciscan successors) that the highest form of freedom involves action that is directed at the attainment of a moral goal. The moral goal is that of relationship, an impossible attainment for an automaton. This moral relationship mirrors Trinitarian relationship and expresses a free will that has been enlightened by love and, when coupled with an affection for righteousness, is capable of self-mastery. The power and ability to act in pursuit of a moral goal allows our actions to flow forth in self-gift and commitment.
It is the use of free will in the attainment of a moral goal that is stressed in Rule 12. In the next session we will see how these ideas help us to reframe the matter of moral choice with respect to God, our brothers and sisters, indeed every element of Creation. We will conclude with the words of our Holy Father Francis who calls us to offer the exercise of our free will as a sacrifice to the God who longs for Loving union with us.
1 Further exploration of free will in CCC is a simple matter of reading the few pages devoted to “Man’s Freedom”, Article 3 of Part Three, Life in Christ, Sections 1730-1748.
2 Sr. Mary Beth Ingham, CSJ, PhD, has written extensively about the work of John Duns Scotus. She is currently Professor of Philosophical Theology at the Franciscan School of Theology at the University of San Diego.
Wonderful reflection, Fred! It reminds me very much of the writings of St. Catherine of Siena (Duns Scotus's contemporary), who also praised our free will as the highest, profoundest gift of God -- a gift of sonship and daughtership reserved for human beings above all other creatures.
ReplyDeleteThere is one line in this post that I want to reflect on and complicate a bit. You write: "Fallen human nature inclines to moral turpitude which is frequently fueled, sometimes furiously so, by the misdirected use of free will."
I'm not sure Francis would agree with the idea that human nature naturally inclines to moral turpitude. To me Francis's life is "lived testimony" that the natural inclination of the human soul is toward God, and that if we are brave enough to slough off all the shackles that hold us down (wealth, status, envy, self-importance, worry about tomorrow), we will discover that nobility and moral courage come quite naturally to us. In fact we will discover a tremendous lightness to our inner being that makes it all but impossible to soar upwards into mystical union with our Heavenly Father. Becoming a saint will simply be the most natural thing in the world, because that is what we were made to do.
Or, to put it another way, we must become like children to enter the Kingdom -- that Kingdom which is already here, which is all around us, just waiting for us to join in. We are built for the Kingdom, it's where our feet will naturally take us -- we just have to get rid of our shackles, and dance to the tune that the children in the marketplace are already piping.
This is reflected in the Parable of the Sower -- the seeds meet all kinds of obstacles in their growth, but fruitful growth is very simply what they are made for, what they are designed to do, and will come naturally to them as soon as the weeds are picked or the stones cleared or the clods broken up.
In a sense, this is the heart of the "Good News". The good news is that we ARE good, naturally, just as we are. We just have to get rid of whatever keeps us from being who we already are. To me, this is a message of great joy and hope.
Many thanks for a very thought-provoking comment! Trying to “slough off all the shackles that hold us down is a great way to think of our continual process of conversion. It reminded me of the following:
DeleteIn Thomas Merton’s early autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, in the famous dialogue with his classmate at Columbia Bob Lax, Merton reflects on the fearful notion that he must decide to commit himself to becoming a saint:
“I can’t be a saint,” I said, “I can’t be a saint.” And my mind darkened with a confusion of realities and unrealities: the knowledge of my own sins, and the false humility that makes men say that they cannot do the things that they must do, cannot reach the level that they must reach: the cowardice that says: “I am satisfied to save my soul, to keep out of mortal sin,” but which means by those words: “I do not want to give up my sins and attachments.”
But Lax said: “No. All that is necessary to be a saint is to want to be one. Don’t you believe that God will make you what He created you to be, if you will consent to let Him do it? All you have to do is desire it.”
A long time ago, St. Thomas Aquinas had said the same thing — and it is something that is obvious to everybody who ever understood the Gospels.
In the end we must recognize and decide to spurn the “false humility” and the “cowardice” that makes us say that we cannot do the things that we must do, indeed, as you point out, the things that are natural for us to do.
Your reference to the Parable of the Sower also brought to mind that in a previous reflection here on the blog (SUMMER 2020: “All Around Us is the Sea of Paradise”) I spoke of our fledgling Secular Franciscan vocations, after sprouting in the rich soil that is the Rule, as being “Theotaxic”: we naturally grow toward the Eternal Light. The misdirected use of free will makes us think that “we can grow in spiritual darkness with impunity".
Thanks again for your observations. Stay tuned for Part II: In Scripture, Jesus asks his disciples to make some difficult decisions, but decisions that are the labors of true Love (“Gospel to life . . .”). Finally, Pope Francis weighs in on the matter, opening our eyes to “the beauty of our decisions”.
Pax et Bonum!
'...the highest form of freedom involves action that is directed at the attainment of a moral goal. The moral goal is that of relationship.' This is a key takeaway for me in your thought provoking post. Far too much lip service is given to a faulty notion of 'freedom', which ironically, has resulted in a widespread wave of confusion and oppression. I like the way you've set up upcoming reflection and look forward to you revealing 'a Franciscan strategy for making moral decisions using our free will with an entirely God-centered approach'.
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