A common complaint against the Catholic Church is that it has too many rules. Some say that it seeks to restrict human freedom by presenting a list of dos and don’ts that ultimately “ruin our fun” and destroy happiness. Such a claim stems from a misunderstanding of freedom, happiness, and their relation to God’s laws.
Freedom is the ability to choose one thing or another. This definition hearkens to the concept of free will, which is defined by the Church as “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.”[1] Yet, freedom and free will are not the same; to be free is not to merely exercise one’s will in whatever way one pleases. If that were the case, then any sort of law, whether associated with… Continue reading on Missio Dei.