From: kriz@skat.usc.edu (KRIZ)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Cath. Christianity 101 - CDFs 1986 Christian Freedom and Liberation - 3
Date: 16 Aug 1992 19:45:49 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: skat.usc.edu

The following is a portion of the CDF's 1986 "Instruction on
Christian Freedom and Liberation."  The document is organized in
the following manner:

     Introduction.
     Chpt 1. The State of Freedom in the World Today.
-->  Chpt 2. Man's Vocation to Freedom and the Tragedy of Sin.
     Chpt 3. Liberation and Christian Freedom.
     Chpt 4. The Liberating Mission of the Church.
     Chpt 5. The Social Doctrine of the Church: For a Christian
               Practice of Liberation.
     Conclusion.

Note: (-->) indicates the section of the document contained herein.

In Christ,

Dennis
kriz@skat.usc.edu

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CDFs 1986 Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation - Chpt 2

                           Chapter II
        MAN'S VOCATION TO FREEDOM AND THE TRAGEDY OF SIN


I. PRELIMINARY APPROACHES TO FREEDOM

A spontaneous response
----------------------

 25. The spontaneous response to the question: "What does being
free mean?" is this: a person is free when he is able to do
whatever he wishes without being hindered by an exterior constraint
and thus enjoys complete independence. The opposite of freedom
would therefore be the dependence of our will upon the will of
another.

 But does man always know what he wants? Can he do everything he
wants? Is closing in on oneself and cutting oneself off from the
will of others in conformity with the nature of man? Often the
desire of a particular moment is not what a person really wants.
And in one and the same person there can exist contradictory
wishes. But above all man comes up against limits of his own
nature: his desires are greater than his abilities. Thus the
obstacle which opposes his will does not always come from outside,
but from the limits of his own being. This is why, under pain of
destroying himself, man must learn to harmonize his will with his
nature.


Truth and justice, rules of freedom
-----------------------------------

 26. Furthermore, every individual is oriented toward other people
and needs their company. It is only by learning to unite his will
to the others for the sake of true good that he will learn
rectitude of will. It is thus harmony with the exigencies of human
nature which makes the will itself human. This in fact requires the
criterion of truth and a right relationship to the will of others.
Truth and justice are therefor the measure of true freedom. By
discarding this foundation and taking himself for God, man falls
into deception, and instead of realizing himself he destroys
himself.

 Far from being achieved in total self-sufficiency and an absence
of relationships, freedom only truly exists where reciprocal bonds,
governed by truth and justice, link people to one another. But for
such bonds to be possible, each person must live in the truth.

 Freedom is not the liberty to do anything whatsoever. It is the
freedom to do good, and in this alone happiness is to be found. The
good is thus the goal of freedom. In consequence man becomes free
to the extent that he comes to a knowledge of the truth, and to the
extent that this truth -- and not any other forces -- guides his
will. Liberation for the sake of a knowledge of the truth which
alone directs the will is the necessary condition for a freedom
worthy of the name.


II. FREEDOM AND LIBERATION

Freedom for the creature
------------------------

 27. In other words, freedom which is interior mastery of one's own
acts and self-determination immediately entails a relationship with
the ethical order. It finds its true meaning in the choice of moral
good. it then manifests itself as emancipation from moral evil.

 By his free action, man, must tend toward the supreme good through
lesser goods which conform to the exigencies of his nature and his
divine vocation.

 In exercising his freedom, he decides for himself and forms
himself. In this sense man is *his own cause*. But he is this only
as a creature and as God's image. This is the truth of his being
which shows by contrast how profoundly erroneous are the theories
which think they exalt the freedom of man or his "historical
praxis" by making this freedom the absolute principle of his being
and becoming. These theories are expressions of atheism or tend
toward atheism by their own logic. Indifferentism and deliberate
agnosticism go in the same direction. It is the image of God in man
which underlies the freedom and dignity of the human person [16].


The call of the Creator
-----------------------

 28. By crating man free, God imprinted on him his own image and
likeness [17]. man hears the call of his Creator in the inclination
and aspiration of his own nature toward the Good, and still more in
the word of Revelation, which was proclaimed in a perfect manner in
the Christ. It is thus revealed to man that God created him free so
that by grace man could enter into friendship with God and share
his life.


A shared freedom
----------------

 29. man does not take his origin from his own individual or
collective action, but from the gift of God who created him. This
is the first confession of our faith, and it confirms the loftiest
insights of human thought.

 The freedom of man is a shared freedom. His capacity for self
realization is in no way suppressed by his dependence on God. it is
precisely the characteristic of atheism to believe in an
irreducible opposition between the causality of a divine freedom
and that of man's freedom, as though the affirmation of God meant
the negation of man, or as though God's intervention in history
rendered vain the endeavors of man. In reality, it is from God and
in relationship with him that human freedom takes its meaning and
consistency.


Man's free choice
-----------------

 30. Man's history unfolds on the basis of the nature which he has
received from God and in the free accomplishment of the purpose
toward which the inclinations of this nature and of divine grace
orient and direct him.

 But man's freedom is finite and fallible. his desire may be drawn
to an apparent good: in choosing a false good, he fails in his
vocation to freedom. By his free will, man is the master of his own
life: he can act in a positive sense or in a destructive one.

 By obeying the divine law inscribed in his conscience and received
as an impulse of the Holy Spirit, man exercises true mastery over
himself and thus realizes his royal vocation as a child of God. "By
the service of God he reigns" [18]. Authentic freedom is the
"service of justice", while the choice of disobedience and evil is
the "slavery of sin" [19].


Temporal liberation and freedom
-------------------------------

 31. This notion of freedom clarifies the scope of temporal
liberation: it involves all the processes which aim at securing and
guaranteeing the conditions needed for the exercise of an authentic
human freedom.

 Thus it is not liberation which in itself produces human freedom.
Common sense, confirmed by Christian sense,knows that even when
freedom is subject to forms of conditioning it is not thereby
completely destroyed. People who undergo terrible constraints
succeed in manifesting their freedom and taking steps to secure
their own liberation. A process of liberation which has been
achieved can only create better conditions for the effective
exercise of freedom. Indeed a liberation which does not take into
account the personal freedom of those who fight for it is condemned
in advance to defeat.


III. FREEDOM AND HUMAN SOCIETY

The rights of man and his "freedoms"
------------------------------------

 32. God did not create man as a "solitary being" but wished him to
be a "social being" [30]. Social life therefore is not exterior to
man: he can only grow and realize his vocation in relation to
others. Man belongs to different communities: the family and
professional and political communities, and it is inside these
communities that he must exercise his responsible freedom. A just
social order offers man irreplaceable assistance in realizing his
free personality. On the other hand, an unjust social order is a
threat and an obstacle which can compromise his destiny.

 In the social sphere, freedom is expressed and realized in
actions, structures and institutions, thanks to which people
communicate with one another and organize their common life. The
blossoming of a free personality, which for every individual is a
duty and a right, must be helped and not hindered by society.

 Here we have an exigency of a moral nature which s found its
expression in the formulation of the *rights of man*. Some of these
have as their object what are usually called "the freedoms", that
is to say, ways of recognizing every human being's character as a
person responsible for himself and his transcendent destiny, as
well as the inviolability of his conscience [21].


Man's social dimension and the glory of God
-------------------------------------------

 33. The social dimension of the human being also takes on another
meaning: only the vast numbers and rich diversity of people can
express something of the infinite richness of God.

 Finally, this dimension is meant to find its accomplishment in the
Body of Christ which is the Church. This is why social life, in the
variety of its forms and to the extent that it is in conformity
with the divine law, constitutes a reflection of the glory of God
in the world [22].


IV. HUMAN FREEDOM AND DOMINION OVER NATURE

Man's call to master nature
---------------------------

 34. As a consequence of his bodily dimension, man needs the
resources of the material world for his personal and social
fulfillment. in this vocation to exercise dominion over the earth
by putting it at his service through work, one can see an aspect of
the image of God [23]. But human intervention is not "creative"; it
encounters a material nature which like itself has its origin in
God the Creator and of which man has been constituted the "noble
and wise guardian" [24].


Man, the master of his works
----------------------------

 35. Technical and economic transformations influence the
organization of social life; they cannot help but affect to some
extent cultural and even religious life.

 However, by reason of his freedom man remains the master of his
activity. The great and rapid transformations of the present age
face him with a dramatic challenge: that of mastering and
controlling by the use of his reason and freedom the forces which
he puts to work in the service of the true purposes of human
existence.


Scientific discoveries and moral progress
-----------------------------------------

 36. It is the task of freedom then, when it is well ordered, to
ensure that scientific and technical achievements, the quest for
their effectiveness, and the products of work and the very
structures of economic and social organization are not made to
serve projects which would deprive them of their human purposes and
turn them against man himself.

 Scientific activity and technological activity each involve
specific exigencies. But they only acquire their properly human
meaning and value when they are subordinated to moral principles.
These exigencies must be respected; but to wish to attribute them
an absolute and necessary autonomy, not in conformity with the
nature of things, is to set out along a path which is ruinous for
the authentic freedom of man.


V. SIN, THE SOURCE OF DIVISION AND OPPRESSION

Sin, separation from God
------------------------

 37. God calls man to freedom. In each person there lives a desire
to be free. And yet this desire almost always tends towards slavery
and oppression. All commitment to liberation and freedom therefore
presupposes that this tragic paradox has been faced.

 Man's sin, that is to say his breaking away from God, is the
radical reason for the tragedies which mark the history of freedom.
In order to understand this, many of our contemporaries must first
rediscover a sense of sin.

 In man's desire for freedom there is hidden the temptation to deny
his own nature. Insofar as he wishes to desire everything and to
abe able to do everything and thus forget that he is finite and a
created being, he claims to be a god. "You will be like God" (Gen
3:5). These words of the serpent reveal the essence of man's
temptation; they imply the perversion of the meaning of his own
freedom. Such is the profound nature of sin: Man rejects the truth
and places his own will above it. By wishing to free himself from
God and be a god himself, he deceives himself and destroys himself.
He becomes alienated from himself.

 In this desire to be a god and to subject everything to his own
good pleasure, there is hidden a perversion of the very idea of
God. God is love and truth in the fullness of the mutual gift of
the Divine extent that he recognizes that truth and love are at the
same time the principle and purpose of his freedom.


Sin, the root of human alienation
---------------------------------

 38. By sinning, man lies to himself and separates himself from his
own truth. But seeking total autonomy and self-sufficiency, he
denies God and denies himself. Alienation from the truth of his
being as a creature loved by God is the root of all other forms of
alienation.

 By denying or trying to deny God, who is his Beginning and End,
man profoundly disturbs his own order and interior balance and also
those of society and even of visible creation [25].

 It is in their relationship to sin that Scripture regards all the
different calamities which oppress man in his personal and social
existence. 

 Scripture shows that the whole course of history has a mysterious
link with the action of man who, from the beginning, has abused his
freedom by setting himself up against God and by seeking to gain
ends without God [26]. Genesis indicates the consequences of this
original sin in the painful nature of work and childbirth, in man's
opposition of woman and in death. Human beings deprived of divine
grace have thus inherited a common mortal nature, incapable of
choosing what is good and inclined to be covetousness [27].


Idolatry and disorder
---------------------

 39. Idolatry is an extreme form of disorder produced by sin. The
replacement of adoration of the living God by worship of created
things falsifies the relationships between individuals and brings
with it various kinds of oppression.

 Culpable ignorance of God unleashes the passions, which are causes
of imbalance and conflicts in the human heart. From this there
inevitably come disorders which affect the sphere of the family and
society: sexual license, injustice and murder. It is thus that
Saint Paul describes the pagan world, carried away by idolatry to
the worst aberrations which ruin the individual and society [28].

 Even before Saint Paul, the Prophets and wisemen of Israel saw in
the misfortunes of the people a punishment for their sin of
idolatry; and in the "heart of evil" (Eccles 9:3) [29], they saw
the source of man's radical slavery and of the forms of oppression
which makes his fellowmen endure.


Contempt for God and a turning toward creatures
-----------------------------------------------

 40. The Christian tradition, found in the Fathers and Doctors of
the Church, has made explicit this teaching of Scripture about sin.
It sees sin as contempt for God (contemptus Dei). It is accompanied
by a desire to escape from the dependent relationship of the
servant to his Lord, or still more of the child to its Father. By
sinning, man seeks to free himself from God. In reality he makes
himself a slave. For by rejecting God he destroys the momentum of
his aspiration to the infinite and of his vocation to share in the
divine life. This is why his heart is a prey to disquiet.

 Sinful man who refuses to accept God is necessarily lead to become
attached in a false and destructive way to creatures. in this
turning toward creatures (conversio ad creatrum) he focuses on the
latter his unsatisfied desire for the infinite. But created goods
are limited; and so his heart rushes from one to another, always
searching for an impossible peace.

 In fact, when man attributed to creatures an infinite importance,
he loses the meaning of his created being. he claims to find his
centre and his unity in himself. Disordered love of self is the
other side of contempt of God. man then tries to rely on himself
alone; he wishes to achieve fulfillment by himself and to be self-
sufficient in his own immanence [30].


Atheism, a false emancipation of freedom
----------------------------------------

 41. This becomes more particularly obvious when the sinner things
he can only assert his own freedom by explicitly denying God.
Dependence of the creature upon the Creator, and the dependence of
the moral conscience upon the divine law, are regarded by him as an
intolerable slavery. Thus he sees atheism as the true form of
emancipation and of man's liberation, whereas religion or even the
recognition of a moral law constitute forms of alienation. Man then
wishes to make independent decisions about what is good and what is
evil, or decisions about values; and in a single step he rejects
both the idea of God and the idea of sin. it is through the
audacity of sin that he claims to become adult and free, and he
claims this emancipation not only for himself but for the whole of
humanity.


Sin and unjust structures
-------------------------

 42. having become his own centre, sinful man tends to assert
himself and to satisfy his desire for the infinite by the use of
things: wealth, power, and pleasure, despising other people and
robbing them unjustly and treating them as objects or instruments.
Thus he makes his own contribution to the creation of those very
structures of exploitation and slavery which he claims to condemn.

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Footnotes:

[16] Cf. LIBERTATIS NUNTIUS, VII, 9; VIII, 1-9: AAS 76 (1984), pp.
892 and 894-895.

[17] Cf. Gen. 1:26.

[18] John Paul II, Encyclical REDEMPTOR HOMINIS, 21: AAS 71 (1979),
p. 316.

[19] Cf. Rom. 6:6; 7:23.

[20] Cf. Gen. 2:18,23, "It is not good that man should be alone"
... "This is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bones": in these
words of Scripture, which refer directly to the relationship
between man and woman, one can discern a more universal meaning.
Cf. Lv. 19:18.

[21] Cf. John XXIII, Encyclical PACEM IN TERRIS, 5-15: AAS 55
(1963), pp. 259-265; John Paul II, LETTER TO KURT WALDHEIM,
SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS, ON THE OCCASION OF THE
THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE UNIVERSAL Declaration OF HUMAN RIGHTS:
AAS 71 (1979), p. 122; THE POPE'S SPEECH TO THE UNITED NATIONS, 9:
AAS 71 (1979), p. 1149.

[22] Cf. St. Augustine, AD MACEDONIUM, II, 7-17 (PL 33, 669-673);
CSEL 44, 437-447).

[23] Cf. Gen. 1:27-28.

[24] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical REDEMPTOR HOMINIS, 15: AAS 71
(1979), p. 286.

[25] Cf. GAUDIUM ET SPES, 13 para. 1.

[26] Cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation RECONCILIATIO ET
PAENITENTIA,, 13: AAS 77 (1985), pp. 208-211.

[27] Cf. Gen 3:16-19; Rom. 5:12; 7:14-24; Paul VI, SOLLEMNIS
PROFESSIO FIDEEI, 30 June 1968, 1: AAS 60 (1968), p. 439.

[28] Cf. Rom. 1:18-32.

[29] Cf. Jer. 5:23; 7:24; 17:9; 18:12.

[30] Cf. St. Augustine, DE CIVITATE DEI, XIV, 28 (PL 41, 435; CSEL
40/2, 56-57; CCL 14/2, 451-452).
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