The Catholic Church profoundly affirms the reality and importance of free will, seeing it not as a limitation on God's power, but as a testament to His immense love and respect for His creation. As St. Augustine of Hippo wisely observed, "God preferred not to use His own power, but to leave success or failure to the creatureās choice." This preference highlights a divine purpose: to allow rational creatures, both angelic and human, to experience the profound consequences of their choices and to demonstrate the "immense evil that flows from the creature's pride" alongside the "even greater good that comes from His grace." God's decision to grant us freedom is a loving invitation to participate in our own salvation, not an imposition.
This gift of free will
is intrinsically linked to our creation in God's image and likeness. St. Catherine of Siena beautifully articulates that God "moved Him to draw us
out of Himself and give us, us, His own image and likeness ā just so we might
experience and enjoy Him, and share in His eternal beauty." He endowed us
with memory, understanding, and crucially, a will, "to love that will of
His." This emphasizes that our freedom is not for arbitrary
self-gratification, but for the profound purpose of aligning our will with
God's, which "seeks nothing else but that we be made holy." Even in
the face of suffering, as St. Teresa of Avila laments, God's tears are for
those who "were not going to want to rise, even though His Majesty call
them," underscoring that our refusal to choose Him is a source of divine
sorrow.
The interaction
between God's grace and human freedom is a delicate and powerful synergy. St.
Francis de Sales explains that "grace is powerful ā not to compel the
heart, but to allure it; grace is vehement ā not to outrage our liberty, but to
fill it full of love." God's grace acts with incredible gentleness,
influencing without overriding, preserving our freedom even as it inspires us
towards good. This is a divine "cooperation," as Ven. Fulton Sheen
put it, where God "comes to man not to devour him, but to consult
him." He could indeed destroy evil, but only "at the cost of human
freedom," a price too high to pay for a God who desires our free and
loving consent.
Ultimately, our will
is the most precious and uniquely personal possession we have. As Ven. Fulton
Sheen reminds us, "There is only one thing in the world that is definitely
and absolutely your own, and that is your will." This profound truth means
that "nothing really matters in life, except what you do with your will."
It is through our free assent that we become "Eucharistic souls,"
allowing God to work wonders within us, as St. Carlo Acutis observed. The
Catechism of the Catholic Church reiterates that "God respects our freedom
and does not force us to believe in him." Our free will, therefore, is not
merely a philosophical concept, but the very arena in which our relationship
with God unfolds, a testament to His unwavering love and profound respect for
our personhood.
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