Rev José Mario O Mandía
jmom.honlam.org
We have spoken in Bite-Size Philosophy (no 54) about man’s dignity. We saw that man is “endowed with intellect and will which gives him the capacity and the right to self-determination: he can shape his own life, he can chart his future.” Every man and woman has dignity because each one has a capacity for self-determination. On the other hand: “Non-living things and non-rational beings do not have the capacity of self-determination: they don’t decide on what to do with their lives (that is, if they are alive!). They exist for the sake of something else….”
Our faith not only affirms but elevates human dignity because it adds a more important and supernatural reason: “The dignity of the human person is rooted in his or her creation in the image and likeness of God” (CCCC 358). It is this fact that explains why we have the capacity of self-determination, why we are endowed with freedom. The same point of the CCCC continues: “Endowed with a spiritual and immortal soul, intelligence and free will, the human person is ordered to God and called in soul and in body to eternal beatitude.”
We often take freedom for granted, but in fact there are certain schools of thought that deny its existence. These can be divided roughly into two extreme and opposing camps: determinism and indeterminism.
(1) DETERMINISM. Determinists deny the existence of freedom because they say that human decisions are dictated by certain factors.
(1.1) Some people say that a person’s behavior depends on his genes, on what he has inherited from his parents. They say that our behavior is determined by NATURE.
(1.2) Other people say that it is one’s upbringing and background (NURTURE).
(1.3) There are also PHYSICAL DETERMINISTS, who say that human behavior is the necessary result of the rigid causality of natural events.
(1.4) There are also BIOLOGICAL DETERMINISTS, who teach that man’s actions are the result of his animal instincts.
(1.5) Then there are PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERMINISTS, who hold on to the idea that the will necessarily accepts the strongest motive or chooses the object of the greatest value.
(2) INDETERMINISM. Indeterminists believe that the will acts of itself, unmoved by any reason, not motivated even by the intellect. As we will see later, however, freedom needs the intellect to make decisions.
Freedom plays an essential role in the salvation and sanctification of each person. God counts on our free cooperation to carry out his plan.
In the book of Deuteronomy (30:19), the people of Israel are told: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.”
The book of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus (15:14-17) reiterates this point: “It was he who created man in the beginning, and he left him in the power of his own inclination. If you will, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water: stretch out your hand for whichever you wish. Before a man are life and death, and whichever he chooses will be given to him.”
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