The freedom to do what's right is the freedom endowed by God to avoid sin
Author: Alec Kornblum 2025-09-08 Mon 09:53
I’ve been trying to figure out how I know this formulation of freedom is true: “Freedom is not libertine, unlimited choice to do anything. Instead it is the ability to choose to do what’s right.”
This can be understood as a Catholic Christian sentiment. Committing sin makes us slaves to another (heteronomy), but avoiding sin keeps us from falling out of a state of His Grace.
This was revealed to me after listening to Day 303 of the Catechism in a Year, the episode on War.
Freedom must encompass sinning because God chose not to coerce us into loving him. Coerced “love” wouldn’t have been love in the first place. Although choosing sin is possible, each sin harms everyone: there are no private sins. Sins like murder, sexual scandal, and theft all hurt the sinner and those sinned against. A free society cannot tolerate such sins because rampant theft, rape, and murder would not be civilized in the first place. Such sins cause more sins, a downward spiral. Therefore freedom does not tolerate sins that have been made unlawful, and freedom is not ultimate. You are not free to harm society. You are free to do the right thing.
A counterargument would be: that is coercion to do the right thing.
The answer is: no it’s not. It is that in a free society always come with consequences. Some felt here on earth and some in life after death. Choose wisely.
If this is true, what's next?
This argument it sound, to me. However, there are many in the world that do not accept arguments with any reference to God or the Bible. In this case, I think many people would balk at the term sin. This tells you something about the state of our society.
However, I believe Christianity can be honored by logic-only arguments, and is often increased by such arguments. It seems the case that all logic must be grounded in Christianity for it to be valid in the first place. And so when we are able to make a secular argument to a secular individual, we show them an example that logic is not owned by secular society. Logic is an outcome of a God-created world, though they may not know this yet.
I look to the examples of Jordan Peterson and even Ben Shapiro for this reason. They are not Catholic at all, but make secular arguments frequently. The effect of having done this appears, to me, to be a resurgence of religiosity in America, especially in the Catholic Church. Perhaps they are not alone the cause, but I cannot help pull from my own example. A logically sound argument helps the Church, including on that's secular.