In the encyclical, “Veritatis Splendour” (The Splendor of Truth), states that we, the human race, i.e. mankind for all of you politically incorrect, can actually know our own nature and know objectively what is right and wrong action. We’re not talking now of subjective culpability as individuals. “Do good. Avoid evil.”
The directions for “us” and about “us” by our Manufacturer are in the Natural Law and supplemented by the Ten Commandments. What actually is the purpose of the Natural Law? The purpose lies in two aspects, one of knowing more readily and then the capability of choosing, based on that knowledge, our eternal happiness.
Through reason we can know objective Truth. On the opposite hand, relativism can turn into a dictatorship in the moral sense as well as through all of our other senses. Think of the Natural Law in terms of ‘reason’ but also in terms of the Lawgiver, our manufacturer.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
On True Freedom
Humans need freedom. As slaves, fettered and confined, they are bound to deteriorate. We have spent a great deal of thought and time on external freedom; we have made serious efforts to secure our personal liberty and yet we have lost it again and again. The worst thing is that eventually humans come to accept the state of bondage—it becomes habitual and they hardly notice it. The most abject slaves can be made to believe that the condition in which they are held is actually freedom.
During these long weeks of confinement I have learned by personal experience that a person is truly lost, is the victim of circumstances and oppression only when he is incapable of a great inner sense of depth and freedom. Anyone whose natural element is not an atmosphere of freedom, unassailable and unshakable whatever force may be put on it, is already lost; but such a person is not really a human being any more; he is merely and object, a number, a voting paper. And the inner freedom can only be attained if we have discovered the means of widening our own horizons. We must progress and grow, we must mount above our own limitations. It can be done; the driving force is the inner urge to conquer whose very existence shows that human nature is fundamentally designed for this expansion. A rebel, after all, can be trained to be a decent citizen, but an idler and a dreamer is a hopeless proposition.
Human freedom is born in the moment of our contact with God. It is really unimportant whether God forces us out of our limits by the sheer distress of much suffering, coaxes us with visions of beauty and truth, or pricks us into action by the endless hunger and thirst for righteousness that possess our soul. What really matters is the fact that we are called and we must be sufficiently awake to hear the call.
Father Alfred Delp, S.J.
Father Delp was condemned to death and died in 1945 in Germany during World War II.
During these long weeks of confinement I have learned by personal experience that a person is truly lost, is the victim of circumstances and oppression only when he is incapable of a great inner sense of depth and freedom. Anyone whose natural element is not an atmosphere of freedom, unassailable and unshakable whatever force may be put on it, is already lost; but such a person is not really a human being any more; he is merely and object, a number, a voting paper. And the inner freedom can only be attained if we have discovered the means of widening our own horizons. We must progress and grow, we must mount above our own limitations. It can be done; the driving force is the inner urge to conquer whose very existence shows that human nature is fundamentally designed for this expansion. A rebel, after all, can be trained to be a decent citizen, but an idler and a dreamer is a hopeless proposition.
Human freedom is born in the moment of our contact with God. It is really unimportant whether God forces us out of our limits by the sheer distress of much suffering, coaxes us with visions of beauty and truth, or pricks us into action by the endless hunger and thirst for righteousness that possess our soul. What really matters is the fact that we are called and we must be sufficiently awake to hear the call.
Father Alfred Delp, S.J.
Father Delp was condemned to death and died in 1945 in Germany during World War II.
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