Freedom, Morality, and Purity of Heart

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“We firmly believe, and hence we hope that, just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and lives forever, so after death the righteous will live forever with the risen Christ and He will raise them up on the last day (Jn. 6:39-40). Our resurrection, like His own, will be the work of the Most Holy Trinity. ‘If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through His Spirit who dwells in you’ (Rom 8:11; cf. 1 Thess. 4:14; 1 Cor. 6:14; 2 Cor. 4:14; Phil. 3:10-11).”[1]

Three things that seem to keep most people from a truly organic interpretation of natural law as it applies to sexual matters are that 1) we are destined for something, 2) there is a divine content to human dignity, and 3) grace can help us in the struggle.

1. “He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before Him in love. He destined us for adoption as His children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace that He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:4-6)
If we are destined, made for something, then it follows there is an order we would ideally abide by.[2] It is not that we are not free to resist, it is that we should not want to, knowing that it always means degradation of what is actually good even if our perception (clearly warped by sin) tells us goodness is otherwise.[3] What is actually good is what actually satisfies because in it our identity is realized in oneness and not infected by our duplicitous and fickle diversion of desire which tears us apart (cf. Galatians 5:17).

2. “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion…” (Genesis 1:26)

If man is as God and God is sacred, then man is sacred. When we gaze at each other do we see something sacred? It is not holiness that allows us to gaze at each other with eyes glazed over, seeing only material and not even animate material as a gift like gold or food to be possessed, traded, or exploited. Rather, it is real authentic love, which people of the world rarely possess, which first recognizes the other, that it may recognize the good for the other and see them as a gift which chooses to be given, when they may choose otherwise. This applies to friendships just as well as spousal or potentially spousal relationships. Recognizing, the sacred, the holy, the other is important even with how we treat ourselves (Matthew 25:40-45, Romans 12:1, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20). “By the oblation of his Body, he brought the sacrifices of old to fulfillment in the reality of the Cross, and, by commending himself to [the Father] for our salvation, showed himself the Priest, the Altar, and the Lamb of sacrifice.”[4] “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2).

3. “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15).

In our culture, failure is feared as much as death, so when we look at the Christian ideal as difficult, many fail to try it. The truth is our part is only growth, it is not being perfect but struggling to be perfect. Love properly understood should provide us with every motivation we need to get to Heaven and help others do the same, because the Spouse of Our Nature provides us with every grace to do so and when we fail He scoops us up again and loves us more (2 Corinthians 9:8).[5]

Conclusion
We must work against treating the body and sex like a commodity which is a reduction in the meaning of each. The greater irony, and a painful one, is that in our culture where theoretically everything is permitted there is nothing truly forgivable, least of all objective belief. For the Church perhaps there is less permitted which the culture insists upon allowing, but the Church forgives transgressions when something impermissible is done. There is a striking difference here because the former is only guided by stigma and the latter by objective order. While the former is impossible to please, the latter uses grace to help and genuinely seeks the good of the believer so transgression is to be expected to an extent but it does not condemn us as the former. In a culture where everything is permitted, and nothing is forgiven is there more freedom than following God where goodness is permitted and evil is forgiven? It would certainly seem not.

“Freedom and sin. Man's freedom is limited and fallible. In fact, man failed. He freely sinned. By refusing God's plan of love, he deceived himself and became a slave to sin. This first alienation engendered a multitude of others. From its outset, human history attests the wretchedness and oppression born of the human heart in consequence of the abuse of freedom.”[6]

When it comes to sex, the most common argument against waiting until marriage, against actually getting married, for cohabitation, for homosexual acts, and other related evils is for love. There is tragic irony afoot here also since love to be real must honor the nature of the other, whence their good is willed.[7] A lesser definition of love is used which is mere affection, the rose-colored glasses that are meant to assist our fortitude when willing someone else’s good is most difficult are traded for love’s objective definition. It is no wonder then that even divorce is seen more as a right than even a last resort, which the Church says, and rightly so, should never happen.

Written by Carter Carruthers

FN:

  1.  Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), 989.
  2.  Carter Carruthers, "Where Psychology and Sociology Get It Wrong", Vivat Agnus Dei, February 4, 2024.
  3. Carter Carruthers, "Duplicity of the Will", Vivat Agnus Dei, January 14, 2024.
  4. Eucharistic Preface of Easter V: CHRIST, PRIEST AND VICTIM
  5. Sarah Kroger, 'Humbled Heart,' YouTube video, posted by Sarah Kroger (16 May 2024) at http://www.youtube.com, .
  6. CCC, 1739.
  7. Carter Carruthers, "What is love?", Vivat Agnus Dei, March 27, 2022.; cf. Carter Carruthers, "What is love? Revisited with AI", Vivat Agnus Dei, June 23, 2024.

I am a created entity, not a person.

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