What’s your thought on this?

A 5-minute
Thought to
Ponder
Lesson 3

Freedom and
Responsibility
As Foundations of Morality
Lesson
Objectives

Jeffbullas.com

At the end of the Lesson the learners will be able to:

- Understand the basic concept of freedom according
to St. Augustine
- Evaluate whether they use their freedom with
responsibility
St. Augustine
-Catholic Bishop
-A sinner who was
converted and became
a saint
  We, human beings, have the ability to choose. But this ability is
impaired by our “fallen nature” (for Augustine, our fallen nature
has the tendency to choose the lesser goods over the Highest
St. Augustine Good).

on Freedom  Our fallen nature’s tendency to choose the lesser good over the
higher goods is mainly caused by our misguided desires.
 Many times we desire the lesser goods because we do not see and
understand the importance of the higher and the more important
goods.
St. Augustine
on Freedom How many times have we chosen to procrastinate because we
choose to “chill and relax” rather than choose to be diligent and
excel?

BUT
Assessment:

Assessing yourself, have you always been responsible to

exercise your freedom to choose by choosing the better choice?

Recall those times when you had the freedom to choose to be

lazy and lax yet you chose to be diligent and you practiced
excellence. How do you feel now about that choice you made?
 We choose to act according to what we perceive as
St. Augustine good. For many of us this is freedom. The ability to
on Freedom act and do according to what we want to choose to
do.

But Augustine reminds us that freedom is the

capacity to choose what is good and of performing
good deeds, because freedom is fixated on the good
things, to choose the good things and to reject those
which are bad.

What does this mean?

 It means that when we do evil, we actually do not exercise our
freedom.
St. Augustine
on Freedom Remember: To exercise freedom is to do what is good and if we do
otherwise or when we do evil, that means we are not free.

But is it not an exercise of freedom if I do whatever I want?

Augustine would say, freedom is not equated with doing whatever
we choose to do. Real freedom is exercised only when we choose
to do what is good. If we do evil that means we are not free but
are actually slaves to evil.
 Sample situation:

St. Augustine Luke, a young and single branch manager in a certain company in the city,
on Freedom felt overwhelmed by stress and the loads of work he had for the past days.
He thought he deserved to have a break after the busy week. He went to
the city’s red light district and thought of looking for a woman to spend
the night with. It happened that prostitution in that particular city was
legal. So he never saw anything wrong with spending the night of pleasure
with a woman who was willing to sell her body for him to pay. He thought
to himself that he is single, has no girlfriend, he has the money to pay for
the woman and the hotel, and he has the “freedom” to do it since he is of
legal age and not married nor into a commitment with someone. So, he
enjoyed a night of pleasure with a woman.

Question:
Do you think Luke exercised his freedom if he spent the night of pleasure
with a woman?
 For St. Augustine, NO. When Luke gave in to his sexual
desires he became a slave to that desire. Instead of
managing and controlling himself he gave in to it and
St. Augustine surrendered his freedom to that desire. He lost his
on Freedom freedom and became a slave and a willing follower of the
lower good which is lust and impurity. He lost the
discipline and goodness of purity and respect for the
sacredness of his and the woman’s body.
Luke could have maintained his freedom by choosing to
do good instead of him being a slave to his passion and
desire of the flesh.

On the other hand, if he did not succumb to the

temptation of lust, he remained free and proved that he
is not a slave to the desires of the flesh or lust.
  Our freedom should make us recognize what appropriate
material things that we have to use with freedom and
St. Augustine thanksgiving and what we have to love as a final goal.
on Freedom  All material things are to be used but we have to be free enough
to recognize that the only person for whom we have to be slaves
is God, in whom we find our rest and our final goal.
 To find God is the purpose of freedom. If we use our capacity to
choose (our willpower) to go away from God, Augustine would
say, we lost our freedom and we become slaves to sin or evil.
St. Augustine
on Freedom
  Freedom, therefore, comes with responsibility.
Freedom is a gift. It does not come from nowhere. And
St. Augustine every gift that comes goes with a certain responsibility.
on Freedom
 For Augustine, God is the source of freedom. It is a gift
that God wants all men to use in order to go home to
Him too.

 God is the Highest Good (Summum Bonum), all other

things should not be chosen over and above God. That
is why if we choose the lesser goods (which include the
things in this world) over God and Goodness that
means we become attached to these things and lose
our freedom to them.
St. Augustine
on Freedom
  But Augustine said that God does not leave us empty
handed in dealing with the many choices around us in
St. Augustine the exercise of our freedom.
on Freedom  Augustine said that God bestows us His grace to guide
and help us to choose the good over evil.
 Our freedom is also a responsibility. Both of these two
are foundations of morality.
Conclusion
We only become responsible to our actions also when
these were done out of our own willing, out of our
freedom.
 Conclusion
Conclusion
St. Augustine reminds us that true freedom is not attained
through just doing what we want. The real exercise of our
freedom happens when the target is to attain the good.
Freedom is not doing evil. Doing evil is a kind of slavery.
When one chooses to do what is evil, he no longer masters
himself (who is basically good although has the tendency to
do evil) but he surrenders to evil.
References:

Eguiarte, Enrique (2017). Augustinian Values and Pedagogy. Quezon City: Recoletos Communications, Inc.

Melchert, Norman (1991). The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy. CA, USA:
Mayfield Publishing Company.

Wetzel, James (2010). Augustine: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/