CHAPTER 3

Chapter 3
Law
as a
Guide
to Freedom
The Need for Boundaries to Freedom
 RESPONSIBILITY

Response Ability
Respond to the God’s grace enables good
command: “Love decisions along with
one another as I human talents, strengths,
have loved you.” insights and deeds.

The Need for Boundaries to Freedom

 Good law of all kinds has
CIVIL LAW its roots in the Divine Law
that is expressed fully in
the life and teachings of
Jesus Christ, the absolute
truth and fundamental
norm of Christian
morality.
DIVINE LAW
The Need for Boundaries to Freedom
 Justification
The grace of the Holy Spirit to
justify you— that is, to cleanse
you from your sins and to
communicate to you the
righteousness of God through
faith in Jesus Christ and through
Baptism.

God’s Free Gifts of Justification, Grace and Merit

GRACE
The free and undeserved help that God gives you to respond to his
supernatural call to become his adoptive sons and daughters, partakers
of the divine nature and of eternal life. Grace is a participation in the
intimacy of God’s own Trinitarian life, offered from the Father, through
the Son, and in the Holy Spirit.

God’s Free Gifts of Justification, Grace and Merit

Three times I begged the Lord
about this, that it might leave me,
but he said to me, “My grace is
sufficient for you, for power is
made perfect in weakness.” I will
rather boast most gladly of my
weaknesses, in order that the
power of Christ may dwell with
me.
2 Corinthians 12: 8-9
 Sanctifying grace:
habitual gift, a
stable and
Types of Grace
Sacramental grace: supernatural
gifts proper to each disposition that
sacrament. perfects the soul
itself to enable it to
live with God, to act
by his love”

Actual grace: God’s

intervention your life,
whether to help you initially
convert from sinfulness to a
life in Christ or to help you to
continue to live as a Christian
disciple.
God’s Free Gifts of Justification, Grace and Merit
 Sacramental Grace
Sacrament Grace
Baptism To live as children of God

Eucharist Forgive venial sins

Penance A return to grace and union with God

Matrimony To grow into a union of heart and soul and to

continue life through children
Holy Orders Grace to exercise powers

Anointing of the Sick United to the Passion of Christ, acceptance

Confirmation Strength and character

God’s Free Gifts of Justification, Grace and Merit

Freedom
The power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and
so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility (CCC 1731).

More About Freedom

Determinism
• The belief that every event action and decision results from
something independent of human will.

The Church REJECTS strict determinist views

You always have the choice to behave differently than you are.

More About Freedom

External Freedom vs. Internal Freedom

Powers outside yourself that Freedom from interior factors that

threaten your power to exercise limit choice: e.g., fear and addiction.
choice: e.g., tyranny, slavery,
and poverty.
More About Freedom
 TRUE FREEDOM Unlimited Freedom or License

You always have a responsibility to God, others, and the environment.

More About Freedom

Moral Relativism
• Any doctrine or belief that denies the existence of absolute, universal
moral truths.

• Abuse of freedom always results in sin: “By deviating from the moral
law man violates his own freedom, becomes imprisoned within
himself, disrupts neighborly fellowship, and rebels against divine
truth” (CCC, 1740).

More About Freedom

 Impediments
to Freedom

Inordinate
Habit Duress Inadvertence Ignorance
Attachments

Being attached Not knowing the

Repeated bad Being forced or Not paying
to money or right way to
habits fear or panic attention
things behave

Responsibility
Law and Morality
Natural Law according to St. Thomas Aquinas

1. God designed natural law so humanity.

could participate in eternal law.
2. Good is to be done and pursued and
evil is to be avoided.
3. Natural law is religious in nature.
4. Natural law is common to all nations.
5. Natural law is insufficient for human
salvation.

Law and Morality

• The Law of Moses
• The Ten Commandments New Law
• Holy, good and spiritual
• The Law of the Gospel
• Imperfect
• The work of Christ
• Law of bondage expressed in the Sermon
• Cannot remove sin on the Mount
• Preparation for the Gospel • Makes you a child of God
• A law of love
• A law of grace
• A law of freedom
Old Law
Law and Morality
Civil Law
Civil law applies natural law to the members of a society. Civil
law is morally good only insofar as it conforms to God’s eternal
law, which is expressed in divinely revealed law.
“I would be the first to advocate
obeying just laws. One has not
only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws.
Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust
laws….An unjust law is no law at
all.”
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Law and Morality
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
 Church Law
Precepts of the Church
1. You shall attend Mass on Sundays and on holy days
of obligation and rest from servile labor.
2. You shall confess your sins at least once a year.
3. You shall receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist at
least during the Easter season.
4. You shall observe the days of fasting and
abstinence established by the Church.
5. You shall help to provide for the needs of the
Church.
References
• Slide 9 Table: http://www.jesuschristsavior.net/Sacraments.html
• Thomas Aqunias: https://taylormarshall.com/2014/06/thomas-
aquinas-natural-law-5-points.html