Because God loves him, man was created as an intelligent being with free will. He has the ability to initiate and control his own actions and make his own choices, even whether or not to accept God’s love.
Unlike God’s other creatures, only man and the angels were given this ability to chart the course of their own life.
Although he has the freedom to choose, man is strongly encouraged and given grace by God to make choices that result in human flourishing and happiness.
The more good that man does, the more free he becomes. Freedom is perfected when it is directed toward God. Abusing freedom by doing evil causes man to be less free and to become a slave of sin.
Man’s deliberate actions are his responsibility and he has to deal with any consequences.
The ability to say “yes” or “no” to God:
God in the beginning created human beings and made them subject to their own free choice.
Sirach 15: 14
God allows man to choose:
Free choice is the pervasive thing:
God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. “God willed that man should be ‘left in the hand of his own counsel,’ so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to Him.” Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1730
Man hungers for the good:
True free will does only good:
Jesus’ higher standard makes man more free:
Humans are uniquely equipt to make a choice:
Liberty, the highest of natural endowments, being the portion only of intellectual or rational natures, confers on man this dignity – that he is “in the hand of his counsel” and has power over his actions. But the manner in which such dignity is exercised is of the greatest moment, inasmuch as on the use that is made of liberty the highest good and the greatest evil alike depend. Man, indeed, is free to obey his reason, to seek moral good, and to strive unswervingly after his last end. Yet he is free also to turn aside to all other things; and, in pursuing the empty semblance of good, to disturb rightful order and to fall headlong into the destruction which he has voluntarily chosen.
Pope Leo XIII, Libertas, 20 June 1888
Choices have good or bad consequences:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Irresistable to God:
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