Summary
Highlights
The modern view of freedom often equates to choosing without constraint, making choices between contraries like ordering from a menu. However, Aquinas posits a richer, deeper account of human freedom, emphasizing that this modern understanding is only a partial and potentially misleading description of human action.
Aquinas argues that in every choice, we aim at something we perceive as good. The will is not primarily about choosing between options but is a faculty of desiring or loving, functioning as a rational appetite that hungers for the good. Our lives involve larger projects and goals, with individual choices serving to achieve these ends, like a student pursuing a degree or an athlete training for the Olympics. These choices are made freely because the will is focused on a desired end.
While we freely choose actions, not all ends lead to human flourishing or happiness. Pursuing money, power, fame, or honor as ultimate ends, according to Aquinas, will not bring true happiness and can limit our lives, leading to frustration. Choosing unworthy ends, like drug addiction, initially seems free but ultimately enslaves the will and diminishes true freedom.
Aquinas asserts that only God can fully satisfy all desires and be our final end. Achieving this ultimate end allows freedom to reach its full amplitude. Our intellect and will are made to freely know and love God. Turning away from God through sin, which Aquinas likens to taking heroin, enslaves the will to lesser, created things like pleasure or honor, diverting us from our true good.
God has ordered us to natural goods like friendship and family, which can bring natural happiness. However, the highest good, eternal life with God, is beyond our natural capacity. Through his grace, God can freely move us to desire and choose to love Him above all else, believe in Christ, and engage with the Church's sacraments. This movement by grace allows us to experience the full potential of our freedom: to know and love the Supreme Good for its own sake.