Introduction to Truth as the Ground of Freedom: by Gregory Gronbacher

A constitutive and defining aspect of human nature is freedom. The person's ability to chose, decide and regulate his own behavior grants the individual autonomy. The gift of freedom carries with it questions of its proper use: how does one best employ one's liberty? Lord Acton chose to define the issue of human freedom by stating that true liberty was not freedom to do merely what one wanted, but rather, to do what one should. In order to discover the obligations of human freedom it is required to understand the truth about human nature.

Part of the classical worldview was a philosophical anthropology which envisioned the soul divided into powers, or faculties, of will, heart and intellect. Human nature being rational implied that human beings exercised their will as informed by the intellect. The heart, or man's emotions, may provide motivation for action, but prudence dictated that most human action be intelligently informed.

For the classical mind, freedom was not absolute. Human beings were free to act only in accord with what was truly good. In a sense, one was free only in one's unhampered ability to choose the good. Morality, for the ancients, was in this sense, not an external imposition, but the truth which serves as a guide to action.

The modern age has come to disagree with Acton and the ancients and understand freedom as license. The implication is that human freedom, in order to be truly respected, must have no limitations or restrictions placed on it. All actions and decisions must be the result of a purely unrestricted inner decision on the part of the actor. Morality in this scheme is falsely treated as an external force of coercion which limits a person's freedom.

Today's society has seen the devastating results of having adopted the modern interpretation of freedom. The passions rule. Rather than view the passions as being capable of clouding one's better judgment (a classical view), modern society allows the passions to inform most of one's actions. Give in to the feeling, go with the heart, do what feels good. Pleasure reigns. The results are often all sorts of immorality.

A subsequent problem associated with the modern age is subjectivism. Truth has lost its meaning. What is truth? The modern mind cannot provide a meaningful answer to this question. The traditional conceptualization of truth as the proper correspondence of our judgments about reality and reality itself has faded. Rather, we impose ourselves on the world and subject it to our whims and passions through actions which have no or little relation to the objective order.

The stress placed on diversity in the past few years has increased the power of subjectivism. Truth has been relegated to cultural perspectives. Now with the multitude of cultures, ethnic groups and sets of minorities there is also a multiplicity of truths. Political pluralism has resulted in moral pluralism. There is black truth, white truth, Catholic truth, Jewish truth, and so on ad nauseam.

This subjectivism, be it in the name of multiculturalism or radical individualism, makes it increasingly more difficult to engage in a public discussion on morality. Increasingly the question becomes: Whose morality? Whose set of values? And in the name of the new quasi-virtue of niceness we shrink from strong assertions of any kind so as to not offend the delicate sensibilities of the contemporary citizen.

This is a stark contrast to the project begun by John Courtney Murray in the 1960's. Pluralistic America could still be united by a common morality based upon the classical notion of the natural law. Human nature itself, which we all share regardless of race, religion or gender, grounds certain moral principles. Murray's response to the contemporary complaint of "whose morality?" is to reply "what is good for the person, what will lead to human betterment and flourishing?" We may not be able to get theoretical agreement on difficult issues and moral systems, but we can certainly reach some accord concerning what leads to a healthy human being. Murray's project seems to have undergone recent validation when we see even those who once advocated free love and the relaxation of any moral norms rethink their positions in light of rampant illegitimacy, violent crime, and drug abuse.

If we are to strive with some hope of securing a truly free and virtuous society, then we must recognize and insist upon the standard of the truth as the informing principle of all human action. This connection was obvious to Acton; he was convinced that conscience is the heart of the quest for liberty; and that conscience must be guided by the truth. When individuals turn away from the truth they eventually turn away from liberty.