Quotes concerning the relationship between freedom and truth taken from SPLENDOR VERITATIS

#13

(Obedience to moral truths) . . .is the first necessary step on the journey towards freedom, its starting-point? "The beginning of freedom," Saint Augusitne writes, "is to be free from crimes such as murder, adultery, theft, fraud and so forth. When once one is without these crimes, one begins to lift up one's head towards freedom. But this is only the beginning of freedom, not perfect freedom. . ."

In Johannis Evangelium tractatus, 41, 10: CCl 36, 363.

#31

The human issues most frequently debated and differently resolved in contemporary moral reflection are all closely related, albeit in various ways, to a crucial ssue: human freedom.

Certainly people today have a particularly strong sense of freedom. . . . .. . .hence the insistent demand that people be permitted to enjoy the use of their own responsible judgment and freedom, and decide on their actions on grounds of duty and conscience, without external pressure or coercion. In particular, the right to respect for conscience on its journey towards the truth is increasingly perceived as the foundation of the cumulative rights of the person.

This heightened sense of the dignity of the human person and of his or her uniqueness, and of the respect due to the journey of conscience, certainly represents one of the postive achievements of modern culture. This perception, authentic as it is, has been expressed in a number of more or less adequate ways, some of which however diverge from the truth about man. . . .

#32. . .Certain currents of modern thought have gone so far as to exalt freedom to such an extent that it becomes an absolute, which would then be the source of values. . . .The individual conscience is accorded the status of a supreme tribunal of moral judgment which hands down categorical and infallible decisions about good and evil. To the affirmation that one has a duty to follow one's conscience is unduly added the affirmation that one's moral judgment is true merely by the fact that it has its origin in the conscience. But in this way the inescapable claims of truth disappear, yielding their place to a criterion of sincerity, authenticity and 'being at peace with oneself,' so much so that some have come to adopt a radically subjectivistic conception of moral judgment.

As is immediately evident, the crisis of truth is not unconnected with this development. Once the idea of a universal truth about the good, knowable by human reasson is lost inevitably the notion of conscience also changes. Conscience is no longer considered in its primordial reality as an act of a person's intelligence, the function of which is to apply the universsal knowledge of the good in a specific situation and thus to express a judgment about the right condiuct to be chosen here and now. Instead, there is a tendency to grant to the individual conscience the prerogative of independently determining the criteria of good and evil and then acting accordingly. Such an outlook is quite congenial to an individualist echic, wherein each individual is faced with his own truth, different from the truth of others. . . .

#33. . .Side by side with its exaltation of freedom, yet oddly in contrast with it, modern culture radically questions the very existence of this freedom. A number of disciplines, grouped under the name of the "behavioral sciences", have rightly drawn attention to the many kinds of psychological and social conditioning which influence the exercise of human freedom. Knowledge of these conditionings and the study they have received represent important achievements which have found application in various areas, for example in pedagogy or the administraiton of justice. But some people, going beyond the conclusions which can be ligitimately drawn from these observations, have come to question or even deny the very reality of human freedom.

#34. . .The question of morality. . .cannot presciend from the issue of freedom. Indeed, it considers that issue central, for there can be no morality without freedom. . . .Although each individual has a right to be respected in his own journey in search of the truth, there exists a prior moral obligation, and a grave one at that, to seek the truth and to adhere to it once it is known. Newman says: "Conscience has rights because it has duties."

#35. . .". . .some present-day cultural tendencies have given rise to several currents of thought in ethics which centre upon an alleged conflict between freedom and (moral truth). These doctrines would grant to individuals or social groups the right to determine what is good or evil. Human freedom would thus be able to "create values" and would enjoy a primacy over truth, to the point that truth itself would be considered a creation of freedom. Freedom, would thus lay claim to moral autonomy which would actually amount to an absolute sovereignty.

#42. . ."Human dignity requires man to act through conscious and free choice, as motivated and prompted personally from within, and not through blind internal impulse or merely external pressure. Man achieves such dignity when he frees himself from all subservience to his feelings, and in a free choice of the good, pursues his own end by effectively and assiduously marshaling the appropriate means." Gaudium et Spes

JOHN PAUL II