Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

Man can turn to good only in freedom, which God has given to him as one of the highest signs of his image^{251Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1705.}: “For God has willed that man remain ‘under the control of his own decisions' (Sir 15:14), so that he can seek his Creator spontaneously, and come freely to utter and blissful perfection through loyalty to Him. Hence man's dignity demands that he act according to a knowing and free choice that is personally motivated and prompted from within, neither under blind internal impulse nor by mere external pressure”^{252Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 17: AAS 58 (1966), 1037; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1730-1732.}. Man rightly appreciates freedom and strives for it passionately: rightly does he desire and must form and guide, by his own free initiative, his personal and social life, accepting personal responsibility for it^{253Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, 34: AAS 85 (1993), 1160- 1161; Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 17: AAS 58 (1966), 1038.}. In fact, freedom not only allows man suitably to modify the state of things outside of himself, but it also determines the growth of his being as a person through choices consistent with the true good^{254Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1733.}. In this way man generates himself, he is father of his own being^{255Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, De Vita Moysis, II, 2-3: PG 44, 327B-328B: “unde fit, ut nos ipsi patres quodammodo simus nostri ... vitii ac virtutis ratione fingentes”.}, he constructs the social order^{256Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 13: AAS 83 (1991), 809-810.}.

Freedom is not contrary to man's dependence as a creature on God^{257Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1706.}. Revelation teaches that the power to decide good and evil does not belong to man but to God alone (cf. Gen 2:16-17). “Man is certainly free, inasmuch as he can understand and accept God's commands. And he possesses an extremely far-reaching freedom, since he can eat ‘of every tree of the garden'. But his freedom is not unlimited: it must halt before the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil', for it is called to accept the moral law given by God. In fact, human freedom finds its authentic and complete fulfilment precisely in the acceptance of that law”^{258John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, 35: AAS 85 (1993), 1161-1162.}.

The proper exercise of personal freedom requires specific conditions of an economic, social, juridic, political and cultural order that “are too often disregarded or violated. Such situations of blindness and injustice injure the moral life and involve the strong as well as the weak in the temptation to sin against charity. By deviating from the moral law man violates his own freedom, becomes imprisoned within himself, disrupts neighbourly fellowship and rebels against divine truth”^{259Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1740.}. Removing injustices promotes human freedom and dignity: nonetheless, “the first thing to be done is to appeal to the spiritual and moral capacities of the individual and to the permanent need for inner conversion, if one is to achieve the economic and social changes that will truly be at the service of man”^{260Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Libertatis Conscientia, 75: AAS 79 (1987), 587.}.