MAN’S VOCATION: LIFE IN THE SPIRIT
391
Almighty and merciful God, in your goodness take away from us all that is harmful, so that, made ready both in mind and body, we may freely accomplish your will.~8


IN BRIEF
1743 ‘God willed that man should be left in the hand of his own counsel (cf. Sir 15:14), so that he might of his own accord seek his creator andfreely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him’ (GS 17 § i).

1744 Freedom is the power to act or not to act, and so to perform deliberate acts of one’s own. Freedom attains perfection in its acts when directed towards God, the sovereign Good.

1745 Freedom characterizes properly human acts. It makes the human being responsible for acts of which he is the voluntary agent. His deliberate acts properly belong to him.

1746 The imputability or responsibility for an action can be diminished or null~fied by ignorance, duress,fear and other psychological or socialfactors.

1747 The right to the exercise offreedom, especially in religious and moral matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of man. But the exercise offreedom does not entail the putative right to say or do anything.

1748 ‘For freedom Christ has set us free’ (Gal 5:1).


Article 4
THE MORALITY OF HUMAN ACTS
1749 Freedom makes man a moral subject. When he acts deliberately man is, so to speak, the fat her of his acts. Human acts, that is, acts that are freely chosen in consequence ofajudgement of con- 1732 science, can be morally evaluated. They are either good or evil.

I.
The Sources of Morality
1750 The morality of human acts depends on:
the object chosen;
the end in view or the intention;
the circumstances of the action.
The object, the intention and the circumstances make up the ‘sources’, or constitutive elements, of the morality of human acts.