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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
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).
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.
1750
The morality of human acts depends on:
—
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.
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