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Free to Choose Our society and culture lays great importance the individual's right of self determination. Freedom of choice is the hallmark of western secular pluralist democratic societies. There is no doubt that such freedom is a fine thing and there are many in the world today who are even shedding their blood to achieve such freedom for themselves and their children. However, freedom of choice can never be the last word in any society. Restraint against criminal or anti-social behaviour is a necessary curtailment of our individual liberty. The law defines the necessary boundaries and the judiciary and the police enforce the same. There are two contemporary developments in western culture, however, which have pushed Christianity further and further to the margins not only of public life but private life as well. The first is the idea that the law and the law alone defines what is acceptable and good, distinguishing it from that which is reprehensible and evil. Moreover it is the law enforcement agencies who are the negative guardians of society's values, educators and social workers the positive social engineers who are believed capable of delivering them. In so far as the Church and the clergy come into this equation at all, it is merely to set moral markers for believers themselves. Most secular moralists look with deep antagonism on any attempt by the faith communities, (not just the churches), to extend spiritual values beyond the church, the synagogue, the mosque and the temple. And so we have the first error, that secular law is the only arbiter between good and evil. That there is a higher law than this, the Law of God, doesn't get a look in. Here, of course, secular moralists are in a bit of a bind. It is also a common place that there are supposed to be no absolute moral values. The laws of each country are thought, in large degree, to be dependent on each culture with only certain core values embraced by all. When pressed, however, to state what these core values are, secular moralists either fall back on a politically correct creed, (itself permeated through and through with relativism), or merely shrug and offer bland platitudes, the ideal fodder for politicians, spin doctors and sound bytes. Very quickly it appears that there exists only the most insubstantial of foundations for a secular morality. Only a fleeting secular smile is left from the facing of the disappearing religious Cheshire cat. The second error is in the notion that freedom of choice is simply a good thing because people, given the right information, will choose the right option. So, sex and drugs education in schools largely consists of giving young people the facts. Educators rarely dare to enter the "Thou shalt" and the "Thou shalt not" doors. The only change recently in the UK has been the Government's decision to require teachers to encourage children to avoid premature sexual experience. The idea that choices might be better aligned to objective moral standards is left in the educational sphere to the lonely voice of the Chief Inspector for Schools, Chris Woodhead, widely excoriated by the rest of the teaching profession for this and his other views. The root of this problem is the confusion of "freedom of choice" with "freedom to choose." If we are not free to choose, freedom of choice is an illusion. It is like the drug abuser who complains that he can handle it when he can't. Moreover, even when we have achieved the freedom to choose by the regenerative power of God in our lives, subsequent choices only have value if they follow the natural law or the divine law. The almost complete absence of an acceptance and discussion of these issues in the public domain leaves our public morality fatally flawed, post-Christian and dangerously exposed. The rising tide of selfishness and lawlessness in our culture shows no sign at present in breaking through the facile optimism of those whose creed is humanism and whose inner life lacks any direction save their own. Freedom to choose comes from knowing the truth that sets us free. That truth is the Gospel of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Fr. Gregory |
