Free Will: Being Human Is Not Easy, by Dr. Jeff Mirus

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture, Feb. 26, 2021

Our intrinsic freedom as human persons is extraordinarily difficult to fathom, as it is hedged on all sides by things which tend to distort or limit it. For example, our freedom is limited by our innate abilities and opportunities. We cannot become doctors without a large measure of intelligence and serious study, any more than we can win a track-and-field event without significant coordination and the health to undergo rigorous training. And even if we possess the requisite physical and mental characteristics, we may never have any opportunity to do some things that we have at least thought we might like to do.

In the human person, the freedom to choose this or that is profoundly conditioned by circumstances over which we have little or no control. There is a kind of enslavement in the human condition. We are in significant ways bound by time and place and opportunity, by the condition of our bodies, by the particular strengths and weaknesses of our personalities, and by various kinds of compulsions which psychologically limit our ability to direct our lives as we would wish. And we must not forget our passions!  …

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