Free Will - Choosing the Good, the Beautiful, and the True

Free will has been one of those perennial questions that thinkers and philosophers have tackled for ages. Free will is simple, and yet, how easy it is for us to be enslaved by the choices we make. God has given us free will to choose the Good, the Beautiful, and the True, and choosing them always sets us free. Thanks to the giants of the Church, the saints and doctors of the Church, who have broken it down for us because it really is simple. But may God grant us, laypersons, the grace and the space to understand what free will is and why God has given us free will. 

The Good

It's the freedom to choose what is Good because choosing the opposite simply leads to the not-so-good. Some of us might find pleasure in choosing the bad, but to an extent, end up becoming slaves to it. We become unable to break free from it, and eventually, we find our desires leading us to trouble.  

“Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man’s own will.” - St. Thomas Aquinas

The Beautiful

And as I stare out into the horizon, it feels liberating to be able to choose the beauty out in God's creation versus being enslaved by our phones.    

"Nothing created has ever been able to fill the heart of man. God alone can fill it infinitely." - St. Thomas Aquinas

 The True

Choose truth because it is simply easier to defend truth than a lie. And as Jesus Christ, himself, said: And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:32). 

"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose, it will defend itself." - St. Augustine