Human Person: Dignity, Freedom, and Moral Responsibility

The Definition of a Human Person

The Church defines a human person as someone created in the living image of God, possessing a part of God’s dignity. It invites all people to recognize each other as brothers and sisters, for whom Christ died. A human individual possesses the dignity of a person, not just something but someone, capable of self-knowledge, self-possession, and freely communicating with others. They are called by grace to offer their creator a response of faith and love.

Human Faculties and Society

The Catholic social doctrine is based on the concept of society, created according to a specific cultural model. Man is a rational being, similar to God, created free with power and possession of his own acts.

The Notion of Human Freedom

Human freedom is the power, based in reason and will, to act or not, and to perform deliberate actions on their own responsibility. Freedom attains its perfection when directed towards God. Without it, we cannot speak about morality or moral responsibility. God gave us the right to share an eternal union with Him, which happens when we choose ways that are in harmony with His plan. Christian morality and God’s law are given to us for the pursuit of happiness. We are free to say “yes” to God, but many people today understand human freedom as the ability to make a choice with no objective norm or good as a goal. By deviating from the moral law, man violates his own freedom, becomes imprisoned within himself, and rebels against divine truth.

Natural Freedom

Natural freedom is the exclusive patrimony of those creatures gifted with intelligence or reason. It is the faculty of choosing between those means appropriate to accomplish a certain end. Each of us is responsible for our acts and we are free to decide if we want to return to God.

Moral Freedom

Moral freedom believes that mankind is absolutely free to decide by himself what is objectively good or bad. Freedom, as a faculty, should be applied exclusively to the truth and goodness. The nature of human freedom includes the necessity to obey a higher and eternal reason, which is the authority of God.

Concept of Human Dignity

The person is sacred, made in the image of God. Each person has a human condition and the ability to practice virtues in regard to God, to become the person He wants. But we are free to decide if we want to follow Him or not. There is tension between virtue and vice, good and evil. A just society can become a reality only when it is based on the respect for the dignity of the human person. The person represents the ultimate end of society.

It is necessary that public authorities carefully watch so that restrictions placed on personal activity will never become harmful to personal dignity, but guarantee the effective practicability of human rights. All this is based on the vision of man as a person, an active and responsible subject of his own growth process, together with the community to which he belongs.