Catholic Social Teaching: Grace, Freedom and Eternal Life

It is absurd to believe that anything can have reality apart from God.

Social change cannot come about without an inner conversion, a conversion of the heart. "The acknowledged priority of the conversion of heart," however, "in no way eliminates but on the contrary imposes the obligation of bringing the appropriate remedies to institutions and living conditions when they are an inducement to sin, so that they conform to the norms of justice and advance the good rather than hinder it

CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - In the first two installments of this series on "Jesus and the City," we discussed the centrality of Jesus Christ to the Church's social doctrine.  In trying to understand this very rich and fertile area, we divided the various ways in which Christ is central, reflecting upon the apocalyptical, kenotic, soteriological, and paradigmatic aspects.  In completing these reflections, we now turn to the transformational, eleutherian, and transcendent components of Christ and his centrality to the Church's social doctrine.

The transformational Christ and the transformation of man.

"The inner transformation of the human person, in his being progressively conformed to Christ, is the necessary prerequisite for a real transformation of his relationships with others."  (Compendium, No. 42)  Social change cannot come about without an inner conversion, a conversion of the heart. "The acknowledged priority of the conversion of heart," however, "in no way eliminates but on the contrary imposes the obligation of bringing the appropriate remedies to institutions and living conditions when they are an inducement to sin, so that they conform to the norms of justice and advance the good rather than hinder it." (Compendium, No. 42) 

This transformation--where we conform ourselves to Christ--is not the fruit of our own efforts, though it requires effort on our part nevertheless.  "This path requires grace, which God offers to man in order to help him overcome failings, to snatch him from the spiral of lies and violence, to sustain him and prompt him to restore with an ever new and ready spirit the network of authentic and honest relationships with his fellow men." (Compendium, No. 43)

Finally, this transformation will show itself not only in the manner in which a person treats his neighbor, but in the manner that he treats the entirety of the created universe, and the "human activity aimed at tending it and transforming it, activity which is daily endangered by man's pride and by his inordinate self-love." (Compendium, No. 44)

Christ, therefore, will order the liberal and fine arts, technology, even science, for, although these activities have a certain autonomy relative to their discipline which needs to be respected, these also are meant to operate under the transformative power of Christ, so that they are used not for selfish reasons, but as an expression of love of neighbor and within the confines of the natural law.

The euletherian Christ and the authentic freedom of man.

By demanding man to follow the way of love exhibited by God to man in Jesus, man is in no wise restricted or constrained.  No.  Rather this demand is a call to freedom, to authentic liberty.  For this reason, one of the implications of Christ's revelation is eleutherian, from the Greek word eleutheria, meaning freedom.  "[T]he more that human realities are seen in the light of God's plan and lived in communion with God," the Compendium observes, "the more they are empowered and liberated in their distinctive identity and in the freedom that is proper to them."  (Compendium, No. 45)

Though the activities of man have a certain ordered autonomy and independence, it is a falsehood of great proportion to suggest that any discipline or any activity of man is entirely autonomous from God.  Quoting from Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, the Compendium concludes: "If the expression 'the autonomy of earthly affairs' is taken to mean that created things do not depend on God, and that man can use them without reference to the Creator, anyone who acknowledges God will see how false such a meaning is. For without the Creator, the creature would disappear." (Compendium, No. 46)

It is absurd to believe that anything can have reality apart from God.

The transcendent Christ and man's transcendent destiny.

Man is not meant for this world, but is meant for another world.  Christ, who was God transcendent and God immanent, pointed to this reality.  "The human person, in himself, and in his vocation, transcends the limits of the created universe, of society, and of history: his ultimate end is God himself."  (Compendium, No. 47)  This transcendent destiny makes man's earthly existence relative when compared in the light of another, greater, overarching existence.  The Compendium calls this reality the eschatological relativity and theological relativity of all of man's activities.  All things in heaven and on earth are passing, and they are relative to our ultimate eternal destiny, and relative to the one God who is our destiny.

This truth relativizes all human plans and activities, since it puts at the forefront persons, and most especially the three Persons in one God.  Quoting from John Paul II's encyclical Centesimus Annus, the Compendium states: "Man cannot give himself to a purely human plan for reality, to an abstract ideal, or to a false utopia."  Anything short of God will result in man's alienation from his destiny and alienation from his brother.

"[A] man is alienated if he refuses to transcend himself and to live the experience of self-giving and of the formation of an authentic human community oriented towards his final destiny, which is God."  But not only may man be alienated from God, a society may be similarly alienated from God.  "A society is alienated if its forms of social organization, production, and consumption make it more difficult to offer this gift of self [to God and to others] and to establish this solidarity between people."  (Compendium, No. 47)

The transcendent destiny of man relativizes all of man's temporal doings.  At the same time, that destiny will reject any vision of man which refuses to recognize that transcendent destiny.  For any absolutization of man's earthly world is a form of idolatry.  "Any totalitarian vision of society and the State, and any purely intra-worldly ideology of progress are contrary to the integral truth of the human person and to God's plan in history."  (Compendium, No. 48)

These are bold words, bold concepts.  Where does the Church get the audemus dicere, the "we have the courage to say," to the world that she holds the key to man's nature, to his social relations, to his history, to his freedom, and to his ultimate destiny?

In the final introductory component of the Compendium, the divine warrant of the Church, her credentials as it were to speak to all men, is placed before the world.

Andrew M. Greenwell is an attorney licensed to practice law in Texas, practicing in Corpus Christi, Texas.  He is married with three children.  He maintains a blog entirely devoted to the natural law, called Lex Christianorum.  You can contact Andrew at agreenwell@harris-greenwell.com.

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