Dr Paul Morrissey spoke on the topic of “The Sacraments and Salvation” at CYM’s 2018 Embrace the Grace youth conference on 6 December. Photo: Matthew Lau.
By Amanda Murthy
Sydney Theologian Dr Paul Morrissey has last week delivered a talk titled “Freedom for Excellence: Why a classical understanding of freedom is needed today”.
The one-hour talk, held on Wednesday 5 December at Northbridge organised by The Dawson Society for Philosophy & Culture, analysed the positive and negative aspects of freedom from a spiritual and historical perspective.
“Christ said, ‘You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’, Dr Morrissey began.
“Today our Australian culture challenges that by saying I am free to make up my own truth, freedom is divorced from any objective sense of truth.
“Rather than the truth making us free, much of society today believe that it is their freedom that makes the truth – and this is a massive problem.
“Let us first ask ourselves, ‘What does it mean to be free?’.”
Making references to the recent “gender law” passed in Tasmania and the current debate on whether schools should teach religion, Dr Morrissey said these were examples of how certain forces within politics and cultures try to eliminate the freedom of religious beliefs.
This, however, was not always the case, Dr Morrissey suggested.
“In the past, freedom was never seen as being possible from other things, it had to be integrated with what it meant to be human and the world around us and with God,” he added.
“You couldn’t just say: ‘I’m free’.”
Dr Paul Morrissey delivered a talk titled “Freedom for Excellence: Why a classical understanding of freedom is needed today” on 5 December at Rosie O’Grady’s, Northbridge. Photo: Joshua Low.
Dr Morrissey went on to say that God created human beings from love, noting that he gave them the freedom to choose between right and wrong, also known as free-will.
Drawing inspiration from Dominican Priest and Moral Theologian Fr Servais-Théodore Pinckaers OP, Dr Morrissey shared three theories to freedom.
“The freedom of indifference explains the morality of obligation to do good versus evil.”
The second theory, he said, revolves around the freedom of restraint.
“When Adam and Eve were in the garden, God gave them freedom to choose.”
Dr Morrissey explained that at a certain stages in our lives, limitations are taken away from us.
“But the negative [restraint has to be done for a positive] – freedom is taken from us to discipline us, and at the same time, we believe that God gives us the grace to live the moral life of perfection.”
The final theory inspired by Fr Pinkaers is the freedom for excellence. This theory suggests that freedom has to be learned, implemented, and followed.
“The child needs a master, a teacher to teach them discipline – and another word for ‘discipline’ is ‘disciple’.”
Dr Morrissey added that a disciple of Christ, we believe that freedom has to be connected towards truth.
“That truth is God. We can look to the saints for inspiration, as in their own different ways serve as a perfect example of how to be free.”