Freedom, Morality and Natural Law: The “Aquinas on Liberty” Essay

Aquinas on Liberty

As long as we abide in partial darkness, we will continue to be conquered.

If we looked very closely at the idea of liberty, we would discover that there is a radical distinction between true human liberty and liberty falsely so-called. Indeed, liberty falsely so-called is that same liberty which the New World Order qualifies as the “bait of an idea to attract the masses of the people to one’s party for the purpose of crushing another who is in authority,” and as an idea of freedom which is really an “infection,” and as a “slackening of the reins of government.”¹

Where does the false idea of liberty come from? What is false liberty? What is true liberty? Knowledge of the correct answers to these questions is still lacking in the bulk of the patriot movement; and to the degree that it is lacking, so is integral unity and true power to overcome the menace. Until the patriot movement unifies itself under true philosophical principles, it will win only apparent victories, while the satanic New World Order continues its long march to total global domination.²

True liberty is the highest of natural endowments. It is the portion only of intellectual or rational natures; and it confers on man this dignity – that he is in the hand of his counsel and has power over his actions. But the manner in which such dignity is exercised is of the greatest moment, inasmuch as on the use that is made of liberty the highest good and the greatest evil alike depend. Man, indeed, is free to obey his reason, to seek moral good, and to strive unswervingly after his last end. Yet he is free also to turn aside to all other things; and, in pursuing the empty semblance of good, to disturb rightful order and to fall headlong into the destruction which he has voluntarily chosen. Worse still are those who promote a false and absurd notion of liberty, by perverting the idea of freedom, or extending it to things in respect of which man cannot rightly be regarded as free.³

The Declaration of Independence states as follows: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.⁴

Sad to say, this is a very ambiguous, and therefore dangerous, proposition, as it is subject to any number of conflicting interpretations. Indeed, the proof of its weakness is the young age of the total collapse of the American Republic. Obviously, that clause has not been interpreted properly. If it had been, we would not have devolved into barbarity in less than two hundred fifty years. It can be argued that the American Republic was built on Freemasonic sand; and thus if we are going to rebuild it, we might want to re-codify our foundational principles. In order for America to throw of its internationalist oppressors, a proper understanding of natural human liberty, in the minds and hearts of the American people, is indispensably necessary. For we the people have been brought low, and have been rendered soft and vulnerable as the direct result of having imbibed and believed a false notion of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.⁵

As a natural endowment given to human nature by God, the omnipotent Creator of the universe, liberty must exist for an end or ultimate purpose. And this end must be identical to the essential determination and composition of human nature, which is rational, i.e., intellectual and volitional. The end, or object, both of the rational will and of its liberty is that good only which is in conformity with reason.⁶

Liberty belongs only to those who have the gift of reason or intelligence. Animals do not possess liberty. Considered as to its nature, it is the faculty of choosing means fitted for the end proposed, for he is master of his actions who can choose one thing out of many. Freedom of choice is, therefore, the essential property of the human will. But the will cannot proceed to act until it is enlightened by intellectual knowledge. For the proper object of the will is the good. The will cannot proceed to act until it is enlightened by the intellect. Nothing can be desired by the will unless it is judged by the intellect to be a good. Thus in all voluntary acts, choice is subsequent to an intellectual judgment that something is good or desirable.⁷

The will is referred to as the appetitive power of the soul or the rational appetite. Like the intellect, the will is a spiritual faculty. It is that power through which an individual seeks to execute an act or attain to an object proposed to it by the intellect. The object of the will is always the good, and even in the election of evil, it must be proposed to the will under the appearance of good. Anything chosen as a means is therefore viewed under some aspect of goodness.⁸

Therefore because in all voluntary acts choice is subsequent to a judgment upon the truth of the good presented, declaring to which good preference should be given, it is an immutably true principle that human liberty depends entirely on intellectual judgments that conform to reason and the natural law. If a judgment which does not conform to the natural law or to reason, and which is, therefore, objectively false and immoral, is acted upon by the will, then it is a source of grave disorder in society. Exponentially multiply the number of individual immoral acts, and you have a Republic that collapses from moral decay in a short period of time.⁹

Hedonism, i.e., the tyranny of the passions, has no place in the well ordered man or in the well ordered civilization. Unfortunately our elitist overlords have long been at dumbing us down to the level of beasts that cannot employ their natural rational endowments, but only their carnal lusts. We allowed this to happen to us because we mistakenly believed that the lie they told us, namely that true liberty is the “right” to do whatever we want, whenever we want, as long as it is not illegal or discoverable. True liberty is an essential property of objective truth and morality. Therefore there can be no true liberty in a civilization that enshrines moral relativity.¹⁰