The Freedom of Lent

Lent is upon us again, with its forty days of fasting, penance, and almsgiving. That it is here, again, might be a source of wry amusement—indeed, maybe even a bit of resignation—since it is often the case that the vices and defects of this year are so similar to the vices and defects of the previous year. Here we go again. 

The development of moral integrity is slow. It can feel that in taking stock of our lives we need only say “ditto” to our previous reflections. Here we go again, it’s still me, as I still am. We wish it were easier, faster, and that it didn’t require the moral habituation of overcoming ourselves this time, the next time, and the next time, again. 

There is a sort of religiosity at hand in viewing the moral life through the lens of “decisionism.” In this account, one embraces faith in a moment—in an ultimate, life-changing decision—and the moral life is understood as discrete and mostly unconnected moments. This challenge presents itself, and a decision is made. Another opportunity arises—a decision is made. A temptation beckons—decide. But this is a truncated view of human nature and moral agency. We never act in a vacuum; instead, we act always within a nexus of entanglements with culture, language, and history—including our personal history of experiences, circumstances, and how we have constituted our character. As Woody Allen once noted, “All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it.” Previous actions, especially habitual actions, shape our character and dispositions, and we become inclined to act in keeping with our second natures, whether distorted or virtuous. We’re always free to choose otherwise, but experientially it can seem that the choice immediately in front of us has been already made by the long accumulation of past actions thoroughly informing our desires here and now.

Decisionism is naïve, but it recognizes the reality and obligation of choice. A far greater challenge to moral integrity is the widespread view, quite prevalent at the moment, that humans are largely helpless, bereft of agency. This view says that we are subject to our bodies, our desires, our genes, our ancestors, along with various sociological, political, and historical forces beyond our knowledge and control. Life happens to us, and we exhibit behaviors rather than actions. Behaviors can be modified though some sort of technique, medication, or therapy, perhaps, but technique is fundamentally different in its function from, say, practical reason in the order of voluntary action which constitutes the moral life. 

In Man in the Field of Responsibility, Karol Wojtyła suggests that those who reduce morality to “an aggregate of psychological or sociological phenomena” alienate themselves from actual moral reflection, since they reduce the essence of morality to the wrong genus of thought (reductio in aliud genus). Ethics must have its point of departure, its founding commitment, from the proper form of reason (reductio in proprium genus); in other words, one must understand the very essence of morality, without which one is not engaging in moral reflection at all. It’s an easy mistake to make. Take utilitarianism, for example. Because utilitarianism tends to view the moral life in the domain of technique, it is not in any way a system of ethics.

If we are to engage in moral reflection, properly understood, we must consider the domain of voluntary action (however conditioned by other factors, including our previous choices) from the standpoint of practical reason—that is, reason considering not the truth of what already is but the truth of what ought to be done. 

Moreover, as Wojtyła explains, taking this stance presents us with the fundamental essence of the moral life, namely, “that I ought to do X.” This is no small recognition, for not only does this perspective properly recognize the reality of choice—of doing—along with duties and demands—the ought—but it presents us with the stark, unyielding fact that it is I who have acted. Choice brings into view not only states of affairs in the world we wish to actualize or avoid, but also brings into view that I am the one making this choice, and that I am responsible for this choice. This choice not only causes states of affairs—goods and bads in the world and for other people—but this choice makes me good or bad, righteous or unrighteous, just or unjust. In choice, I constitute the character of myself, who I am, either in integrity or distortion.

Lent is a sign of contradiction, rejecting the errors of both decisionism and all varieties of determinism. We are free, and it is possible to choose either rightly or wrongly. In choosing wrongly we distort ourselves, which tends to further, subsequent distortion of our choice, and yet the individual person is responsible for making himself or herself distorted and less morally free. In Wojtyła’s terms, “The essence of ‘moralitas’ lies in the fact that a man, as a man, becomes good or evil through the act.” Lent makes the stark demand that we recognize our moral responsibility and take an honest, thorough, and searching look at our integrity and distortion, recognizing that it is we who have done this to ourselves. Whatever others have done to us, for good or ill, they cannot make us good or evil—only we can make ourselves good or evil.

Lent is not merely an occasion to give up chocolate or beer, do a few good deeds, and give a bit more to charity, although those are all acceptable ways to do penance. Lent is more: an intransigent insistence that humans are free and possess, in whatever condition they happen to find themselves, the dignity of responsibility. So often we wish to ignore or deny our responsibility, but that is to deny our dignity and our freedom. Lent asks us to refuse to do so, and by demanding acknowledgment of sins affords us the opportunity to recognize the great glory of our humanity. 

Here we are, again, presented with the chance to be fully human, fully alive, and fully free—all by recognizing the shocking reality of our responsibility. Lent is a time for self-examination, contrition, and correction, yes—but that is good news.

Image by zatletic and licensed via Adobe Stock.