Pope Benedict XVI Quotes

God made man to be free. Anybody can do whatever they want.

Mankind's greatest gift... is that we have free choice.

God created the possibility of evil; people actualized that potentiality. The source of evil is not God's power but mankind's freedom. Even an all-powerful God could not have created a world in which people had genuine freedom and yet there was no potentiality for sin, because our freedom includes the possibility of sin within its own meaning.

But man is freer than all the animals, on account of his free-will, with which he is endowed above all other animals.

From the days of Cain and Abel, we know all too well there will always be evil. But that evil shouldn't take away our freedoms.

There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.

This means that to man God gave a degree of free will.

There's a long tradition in Western thought that humans are not shackled by biology, whereas animals are pure instinct machines.

I believe firmly that in making ethical decisions, man has the prerogative of true freedom of choice.

Man is free at the instant he wants to be.

We are not compelled to believe in biological uniformity in order to affirm human freedom and dignity.

Man is as the Lord made him. But we can change our institutions.

If we grant freedom to man, there is an end to the omniscience of God.

The more, therefore, we consider man to be free, the less we can say, that he can neglect to use reason

The more...we consider man to be free, the less we can say, that he can neglect to use reason, or choose evil in preference to good

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

Mankind is at its best when it is most free.

Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives.

A part of fate is the freedom of man. Forever wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in his soul.

Aegistheus, the kings have another secret.... Once liberty has exploded in the soul of a man, the Gods can do nothing against that man. It is a matter for men to handle amongst themselves, and it is up to other men and to them alone to let him flee or to destroy him.

God's is the causality at the level of our being, and therefore the roots of our freedom. Ours in causality is determinative of what kind of being we're going to be through our free choices, what kind of action we are going to do through our decisions.

I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creatures is born. But only one who can appease their conscience can take over their freedom […] Instead of taking men's freedom from them, Thou didst make it greater than ever! Didst Thou forget that man prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil?

There is too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will. I must concede you the Devil. God doesn't really need to punish us, Miss Barton. We're so busy punishing ourselves.

This tilt of freedom toward evil has come about gradually, but it evidently stems from a humanistic and benevolent concept according to which man—the master of this world—does not bear any evil within himself, and all the defects of life are caused by misguided social systems, which must therefore be corrected.

The essence of man is his freedom. Sin is committed in that freedom. Sin can therefore not be attributed to a defect in his essence. It can only be understood as a self-contradiction, made possible by the fact of his freedom but not following necessarily from it.