Savio
Saldanha SJ
DOI:
10.5281/zenodo.17617724
15
November 2025
Life often places us at crossroads
where neither path seems clearly better or worse. Should I change careers, move
to another country, or remain where I am? Should I marry, or live single in
dedication to service? Such moments are not about choosing between good and
evil –that is never to be an option- but between two kinds of good,
each leading to a different kind of future. These are moments of deep moral and
spiritual significance — what philosopher Ruth Chang calls “hard
choices.”
In her 2017 paper “Hard Choices”
(DOI: 10.1017/apa.2017.7),
Chang argues that our difficulty in such situations is not due to ignorance or
lack of rationality. It is because these choices resist the usual categories of
better, worse, or equal. Two options can be “on a par,”
meaning they are incomparable yet valuable in different ways. The
challenge, therefore, is not to find the objectively correct choice — there is
none — but to recognize that when external reasons run out, we must act from
internal ones. This is where I believe we reach the crossroads where the
knowledge from the books we’ve read, our intellect and rationalism ends. In
such situation we look to someone for guidance or reflect within ourselves to
draw up from the wisdom of our own past experiences in similar cases or look
for guidance from the Divine.
This insight opens a profoundly
existential space for us all. According to Chang, “hard choices are precious
opportunities for us to exercise our normative power — the power to create
reasons for ourselves.” When no external criterion determines what to do,
we become the authors of our own lives. We define ourselves by what we
commit to: “I am someone who commits to the forest,” says the young person
choosing forestry over law. Freedom, then, is not mere preference but self-commitment,
an act of becoming. Ideal choice indeed, but we all know that in such moments
it is not the knowledge of choosing but the courage of choosing is what we need
the most. We look for something to ‘confirm’ us in our choice, as St.
Ignatius would have called it, for a sign that what we are choosing is not only
the better option but the best one at the moment.
Hence for a Christian, this moment
of freedom is not lived in isolation but before God. This is where Ignatian
discernment — the spiritual art developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola —
offers a deeper perspective for Chang’s insight. Ignatius would agree that not
every choice can be resolved by logic; but he would insist that God is
present precisely in those moments where external reasons fall silent. In The
Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius calls such decisions “elections” —
occasions to seek and find God’s will in the concrete texture of one’s desires,
affections, and inner movements.
Ignatian discernment thus transforms
Chang’s self-authorship into co-authorship with God. Freedom
remains essential, but it is now dialogical: I am not the sole source of
meaning; I am a collaborator in a divine story of love. Where Chang’s
thinker asks, “Who do I want to be?”, Ignatian spirituality asks, “Who is God
calling me to become?” This subtle difference shifts decision-making from pure
autonomy to graced freedom — freedom exercised within relationship,
guided by love.
This Ignatian dynamic finds a
profound echo in Pope Francis’s Amoris Laetitia (2016),
particularly in Chapter 8, where he develops a theology of discernment in
complex situations. Francis rejects rigid moralism that seeks clear-cut
answers to every question. Instead, he calls for “responsible personal and
pastoral discernment of particular cases” (AL §300). Echoing both
Chang and Ignatius, he recognizes that some moral questions cannot be resolved
by universal formulas: “It is reductive simply to consider whether or not an
individual’s actions correspond to a general law or rule... What is possible
for one person may not be possible for another.” (AL §304). Here, as
in Chang’s philosophy, Francis sees that reasons ‘run out’ — that is,
objective criteria reach their limit. But unlike a purely secular freedom,
Christian discernment does not end in self-determination alone. For Francis, “discernment
must help to find possible ways of responding to God and growing in the midst
of limits” (AL §305). This is freedom within grace — the
freedom to choose the greater love (magis), the path of deeper communion
with God and others. Francis insists that “we are called to form
consciences, not to replace them” (AL §37) perfectly bridges Chang’s
and Ignatius’s insights. Chang invites us to author our lives; Ignatius invites
us to discern the divine call within our desires; Francis invites the Church to
accompany that process, forming consciences capable of genuine moral
creativity. In this triad, conscience is not a mechanical calculator of moral
rules but a living, discerning faculty that listens for God’s voice amid
competing goods.
Seen in this light, Amoris
Laetitia can be read as a pastoral application of Chang’s insight about
“parity.” Many human situations — especially in family life — involve goods
that are incomparable: fidelity and forgiveness, truth and mercy, ideal and
reality. Francis teaches that discernment is not the suspension of moral truth
but its personalization — allowing the Spirit to reveal how God’s
universal love becomes concrete in my particular history. Thus, when external
reasons run out, the Christian does not drift into relativism or self-assertion.
Instead, she/he turns inward and upward; seeking the quiet voice of the Spirit
that whispers in their heart. Hard choices, then, are not obstacles to faith
but occasions of encounter — moments where we exercise our freedom with
God, not apart from Him. They become the very moments when we realize what St.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:6-7, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out
of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts… But we have this treasure
in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to
us.” Our human fragility and limit (“jars of clay”) becomes the very place
where God’s light shines. In discernment, we do not need perfect knowledge; we
need an open heart where God’s light can enter. This is where we become aware
of the movements of His Spirit in our life, guiding us, leading us and walking
with us.
I feel this is exactly what Pope Francis in his vision of mercy and
accompaniment in Amoris Laetitia (§291–312) would say, ‘the imperfect
life can still radiate grace’.
Ruth Chang shows us that hard
choices define who we are. Ignatius and Pope Francis show that they also reveal
whose we are — beloved children and co-workers of God’s creative love.
When we discern in this way, decision-making becomes a sacred act: not a quest
for perfection, but a humble commitment to walk with the God who calls us to
love in freedom.
References
- Chang, Ruth
(2017). “Hard Choices.” American Philosophical Association Proceedings,
1(1), 1–22. DOI: 10.1017/apa.2017.7
- Francis, Pope. Amoris
Laetitia: The Joy of Love. Apostolic Exhortation, 2016.
- Ignatius of
Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises, §§169–189 (“Making an Election”).
- Ganss, George E.
(ed.). The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius: A Translation and
Commentary. Chicago: Loyola Press, 1992.
Well written Savio, the way you linked three significant thought processes, to show their connections...
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