Morality, Objective Truth and the Obedience of Faith

In his OpEd, "Birth Control, Bishops and Religious Authority" published March 15th in the Opinionator Blog on nytimes.com, Gary Gutting takes us on a rolicking ride of ridiculousness. For a philosopher, I suppose I would have expected more, but I'll let you judge the veracity of his argument for yourself. One of the first unfortunate comments (sadly, there were many) I read was from a Connie Boyd of Denver, Colorado. She wrote,

"Blind obedience isn't morality. By definition, there is no morality without free will and choice."

I do not consider my adherence to the teachings of the Church to be "blind obedience" at all. Christ founded His Church for a reason: to teach the faith and thereby lead mankind to the Beatific Vision. No where does that imply we should be undiscerning. Serious Catholics should be doing all they can to continue deepening their knowledge of the faith and have properly formed consciences, informed and fed by authentic Catholic teaching. Having done that, we should, according to Lumen Gentium, submit to the teachings of the Church.
 
Conversely, an erroneous conscience can lead us to do things like say...try and justify abortion as a moral good or, it might even be argued, write articles such as Mr. Gutting's or make comments like Ms. Boyd's. I only would wish Ms. Boyd understood that there is no morality without objective truth as well.

Knowing Mr. Gutting is a Catholic and assuming, for the sake of argument, that Ms. Boyd is as well, I would ask them one question. As Christians, what is the better barometer in our faith life, free will or what St. Paul calls the "obedience of faith"?

Just sayin'...