Freedom!
While editing a piece for our newsletter on the liberal arts, I was struck how skewed a view of freedom we have today.
Consider this definition of the liberal arts:
The liberal arts are the learned habits of thought and speech considered essential for a free man.
This is completely foreign to modern man. Why would any habits of thought and speech be essential to a free man?
I think it's because we're born fit to be slaves. For our very survival, someone else will have to tell us what to do and when to do it and how to do it, or we'll just lie in bed late and go hungry, or take to stealing, I suppose. But a free man can look beyond immediate wants for the greater good, and govern himself, and stay generally out of debt, jail, and starvation.
Today freedom is equated with self-service, whereas I think it used to be self-governance.
posted by A. Steinberg @ 9:02 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I think this skewed view of freedom contributes, or even is the direct cause, of the cult of victimization which permeates our culture. We don't have intellectual freedom (which, I suppose, in Biblical language is really just self-control) anymore, so we deify the worse forms of freedom - or not even freedom, really. We deify suffering, being oppressed, being alone.
That's a connection I hadn't thought of. Do you think it has to do with taking no responsibility for one's life?
I think so. It's all part of the 'new psychology' and people being a product only of their environment. Which, interestingly enough, I think comes directly from evolutionary theory. If people have no souls, if we are only animals then of course we are only a product of our environment. We are not responsible becuase, ultimately, we don't have any free will. We are predetermined by our genes and childhood.
Nicely put. St. Paul reminds us that we are all slaves. We are either slaves to sin, or slaves to righteousness. So the only true freedom is found through Him. Those carnally minded (unregenerate or simply walking according to the flesh) can never be fully free in the biblical sense. Christ is in the business of restoring all things to Himself. I think OC spirituality gets it right on this point. Freedom, and peace, come from being one with God.
Nice blog. I found you going through the continuing Anglican blogring.
Grace to you and glory to Him!
Don+
Thanks for visiting, Father, and come again.
I should probably have distinguished between spiritual freedom and social freedom for the sake of the discussion. It's best to have both (when we can handle the latter) but I agree that spiritual freedom is fundamental and found only in Christ.
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