Freedom

The quest for freedom is high on most people’s agenda today, and it has also been one of the main threads of human history. We speak of freedom in many ways—personal freedom, freedom of speech and association, academic freedom, free trade, freedom of the press. We also talk about individual liberties, liberation theology and religious liberty. Other basic freedoms often discussed include freedom from want, fear or interference, and freedom of choice, conscience or opportunity. Common phrases that sum up many people’s attitudes toward freedom include “doing your own thing,” “going your own way,” or “it’s up to you (or me).” Recently, in one year alone more than one thousand books contained the word freedom in their titles. Yet the glowing way people in democracies spoke about their freedom a generation ago has given way to complaints that they are losing it as the hands of bureaucracies and big business extend into their private lives. Paradoxically, this is happening at the very time political freedom has come to totalitarian societies in many parts of the world.

The loss of freedom has been a recurring theme of many modern thinkers, especially those interested in the physical and social sciences. They have talked rather of the appearance of freedom and of our being conditioned and determined by biological, psychological and sociological conditions. Art and literature have also struggled with the constraints on human freedom, as the writings of existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre, pessimistic humanists like Somerset Maugham and Ernest Hemingway, and apocalyptists like H. G. Wells demonstrate. Similar themes are now appearing with greater frequency in popular film and music; this is especially interesting in view of their general tendency to promote individual and democratic freedom. The burgeoning of fantasy and science fiction has often been accompanied by dark visions of the future in which the human race is enslaved by an elite group, an oppressive ideology, a technological development or some combination of the three.

While Christians thinkers have often emphasized our lack of genuine freedom as a result of the Fall (Genesis 3; Romans 5), apart from some writers influenced by Marxist thought they have generally held a positive view of the social and political freedoms available to people. There are occasional voices that speak in more reserved tones, such as lay theologian Jacques Ellul, who in his book The Presence of the Kingdom goes so far as to claim that in no other civilization have we been so constrained. Previously we may have been the slaves of hunger, natural circumstances or other people, but we have always managed to remain master of the greater part of our time and major use of our energies. The all-pervasive effects of our modern technologies and bureaucracies actually render us less personally and socially free than people who lived in earlier times (Ellul, pp. 63-64). Even when we are personally free, we operate under certain constraints that are inherent in being creatures rather than the Creator, and in living in a fallen world.

An Early Christian View and Practice of Freedom

Freedom is generally regarded as for something, as giving people the opportunity of exercising choice in a range of areas. This is certainly one aspect of freedom. But the Bible sees it as involving far more. Already in Old Testament times, the freeing of God’s people from Egypt was more than a liberation from the tyranny they were experiencing. It was a freedom to become a nation in their own land. From that point Israel’s story is the struggle of God’s attempts to preserve and deepen that freedom in the face of the people’s willingness to yield it to alien gods, or for some among them to deprive others of it. Interestingly, it is on behalf of a deeper freedom that God for a time exiles the people from their own land and self-government. It is with the coming of Jesus that a fuller freedom becomes available (John 8:32). Among the New Testament writers it is Paul, who has rightly been called “the apostle of freedom,” who gives most attention to this.

Paul’s starting point is the common biblical belief that though human beings are made for God, each other and their world, they have lost their way in all three areas of life. As a result, they are enslaved and no longer free to properly know or pursue their real potential. This takes place in three main ways.

Humans find themselves under an inner compulsion to sin (Romans 6:17, 20; Romans 7:14, 25). They put their confidence in their human endeavors (“works”) or creaturely strength (“flesh”), and so are mostly preoccupied with their personal or group concerns and with their moral and religious heritage or accomplishments (Romans 2:17ff; Romans 3:20; Phil. 3:3ff).

Humans are unable to respond fully to the moral requirements of the law or the moral imperative written by God in their hearts (Romans 1:32; Romans 3:23). So they drift into an immoral, or harden into a hypermoral, way of life through which they continue to express their self-centered natures (Romans 1:24ff; Romans 10:1ff).

Humans are in bondage to physical or supernatural realities. Death (Romans 1:32; Romans 6:5), various cosmic and social forces (Galatians 4:3; Ephes. 6:12; Col. 2:8), and Satan (2 Cor. 4:4; Ephes. 2:2) blind their judgment, affect them adversely and ultimately destroy them (see Principalities and Powers).

The upshot of all this is that we are less free than we generally think and are all linked in a solidarity of sin (Romans 5:12ff). This does not mean that we altogether lack freedom. Up to a point we can understand God (Romans 1:19-21), do what is right (Romans 2:14) and develop a relatively well-functioning social and political way of life (Romans 13:1-7). But our capacities are severely limited and deeply flawed in each of these areas.

Only if we can see life differently, find release from these forces and receive power to change our patterns of behavior can we regain the freedom that was God’s original intention for us (Genesis 1-2). We can do these things because of his long-planned vision of a divine kingdom made possible by Christ’s suffering for our bondage to sin, works and the flesh, and his conquest over supernatural powers, death and Satan (2 Cor. 5:21; Galatians 3:13; Col. 2:15). When Christ did this he became the representative and foundation of a new humanity (1 Cor. 15:20ff; 2 Cor. 4:6; 2 Cor. 5:17; Ephes. 2:14-15). To live out this new freedom we have been granted, we need a new source of power, and it is this that the Spirit provides. The Spirit grants us genuine freedom to choose a different way of life (Romans 5:5; 1 Cor. 2:10-11), one that is based on truth and empowered by love. We still experience the pull of the old life and sometimes yield to it, and only in the Last Day will we experience our full freedom in Christ (Romans 7:21-25). But we can live now in the knowledge that the issue has already been decided and that through the Spirit we are undergoing a profound transformation into the likeness of Christ (Romans 8:1-11; 2 Cor. 3:16-18). This is why Paul can say, and say so confidently, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17).

Some Dimensions and Expressions of Freedom

From a biblical point of view, then, there are three dimensions to freedom.

Freedom involves independence from the physical and supernatural realities mentioned above. These enslave and prevent us from becoming the people God wants us to be and doing the things God wants us to do. This dimension of freedom tends to be in view today only when people are experiencing some strong addiction or obsession. Then there is a clear recognition of what they need to be liberated from. Even when people constantly give in to various weaknesses or failings, they tend to think that this is because they do not know the full consequences of what they are doing or do not exert the inherent willpower they have to break free of these shortcomings. But sin is not basically due to ignorance, nor can it be overcome by an act of will. Twelve-step groups like Alcoholics Anonymous fully understand this, and it is why they are often effective instruments for change.

Freedom involves independence for other things. These include becoming a person full of the character of Christ (Galatians 6:2) and virtues of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), undertaking new activities characterized by serving of God and others (Romans 7:17-18) and assisting in the ultimate liberation of the created order from its bondage to decay (Romans 8:18-23; 2 Cor. 4:11-18). The majority of people do not understand this, and in fact tend to see religion as involving a loss of personal freedom. But it is in giving ourselves up to Christ that we discover true freedom. All other forms of freedom are secondary compared to the life-changing freedom that springs from this, which, in any case, is not only internal but also external life, affecting a person’s health, relationships and everyday behavior. Though other freedoms are important, without this at the core of a person’s life they lack a proper center. For this reason, a genuine preaching of the gospel is the greatest and most political or revolutionary contribution anyone can make to human freedom in the world today.

Freedom involves interdependence with others. First of all we lean on God, with whom we now have the greatest intimacy and mutuality (Romans 8:15-18; Galatians 4:1-7) and with whom we work freely and cooperatively (1 Cor. 15:58 ). Second, we have an interdependence with others, which includes opening ourselves up to them (2 Cor. 3:12; 2 Cor. 6:11; 2 Cor. 7:4; 2 Cor. 8:2; 2 Cor. 9:13) as well as loving and serving them (1 Cor. 9:19; 1 Thes. 2:8). Christians see a developing relationship and working partnership with God mostly as a consequence of our freedom through Christ. Indeed freedom in the truest sense is simply willing obedience to the One we most truly love—God, “whose service,” as the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer beautifully puts it, “is perfect freedom.” But little do we understand the vital connection between freedom and our relationship and partnership with others. We tend to think of freedom too much in individual, or even individualistic, terms. Yet, as Christ exhibited, true freedom issues not in self-service but in service of others (see Ministry). It also issues in deepening relationships, motivated and saturated by love, that open up even greater freedom for those involved and flow naturally into the lives of others in a liberating way. While marriage and vocation are two expressions of this, so also are the church and mission.

These three dimensions of freedom have multiple levels of expression. Through them God encourages us to freely investigate every aspect of life—from examining the smallest particles of matter to studying the furthest reaches of space, from freeing people from personal constraints to liberating them from external forms of oppression, from inventing the simplest games for children to exploring the most complex reaches of art and music, from developing fresh ways of doing things unhindered by past traditions to formulating new forms of understanding institutional structures, from making one’s contribution in neighborhood and civic life to engaging in wider social and political action on behalf of the greater freedom of others.

But as philosopher John Macmurray tirelessly pointed out, unless individual freedom finds expression in the freedom of community, other freedoms that we might desire are not built on a lasting foundation or are built in such a way that they become distorted and questionable. This is why one of the most significant contributions we can make to expanding political or democratic freedom is developing forms of Christian community inside and alongside our churches that can become the model, stimulus and support of our wider efforts.

We recognize that freedom is generally a developing phenomenon and that in some cases it exists long term under the most limited circumstances. For example, children progress to it gradually as parents reduce constraints on them; encourage them to criticize, judge and choose for themselves; and watch them voluntarily develop different views or embrace what they earlier believed on parental authority. Also, some people cannot escape living under all kinds of constraints—whether physical or psychological, religious or institutional, economic or political—over the long haul. Within these constraints they can still enjoy spiritual, mental and relational freedom and, as far as it is possible, they can still work toward greater freedom on all these fronts, knowing that not all depends on their efforts and that, whether they succeed or fail, ultimately there awaits them the full liberty of the kingdom of God. It is this anticipation that saves them from expecting too much or giving up in resignation. Meanwhile they are able to experience the multidimensional freedom of Christ that has come to them from God through the Spirit.

» See also: Individual

» See also: Spiritual Conflict

» See also: Spiritual Growth

References and Resources

R. Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994); N. Berdyaev, Freedom and the Spirit (London: Bles, 1948); J. Ellul, The Ethics of Freedom (London: Mowbrays, 1976); J. Ellul, The Presence of the Kingdom, 2d ed. (Colorado Springs: Helmers and Howard, 1989); E. Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Avon, 1941); Sidney Hook, ed., Freedom and Experience (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1947); R. N. Longenecker, Paul: The Apostle of Liberty (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1966); M. Luther, Christian Liberty (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957); J. Macmurray, Conditions of Freedom (Atlantic Light, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1993); J. Murphy-O’Connor, Freedom and Love: The Guide for Christian Life (Rome: St. Paul’s Aldray, 1981); H. Thielicke, The Freedom of the Christian Man: A Christian Confrontation with the Secular Gods (New York: Harper & Row, 1963).

—Robert Banks