On Freedom

In this postmodern age many espouse a rash skepticism to any ancient narrative for its dogmatic and all too exclusive explanation about the origin and meaning of life and of this world.  Yet we all fall prey to the temptation of our own authoring in the throes of vilifying the older narratives with their so called chain-linked hold over our freedom to choose what is right for ourselves.  However, I think narratives in general get a bad wrap the way iron gates and bars do.  Some would only view an iron fence surrounding a building as an attempt to keep a person from getting out or only from getting in, which is a fair assesment.  But all too often many will assign a negative connotation to the simple thought of barracading anything, when all the while they were built to protect, providing a safety of sorts for the one within and/or without the gates.  The point here is that one should invest greater time upon purpose, and not just the reality of separation.  With narratives, like a gates or anything that contains, comes purpose for the people within them, and with purpose also comes imperatives and conditions for well-being and flourishing.  Of course, this would assume that what the narrative has to say about reality holds to be true.  But most narratives aren’t pondered and studied long enough to determine their legitimacy.

Even more interesting however, it appears that this present generation does more authoring than any before it by denying the earlier narratives for their restrictions upon “freedom of choice”.  They exchange one set of shackles as too exclusive, as most rational skeptics would have it, for another shinier pair on the basis of pragmatism (pragmatic being what just works or fits one’s lifestyle from mere passions and desires as opposed to an objective framework within which human beings are obliged or ought to live their lives), all the while having convinced themselves that they have found liberation.  But how does a character within the story author his own narrative without first being a character?  If in fact it is only man that is doing all of the authoring of these narratives, then clearly it is only the conclusions of other men and women–to also include the secular humanist narrative with all their ideals and conclusions–from which we are running.  But if at least one of these narratives is not the mere product of human authoring, then greater questions loom large over the whole of humanity which is:  If it is not mere fables and myths made by men we are running from, then what, or better yet, from whom are we running?  And is this mysterious narrative-giver desiring to communicate with us in a personal way if at all?  After all we live on a small planet in a big universe where we have not far to run, especially if we consider that the earth is spherical.  So we are doomed and bound to run into this narrative-giver at least once at some point in our lives–some even repeatedly.

So to come back to the liberation that seemingly comes from shaking off the old narratives, freedom and agency actually entails limits and many people today get this wrong.  In the place of one explanation for human flourishing, another will have to replace the former.  So hating the confinement of the former definition, many have sought their liberation by re-writing the narrative through a war on words, starting with freedom.  Freedom has become entitlement to act on anything one desires.  Or better put, freedom is the limitless entitlement to satisfy any and every human craving.  Legislative bodies, particularly in the West, are giving into this cultural redefinition even now.  So those that buy into this defintion tend to reason why not tap those appetites ad infinitum until they die, especially if the narrative-giver is believed to only be penned by the characters themselves.  It should be unsurprising to the reader that this belief is old as man’s existence, this holy mantra-bell of hedonist philosophy, having come in all shapes and sizes of human tribute to their makers or to themselves.

I would submit that mere freedom inherently carries an objective warning or fine print, as it were, that allows one to do any and all things, but fill in the consequence here accordingly, whether good or bad.  There is no such thing as anything coming to be without a cost; something must be spent.  Freedom itself has no meaning unless there were conditions and constraints from the beginning.  Moreover there is also an intentionality to the inherent restraint infused in freedom.  Freedom implies room for something to flourish within that which binds, envelopes, refines, and/or restrains everything therein.  But again, it is for each person to determine if gates and bars are for keeping one in or something or someone out, or both.   If it is both, then this reveals something dark lurks outside the gates from which one is being protected, and that something dark within the individual drives him to tear down the fence so that he may wander outside the limits of safety into the darkness, that from within, appears to promise more outside, than what is already inside.   Before tearing down a fence, one must pause long enough to at least consider why the fence was put there in the first place, and most importantly, by whom the fence was built and why.

One final sharp thought arises among all the previous questions at this juncture.  If human beings are allegedly inherently good, as most would say of themselves and all other people (contrary to the verifiable existential evidence for the evil of which human beings are capable and history has shown), why then are laws, governments and prisons necessary?  Before we give birth to children, do we think up all of the rules and punishments first, or all of the wealth of comforts and enjoyments we can afford to lavish upon our little ones?  Surely the latter is always the ideal despite our better judgement about young human’s proneness for finding trouble to get into.  On a much grander scale, it was not hell God had in mind, but rather a paradisiacal dwelling in which He placed us to have perfect unity with Him through His Spirit on earth.  This is an old narrative that is rejected today, but it explains the present reality very well.  Clearly, from all the evidences around us, from the eating of the fruit of the tree of good and evil to this day, a conflict between life and death developed.  Someone was allowed to step into human gene pool and run amuck of what was intended in our nature since then. Here is a hint:  first humans messed up our heritage.  The choice to do what was freely possible on the day of the fall of man was enticing, pleasurable and blindingly promising of power.  But with the clear advantage of 50-50 hindsight, freedom itself was not the virtue, the word of God was the source of our virtue and protection–the narrative-giver gave us a message that was actually by no means fine print conditions for living and loving Him in perfect unity for all eternity.  He spoke and Adam and Eve heard God and understood clearly how they were to live and be satisfied.  It is within the bounds of God’s word that we find ultimate and endless freedom and joy.  Anything that would promise life, health, joy and prosperity outside of God is counterfeit goodness, illusive and leads only to death.

So we can understand why the Psalmist said, “To all perfection I see a limit, but your commands are boundless.”  Psalm 119:96