FREEDOM OR FREE WILL?
Written by Vladimir Moss
FREEDOM OR FREE WILL?
Since at least the sixteenth century, our civilization has taken “freedom” as its slogan and mantra. To take just one example, Leonardo da Vinci: “The chief gift of nature… is freedom.” Liberalism, which is still the dominant moral and political philosophy of the western world, glorifies freedom as the supreme value.
But are we free, or do we just have free will? There is a difference, a big difference. In the beginning, in Paradise before the Fall, Adam and Eve had freedom in the sense that there was no impediment, whether from within or outside themselves, to their acting in full accordance with their nature as God created it. Being free in this sense, they were filled with the Grace of God, willingly and joyfully carrying out the Will of Him, “Whose service is perfect freedom”.
Adam and Eve also had free will. But until the serpent tempted them, there was no need to exercise it, because before that then was no choice presented to them between God’s will and the will of anybody else. Tragically, they then exercised their free will in opposition to God’s will and the natural freedom of their unfallen nature. And this had the further consequence that this natural, primordial freedom was destroyed, as man found himself opposed by a sinful nature within and all kinds of temptations from within and without. He was now bound by sin; the wrong exercise of his free will had led him to the deprivation of his freedom, to slavery to sin, death and the devil…
Liberal politics and morality increase man’s slavery by encouraging him, or at least not forbidding him, to choose their own or some other fallen will against the Will of God.
The only way out of this trap is to return to the truth and recognize the difference between true freedom and free will, aiming to attain the former and not indulging the latter. For, as the Lord say: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 4.22). For we must act, as St. Peter said, “as free, and not using your liberty as a cloak of maliciousness,but as the servants of God.”(I Peter 2.16).
August 23 / September 5, 2018.
Apodosis of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God.
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