What do we mean by "freedom"?
Dear family, friends, and Internet strangers,
I’ve been thinking about a lot of different things this month, but it all boils down to one thing: True freedom is found only in submission to the God of everything.
That sounds like a paradox, right? And if you’re not a Christian, this sounds like propaganda. So I want to explore what this sentence means, if you’ll have the patience to read a little longer. I don’t intend this to be a comprehensive study, but it’s my exploration of the topic of freedom right now.
First, a definition of “freedom”, in a usable and desirable sense, is somewhat elusive. The simplest idea is something like, “to be unconstrained”, but you quickly run into the problem that being free in one area necessitates a constraint in another area, whether for yourself or for others.
And “others” matter. I strongly believe any comprehensive understanding of desirable freedom must take other people into account, not just siloed individual people. I think we like to imagine, at times, particularly here in the U.S., that we do not affect one another. Our culture runs so far from the problems of more collective-oriented structures that we frequently find ourselves at the other extreme. Yet you quickly notice if others’ freedoms are inhibiting your own—so we must consider society as well as ourselves.
For example, we value freedom of speech and the press. Yet we do not think people should be free to slander others, so we have, for instance, libel laws to prohibit slander in print. Would we be freer without those laws?
Perhaps you wish to lie about others, maliciously, in print, and you feel your freedom is hampered by the consequences to you that currently exist in the law. Yet if libel were not punishable, we would more easily be chained by other people’s words.
So “freedom” in a desirable and practical sense is not simply the ability to act as we please, without limit. It acknowledges how we affect the freedom of others, and how the freedoms of others can affect us.
The word that comes up in many writings on the topic of freedom, to acknowledge the reality of the consequences of free choice, is “responsibility”. For instance, I am, in one sense, free to lie about people when I write—I can physically do that—but I must accept that there are consequences to that. There is something I must do to pay for the harm that comes from my free choices. I have responsibility with my freedom.
If I use my freedom for evil, I am not reasonably free from the consequences.
“Freedom” cannot mean “freedom from responsibility”. I understand the idea “I am not free to do what I want because there are consequences”—if more speech were restricted, we would not say that we are free to say what we want, that we must simply pay fines or be imprisoned if we exercise that freedom. Those consequences exist where speech cannot freely flow. Those nations do not value free speech.
But it is no reasonable thing to say that we are not free if we must take responsibility for our actions, either. There is a difference between taking responsibility for what you do, whether you do good or cause harm, and consequences imposed unreasonably by others.
The obvious next question is, what counts as unreasonable imposition by others? As illustrated above, some rules, or constraints, are in fact able to increase overall freedom. To make those rules, someone has to have the power to act in a way that affects other people.
Perhaps a type of freedom is to have the power to change things—the freedom to vote, for example, whether you own land or not, or the freedom to run for office, even with few credentials, or with little money, and to have an actual shot at winning. The freedom to make changes without some specific lineage, as a royal or noble.
But this can go too far; people use this ability to dominate others. That obviously reduces freedom.
A different, conflicting type of freedom, then, is to be free from people changing things that affect you, especially in ways you don’t want. To be left to “do as you please”, but not to others, who also shall be free to be left alone.
This also can go too far, as when people evade responsibility for those around them.
Finally, exercising boundless freedom to “do as we please” can twist into a slavery of ourselves.
When I was younger, especially in the summers when school was out, I was free to play all the video games I wanted. I remember staying up until 5 a.m. as a teenager playing Neverwinter Nights (the online multiplayer version, on some random dedicated server, and probably always as an elf—if anyone cares).
In some sense, I am no longer free to play games for as long as I want. My commitments and responsibilities, my health and home, my work and relationships, would suffer if I tried.
But in another sense, nothing is physically stopping me from doing so. There’s not a built-in time limit. Nobody will even arrest me for spending all day playing Final Fantasy VII. Yet if I actually play all the video games I want—or think I want—am I free?
Am I not, then, acting as a slave to my wants? And clearly I’m not free from the consequences of doing so.
All these complex ideas about freedom lead me to think these things:
True human freedom—specifically, a desirable and actionable definition of freedom—must be about more than seeking individual happiness on our own terms.
The exercised freedom of one person can affect the freedom of someone else.
Freedom without responsibility is a mockery of the real thing. Attempts at such lead to less freedom.
“Living as we please”, as the world means it, is not freedom. It enslaves us to our limited human minds. It is submission to our desires, like an animal that can make no better choice. Those who walk out this form of “freedom” ensnare themselves.
It appears to me that there are no conditions where we have no constraints. Therefore, I want my constraints to be the best ones, reasonable ones that ultimately improve my freedom and the freedom of those I affect.
This ties to what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians on the subject, evidently responding to something they said first: “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything.” -1 Corinthians 6:12 (ESV)
And again: “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up.” - 1 Corinthians 10:23 (ESV)
Not all things that look like freedom at first glance are truly freedom.
Our constraints, when given by God, add freedom, rather than inhibiting it—like a parent who makes the house safe so the child can run around without injury and unrestrained.
Like parents whose rules protect children from things they’re too small to understand.
With Yahweh God, the rules of your game are different. If you submit to the Sovereign God, the God Who takes care of His own, you can reject the shackles of worry. If you love the God Who works all things out for those who love Him, you can act with trust in the Person, and not cling to an expected outcome or your own designs. If you trust the God Who creates your fences, you can live in freedom within such, without bothering about what lies beyond.
It’s easier said than done, but it’s possible.
The Bible’s Old Testament documents the Israelites’ enslavement under the Egyptians and their subsequent freedom. God freed them, and when they maintained their freedom, in a literal sense, it was through submission to Yahweh God.
The literal prefigured the spiritual: The New Testament describes how we all were slaves to sin, and more, and how through Christ, God freed us. We maintain our freedom through submission to God—from the outside, a paradox; from within, tangibly accurate.
The Bible is the story of our freedom through submission to the One who is able to truly free us. Freedom from fear, from sin, from one’s own desires, from the impulse to control other people, from worry—and freedom to act in a way that truly matters—are all possible only in submission to the True God. Only in obedience to the One Who is Trustworthy do we find true freedom.
And, surely, if only God is perfectly free, then the more we are with Him, the freer we can be. For “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” - 2 Corinthians 3:17
Writing Updates - I was stuck, and how I broke through (this time)
I have been slowly making progress on my novel, again. I had a breakthrough, the first in a while. I’ve been working on this book on and off again for more than a decade, and, as I mentioned back in January, I have changed as a person, which means the story has changed, too—to the point where fundamental aspects are no longer recognizable as what they were.
I’ve been rewriting the draft I completed years ago, a time-honored method of improving one’s work. What I did not do before I began rewriting is figure out what the plot is now, in a way that can be told in a paragraph.
Things that connect my biggest scenes don’t exist or don’t make sense anymore. So I’ve been stuck trying to rewrite some of the early chapters because, after the very beginning, I did not know where this story was going. I didn’t know how to connect the beginning to the Next Big Thing in the plot. So I’ve written out the whole plot in a long paragraph, with bracketed sections to stand in for unsolved plot questions, sometimes with multiple options suggested in the brackets.
Now I have to work on a) solving those problems and b) finding where the breaks are to form the sections I imagine are there.
Even though I do not intend to break it into larger “parts”, it’s still useful to me to know where the large narrative breaks are in the story, so I can mark those doorways in a way that compels readers to walk through them, and so readers can look back and see clearly what has changed, or what has happened.
Are you stuck on a writing project? Can you zoom out and put the whole story (or your whole argument, if it’s nonfiction) in a paragraph? Obviously you’ll lose lots of detail, but that’s not important here. This is to check the overall flow and, for lack of a better phrase, your book’s structural integrity. Write this paragraph like you’re telling a reasonably supportive friend what happens (or what you’re explaining and how, if nonfiction) in your book. Then solve the holes you find.
(If anyone adapts this exercise for a non-writing project, I’d be curious to hear how you did it. Reply to this email, or reach me through whatever channel you can.)
That’s it for September! If any of this was valuable to you—interesting, useful, or beautiful—share it with someone:
To truth, love, and freedom,
Rae
p.s. These letters are still 100% organic human writing—no AI involved.
In case you missed a letter…
All my past letters from this Substack are available in the archive at https://raebotsfordend.substack.com/archive.