The Paradox of Freedom

Part two in a three-part series on Christian freedom.

In the last post we discussed how many of us do not feel free. Despite the many freedoms we benefit from as members of a modern Western society, we often still experience a restlessness and longing for more. We live in a society of perhaps unprecedented political, economic, and social freedom, and yet a feeling of true freedom (what I call spiritual freedom) eludes many of us.

In the following post, I want to suggest two things that might at first appear paradoxical. First, in order to find true freedom, we must realise that none of us are as free as we think. In fact, we are more enslaved, suffer more at the hands of external factors, than we like to think. Secondly, and ironically, the experience of true freedom for which we all long is found in servitude, namely, in servitude to God.

We are not as free as we think.

First, we are not are free as we think. We all have something to which or someone to whom we give ultimate signifance. These come in all forms — money, reputation, image, romance, even family — and for their sake we willingly expend time, money, effort, and energy. We afford such things ultimate significance because we think that they work for us and that we benefit from them. Perhaps, for a short while, we do. But the sad reality is that we often end up working for them. we think we can master them, but eventually they master us.

It might be helpful to make brief mention of a few concrete examples. An obvious choice would be the person who lives for their career, and many of us might well know somebody in just this predicament. Initial success is met with promotion or pay-rise. All is going smoothly, and the job seems to work for them: fuelling the kind of lifestyle they feel to be appropriate to their rising status. But, eventually, the stakes grow higher, progression becomes more difficult, and fewer make it to the top. The tipping point is subtle, but sooner or later comes the risk that our high-flyer has become addicted to the chase. They live in constant fear and anxiety. Former co-workers become competitors. They no longer feel free or like they’re in control. In short, they work for their job. The career has become the master.

This sense of being mastered as described above will be clear to all, but the phenomenon is more wide-spread than at first apparent. Those whose confidence lies in their reputation or success will only feel as secure and self-assured as their last win — or loss. Those who rely on their beauty, who enjoy the thrill of turning heads, will find that their powers of manipulation will one day fade. Those who search for ultimate comfort in romance will often be broken-hearted; love between two persons is beautiful, and can be transformative, but it is not our saviour. Not even family can escape the distortion. We all hear of that parent who loves their child not too little, but — dare I say it — too much. The child is sheltered, hidden from the world, and the parent is needy of being needed to the point of excessive anxiety; neither party is free. Both are mastered.

The point here is that these things are not, in themselves, bad, but that they can become distorted. The problem starts when we afford them ultimate signifance. Money is a necessity. Everyone has a reputation, whether good or bad, whether they like it or not. We all, either consciously or unconsciously project an image of ourselves. Romance is sweet. A good family is a gift. But all of these can become distorted when we ask too much of them, and when we rely on them to wholly define us as human persons. Though holding the potential for good, these things can become twisted and distorted, and, as a result, toxic to us.

I think, when we examine ourselves, we can identify aspects of our lives where we were once masters but are now being mastered. Identifying these, and thus realising that we are not as free as we think, is the first step towards acheiving true, spiritual, freedom.

True freedom is found in servitude.

My second point, having acknowledged that we are not as free as we think, is that true freedom is found in a rather strange manner: true freedom is found in servitude. If, as I said above, we all have our masters, are all mastered by something or someone, then the question is not, “How can I escape this mastery?” For as soon as we escape one master, we shall find another. And, indeed, it is natural for us to do so. Rather, the question becomes, “To which master should I subject myself? Which master should I serve?”

The idea that we all have our masters, that we all afford someone or something ultimate significance over our lives, is an ancient one. It is found, amongst other sources, in the Bible. Rooted in the Jewish context out of which it gradually emerged distinct, Christianity has affirmed from its earliest day the idea that we can only have one master. Jesus is recorded as saying, “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matthew 6.24). Similarly, Paul, an early follower of Jesus, some of whose letters are preserved in the New Testament, writes of how those who are Christians were formerly “slaves of sin” but now “have been freed from sin and enslaved to God” (See Romans 6.20–23).

Such language of slavery is provocative, and might be problematic to modern readers of the twenty-first century. It certainly reminds us of how the biblical text originates from a particular historical context that is not our own. But perhaps, for some of us, this language still resonates. It is not uncommon for people in difficult circumstances to say how they feel “trapped” or “caged in.” Sometimes we do feel enslaved by the results of our own actions or by those of others against us. Despite all our apparent freedoms, we often still do not feel free. Maybe the idea of being enslaved to sin (generally defined as anything which goes against the good and loving will of God) makes sense afterall.

What, however, is most shocking — at least to me — is the thought of being enslaved to God. Is it not freedom that the Christian life offers? This is where the introduction of another concept is helpful for our understanding: that of allegience. All of the above language of slavery, servants, and masters can be boiled down to this. The issue of allegiance with God lies at the centre of Christian identity:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” Deuteronomy 6.5

This verse in the Old Testament is perhaps the clearest expression of what is meant by “allegiance.” It has had profound influence in Jewish tradition, with its incorporation into the liturgy of the shema (after שׁמע, the Hebrew imperative “Hear!” in 6.4 of the same passage). In Christian tradition, too, this verse has been influential. The Gospels of the New Testament record Jesus and his earliest followers echoing and appropriating this call to singular allegiance to God (Matthew 22.37; Mark 12.30; Luke 10.27), and such words are amongst the most recited, expounded, and applied by Christians today.

All this talk of ultimate signifance, of mastery and being mastered, of things working for us or us working for things, comes down to the matter of allegience. Either we are for God, or against Him. Either we are with Jesus, or opposed to Him. There is no neutrality, no middle ground. We all have our masters. And so we are led back to the question that began this section: Which master should we serve?

The discussion above, where we realised that we are not as free as we like to think, had to do with one essential problem with the majority of the masters to which we subject ourselves. What is that problem? Their transience. So many of the things we afford ultimate significance — money, reputation, image, romance, even family — are temporary. Though good when not distorted, these things nevertheless do not last. They fade. Thus, if we make our lives all about chasing after such things, we shall only end up frustrated and disappointed. They do not have the permanence required to offer us any kind of enduring hope. For all the potential good they may hold, they are fundamentally unstable. And as a result, if we put our hope in these things we will only become unstable people with unstable identities. We will lose our freedom. We will not feel free.

The reason I think true freedom is found in servitude to God (rather than anything else) is two-fold: first, because of God’s permanence; secondly, because of God’s goodness. Although I now briefly treat them both in turn, they need to be understood together. We cannot have one without the other.

First, the permanence of God. The Christian faith posits a God who is eternal, who transcends time and space, and is unchangeable. To submit ourselves to God, despite the fact that it would be His due were He truly the Unchangeable One in an otherwise changeable world, is to submit to a permanence at the centre of the universe that will not fade or die out. All else fades except God. And for many people this can be a source of hope: above a temporal world stands One who is eternal; all of our finitude is grounded in One who is infinite; there is, for all our complexity, One who exists in simplicity; One whose knowledge is not discursive but intuitive. But is this enough? Is freedom truly found in submission to a Permanence who has just been described in such abstract terms? Now we need to consider God’s goodness.

This eternal God, Christians believe, entered into human history through the mystery known as the incarnation as the person we call Jesus. God had been acting in human history before then, making Himself known, but it is Jesus, God incarnate, simultaneously fully human and fully divine, who reveals to us most clearly what the eternal and unchangeable God is like. Indeed, in Jesus, God reveals Himself. And this unchangeable God is shown to be good. Of course, such goodness could have been, and indeed was, known before. But Jesus, the incarnate God, reveals God’s essential goodness in the most vivid and beautiful of ways. God’s permanence may be a reason to hope, but to know that He is also good intensifies this hope; God is permanently good.

Conclusion

To really know freedom, we need security and love. And it is precisely these that God in His permanence and goodness guarantees. All else — all in this world that vies for our attention and asks us to afford it ultimate significance — pales in comparison. Nothing else can give the security and love necessary to to know true freedom. We need a Good Master.

And therein lies the paradox. We are not as free as we think. We are unwittingly mastered by those things to which we afford ultimate signifance. So we must find a good master; one whose mastery allows us to flourish. And that good master is God. Freedom comes from making God our master.

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