The editor of Tyndale Magazine sat down with Dr. Victor Shepherd, Professor of Theology and Dr. Paul Franks, Assistant Professor of Philosophy to discuss the meaning of freedom from theological and philosophical perspectives. Q: What does freedom mean from a philosophical and a theological viewpoint? Dr. Franks: As a whole, philosophers would say that freedom is something like freedom from constraint or compulsion. As long as what you are doing comes from you, that you, desire it, that you had an intention that was formed, then you are free. The bulk of Christian philosophers, however, say something different. Freedom is also the ability to be in control of the desire that you have. It s not just freedom from having someone forcing you to do something, it s also having alternatives available to you so that for any action that you take, it s a free action: nothing determined that you should do what you did. The bulk of the philosophical community are typically compatibilists. Determinism is still compatible with saying that it was a free action. Most Christian philosophers, though, tend to say that compatibilism isn t the most robust notion of freedom. Many Christian philosophers would say it s not only freedom from constraint but also a genuine ability to have done otherwise. Dr. Shepherd: At street level, freedom is the capacity to choose among alternatives. If I go to an ice cream counter may I choose vanilla, strawberry or chocolate? From a theological perspective we would just call that indeterminism. There s no outer coercion, nobody is twisting my arm, but there s no intrapsychic coercion, there s no inner determination. To contrast that, as we must with theological freedom, when Paul says in Galatians 5:1, for freedom Christ has set you free, therefore do not return to this [i.e., slavery], he would never mean that Christ has set us free to choose between obeying Christ and not disobeying. He would never say Christ has set us free to believe in Him or not to believe in Him. He means that we have been set free by Christ for obedience and love only. It isn t a case of freedom of choice, it s freedom from choice in this respect. Theologically you are free only when you are freed when you are freed from impediments to be acting in accord with your true nature, which by God s grace is to be a child of God.
Dr. Franks: There s actually a lot of commonality between what you were spelling out and what I was spelling out initially as a libertarian notion. Most libertarians would fall under a type of incompatibilism. There are actually a lot of similarities between views from what I was presenting as generally a Christian philosophical understanding of freedom but then what makes this kind of thing sticky is that there are different understandings of freedom. The freedom we read about in Galatians is just a different type of freedom than the freedom to choose from among alternatives. There are different notions. It s the same term being used in a different way. And so what we have to [ask], looking at it from a more philosophical perspective, is are we free to become freed or is that something that has been determined or not? So when we have before us the alternatives, to stay in bondage or to be freed, that seems like a question you would want to resolve. Since we are already talking about the Christian community, we are talking about a group of people who have already chosen to be freed. Now we can ask the freedom question in a slightly different way. What I look at in some of my research is what understanding of freedom do we have to become free? Does this freedom that means that I genuinely have the ability to chose or not choose to become free or is it this a more compatibilist notion of freedom? We call it freedom because it issues from my desires but it s not that I have control over my own desires. That s where you get into what could be in one way the debate between the Calvinist perspective and a Wesleyan or Arminian perspective. Q: Can you explain the different perspectives on freedom of the different denominations? Dr. Shepherd: Arminius said it is only by grace we can decide for grace. And the Calvinists would say the same thing, only in terms of election. Whereas the Arminians would speak of prevenient grace and the Calvinists would speak of election, both are saying that only by grace can we choose for grace. The difference is the Arminians would say that by the grace of God we may choose for grace. Calvinists would say by the grace of election we must there s no possibility of not choosing grace. I want to come back to something else in that I think that freedom as indeterminism. Social scientists would deny that of course, they would say eeny, meeny, miny, mo at the ice cream counter, that there are all kinds of social determinations you re not even aware of, including priming. You think you are free to choose vanilla but the real reason you ve chosen vanilla is that 10 minutes [earlier] you read 5 subliminal advertisements about vanilla ice cream that you are not even aware of that s called priming. But I do not think any sophisticated philosopher would ever understand freedom in terms of sheer indeterminism. Freedom is always related to what we believe to be
the nature of the human being. What we mean by freedom always presupposes your understanding of the human. Now, if the great commandment is that we are to love God and neighbour, selfforgetfully, we are genuinely free only we have been freed for love, devoid of any impediment to love. You are only free when you have been freed for love, not for anything else because the great commandment is that we are to love God and love the neighbour. That is the human good. As long as there is any impediment with respect to you and the exercise of the human good, you are not yet freed. Now the medieval rabbis used to say when Torah entered the world, freedom entered the world because freedom is the environment in which the Jewish person swims. Now water is the environment in which the fish swims but no fish looks better for being taken out of the water. He looks distressed. In fact, he can t live out of the water. Well, many people look at the Torah as just endless imposition. In fact, say the rabbis, this is our freedom. You are not to steal, thieve, lie, and commit adultery. Think of the Ten Commandments. We look upon them as a stricture but Thou shalt not can be read in two ways. It can be read as an inhibition but it can also be read as a promise. That is, I the Lord your God, am moving you out of Egypt into the land flowing with milk and honey, and in that land I, by my grace, am going to make such wonderful provision for you will not have to thieve. I m going to bring before you the wife of your youth and you will not even have to look at your neighbour s wife. In other words, the command is really another form of a promise. Now the promise of God fulfilled within us is our freedom. Luther said that the Gospel is the promise of God fulfilled in our midst, well, it is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. It is the Gospel that frees us. Because God s promise is that he will deliver His people from every impediment to their loving Him and their neighbour, self-forgetfully that is freedom. Dr. Franks: It seems that there is actually now a third notion of freedom we have been using in relation to the Ten Commandments. It is more generally a kind of notion of political freedom. In my research I am not talking about whether I m free to yell Fire! in a theatre or whether I am free to steal or to covet. That is a right sense of freedom. It is just a different sense. I think that is part of the reason why these conversations can sometimes get messy. We can end up talking past each other. Where I might say, Look, I really am free to do these sorts of things but somebody else has in mind a completely different notion of freedom and so for me it is helpful to think of what is a logical ordering, not in the sense that one is more logical than the other but what comes prior logically speaking to another. It seems like this initial notion of freedom, the ability to choose is going to have to come first. If I do not have that kind of freedom it does not look like I really have the freedom to obey or disobey whatever various laws there might be.
There are different notions and they do different things but some notions are kind of fundamental to others. We explain these other ones in terms of the more foundational ones. Dr. Shepherd: Brother Paul here was alluding to political freedom, the capacity for political self-determinism. We would say that the United States is a free society and that China is not in that there is not the capacity for the opportunity for political self-determination. Just as freedom in that sense means the capacity, politically, for self-determination, by extension there is a capacity for self-determination socially. There is also a capacity for self-determination personally. The reason people go to psychotherapy is to be delivered from their drivenness, their inhibitions for personal self-determination. When Scripture speaks of freedom though it is not denying these meanings, it just does not call them freedom. In the 18 th century, in the discussions around the evangelical awakening, and so on, the word freedom was reserved for its biblical meaning of the removal of impediments to acting as a child of God. What we call freedom in terms of either indeterminism or self-determination the 18 th century simply called them liberty. Are you at liberty for political freedom? Or determination? They just called that liberty to avoid confusing liberty with the theological sense. The philosopher who does not have a theological agenda, he is going to use the word freedom far more comprehensively and within that umbrella of freedom he is then going to start making differentiations one of which would be the theological or metaphysical sense of freedom. In other words, theologically, freedom does not include self-determination but in other contexts freedom does include selfdetermination. Dr. Franks: Freedom to act according to our nature, the freedom to love God, choose God. It seems like we might be able to think of the distinction between the freedom to do what one ought to do versus the freedom to do what one wants to do. That wanting to do, it s a simpler notion. Ideally you become the type of person where what you want to do is what you ought to do. But that s not always the case. Dr. Shepherd: In that sense, once you say what I want to do versus what I ought to do freedom am I free to sin? Absolutely. Am I free not to sin? Only by God s grace am I freed not to sin. Is there any impediment to the fallen will willing sin? No. Then the fallen will is free to will sin. Is the fallen will free to will righteousness? No. Then it has to be freed. In that sense then we are freed by Jesus Christ for conformity to him. Dr. Franks: That is, I think, going to be a more comprehensive, universal understanding no matter what theological tradition you come from. The difference is going to be in the distinctions between what people of different traditions mean
by grace. One way of understanding the difference between prevenient grace and a more Calvinistic understanding is that prevenient grace is given to everyone. Are we free to choose God, to walk in righteousness? Well, yes, but the distinction is going to be, what do we mean by grace? Who does it apply to? What results from it? It s going to be a difference of who has been given that grace and whether or not you can resist it. Dr. Shepherd: In the Arminian tradition, prevenient grace guarantees the possibility of embracing Jesus Christ who has first embraced me. In the Calvinist tradition, the grace of election guarantees the inevitability of my embracing him who has first embraced me. When the Arminian speaks of grata operands, operative grace, grata co-operands, co-operative grace, he does not mean for a minute that anything of our salvation can be attributed to us, there is no hint of semi-pelagianism but what he does do is honour this truth: As a sinner I cannot will myself out of my sinnership. God wills my deliverance for me but there is no point in Him willing it for me out there unless He also wills it in me. He wills it in me now, in such a way, that I may will it for myself. What He wills in me I may and should will for myself. But he will not free me. Whereas in the Calvinist tradition, as soon as it hears the distinction between grata operands and co-operands, as soon as it hears of cooperation, it immediately stinks of synergism. Synergism means part of my salvation is attributable to God and part of my salvation is attributable to me. Dr. Franks: That would be some kind of semi-pelagianism. Dr. Shepherd: Then it would be semi-pelagianism. But it is the Calvinist here who has misread the Arminian tradition at its best. But in the Calvinist tradition, once Jesus Christ embraces me in his grace/election, my embracing Him is guaranteed. Dr. Franks: The minority view among Christian philosophers is of compatibilism, that our freedom is consistent with being determined to act in some particular way. Of those compatibilists though, there s almost a one-to-one correlation with being a compatibilist and being a Calvinist. The Calvinist still wants to use the term free, we are feely choosing God but it is a different notion of freedom because it is this guaranteed notion; it makes it inevitable. It is not this ability to choose or not choose, not an ability to select between options. If God gives you that grace that makes it inevitable that you choose. They want to say you are the type of person wanting to choose God. Why? Well, because He gave you the type of desires that you have that make you want to. That is why the Calvinist view maps out nicely with the general compatibilist view. So, it still is that kind of fundamentalist distinction between different notions of freedom whenever it becomes the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism.
There are different ways of [understanding] what it means to be free. Is it simply choosing, making decisions that are consistent with our desires and a general ability to choose from alternative possibilities? Q: What do all the denominations share when it comes to the word freedom? Dr. Shepherd: If they are theologically informed, it would be Galatians 6 to be freed by Christ, is to be freed by Christ for Christ. But most people are not theologically informed. We are only free in so far in some way, at some level, we have beheld our blessed Lord who therein frees us. Most church people, in all denominations, understand freedom in terms of Am I free for self-determination in some way? Nobody has ever disputed this. It s not an issue. Q: How do these concepts of freedom play out in everyday life? Dr. Shepherd: In World War II all allied flyers in the Pacific were given, along with their parachutes and life rafts, shark repellent. If a flyer s plane was shot down in the water he squeezed his shark repellent and a little yellow sphere formed around him. Is he free to swim outside the range of the shark repellent? Sure, he s free. He is also free to be eaten alive. If he wants to live, he s freed to live only as he remains within the orbit of the shark repellent. Now the righteousness of Christ is the orbit of shark repellent. In the secular understanding of freedom, freedom s our capacity to swim wherever we want. From the theological perspective our freedom is to remain in the orbit of Jesus Christ s righteousness and find our life thriving because outside the orbit of Christ and his righteousness there is only deadliness. Q: How do you bring the philosophical concepts of freedom into daily life? Dr. Franks: I want to help students to think about the concept of freedom that they are actually using then, to try and help them make a philosophical understanding of that. [Freedom is] more than your ability to chose which type of ice cream to eat, or what type of university you are going to select, or who you are going to marry all these types of freedoms. I want to help them figure out, OK, this is the understanding I have of how freedom works. What is the best philosophical understanding of that? Oftentimes they are going to realize, what I have seen in the past at least, is that some students recognize that whenever the rubber hits the road in their daily living, they behave in this more libertarian understanding of freedom. It is a genuine ability to choose one way or the other, that there is nothing in our causal history, the laws of nature, society, God that is determining us to choose one thing or another. These things could be influencing us so I may agree with the social scientists and say, yeah, these things are influencing factors but they are not determining; they are not causally determining factors, that [the students] realize that they behave as if they really do have this ability to choose otherwise. Well, if that s right, that means I must have this more general libertarian conception of freedom.
That is what I think we actually have and here is how we make sense of that libertarian conception of freedom. And then it is interesting to go from there and see, philosophically, what does that entail? What is kind of a hot topic right now in science and the philosophy of the mind is whether or not our brains determine our behaviour. So many neuroscientists reject this notion of freedom entirely and say we are just our brains. There is no mental aspect to us, we are just our bodies. All of our brain is just physical things, physical stuff that is all a brain is. All physical things are controlled by laws of nature so all of our actions are controlled by laws of nature so we are not free. Dr. Shepherd: This is biodeterminism. Dr. Franks: Right. So if people think they have this libertarian type of freedom and there are these types of threats: So it is all an illusion to you. How do we respond to those sorts of objections? That is how I want to do this philosophically. It is not, here is a philosophical view, and here is how to squeeze it into your life. I want to see how they can use philosophy to understand their lives; how they behave and react.