Conflicting Ideas of Freedom
By R.J. Rushdoony
It is a mistake to assume that a word means the same thing for everyone. The very word God means a variety of things even within Western countries, and, the world over, has many strange definitions. Man's faith and its culture define meanings. Definition is determined by religion; it is a religious task and has been so ever since God commanded Adam to "name" or define the animals.
The many definitions of freedom essentially resolve themselves into two, and it is useless to champion freedom unless we know what it is that we are advocating. The conflict of our time is between, first, freedom from the law as antinomianism and lawlessness, and, second, freedom under God and His law.
A while back, an "artist" who saw a copy of the Chalcedon Report reacted angrily. We were, he felt, fascists and anti-freedom, and he singled out some of us, naming Otto Scott for his article on the Zurich drug-park experiment, because we are anti-"gay," anti-drugs, and so on and on. This made us also anti-art! Clearly, for him both art and freedom mean a radical lawlessness and an active promotion of all that is anti-Christian and anti-law-abiding.
The "champions" of freedom are obviously not all in the same camp. Those who believe that freedom means the right to be lawless can damn Christians as hate-mongers and spew endless venom in the name of freedom! They sincerely believe that they are defending man's freedom against an evil power!
Over the years, I have known about or heard of professors who have routinely stolen valuable university library books on the grounds that they could best appreciate them. Now, in the June 18,1992 World News Digest (p. 7), there is an account of the troubles of Dr. James Billington, director of the Library of Congress. He closed the stacks to library employees, "because of the incredible amounts of thievery." The union chiefs told Billington that they were entitled to these books. When Billington told the union bosses of his stand, they were especially angry when Billington said that most of the worst offenders were Ph.Ds. As a result, union leaders "are going after the head of the director, Dr. James Billington."
The right to steal? Well, it is a logical conclusion of the belief in freedom as antinomianism, as freedom from law. Should we be surprised that even pastors and priests are too often guilty of stealing church funds, and of sexual sins?
No society ever stands still. It pursues the logic of its faith to the reasonable conclusion thereof, and an antinomian faith will in time be lawlessness in practice. This is what we are witnessing increasingly. We see the "right" to steal affirmed by scholars and by street gangs and rioters. They are akin in faith, a radical antinomianism which they define as freedom.
Our Lord, in John 8:33ff., makes clear what freedom means. First, men who are lawless are sinners, and they are the servants or slaves of sin. Original sin is the desire of man to be his own god and law (Gen. 3:5), but this sin in fact enslaves man and renders him a helplessly evil person. Second, we are made free in Christ, who makes us a new creation (II Cor. 5:17), enables us to live in obedience, even though not perfectly in this life, and makes us the people of His righteousness or justice (Rom. 8:4). The law of God becomes then our way of life, not lawlessness.
For true Christians, the antinomian view of freedom means slavery. The world, by its present policies, is actively courting slavery as its higher freedom. Our politicians talk about freedom as Lenin did, meaning controls and slavery. All who deny God's law are denying, the very foundation of our freedom and are therefore to some degree in the camp of the lawless.
It is inconsistent and foolish to oppose our homosexual culture, to hate the rapid growth of totalitarian controls, and to bewail the growing immoralism around us if by our antinomianism we are promoting the world's doctrine of lawlessness as freedom.
That doctrine is marked by perversity and evil. In recent years, someone has defined freedom as "the right to heckle," and this concept has been common to many university students, to whom it means the "right" to silence all with whom they disagree.
Others, while denying that there is any given or inherent element in human nature, still insist that freedom is an essential attribute of human nature. We must say that the will to be free of God and His law is basic to the life and nature of fallen man. John Stuart Mill held that freedom is an end in itself, and it is an absolute and sovereign freedom insofar as it concerns man's own being. The only limit on man's freedom is that he must not harm others. But who says so? Who can restrain a sovereign being? Mill's anarchistic idea of freedom rested on nothing more than his fiat idea. Moreover, Mill's doctrine of freedom in his Essays on Liberty, (1859) held, "We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling would be an evil still." This means the advocacy of every kind of evil is to be protected: freedom becomes the only absolute. The antinomian doctrine of freedom ends up subverting and denying the validity of all law in favor of freedom as an absolute, in effect the only good.
The issue is very clearly freedom from law versus freedom under law, God's law. It is impossible for us to develop a free and Godly society unless we see clearly what the alternatives are. Failure to understand what freedom means has cost us dearly. Under the banner of a false freedom, people are marching into slavery.
It is a mistake to assume that a word means the same thing for everyone. The very word God means a variety of things even within Western countries, and, the world over, has many strange definitions. Man's faith and its culture define meanings. Definition is determined by religion; it is a religious task and has been so ever since God commanded Adam to "name" or define the animals.
The many definitions of freedom essentially resolve themselves into two, and it is useless to champion freedom unless we know what it is that we are advocating. The conflict of our time is between, first, freedom from the law as antinomianism and lawlessness, and, second, freedom under God and His law.
A while back, an "artist" who saw a copy of the Chalcedon Report reacted angrily. We were, he felt, fascists and anti-freedom, and he singled out some of us, naming Otto Scott for his article on the Zurich drug-park experiment, because we are anti-"gay," anti-drugs, and so on and on. This made us also anti-art! Clearly, for him both art and freedom mean a radical lawlessness and an active promotion of all that is anti-Christian and anti-law-abiding.
The "champions" of freedom are obviously not all in the same camp. Those who believe that freedom means the right to be lawless can damn Christians as hate-mongers and spew endless venom in the name of freedom! They sincerely believe that they are defending man's freedom against an evil power!
Over the years, I have known about or heard of professors who have routinely stolen valuable university library books on the grounds that they could best appreciate them. Now, in the June 18,1992 World News Digest (p. 7), there is an account of the troubles of Dr. James Billington, director of the Library of Congress. He closed the stacks to library employees, "because of the incredible amounts of thievery." The union chiefs told Billington that they were entitled to these books. When Billington told the union bosses of his stand, they were especially angry when Billington said that most of the worst offenders were Ph.Ds. As a result, union leaders "are going after the head of the director, Dr. James Billington."
The right to steal? Well, it is a logical conclusion of the belief in freedom as antinomianism, as freedom from law. Should we be surprised that even pastors and priests are too often guilty of stealing church funds, and of sexual sins?
No society ever stands still. It pursues the logic of its faith to the reasonable conclusion thereof, and an antinomian faith will in time be lawlessness in practice. This is what we are witnessing increasingly. We see the "right" to steal affirmed by scholars and by street gangs and rioters. They are akin in faith, a radical antinomianism which they define as freedom.
Our Lord, in John 8:33ff., makes clear what freedom means. First, men who are lawless are sinners, and they are the servants or slaves of sin. Original sin is the desire of man to be his own god and law (Gen. 3:5), but this sin in fact enslaves man and renders him a helplessly evil person. Second, we are made free in Christ, who makes us a new creation (II Cor. 5:17), enables us to live in obedience, even though not perfectly in this life, and makes us the people of His righteousness or justice (Rom. 8:4). The law of God becomes then our way of life, not lawlessness.
For true Christians, the antinomian view of freedom means slavery. The world, by its present policies, is actively courting slavery as its higher freedom. Our politicians talk about freedom as Lenin did, meaning controls and slavery. All who deny God's law are denying, the very foundation of our freedom and are therefore to some degree in the camp of the lawless.
It is inconsistent and foolish to oppose our homosexual culture, to hate the rapid growth of totalitarian controls, and to bewail the growing immoralism around us if by our antinomianism we are promoting the world's doctrine of lawlessness as freedom.
That doctrine is marked by perversity and evil. In recent years, someone has defined freedom as "the right to heckle," and this concept has been common to many university students, to whom it means the "right" to silence all with whom they disagree.
Others, while denying that there is any given or inherent element in human nature, still insist that freedom is an essential attribute of human nature. We must say that the will to be free of God and His law is basic to the life and nature of fallen man. John Stuart Mill held that freedom is an end in itself, and it is an absolute and sovereign freedom insofar as it concerns man's own being. The only limit on man's freedom is that he must not harm others. But who says so? Who can restrain a sovereign being? Mill's anarchistic idea of freedom rested on nothing more than his fiat idea. Moreover, Mill's doctrine of freedom in his Essays on Liberty, (1859) held, "We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling would be an evil still." This means the advocacy of every kind of evil is to be protected: freedom becomes the only absolute. The antinomian doctrine of freedom ends up subverting and denying the validity of all law in favor of freedom as an absolute, in effect the only good.
The issue is very clearly freedom from law versus freedom under law, God's law. It is impossible for us to develop a free and Godly society unless we see clearly what the alternatives are. Failure to understand what freedom means has cost us dearly. Under the banner of a false freedom, people are marching into slavery.
