Freedom to obey
Garvey, John
OF SEVERAL MINDS John Garvey FREEDOM TO OBEY CHOICE AS A MEASURE OF THE FALL Saint Paul stresses the "glorious liberty of the children of God," and the freedom of the Christian is a central theme...
...According to Philippians, it means a self-emptying that has little to do with choice, but rather with vocation: what are we meant to be...
...and if this is true it is necessary for us to see that obedience has much to do with whatever Christian freedom means...
...Am I less free as a result...
...In any case, freedom and choice are seen as indivisible...
...The idea of obedience is placed almost in opposition to freedom...
...OF SEVERAL MINDS John Garvey FREEDOM TO OBEY CHOICE AS A MEASURE OF THE FALL Saint Paul stresses the "glorious liberty of the children of God," and the freedom of the Christian is a central theme in much Christian writing, early and late...
...The winning essay will receive a prize of $1,000 and will be published in COMMONWEAL...
...The idea of freedom in obedience is open to great abuse...
...it can also work as an evil medium of control in totalitarian structures, some of which are religious...
...My love for my children is in some profound sense helpless: I can't decide whether or not to love them, and I would not be more free if I experienced this as a choice...
...It is important that they did not know...
...This has been a major part of the argument in favor of an unrestricted access to abortion, of course, but this is only the most prominent example...
...We believe that Jesus is Lord, that he is divine, the revelation of the Father...
...We do have the freedom to reject what we are called to be-that is part of our liberty: God will not coerce us...
...Is a decision to feed the hungry more free than an unreflected-upon action to feed the hungry...
...The New Testament Greek word for sin means "missing the mark," the implication being that there is a standard against which we are measured and from which we have fallen...
...Being that is the only freedom that matters, in Christian terms...
...Obedience is a bothersome concept for us, because it brings to mind hierarchy, something that also makes us uncomfortable...
...Obedience may involve these things-they may help us to be obedient to God-but they are not to be equated with that obedience, and are not finally the point...
...The prize-winning essay will be published in COMMONWEAL's January 15, 1993, issue...
...The editors reserve the right not to award the prize...
...There may be some hesitation and deliberation involved in the process of arrival, but they come from moving toward what is experienced as the one right place, the word or color that needs to be there...
...A state of real clarity would eliminate hesitation in love, or in language (which may be why Jesus, uniquely among people quoted in Scripture, began his sentences with "Amen, amen"-meaning, "This is the way it is...
...Saint Maximus the Confessor, involved in a seventh-century controversy over how Jesus Christ could be said to have a human will, referred to the deliberative will-the will that feels compelled to make choices-as a product of sin, the result of a fallen humanity...
...We also believe that he is the image of true human freedom, the sign of what we are meant to be...
...Or does the commitment meant by marriage offer a new freedom, which choice can't comprehend...
...We think of ourselves as most free when we are able to choose between alternatives...
...Institutions can insist that they mediate God's will, and claim that giving them obedience is equivalent to obedience to the will of God...
...All other essays will be returned to their authors after January 1. COMMONWEAL 15 Dutch Street New York, New York 10038 8: 22 May 1992 Commonweal...
...Original and unpublished essays of approximately 2,500-4,000 words should be submitted to the editors of COMMONWEAL who will make the final decision following consultation with a panel of experts...
...It may be hard for us to understand how the element in us which seems most free-the ability to make choices between alternatives-could be seen as a maimed and crippled thing, not will in its clearest, most liberated state...
...Still, the fact is that freedom in the Christian sense is essentially related to obedience-but this does not mean an obedience to law, or to institutional structures...
...Deadline: October 1, 1992...
...What is Christian freedom like, and how is it not like freedom as our culture tends to define it...
...if they had not been impelled to compassionate action but had decided to do it, perhaps because they would be doing it for the Lord, they would (to quote another part of Scripture) already have received their reward...
...This essay will become the property of the Graymoor Ecumenical Institute...
...There are others-they range from the right to choose suicide to the obviously less controversial right to choose the person you will, or will not, marry...
...In Matthew 25, those who are told that they are inheritors of the kingdom because they fed and clothed and visited the Son of Man when he was in need are baffled: "When did we do this...
...But the result of taking that choice would not be freedom...
...The prize is intended to encourage and support new ecumenical and interreligious ideas and perspectives...
...The idea of freedom as it has developed in our kind of democracy is very different from whatever Christian freedom might mean...
...The award-winning submission, which may take the form of a scholarly or critical essay or a personal narrative, should appeal to the interests of the general educated reader...
...They are told that they did it whenever they acted compassionately toward "the least of these my brethren...
...That understanding is essential in a time when the word "freedom" (like the word "love") has become sentimental and corrupt...
...Don't get me wrong: making a decision to feed the hungry is better than not feeding them, but it is not necessarily an illustration of us at our best, or our most free...
...The choice between alternatives is not a major part of the picture in the great hymn in Philippians 2:5-11-at least it is not the defining part...
...Obedience is simply a matter of conforming ourselves to that original, whatever it takes...
...and freedom is guaranteed politically when barriers to choice are removed...
...Obedience in a common monastic sense of the word can liberate you from the need to make unimportant decisions and can free you for other things...
...Another decision: once married, I am not free to choose among women other than my wife...
...However, the alternative definition offered by democratic political structures, the identification of freedom with choice, isn't very helpful...
...Reduced to institutional terms, this can be blasphemy...
...Some of those Christians who helped Jews hide from the Nazis during World Commonweal 22 May 1992: 7 War II said that, confronted with the situation, they felt that they had no choice...
...But in my experience these relationships have been liberating in a way I could not have imagined before entering them...
...Announcement of Prize: December 18,1992...
...Were they less free than someone who, similarly confronted, might feel an ability to weigh alternatives and then decide to help (or not to...
...The implication is that someone or something above us has a proper claim on us, one which may get in the way of an unrestricted freedom to choose between alternatives...
...Does the experience of choice here reveal true freedom, or insensitivity and relative hard-heartedness...
...It is easy to see how this would seem to dovetail into some strains of recent political theology-with liberation theology, for example-or how it would seem to be echoed in the stress, in democratic society, on freedom...
...A final example is the way in which a painter or poet is led to certain words and word combinations, or colors and shapes...
...o THE GRAYMOOR PRIZE The Friars of the Atonement announce the third annual Graymoor Prize, to be awarded to the best essay on any aspect of ecumenical or interreligious affairs...
...Freedom in America (and probably in most other countries) has been equated with the right to do what you choose, unconstrained by any external coercion...
...The model we are offered was "obedient unto death...
...it is an illustration of our fallenness that in this situation we can feel a choice, a hesitance, and this is what Maximus meant: there are times when this deliberative, fallen willing is as good as we can manage-but it is not what we are meant for...
...The two aren't often compared, but somehow obedience and freedom feel opposed: if you must be obedient, how can you be free at the same time...
Vol. 119 • May 1992 • No. 10
