Freedom, Flourishing & Restriction: Together, All 3
One of the books I’m reading as I wait for my newly revised Achilles tendon to heal is Carl Trueman’s The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades our Humanity. Right out of the gate, Trueman addresses the question which must ground any meaningful discussion of human freedom.
That question, which happens to be the title of chapter one, is:
“What is man?”
On this, America’s 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence, will you explore the relationship between freedom, restriction, and human flourishing with me?
What Is Man?
“Human beings,” Trueman writes, “are created by God with a given set of dependencies and obligations, limits and ends. We are rational, dependent, limited, and teleological beings.”
Teleological means that by virtue of being made in God’s image we have certain purposes and ends.
Further,
“It is [man’s] failure to act in accordance with those that precipitates disaster within the biblical narrative” (p. 11).
Humbly, I would add, within any real narrative.
On Our 250th
This reference captured me,
“Even the American Declaration of Independence references God as the source for the rights enunciated therein. But once a society makes its art into deathworks, pitted as they are against sacred order, its ability to justify its morality is eliminated. Moral flux and instability become the order of the day, as in our own time, when yesterday’s moral principles are seen as antithetical to human freedom and flourishing…
In a culture where the real self is constituted by inner feelings, the external world will always be a potential threat to authenticity. And that means there will also be a strong, cultural tendency to dismantle whatever in the culture hinders this.” (The Desecration of Man, p. 66)
For some reason, the word, “dismantle” reminds me of Benjamin Franklin’s rightly oft-quoted words.
“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.”
John Adams expanded this idea,
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”
This implies, then, that to be truly free does not mean we can do anything we wish.
To Do What One Ought
Rather, as Michael Novak poignantly wrote, it means, we have “the capacity to do what one ought. It is, in short, to be capable of self-government, self-mastery, and self-control.”
(I wrote extensively about this need for self-control here.)
George Washington modeled self-restraint throughout his adult life, and spoke directly of it in his first inaugural address,
“The propitious smiles of heaven can never be given to a nation that disregards the laws that heaven itself has ordained.”
God has fused the two: our happy success as a nation and our submission to his laws.
But, as author Jerry Newcombe explained this week on The Eric Metaxas Show,
“The secularist of today, who wants to argue against all these things, doesn’t necessarily realize that the freedom he enjoys is because of these God-given liberties. He’s like the proverbial example of somebody up in a tree and he’s got a saw and he’s cutting off the limb.”
Keeping heaven’s laws makes a happy nation.
“If You Can Keep It”
Most of us have heard how the aged Ben Franklin answered one Mrs. Powell of Philadelphia when she questioned him after a hard day of Constitution drafting,
“Dr. Franklin, what kind of government have you given us?”
Franklin answered, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”
It was a big “if” in 1787, and a mountainous “if” today.
But now I transition from national law and freedom to personal freedom and flourishing.
Restricted and Flourishing
Human flourishing is not enabled by the absence of restrictions. Rather, flourishing as image bearers of our Creator—Nature’s God, the Holy one of Israel—is only possible when we accept our human limits.
If we consider the animal kingdom, this becomes crystal clear.
My tiger Tabby, Boo, will not flourish if she is left to swim the nearby lake. Nor, even, will she flourish, domestic as she is, if left to explore acres of forest dissected by roads surrounding our house. Her (late) aunt Oreo once ran away.
“The right restrictions” Jay Sklar writes,
“[L]ead to the most flourishing. If a fish wants to flourish, it won’t happen by leaving the ‘restriction’ of the ocean to explore the shore. It’ll only happen by staying within the ocean’s boundaries, because only there can the fish live to the fullest.”
Going further, we know that without self-imposed restrictions our physical health will fade. Four hours of sleep won’t cut it, as much as I like to read or blog on into the night. Nor will a diet of ice cream and brownies promote flourishing. If I intend to flourish as a writer, I must restrict my time on social media. Every serious athlete or musician must impose his own restrictions.
God’s Law
I read Psalm 119. All 22 stanzas and 176 verses are one man’s love affair with God’s law. Admittedly, I don’t love Psalm 119 as much as the psalmist, but I am growing to love it more.
Some of you might wonder how the psalmist can have such a positive view of God’s law.
Theologian Jay Sklar (Does Your Theology of the Law Have Room for Psalm 119?) offers two insightful reasons,
“First, the Lord’s laws reflect the Lord’s values. That’s how laws work. Why do we have laws today against murder? We value life. Why do we have laws against stealing? We value the right to private property.
This brings us to the second reality the psalmist understood: The Lord’s values are good. “You are good and do good; teach me your statutes” (119:68). In other words, “Your laws, which reflect your values, are a window into your goodness. And because that’s true, bury them deep into my heart, because following these laws must ultimately be for my good and flourishing!”
To flourish, as an individual or as a nation, is to walk in step with who God has made us to be.
Imago Dei
God has made us in his own image. That brings our teleos, our purpose, into focus.
In a devotion on Psalm 119, Alec Motyer makes it plain:
It is to express that image; anything else is a falling short of the ideal. Hold that thought in your mind and consider something else: God‘s law is what it is because he is what he is…
The law of God is another way of expressing the image of God. We, by creation, express his image in personal terms; the law expresses his image in terms of commandments. The law says, Do this and you will be like him; obedience to the law is our way of living according to our true nature.
Now look at [Psalm 119] verse 88: “In your steadfast love give me life, that I may keep the testimonies of your mouth.” In his love, he imparts his life to us in order that we may do what he says. This is God‘s highest and best will for us.” (Alec Motyer, Psalms by the Day: Day 60)
Oh, my friends, is this all starting to meld and sink in?
As humans, made in God’s image, and doubly, as those of us blessed to be Americans, we will only flourish as we do what God says.
“Only the Lord’s word is wide enough to secure true freedom.”
—Alec Motyer, Psalms by the Day
Restrictive and Exceedingly Broad
Our Creator has given us life in order that we may live his way. This is to bring him glory and reflect his incomparable worth. This is to obey his word. This is God’s highest and best will for us—what it is to flourish.
“And I would walk around at liberty because I seek your precepts.”
—Psalm 119:45 (NKJV)
In a way, living God’s way is restrictive. But in another more true way, it is incredibly expansive.
God’s law is “exceedingly broad” (Ps 119:96; also 45). It is the place where I can enjoy true freedom, transcending human finitude, living according to what James calls ‘the perfect law, the law of liberty’ (James 1:25): ‘perfect’, in that it is perfectly designed to match our true, real nature (Jeremiah 31:31-34), bringing us ‘liberty’ because obedience triggers the image of God in us so that we are what we were always meant to be.”
Did you catch that?
True freedom comes when we walk in obedience to God’s perfect law, which “triggers” the image of God in us. This is what it means to flourish: to be “what we were always meant to be.”
One day we will be all that God made us to be. Until then, one job is ours.
Trust in Him, ye saints, forever,
He is faithful, changing never;
Neither force nor guile can sever
Those He loves from Him.
Keep us, Lord, O keep us cleaving
To Thyself, and still believing,
Till the hour of our receiving
Promised joys with Thee.
Then we shall be where we would be,
Then we shall be what we should be,
Things that are not now, nor could be,
Soon shall be our own.
