Liberation Theology

A slave does more than his own will, the free man more of God's will...Coptic Saying

The distinct characteristics of the individual that define them as a unique person are on a surface level easy to pinpoint. The personal tastes, likes, and dislikes of each individual are manifest in our daily lives. Each of these likes and dislikes are engaged in through the action of choice, and the more we choose the more we become formed according to our decisions. So it becomes the "I" of the person is determined by the combination of choices they make in their life.

When it comes to free will as an extension of our "I," we can and should look at our actions from the perspective of forming ourselves in the present moment, of forming ourselves in our future lives, and for those who can accept it, forming ourselves for our eternal state of existence. Even more, the actions we engage in will produce a reaction in the world around us, and thus we are responsible for forming our society, culture, and environment based on our individualism. We call it individualistic, yet we cannot escape the repercussions of our actions whether beneficial or harmful.

The more our individualism is formed according to a predisposed free will, the less freedom we possess. The more we withdraw our free will from all predisposition of choice the more freedom we have. A predisposition of our free will is considered a passion, a habit that dominates us, while the eradication of predisposition in our free will is dispassion.

The predisposition of our free will is dependent upon how much we love our proclivities, or rather, how much we enjoy our likes and dislikes. This enjoyment we call self-love, defined as a mindless love for our thoughts, feelings, and senses. No one would say that thinking is wrong, or that feeling or experiencing physical pleasure or pain is wrong, for our body and mind are inclined to have that much life at the very least acting in us. The issue at hand is whether we are dominated by our thoughts or our thoughts by us, whether we are controlled by our emotions or our emotions by us, and whether we are slaves of our bodies or our bodies slaves of us, our "I."

If we think without thinking, or to put it another way, if we refuse to face our predispositions which incline us to accept our subjective thinking at the expense of objective thought, then in this state of self-love we are unable to think at all, unable to reason. We may exercise our minds, yet we lack the ability to reason beyond our own egoistic constructs, and thus mentally we are far from being free as individuals. The same can be applied to our emotions and our senses and bodies.

True freedom then consists in nothing more than liberation from attachment to our thoughts, feelings, and sensuality. But what is it that replaces these attachments, and what replaces our self?

When breaking our predispositions of will, we allow our will, our thoughts and emotions, to act naturally, without an inner compulsion based on exterior objects or situations. This means we are free to lead the direction our "I" will be formed, and not as a follower of our self-love. It would seem we have only to avoid those things that seek to chain our free will into a predisposition and we will thus always be free to choose, and this choice we are granted as conquerors of our egos allows us to go in any direction we desire, so long as we maintain this free state of life.

A problem arises as to the nature of our desire, for though the mind enters into a natural state, the objective thoughts we sought after earlier need to be maintained lest we fall back into the state of egoistic slavery. Standards must be in place, not to imprison our free will, but to guide us into liberation of the self.

It is necessary for all who seek this true freedom to ascertain for themselves what standards of freedom to maintain. The standards of course have standards - they cannot impinge upon our free will with predisposition before or after they are lived, and they must in this state of freedom provide structure and direction to us.

May we all find this true freedom. For the Orthodox Christian, this freedom is found in Christ, whether or not we seek after it.