The Other Side of Freedom

So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free. John 8:36  NASB

Free – Have you considered the other side of freedom?  To be free is to be at risk.  There is no such thing as a guarantee when freedom is involved.  Free choice always means alternative results.  The only thing that prevents unexpected outcomes is the reliability of the one who chooses.  Rabbi Jonathan Sacks makes the point:

“God is free.  It is only because God is free that human beings too are free.  Therefore God cannot be predicted or constrained.  Justice and compassion are matters of ultimate choice.  Judges must practice justice.  Parents may exercise compassion.  But God is both a judge and a parent (‘My child, my firstborn, Israel’).  There is no way of excluding uncertainty from the Divine-human encounter.”[1]

“There is no way of excluding uncertainty from the Divine-human encounter.”  Why?  Because it takes two parties.  We may rely entirely and absolutely on God’s character, but we are also in the mix, and as history demonstrates, human beings can change.  Certainty is clearly not guaranteed.

How does that make you feel?  Upset?  Concerned?  Worried?  Afraid?  Don’t we all want that sense of security that comes with unbreakable commitments?  Oh, we want freedom, but freedom comes with a cost, and quite often we would prefer rigid boundaries rather than freedom’s flexibility.  Not just individuals are subject to this tension.  We find entire societies ready to give up their flexible freedom for guaranteed certainty.  Make a rule that can’t be broken.  Guarantee us peace and security and we’ll give away all our other choices.  How tempting it is to make certainty our talisman.

But human life isn’t like that.  We have ontological uncertainty.  That’s what it means to have free choice.  And that’s why trust is not the same as certain.  God is reliable.  We can trust Him because He doesn’t break His promises.  We do.  That’s the dilemma of free choice, but we have consolation in the fact that God doesn’t lie, doesn’t renege, doesn’t deceive, doesn’t break His word.  It is His character that provides the basis of our trust.  He could change His mind.  After all, He is free.  But He tells us that He won’t change His mind about those things that matter most to us.  And that is the only certainty we will ever really have.

Is that enough for you?

Topical Index: free, certain, reliable, John 8:36

[1] Jonathan Sacks  Covenant & Conversation: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible: Leviticus: The Book of Holiness (Maggid Books & The Orthodox Union, 2015), p. 128.