Freedom v.s. Freedom
I need help. I need to find two different words to contrast two different ideas. Both ideas are best described as freedom, however, both are different and, depending on your interpretation, contradictory. For now, I'll briefly describe the two ideas using modifiers for clarity.
Political freedom means not being coercively subject to the rule ( Read more... )
Political freedom means not being coercively subject to the rule ( Read more... )
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"3 a : freedom that allows or is used with irresponsibility b : disregard for standards of personal conduct : licentiousness"
Liberty "correctly used" is generally referred to as Liberty. Offhand I do not know of a single word that would make the meaning clearer. I looked for antonyms for license and licentiousness but I did not find anything that would work well. Certainly there are a number of short phrases that would work.
Of course there will be differences of opinion about where the line between the two is. Some things will be clearly on one side or the other but others will be matters open for debate.
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As long as all members of a group freely choose to be members, the rules of that group can be as minimal or total as they like, and it's still freedom, because of the free choice to be a member.
Freedom, in general, is the ability to exercise one's rights without being coerced to stop by others. Also known as "libertarianism."
I think that, as long as you define your term, "Christian freedom" appropriately, it works fine (eg, "the freedom for members of Christianity to do anything not prohibited by that religion's doctrines"). As long as the definition is clear that this only applies to Christians, most anyone in the liberty spectrum should understand what you're getting at.
You could also use the morality/ethics must/should dichotomy to help explain. You must not murder some innocent guy walking down the street; that's morality. You should not kill someone who attacks you, if you can reasonably stop him without killing him and without causing future danger to yourself ( ... )
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The Christian still has the Freedom to turn away from Christ otherwise he has no Free Will. This is the Freedom that the Elohim gave Adam and Eve even before the fall and man retains today (according to the doctrine I was taught as a young Missouri-synod Lutheran).
Adam & Evetm had the choice to either partake of the tree of knowledge or not. It was an open choice they took upon themselves to exercise and thereby demonstrated their Freedom to do by engaging in that very act. The Elohim did not stop them from this action or in any way bar this Freedom from them other than previously issue a prohibition which they then ignored.
All Freedom always has inherent consequences -as all action does. The consequence of the Christian who turns from Christ endangers his soul if he expires before being redeemed.
But according to mainstream Christianity the one thing a Christian does NOT have is the Freedom NOT to sin. Humans are supposedly incapable, genetically/racially, of totally abstaining from sin so this ( ... )
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My bias is towards calling them “political liberty” vs “Christian liberty”. “Freedom” seems to connote more of a current legal right, while “liberty” seems to connote more the universal principles: libertarianism vs Galatians 5:1- “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”
That’s a thought-perhaps the Greek word used here for “freedom” (KJV “liberty”) might be useful. Strong’s transliterates it “eleutheria” (G1657). http://u.nu/4upzb “Free” is “eleutheroō” (G1659)
As you alluded to in the OP: freedom from sin and eternal Death; freedom TO obey Christ, forgive the unforgiveable, love the unloveable…
God bless.
j
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Here's an idea from Virgil Swearingen, your own personal Dad. :-)
I'm not going to address your exact request / question about those two desirable kinds of freedom. Rather, I'm going to offer two phrases that might be helpful as we try to combine Christianity and government. Or, another way to say it, as we try to apply a Christian worldview to the governmental aspect of life.
Desirable: Godly Christian Self-Government.
NOT Desirable: UNgodly NON-Christian Others-Government.
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