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The origins of freedom: the Middle Ages

The affirmation of human freedom

A Philosophical History of Freedom

The affirmation of human freedom

  • Freedom is implicated in the idea of sin
  • God does not do good in our place
The Christian concept of freedom developed in medieval theology, from Saint Augustine in the 4th century to Saint Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. What is this idea?

Freedom is implicated in the idea of sin

From the outset, Christianity teaches that sin is a personal matter, not inherent to the group, but rather that each individual must take responsibility for their salvation. "God has endowed his creature with free will, the capacity to do wrong, and thereby, the responsibility for sin," asserts Saint Augustine in his treatise on free will, De Libero Arbitrio. Sin cannot exist without freedom. Indeed, the Christian God is a judge who rewards virtue and punishes sin. However, this conception of God is precisely incompatible with fatalism because a person could not be guilty and make a "mea culpa" if they were not first free to determine their behavior. To acknowledge one's moral fault, one's guilt, is to recognize that one could have acted differently.
"Why do we do wrong?" asks Saint Augustine. If I am not mistaken, the argument has shown that we act this way through the free will of the will. But this free will to which we owe our ability to sin, we are convinced, I wonder if He who created us did well to give it to us. It seems, indeed, that we would not have been exposed to sin if we had been deprived of it; but it is to be feared that, in this way, God also appears as the author of our bad actions. (De libero arbitrio, I, 16, 35.)
If God wanted man to be able to do wrong, isn't He then indirectly responsible for evil? Why did God want the possibility of evil? Saint Augustine answers:
The free will without which no one can live well, you must recognise that it is a good, and that it is a gift from God, and that those who misuse this good should be condemned rather than saying of the one who gave it that he should not have given it.
Saint Augustine's response to the problem is that God is responsible for the possibility of evil, but not for its actualization. He wants the possibility of evil because this possibility is necessary for freedom, without which there is no responsibility, that is, no access to the dignity of moral life.
But the realization of moral evil is the work of man, who makes bad use of his freedom, and not of God, who wants man to choose the good.
In summary, freedom is a good because it allows one to order oneself to the good and to God, who is the ultimate good. Still, it necessarily and simultaneously implies the possibility of choosing evil and rejecting God.

God does not do good in our place

In medieval theology, providence is not understood as a constant intervention of God in the lives of men, as if God acted on our behalf and without our consent. On the contrary, God gives to each creature, according to its nature, faculties that allow it to provide for itself and thus reach its full development. God does not do good for the creature in its stead.
And the higher we go in the scale of beings, from mineral to man, the more God delegates to his creature the power to act on its own. He entrusts man with the freedom to govern himself and to govern the world with his reason, according to the virtue of prudence.
Thus, Saint Thomas writes (Summa contra Gentiles, III, 69 and 122):
To take away from the perfection of creatures is to detract from the perfection of divine power (...) God is offended by us only because we act against our good.
Providence, therefore, gives us the means to be our own providence. And he adds:
A man can direct and govern his actions. Therefore, the rational creature participates in divine providence not only by being governed but also by governing.
For man to make the best possible use of his freedom, God gives him a tool, which is his reason and a manual to enlighten him, which is natural law.
Natural law expresses itself in us through inclinations such as the love of truth, obedience to reason, or the famous golden rule: "Do not do unto others what you would not want done unto you." These inclinations are, according to him, innate. Indeed, Saint Thomas writes, "it must be considered that natural justice is that towards which the nature of man inclines."
However, this inner light is not enough to act well. The development of concrete norms of action and their application to specific situations is necessary. It then falls to jurists to define these norms, per natural law: these are human laws. But natural law is superior to human law, and it imposes itself universally, including on Princes.
According to Saint Thomas:
Through the knowledge of natural law, man directly accesses the common order of reason, before and above the political order to which he belongs as a citizen of a particular society. Therefore, there exists a right before the formation of the State, a set of general principles that reason can articulate by studying the nature of man as God created it. This right imposes itself on the monarch, on power, which must then respect it. And the laws enacted by political authority are binding only insofar as they conform to natural law.
Quiz
Quiz1/5
What is the function of natural law according to Saint Thomas Aquinas?