In, not of the world: a brief note on the Christian background of modern freedom
This article focuses only on one of the monotheistic tradition, Christianity, of which I take three elements that show how freedom belongs to the core of the Christian narrative and how ‘Christian’ freedom persists in today’s secular (and post-secular) societies. The freedom put forward by the Chris...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic/Print Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Peeters
[2014]
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| In: |
Theoforum
Year: 2014, Volume: 45, Issue: 2, Pages: 233-243 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | This article focuses only on one of the monotheistic tradition, Christianity, of which I take three elements that show how freedom belongs to the core of the Christian narrative and how ‘Christian’ freedom persists in today’s secular (and post-secular) societies. The freedom put forward by the Christian narrative must first of all be linked to the freedom that is characteristic for the monotheistic God. Although, from the very beginning of the monotheistic tradition, its God has been considered free, it is not until the confrontation with Greek philosophy that God’s freedom explicitly will come to the foreground and that it will establish the paradigm of what centuries later will become modern freedom. The second element of the Christian tradition persisting to this day is the concept of freedom put forward in the Letters of Saint Paul. The word marked the distance with respect to Judaism. Christians claimed that they were no longer bound to the Law, the Law the Jews had received from God by mediation of Moses. Christians were free, i.e. free from the Law. This idea will survive in the freedom embraced by modernity. The third element is the way Christianity felt free from the world without really disconnecting itself from it. Free from the world, Christianity nonetheless took full responsibility with respect to that world. Or, to put it in an early Christian formula: Christians considered – and still consider – themselves to be in, but not from the world. Centré sur la tradition monothéiste chrétienne, cet article présente trois éléments qui montrent que la liberté appartient au cœur du récit chrétien et que cette liberté chrétienne persiste au coeur des sociétés séculières et post-séculières d’aujourd’hui. Le premier élément repose sur le fait que la liberté chrétienne est tributaire de la liberté caractéristique du Dieu monothéiste. Quoique Dieu ait été reconnu libre dès les débuts de la tradition monothéiste, cette liberté n’a été mise en lumière que lorsque qu’elle fut confrontée à la philosophie grecque. Cette confrontation a permis l’émergence du paradigme de la liberté moderne. La conception paulienne de la liberté de la foi comme libération de la Loi et réalisation de cette liberté est le second élément qui perdure jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Le troisième élément est la compréhension chrétienne de la liberté qui, tout en se concevant comme libre par rapport au monde, se considère néanmoins responsable du monde. |
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| ISSN: | 1495-7922 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Theoforum
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2143/TF.45.2.3115471 |