‘INTENTIONAL FREEDOM’. . .

There are a number of freedoms: Freedom From. . .Freedom To. . .Freedom For. . . Eric Fromm reminds us in his powerful book, ‘Escape From Freedom,’ that we humans spend a great deal of time and energy attempting to figure out how to flee from freedom, its responsibilities, from the choices involved when one said to ‘be free,’ and from freedom’s consequences. In his essay, ‘The Varieties of Human Freedom,’ anthropologist David Bidney invites us to consider what he calls ‘Intentional Freedom.’ Bidney notes that the ‘defining characteristic of man’ is ‘Intentional Freedom’ – ‘the human capacity to form an intention and to seek to realize it in action.’

This implies that one knows the difference between ‘right and wrong,’ and ‘good and evil.’ How did we humans come to know the difference between ‘right and wrong’? For the ‘People of the Book’ [Jews, Christians, Muslims] this ‘knowing’ occurred with Adam and Eve. When they ate of the tree of knowledge one of the things they learned was the difference between right and wrong – a differentiation that only God previously knew. In order to decide whether to eat of the tree of knowledge Adam and Eve needed to have choice – ‘Intentional Freedom’ – ‘Free Will.’ For the People of the Book, God created human beings possessed of free will in order that they might be in a position to acquire merit by acting rightly ‘when it was possible for them to act wrongly.’ Thus, we human beings are free to choose – right and wrong, good and evil. Evil, then, must be present in the universe in order for evil to be chosen; without evil, good would not exist. Without free will, ‘intentional freedom,’ would not exist (neither would any of the other ‘freedoms’). St. Paul captures this quite wonderfully when he writes: ‘For the good that I would do I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.’

The great philosopher, Pogo, once noted: ‘I have seen the enemy and he is us!’ As human beings our true enemy lies within each of us and this enemy is as strong as our uncontrolled passions and appetites; a question each of us might ask: ‘What do I feed my passions and appetites so that they are fully nourished and sustained?’ Perhaps, then, the ‘true’ cause of wrong choice, then, lies within each of us and is rooted in our free will, in our ability to choose, in our ability to exercise ‘intentional freedom.’