Well, it all depends on what’s meant by freedom. Bearing in mind that I’m far from being a philosopher, here is a brief summary of the classical, Christian, Aristotelian-Thomistic response:
Everyone nowadays thinks freedom means “without limitation or restriction”—what’s commonly referred to as “freedom as license”—but that’s a lot of common nonsense. The proper understanding of freedom I’m outlining here is often called “freedom for excellence.”
A person has the capacity to choose, for example, between eating a steak or eating sand, but the fact such a choice exists does not mean that both choices are or ought to be good.
The nature of freedom is closely tied up with ethics. The nature of ethics is another commonly misunderstood thing today: it’s not just about “social” things, how my actions affect another, but the fundamental reality that dictates those actions: whether or not the actor is a good person. But how does one become good? What does it entail? The science of answering those question is ethics. In other words, morality is about happiness. What will make the human person happy? What will make the human race happy? How is this best achieved?
The answer is “goodness.” Philosophers and theologians have defined this in a wide variety of ways in the course of history because “goodness” in this loose sense simply refers to “whatever one values as bringing happiness.” No one pursues or values things, actions, or situations they see as evil. Someone who claims to value evil because it is evil really thinks that evil is good, better than whatever traditional good they’re rebelling against.
Confused? No worries, so is everybody else. But here’s the simple claim we’ve established: That the capacity to choose, which is how you and so many define freedom, is separate from the question of happiness or goodness.
I have the capacity, the choice, the “play” the guitar. I do not, however, have the skills or the knowledge to play the guitar properly. Am I really free to “play” the guitar? Is a five year old banging on piano keys playing music the way a concert pianist plays music?
A human being has the capacity, the “choice,” to choose to eat steak or sand. One of those will lead to health, pleasure, and some degree of happiness; the other will lead to sickness, pain, and unhappiness.
The Christian God doesn’t put before us to sets of “rules” and say, you’re “free” to pick either, but only one is “right”; the Christian God has created us as bodily and spiritual creatures designed to work in a certain way, like a guitar or a piano. We are “free,” that is, we are capable, of playing without skill, but the end result won’t be good. We’re capable, “free,” to live on sand—but only for a time, because after a while, it will destroy us.
The Christian claim is simply that God created this world and put us, a certain kind of creature, in it. He said, here is everything you need to live healthily and happily in body and spirit. We are “free” to reject that, but the consequence are embedded in the act itself, in the kinds of creatures we are. “Punishment” is not imposed arbitrarily, capriciously, from the outside; it’s more like deliberately trying to run a gasoline engine on soda pop. You’re “free to try,” but it’s not going to work out well.
The alternative, the logical conclusion of “freedom as license,” as unfettered choice, is nihilism: no universe, no creation, no art, because life, as in art, consists in knowing where to draw the line. “Limitation,” context, is the nature of everything.
In short, we are free to choose goodness, the true fulfillment of our own nature; and we are free to reject it in favor of our own, sandy ideas of happiness. But the capacity for choice isn’t something to valued for itself, as an end; rather, it is a means to an end, to what is good in and of itself. We are very, very free, because only with that capacity to accept or reject is there the possibility of love. Love is the goodness that is happiness, the proper end of the human person, and the proper response to another person: and of course the ultimate Person is God, to whom we are fundamentally responding.
In your presentation of the issue, Anon, God is like someone holding a gun to a man faced with two paths and forcing him to choose one equally good path over another. The reality of the Christian claim, however, is that God is a father watching his children help themselves from a buffet at dinner time: some foods are good and will help the children grow, some are good only in small doses, and then there are some things some idiot left on the table, like sand, that shouldn’t be eaten at all if the children are going to live.
TL;DR: The nature of freedom isn’t merely choice, but the knowledge and ability to choose well.
Hope that helps. God bless!
