Every single person wants to be good, to at least feel like they are good. But we are only as “good” as our Creator says that we are. He is the manufacturer, and so we have to live according to His instructions or else our warranty will run out and we will be, literally, “good for nothing.”
Yet you placed humans just under the gods and gave him your glory and ruling power!
You established humans to rule over your creatures and everything is under their feet—
The living creatures, the animals, the swimming things and the flying things.
Yahweh, our Lord—Your name is ruling throughout the earth!
Psalm 8
One of the first thing God did right after humans were created was to give them sovereignty. Sovereignty can be one of those tricky theological words until we realize that it just means “rule” or “kingship.” God put humanity in charge of the earth. Specifically humanity is in charge of every creature on the earth. Every animal, even fish, is under the rule of humanity as a whole.
But if we are in charge of every single animal, this means that we are in charge of ourselves as well. Humanity is in charge of itself. This implies a certain amount of rule. Parents are in charge of children. And governments are in charge of larger groups of humans in certain places.
But the basic rule of God is freedom with some exceptions. We are to live in freedom with one another.
The basic rule of freedom is this:
Every sentient adult is free to make their own choices, as long as they do not harm others.
Let’s take this apart:
Freedom—Freedom is the ability to rule oneself. This means that one makes his or her own choices for oneself. These choices could be good, could be bad, but one is free to make them. This does not mean freedom without consequences. Everyone’s choices has consequences. Every action we do determines our future. And just because we have freedom doesn’t mean that we are well-informed. But what we choose is dependent on ourselves.
Sentient adult—Not everyone should have freedom. Children are too limited in their understanding to have freedom. They don’t understand that cars and hot stoves can kill or burn them. They don’t understand the basic rules by which any society lives by. Thus, until they have some basic understanding, their freedom must be limited. Some adults, in the same way, will never have the understanding of others, they are, in essence, perpetual children. If that is the case, then their freedom should also be limited.
Harm Others—This is the only real limitation to freedom for adults. If we harm others, especially in our community, then someone has the responsibility to limit our freedom. Freedom is purposely curtailed if one opts to use one’s freedom for the harm of people.
Moral principle:
We must allow others the freedom they have.
If everyone has freedom to make their own choices, then we must have a moral obligation not to limit what freedom they have. This does not mean that an agreement cannot be reached to limit one’s freedom—see below. But it does mean that if an agreement is not made, and if a person is not harming another, then freedom must not be limited. This is a difficult principle to live by because we want people to live the best way they can, and sometimes we think we know better what they must do better than they do. Even if that is true, we do not have the right to force people to live according to our ideals.
The best example of this is God Himself. God sees that people are self-destructive, but He does nothing about it, except warning. Speech by itself is not limiting freedom, but God rarely uses his almighty power to limit others from destroying themselves.
Thus, in dealing with others, we must not manipulate, control, lie to or otherwise limit others’ freedom to do what they want to. Again, the only exceptions are if they don’t know any better—they are like children—or if in their choices they are harming others.
Complications:
Harming oneself
Should we limit people’s freedom if in their freedom they are harming themselves? To harm oneself might be in opposition to the principle of harming others. Even though one is not the same as the other, to harm oneself IS to harm a human being. Should we limit harm to oneself? Each society seems to have different answers to this question. Usually there is a list of personal harms that are accepted (eating junk food, smoking), while others that are not (suicide, some kinds of drug use). So societies make their own choices.
But as a personal choice, we need to remember that harming ourselves is often a moral choice because it effects others. If we allow ourselves to be harmed, but we are to care for children, the children will be harmed by our choices for ourselves. Others will be emotionally harmed if we kill ourselves, no matter if we tell ourselves otherwise. So generally, the moral choice is to curtail our own freedom for the sake of others. But making this choice does not limit our freedom at all because it is still our own choice.
Agreement to limit freedom
We can make the choice to limit our freedom for a long term. Contracts are made to pay for services rendered—this means that we receive a service or good and we lose the freedom to use our money in other ways. We can make an agreement with an employer to work for him or her for a period of time a week, which the employer agrees to pay us certain amounts of money. This is a long term arrangement which limits our freedom, but one in which we have the freedom to annul to obtain more freedom.
We may feel like slaves because our livelihood depends on the employer, but the fact is that we have other choices, just perhaps not so many that allows us to live the lifestyle we expect or want. But, again, it is our freedom to choose that lifestyle or another, such as being homeless.
Homeless people may feel limited because their lifestyle is illegal and they feel that they have no choice but to live on the street. Freedom in this context is complicated. Homelessness demands a certain freedom, but it also thrusts one to live freely when one may not want to live with so much freedom (i.e. without employment). So it could be that forced homelessness, while seeming more free, is actually the least free lifestyle.
The important aspect of agreeing to limit our freedom is the freedom to opt out of that agreement with few limitations. But if one’s survival depends on the limitation of freedom, are we really free to opt out of it?
Mentally Illness
People who are mentally ill are adults and they have (often) full knowledge of consequences of their actions. In their freedom, they seek to do actions that could be self-harming or just socially unacceptable. Yet they make these choices because they see the world in a different way than society around them. Perhaps they see harms that others do not, or perhaps they see certain people or acts as being more harmful than others do. Should these people be treated as children, or as adults?
In the ancient world, they were considered adults that made strange choices. Modern societies, for the most part have chosen to treat the mentally ill as children, unable to make choices for themselves. In that case, the mentally ill are committed, or placed under the authority of a government agency.
Different worldviews
A similar issue is the issue of differing worldviews. An excellent case for this is abortion in the U.S. Some see fetuses as human children, thus requiring protection and a requirement for limiting the freedom of others from harming them. Others understand the fetus as a potential human, but not yet human, so harming them is not an issue. Which worldview should be able to determine the freedom other’s have?
Actions that lead to harming others
Another complication is having the freedom to do something that is known to indirectly cause harm to others. For instance, one might want to give a dog the opportunity to run in the yard. But if we know that the dog will jump the fence and then bite someone else, then should that freedom be limited? The answer to almost all societies is that if an action is known to cause harm to others, then that freedom should be limited.
But what if it is different in different cases? Some people, when they get drunk, they get abusive. Others, most, do not. Some people, when they use drugs, steal. Others do not. Should everyone be limited from these activities because of the harm of a few? Or should each case be taken separately? Most societies make general principles—i.e. drinking is okay, drunk driving is not—that limit one’s harm, but allows freedom.
This means that we must make more limitations ourselves. If we know we can cause harm to others indirectly, then we must avoid that harm ahead of time. We cannot depend upon the law to determine all of our ethical choices. Freedom means doing what is right ourselves because it is right, not because someone is telling us to.
Fearing Harm
Often we are afraid that if we allow others freedom in some area, then we are allowing ourselves to be harmed. For instance, I might be afraid that my son will hit his sister unless I keep him away from her. Or, more broadly, a society might fear that another race will do them harm unless they keep them oppressed (such as Jews in Nazi Germany, blacks in the United States). However, it is exactly this kind of situation that the law of freedom is given. It seems so much safer to limit other’s freedom, or we might think it is to their benefit. But fear of harm is not the same as proven harm. The only time we should limit the freedom of another is when they have proven that they would harm, not just because we fear it. And even when we limit freedom, we should do so only to the degree in which the assured harm would be prevented.
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