On Freedom

     Often times, when people find out I am a devout Catholic, there is a look of pity, sometimes even incredulity, that appears on their faces. They will rarely come out and say it directly, but it is obvious that the question of why is running through their heads. Why give of your time and treasure in the name of a man who lived 2,000 years ago? Why follow a Church that has been so flawed historically? Why be willing to sacrifice the tangible pleasures of this world for a belief, a gamble, that may not exist? Ultimately, all these questions hint at a larger one: why give up my freedom?

     Last night, I began reading G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy (accessible for free by clicking the link). This book, essentially an autobiography detailing how the early 20th century writer and lover of philosophy came to find freedom and a satisfied life within the "constraints" of Christianity, is one that I have been meaning to get to for a long time. I am only 40 pages in (it's about 120 pages long), but I can safely say that it has already given me more to think about than most books of considerably greater length. To my surprise, Chesterton addresses the very question of liberation in Christianity in a way that  I never thought to consider. He writes:

The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle...The Christian admits that the universe in manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a sane man knows that he is complex. The sane man knows that he has a touch of beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows he has a touch of the madman. But the materialist's world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane...Spiritual doctrines do not actually limit the mind as do materialistic denials. Even if I believe in immortality I need not think about it. But if I disbelieve in immortality I must not think about it. In the first case the road is open and I can go as far as I like; in the second the road is shut.

     To live in the world and believe that this world contains the sum total of existence is the most limiting doctrine to which one can adhere. If this world is the alpha and the omega, then existence is, to again borrow Chesterton's imagery, a circle. The world, like the circle, is fixed. There is no destination except to return to one's original state of nothingness. For the non-believer, what is life but a brief trip around the circle? One can accumulate much in the way of worldly riches, but must give them up before coming to rest in the grave. Chesterton calls this life "centripetal" because it pulls everything into the world's confined space.

     Conversely, Christianity, and especially Catholicism, is centrifugal. At the heart of a Christian life is the Cross. The Truth of the Cross-- that the Creator would enter the World and give up life to ransom humanity's sin-- confounds logic and reason. It stirs and spins our consciousness, our very souls, in such a manner that we are liberated from the circle before reaching its end. Knowing this frees us from limiting ourselves to the pleasures of the world.
   
      While Chesterton says that non-believers must not think of immortality, I would add that many must   not think of death either. It is a jolt to hear that someone is dying, and often the expression is used as an exaggeration ("I feel like I'm dying").  The reality that most cannot reconcile is that, if this world is it, then we are all dying; each breath draws us closer to the end of existence. If the non-believer is to be believed, then life itself is a terminal illness. What a cruel joke that would be, that we were born to die! Thus, the majority of non-believers go on living with an almost necessary aloofness to the reality of their doctrine. They build careers, worry about the future, and even do acts of selfless charity for the benefit of others. Yet what do any of these things matter if the world ends with your death? What does the well-being of another matter if he and she will be following you down the path of non-existence in short order? Likewise, it always amuses me that many atheists show great reverence for the environment. It makes sense on a certain level that this would be the case: for the environment has more staying power than an individual. But even the environment, if we are to believe that scientific models will run their course without a God to intervene, will one day become uninhabitable once our Sun runs out of energy or an asteroid finds Earth's path through the cosmos once again. And at that moment the environment will die no less a death than every human who inhabited it theretofore. Thus, for an atheist to care for anything except their own fleeting life is a mere plea for meaning: an attempt to throw the baton of purpose we all hold in our psyches behind us in hopes a bit of our essence will be able to live on with another runner in the race to death, past the time when our corporal selves are rendered to dust. The problem is that existence without God, life in the circle that is, does not permit the extension we so desperately crave. And our craving is a proof that it exists, in my opinion. Just as hunger hints at the existence of food and fatigue lets us know that sleep is a real phenomenon, our longing for immortality suggests that that very immortality is not only possible, but an unalterable fact.

     Yet just as a person can ignore their hunger and remain hungry, just as a person can restrict their sleep and remain fatigued, so too can a person ignore their immortality and remain trapped in this finite world, free only insofar as they can dull their minds to meditating on their own cowardice. It takes a strong person to believe without understanding fully all the ways of God. Only a fool believes only of what has already been revealed to him. Our society reveres such non-believers as free thinkers and intellectuals, but they are barely more than bullies and control-seekers, people who would much rather, in lieu of paying rent in God's penthouse, own an outhouse and complain about those who accepted God's generosity.

     Society is unsettled by Christianity because it, like Jesus himself, is a sign of contradiction. I would be lying if I said that following Christ is all fun. There was tremendous suffering in Jesus' life; he was a man scorned, mocked and abandoned. As followers of Christ, we suffer in emulation. There is a reason we Catholics wear ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday: we are dust and to dust we shall return. But if we turn away from sin and are faithful to the Gospel, then we will find eternal life after our deaths. Thus, there is joy in suffering when it is freely accepted and even desired, if it draws us closer to Christ. This is the ultimate freedom: freedom from death. The authentic Christian has no fear of death. The truly authentic Christian even dares to anticipate and long for death--not in a suicidal way--but as a means to arrive to the glory of Heaven. To live as such necessitates a detachment--a liberation--from worldly possessions. Only then are we free, like the apostles, to drop everything and follow Jesus.

     So who is more free? Is it I, who can live in this world yet dream of one to come which is far more enjoyable? I, who hold nothing material of such value that I am a slave to it? Or is it the one who lives only for a time in this world, constrained with the knowledge of his or her own mortality? The one who is beholden to gadgets or alcohol or drugs or money or a million other passing pleasures that must be perpetually restocked and financed at the expense of one's freedom to feel fulfilled without these dependencies. Perhaps the preceding questions were a bit leading, but in any event and I am here to proclaim that there is freedom, complete freedom, in Christ. It is the freedom to choose the good.