Ben, thanks for the piece. I offer some critiques not to “engage in a toxic Twitter spat” but in a spirit of goodwill to spur further debate.
There is a first-order disagreement about your definition of “freedom” between you and the post-liberals. You say that “freedom isn’t libertinism” but closely relate the idea to “choice.” “Citizens in a free society can choose to give their lives over to porn and drugs.” A post-liberal takes issue with this definition because when a person engages in immoral or anti-social behavior, they are not exercising their “freedom”. What they are doing is enslaving themselves. If there is an understanding of human dignity, that the person is aimed at a higher good, then no one can say that “cocoons of digital comfort” portend to this higher aim.
Your definition of freedom fits nicely with progressive ideas of “self-actualization” severed from any notion of “virtue.” The issue for post-liberals is not what the state should do but what the state inevitably does, namely form public virtue, or the in words of George Will, “statecraft is soulcraft.” The problem is that society and the state have been formed by progressive ideas that you decry.
I’m not sure where exactly your disagreement lies because passing laws does not mean that the behavior will be eliminated, see marijuana, but simply that the state does not condone the behavior. This doesn’t mean, as you imply a violation of “freedom.” Here you seem to veer into libertarian anarchy if any push to curb “unvirtuous” behavior is autocracy.
Rather than asking what freedom is for, we should ask what the state is for since that seems to be your biggest gripe. The Constitution tells us that it was in order to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare…” that list of common goods comes before securing the “Blessing of Liberty.”
Specific to the question of Christian theology, I've never fully understood the flirtation with theocracy given the ramifications of the atonement. Yes, we're fallen creatures and yes, the natural man is an enemy to God. But Christ's sacrifice unlocked our potential. The atonement was an act that granted agency, that punctuated freedom as the core gift given to us by God. We were set at liberty to choose, and the very fact that God Himself believes it's so important for us to choose righteousness that He allows all manner of evil to exist in our world suggests that we should very cautious of asserting a power of coercion that God Himself refuses to wield. A full and clear understanding of Christian theology points pretty convincingly to the reality that the spirit of freedom is the spirit of God.
Ben, thanks for the piece. I offer some critiques not to “engage in a toxic Twitter spat” but in a spirit of goodwill to spur further debate.
There is a first-order disagreement about your definition of “freedom” between you and the post-liberals. You say that “freedom isn’t libertinism” but closely relate the idea to “choice.” “Citizens in a free society can choose to give their lives over to porn and drugs.” A post-liberal takes issue with this definition because when a person engages in immoral or anti-social behavior, they are not exercising their “freedom”. What they are doing is enslaving themselves. If there is an understanding of human dignity, that the person is aimed at a higher good, then no one can say that “cocoons of digital comfort” portend to this higher aim.
Your definition of freedom fits nicely with progressive ideas of “self-actualization” severed from any notion of “virtue.” The issue for post-liberals is not what the state should do but what the state inevitably does, namely form public virtue, or the in words of George Will, “statecraft is soulcraft.” The problem is that society and the state have been formed by progressive ideas that you decry.
I’m not sure where exactly your disagreement lies because passing laws does not mean that the behavior will be eliminated, see marijuana, but simply that the state does not condone the behavior. This doesn’t mean, as you imply a violation of “freedom.” Here you seem to veer into libertarian anarchy if any push to curb “unvirtuous” behavior is autocracy.
Rather than asking what freedom is for, we should ask what the state is for since that seems to be your biggest gripe. The Constitution tells us that it was in order to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare…” that list of common goods comes before securing the “Blessing of Liberty.”
Specific to the question of Christian theology, I've never fully understood the flirtation with theocracy given the ramifications of the atonement. Yes, we're fallen creatures and yes, the natural man is an enemy to God. But Christ's sacrifice unlocked our potential. The atonement was an act that granted agency, that punctuated freedom as the core gift given to us by God. We were set at liberty to choose, and the very fact that God Himself believes it's so important for us to choose righteousness that He allows all manner of evil to exist in our world suggests that we should very cautious of asserting a power of coercion that God Himself refuses to wield. A full and clear understanding of Christian theology points pretty convincingly to the reality that the spirit of freedom is the spirit of God.