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All right, Drew McMahon asks, Hi Jonathan, my question is on the topic of free will. In your interview with Robert Reed Love about Bitcoin, you talked about free will and made the point you’ve made before that the only genuine free will to move, free will move ultimately is in the movement, in the moment move towards God. That everything else is contingent on circumstances and other forces you may not be aware of. Isn’t one’s choice in the moment to move towards God still impacted by those same forces and circumstances? I’m wondering how that choice in particular is different than all others, which makes it actually free versus all others which are contingent. Thank you. And so once again, it’s like there is no such thing as we have to understand freedom as Okay, so understand freedom as that which moves away from from enslavement to the contingencies and move towards the telos. So it doesn’t mean that it’s not framed by the contingencies, right? Of course, it’s like you’re not you’re not you’re not free to You’re not free to eat salt when you’re taking your shower. Like you’re not free to, I’m trying to find the absurd connections, like you’re not, you know, you’re not free to You’re not free to build a house when you’re, you know, when you’re driving your car. It’s like the reality has its contingencies, but the freedom is when those contingencies come together towards the purpose and so that’s the that’s the freedom we have is the freedom we have is to move towards purpose, move towards logos. That’s the freedom and as you do that you you become less burdened by it’s not that the contingencies aren’t there is that the telos enlightens them like casts light on them. You don’t feel them as contingencies as much. You see them as the frame in which to move towards purpose. And so I think that that’s the way to understand freedom. There I don’t think any other way to understand freedom works. It’s not it’s just not a It just doesn’t work and so So you can imagine that let’s say as you right so think of it like as you move up. So let’s say you you discover the logos of a specific thing and you discover the purpose and you move towards that purpose and then that is that is embedded into all these other purposes and as you move higher up Then all those purposes all those contingencies kind of fall away It’s not that they actually end up ceasing to exist, but it’s that they don’t appear as They appear as these glorious points that are kind of moving up towards the ultimate purpose and as you move towards theosis itself, then the whole world starts to shine with that one final purpose Which is you know to exist in love in the you know in the life of God something like that and then Then then then you’re free. You’re not free in the sense that you’re not free in the sense that Like let’s say when faced with a glass of water you’re like, well, I don’t want to drink water, right? I want to I don’t know. I like I don’t want to drink water I want to do a cartwheel in a cartwheel I don’t want to drink water. I want to do a cartwheel and it’s like I don’t want to drink You know, I don’t it’s like no you you you you engage the world with a with a transparent vision and and understanding and participation in the purposes of things And so you’re not a slave anymore and you could be you could be put in prison You could be you could be shackled to the wall. You could be tortured You could anything could be done to you and you would always be free Because you would not be A slave to the contingency because you would be living up in that higher purpose So I don’t see how without understanding freedom that way that the christian world makes sense like If freedom is just this idea of a lack of contingency then What does that have to do with a martyr like what does that have to do with someone who is led into Being eaten by the lions the images of the martyrs are there to show us that if you live in the highest Telos with the highest purpose Then no matter what happens to you down here You will be free not because you won’t not because you You won’t be in the contingencies because the contingencies are inevitable that those contingencies won’t Swallow you they won’t They won’t hold your being I hope that makes sense I would love to hear a discussion. So there’s Two concepts keep coming up in our conversation and it’s purpose and freedom Right that like we we as humans at least from our orthodox christian perspective would say that we do have a purpose right a telos a goal a Trajectory, right when we look at an icon of christ Ultimately, we’re looking at our own telos our our purpose But at the same time there’s this emphasis on freedom as well and i’m wondering what the relationship is between Freedom to kind of do what you want like we as humans have freedom to kind of do what we want Kind of but at the same time we have a purpose And which would seem to limit freedom So I I would love to hear a discussion on the relationship between freedom and purpose and maybe like do we have to redefine? These words like what what’s going on with these two concepts? I think we do. I think we do need to redefine these words. I think that That I think say maximus his definition of freedom. I think it’s just the best definition of freedom, which is You to frame it in the I won’t like to frame it in the way that you framed it would be that the only Manner that you are free is when you are moving towards your purpose That’s the only way you’re free and you have to think of it mostly like If you’re moving towards your purpose and you’re moving towards what you are And if you’re not it means you become a slave to all these idiosyncratic things that are Next to you And so so that’s what that’s the true freedom So the only true freedom is actually to move and become like christ and to move and to be united with god And everything else that you engage with that isn’t moving you in that direction is actually what is a form of of slavery So the idea that i’m free to drink it’s like no you’re not free to drink because if you act that way you’ll you’ll Become a slave of the bottle and you will you will experience that as Slavery, but when I act in truth and when I act with virtue with a act when I act with love Then I am free. I am not I am not bound by By the exterior as you’d say or by the lower goods maybe Think about that one metaphor that i’ve heard is you know when you plant a seed of a tree in the ground If you give that seed its appropriate freedom, it will become a tree Like it won’t become a car Right, it’ll become it’ll become a tree Yeah, it’ll be very stressed trying to become a car if you ask me to do that Or if it decides that’s what it is, right? Because it was Um father jeffrey take it away it’s a complicated business because I think in some respects when orthodox will um Emphasize a certain amount of freedom over against maybe a certain strain of western christianity. That was all about you know, kind of God for ordaining, you know pre-destining certain Eventualities, right? So it sort of didn’t matter whether or not you chose christ because that was already determined in the stars somehow And I think against that orthodox will emphasize a certain amount of Responsibility to respond to god’s call, you know, and ultimately that call is universal and that we all have that opportunity and everything but I think where that the genesis of that which you know Fundamentally christian concept and that obviously leads through stages to what we have in our kind of modern Liberal, you know mindset around freedom, but now this idea of freedom as this kind of removing of all constraints right of removing all authorities that that that this is and Today, I mean everything all this vast chasm in the political spectrum in our world Is actually all in a very narrow part of the spectrum to do with how you actually implement freedom, right? Some people will say well, it’s by taking off all government shackles. That’s the freedom The other one says well No government has to be involved to give people the freedom to do whatever they want and to choose whatever identity, etc So but it’s all about this kind of idea of freedom without constraint of any kind and I think The insights of some of the stuff we’re talking about here late 20th century early 21st century Philosophy and looking again at the human person. We understand that’s not how human beings are, right? That’s all predicated on the notion that you can just kind of think your way into some kind of of reality whereas we’re actually formed by Ultimately discipline by power right power structures and and disciplines and and so forth are what is At work here and you might think you freed yourself from that But you are ultimately subjecting yourself to other powers, right? And so the example of the bottle that the alcoholic is is is subjected to but whether you’re aware of it or not whether it’s consumer pressure whether it’s you know, the You know all the kinds of disciplines and and so forth that are attended upon all those stories that that were participating We need to be kind of made aware, you know of all of that and the christian answer is not To remove all of that but to offer Proper discipline, you know, we we call ourselves disciples and there’s a kind of real purpose that because it involves Power and it involves being subjected to power but that power is the godly power Of of the divine, you know god himself right that we’re putting ourselves Into the right story with the right end and with the right purpose and therefore we can be formed in obedience to Truth to goodness to beauty to everything that that we ultimately want and we don’t pay attention to that It’s not like we’re not being formed We are being formed in all kinds of subconscious ways to things that are ultimately deforming us away from our Our proper, you know human nature. So I think it’s you know freedom as you know Is there in terms of responding, you know to god’s invitation? But ultimately as say maximus, you know that quote that jonathan gave, you know Says unless the choice that we make is one to be According to our own proper nature and purpose then we will be ultimately deformed by You know all of these kind of counter To to to god’s purposes disciplines and power structures and and so forth in the world around us But we need to pay attention to them and that we have to kind of do this analysis and and figure out Assume always and everywhere that you are being formed In one way or another and then to say well actually i’m going to choose The formation that is actually in keeping with with who I am and therefore The rituals of the church the liturgy the church the sacraments the ascetical life The the life of of prayer and self-sacrificing love all of this kind of comes together as the community of practice and tradition that actually points us in the direction of of a Of a fullness of a purpose in life that is ultimately yeah It’s something we can choose we can we can we can respond to god’s call for but it’s not that we get every Constraint removed right we have to be deliberate about the constraints that we choose obedience to truth and love and goodness rather than All the other things that we’ve done subconsciously One of our patrons writes, uh that definition of freedom mind-blown emoji. Love it Uh, thank you elisa it’s helpful for now Especially in a debate in a world where people are saying free will doesn’t exist and all of this stuff It’s like it really really just it’s it just cuts through all that stuff To to use the the to me to use the the traditional definition of freedom that that the fathers ended up Embracing it’s much better and it’s yeah and remember our ultimate model for that is Jesus christ who is right perfectly obedient to the father right and sinless, right sin sin does not factor into freedom Like in in his like he he was the most free person But did not participate in sin and didn’t sin So like, you know, I think when a lot of people think of freedom They mean doing what you want, which means I I guess sin kind of factors into their frame of freedom Whereas slavery that’s that that’s why that’s you can really think of it Just almost like in terms of etymology this idea that that you know sin is to miss missing the mark. It’s missing your purpose So when are you when when is it that you have a purpose and you miss your purpose? You feel free You know if I can find if i’m trying to cook something and I miss my purpose like I could be free to decide that i’m gonna i’m gonna add cement to my you know to my uh to my sauce But it’s like it’s gonna miss the purpose which is i’m cooking to eat right and so like there’s The idea of freedom the way we think of it is so is so uh, it’s just not useful It’s much better to to look at the teleological idea of freedom you