CONCEPT OF FREEDOM IN PHILOSOPHY AND IN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
CONCEPT OF FREEDOM IN PHILOSOPHY AND IN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

Summary/Abstract: Freedom is an original and existential attribute of man. Christianity asserts that every man, as a person,has freedom in nature, since it is an image of God. Even Hegel had argued that the principle of freedomwas born along with Christianity. From a philosophical point of view, there are two mutually exclusivevisions: that of free will and of determinism. If the first one postulates that man is able to choose and toact according to the dictates of his own will, the other affirms that all events, including human actions, arepredetermined. In Christianity, there is an extraneous reality but through which man's natural strength anddeeds are supported continuously: that is the divine grace. Freedom by which God exalted man is freedomas a state, not only as an attribute of an approach of choice accompanied by indecision‟s anxieties; it isfreedom based on knowledge of good when that good belongs appropriately to the human person and toGod as well. “If you abide in my word, then you are truly my disciples. And you shall know the truth, andthe truth shall set you free.” (John 8, 31-32). The authentic freedom of human personality is revealed onlyin the divine Revelation, which reaches its climax in the Incarnation of the divine Logos. The ancientworld did not know the personal freedom; it used to know only public freedom. The various philosophicalconcepts on freedom, but also other various ways of manifesting freedom over the time, have only provedtheir precarious and ephemeral character..

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