Freedom is Prior to Being

3/11/2023

My metaphysical assumptions begin here – Which came first, being or freedom?

Practically all of what constitutes metaphysics and philosophy posits the primacy of being over freedom.

The problem with this approach is it immediately, irreversibly, and inevitably slips into determinism.

If freedom is truly “free,” it cannot emanate purely from being. Neither can it be solely an effect of a being. That would imply that beings create freedom; that without beings there would be no freedom.

However, if beings create freedom – if beings are the source of freedom – then beings determine and cause freedom; and being-determined, being-caused freedom cannot be “real” freedom. The most it can be is the determining of “determining” beings, or the cause of “causing” beings.

At best, I believe beings can “shape” freedom. Ideally, I believe beings create in freedom.

Metaphysics that places the primacy of being over freedom is the essence of “in the beginning was the Logos” metaphysics. Yes, but in the beginning, there was also freedom.

More precisely, before the beginning there was freedom. The beginning happened in freedom; emerged from freedom. The Logos was a free act in freedom.

The Logos was in freedom and freedom was in the Logos.

The Logos is not external to freedom. However, there is an aspect of freedom external to the Logos.

If freedom does not retain this external aspect, it is not free. If it is not free, it cannot clash with the Logos.

And freedom does indeed clash with the Logos.

If Freedom is not free and does not possess aspects external to the Logos, the Logos cannot create. If the Logos could not create, the Logos would not be.

In plainer form – God creates in freedom but does not create freedom. If God does not create freedom, then God must contend with this freedom, as must man.

If both God and man must contend with uncreated freedom, then the purpose and meaning of life reside in how men contend with uncreated freedom and whether or not they choose to align this “contending” with God’s “contending.”

Of course, you can only contend with things you accept to be real and true, and as far as I can tell, barely anyone accepts uncreated freedom as real and true.

Note added: This will be my last post on this blog for a while. It may even be my last post on this blog. Full stop. See the next post for (some) details.

8 Comments

Kristor link

3/11/2023 20:29:43

This difficulty bugged me for a while: which is prior, God's freedom, or God? Then I realized that it is a variant of the Euthyphro Dilemma: which is prior, Goodness or God? If the latter of either of those dilemmae, then the former is entirely derivate and so non-absolute, and thus cannot characterize God himself qua Absolute. If the former of either of those dilemmae, then the former is prior to God, so that God is not Absolute, but derivate, and bound by his priors.

The solution is the same for both dilemmae: freedom and goodness are essential to being per se. So, beings don’t create freedom, they just are free; they can be only inasmuch as they are free, and by the same token can be free only inasmuch as they are. No freedom, no being; no being, no freedom. So, freedom ↔ being.

NB then that it is not possible for a thing that does not yet anywise exist to be anything at all, or to have any properties or powers. There can be freedom, or goodness, or power, or any property at all, only of some being.

Then God’s being *just is* his freedom and his goodness (along with all his other perfections). Freedom and goodness (and the other divine perfections) are neither prior nor posterior to God, but come along with his being as a package deal.

Francis Berger

3/12/2023 09:41:34

@ Kristor - I appreciate the input, but you're missing the point I'm making in the post. I'm not exploring whether God or God's freedom came first, I'm arguing the reality of an indeterminate freedom prior to God or God's freedom. Very different thing than from where you're coming from.

3/13/2023 04:25:44

I could equivalently have written, “Which is prior, freedom or God?” Your argument is that freedom is prior to being; which is to say that freedom is prior to God. That was the question I discussed in my comment. I don’t think freedom is prior to being, but rather that it is one aspect of how beings per se are, by nature – including God. The fact that God is uncreate and free then entails that freedom is uncreate, in virtue of its instantiation in God, who is uncreate.

The reason almost nobody thinks uncreate freedom is real is that it turns out upon examination to be, not some chaotic unformed stuff, but rather *nothing at all.*

“Unformed stuff” is an oxymoron. It has the form of stuff.

Absolutely unconditioned freedom has no properties that define it, so that it is something definite (and that would thus constrain its freedom to be anything at all). It is nothing in particular. And what is nothing in particular is just nothing at all; i.e., not really a thing, not real.

In this freedom is like Aristotle’s Prime Matter: indeed, we could say that it *is* Aristotle’s Prime Matter: the possibility of becoming something or other. Aristotle was careful to insist that Prime Matter cannot coherently be reified, because it does not itself actually exist; only what has properties actually exists. Prime Matter is rather only a heuristic useful in abstract thought about the process of becoming.

Freedom looks an awful lot like the nothing of creatio ex nihilo.

William James Tychonievich link

3/12/2023 03:50:54

I agree with this 100%, and this is an admirably clear and succinct formulation. If this is the end of the blog, at least it’s going out with a bang.

3/12/2023 09:42:28

@ Wm - Thanks. Well, if it is the end, I suppose a bang is better than a whimper.

Luke

3/12/2023 05:12:00

I follow the argument, but I don't understand it at all. I don't understand how freedom exists without a being to be free. I could hijack Bruce's phrasing and say freedom is a part of primordial chaos, and that makes it easier to accept but doesn't in my mind settle which must be first.
Why first instead of co existing? And isn't positing uncreated freedom as first an affirmation of non being as the first principle of the universe?
And could this idea that freedom isn't contained only in being be solved by assuming a plurality of beings at the start? Is freedom coming from between beings an effect of beings? That is, freedom is not an effect of being, but is an effect of beings?

3/12/2023 10:15:22

@ Luke - The primordial chaos concept is a good way of thinking about it, albeit as non-being rather than a "place" of beings -- as is "uncreated freedom as first an affirmation of non-being as the first principle of the universe."

Before being there is freedom -- non-being. Cosmic development and creation are only possible if non-being (indeterminate, prior-to-being freedom) exists. It is non-being that provides the potential (freedom) for being.

3/13/2023 07:41:56

@ Kristor - "I don’t think freedom is prior to being . . . "

I know that, and that's fine. You don't need to explain why you don't think freedom is prior to being. I know your arguments and where you are coming from.

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Freedom is Prior to Being

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