A Saviour has been born for us

Over time, society is increasingly flaunting its achievements in respect of freedom. Freedom is man’s highest gift, so much so that there have been many who have given their life for it. Freedom has become such an important value in our national conscious

However, in spite of all these advances in freedom, I ask myself whether we are today more truly free than we were in the past. As far as freedom of expression goes, it is certainly a good thing that citizens have the right to their opinion without fear of censure. On the other hand ,however, there are those who – in the name of freedom of expression – feel they can hurt others with what they say or write. It is as if lies, calumnies and halftruths enjoy the same rights as truth.

Today, we enjoy a free market, but this can lead either to a society which is more fair or it can allow those without a conscience to fleece customers by raising prices at will. And those who are strong enough can ruin small entrepreneurs by lowering their prices. Does a free market mean that the strong can do what they want while the weak just have to lump it? In this way, in the name of free enterprise the distance between the haves and the have-nots is continually on the increase.

In the field of science, scientists are free to carry out their research and conduct their experiments. On the one hand, this freedom can lead to important advances of benefit to man but on the other, it is also true that science can manipulate and sacrifice human life.

It is interesting that the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre says that man is condemned to be free. Dostoevsky describes freedom as ‘a heavy burden’ since – understood wrongly, it can become a rope enabling a man to be hung rather than helping him liberate himself from miserable conditions. The words of a contemporary thinker bear dwelling upon when he says that “freedom has become the heart of the problem of modernity”.

Sartre says that freedom is a condemnation because man is free according to how he exercises his free will. Free will ( libero arbitrio) is a risky human endowment: when a man is faced by a choice, he finds himself at a crossroads and he has to choose between shades of good and evil, truth or falsehood. Man is truly free when he makes the right choices, that is to say when what he decides is in conformity with what is true, good, beautiful and just – in other words when it is in harmony with his human dignity. On the other hand, if he makes the wrong choice he will be condemning himself along with others. Freedom that is subject to error is not freedom at all.

Even when man chooses correctly, he is not being completely free. In fact, man feels he is really free when he fulfils his desires. To be free means that we do what seems to please us. But it is a fact that man is never completely satisfied. We understand from our very own experience that even though we have fulfilled many of our wishes, there are still times when we are not satisfied. We see this both on a personal as well as on a collective basis. In fact, although we have gained so many civil liberties, how can we explain the presence of a certain sense of unrest in our society?

Man is truly free when his will comes face to face with what satisfies it completely, in the sense that having chosen in a certain way, it does not feel the need to look for something better. We sometimes behave like young children: we yearn for something in particular but after a while we get tired of it and long for something else. It is only through what is true, good, beautiful and just that we are definitively satiated. It is only at this stage that man’s freedom is whole, because it would not be open to the possibility of error. As Don Giussani says, “freedom of choice is not freedom; it is an imperfect freedom. Because freedom is accomplished and whole when it faces the object of its desire which fulfils it totally: at that point it will be completely free, it will be complete freedom”.

This sense of dissatisfaction we experience following upon our success tells us a lot about the nature of human desire! In a certain sense, it is somehow positive that we are still not satisfied, in spite of the great strides forward we have made. It shows us that although man is making small choices, he still needs to make a big one; although he tries to satiate himself with small accomplishments, unconsciously he is searching for the Infinite, for that which is called the mystery.

When we deny the Infinite, we would be disfiguring freedom, because we would be denying it that which satisfies it completely. Putting the Infinite aside, we would be condemning man not to ever find rest. As long as man keeps avoiding the infinite, night continues with its advance.

Wittgenstein was convinced man needs God, otherwise he would get confused. While he exhorts man to to seek God, he also says that “God can visit us”. This is Christmas: God came to visit us in the person of Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem. When the son of God became man and came to live among us, the Mystery entered our history. That which is not visible took on a visible form (Col 1:15) so that man might encounter truth and beauty without which he will continue to struggle to be free. “Had men been denied that which is infinitely great, they would not have been able to live and they would have died in despair” (Dostoevsky). If, as William of St Thierry says, “Christ is the only one who can teach us to see what we should desire”, then it is through meeting him personally that we become truly free. It is when man freely “binds” himself to God that he can rest assured that he is truly free. My wish is that Christmas will be for all of us the occasion to meet Jesus personally.