Vladimir Lossky, who can be notoriously difficult to read, offers this observation on freedom and the person. It is taken from his essay, “The Creation,” in the small collection, Orthodox Theology: an Introduction.
A personal being is capable of loving someone more than his own nature, more than his own life. The person, that is to say, the image of God in man, is then man’s freedom with regard to his nature, “the fact of being freed from necessity and not being subject to the domination of nature, but able to determine oneself freely” (St. Gregory of Nyssa). Man acts most often under natural impulses. He is conditioned by his temperament, his character, his heredity, cosmic or psycho-social ambiance, indeed, his very historicity. But the truth of man is beyond all conditioning; and his dignity consists in being able to liberate himself from his nature, not by consuming it or abandoning it to itself, like the ancient or orental sage, but by transfiguring it in God.
The goal of freedom, as St. Gregory of Nazianzus explains, is that the good belongs in truth to him who chooses it. God does not wish to remain in possession of the good He has created. He awaits from man more than a blind, entirely natural participation. He wants man consciously to assume his nature, to possess it freely as good, to recognize with gratitude in life and in the universe the gifts of divine love.
“A personal being is capable of loving someone more than his own nature, more than his own life.” Such words point to the character of our struggle – to live in freedom and not by necessity. Life by necessity is, to some degree, life that is trapped in death. Living in freedom is the triumph of Christ over death. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17). Thus obedience to the commandments of Christ is not obedience to bondage (to law) but obedience to freedom’s call. The commandment to love – even an enemy – is a call to be transfigured – to live in a freedom that is above nature. The same can be said of all of Christ’s commandments. Indeed, to know Him is to know the Truth, and that Truth will make us free.
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