sexta-feira, 11 de setembro de 2009

Freedom and Responsibility

Textual production of unique quality, made by the philosopher Julián Marías, which examines the Christian perspective with regard to the influence of culture on the west, beyond the horizon of faith. Using the variables of freedom and responsibility. Making a historical field of Christian philosophy. Enjoy, Freedom and Responsibility Julián Marías Today we talk about an issue, or rather two major interrelated issues: freedom and responsibility. There, in the case, an interesting fact: in Christianity, the word freedom appears many times. And in many instances, appears attached to another, which is more common still, the word truth. Aletheia, truth, in the Greek New Testament, is often compounded by the eleutheria or its derivatives. There is therefore a vitally important connection: recall that the text capital of the Gospel of John - "the truth will set you free" - in which "truth" and "freedom" appear together in a central way. I think the problem of freedom is absolutely crucial: not only for Christian philosophy, but for Christendom in general. Within Christianity, is a key to many issues that would otherwise not become clear. Do not forget that - this course - we're trying to see to what extent the key to the interpretation of Christianity is a personal interpretation: the man is a person!. This is a great discovery, for which I have used a formula: "a discovery that has been widely thought, but that has been lived." It is certain that in Christian thought, has not always appeared the idea of person and has not always received due attention, but the Christian, yes, it is understood fully as a person. It is exactly as it is lived as a person who can understand the vision. Let us not forget that the concept of Trinity, which is essential in Christianity, is precisely to a personal interpretation of God as personal is tri-personal, that is: there is even personal relationships within the Godhead, there is a divine life that has a unique intrinsically personal. And this is of paramount importance. It turns out that the weight of an intellectual tradition of non-Christian - tradition, to a large extent, Greek - has led to concepts that have more to do with nature, as the concept of nature and others as substance, essence, accident ... There is also another factor that tends to be quite forgotten: the Aristotelian influence, not only in medieval Christian thought, but also the Arab and Jewish thought, which in turn influences also in Christian thought. Christian Scholasticism, for example, was very much shaped by influences that come from Averroes, Maimonides ... which are, after all, Jewish or Islamic elaborations of Aristotle, especially of Aristotle. And this means that, to some extent, the radical character deeply personal belonging to the Christian view (and also belongs to the purely intellectual analysis of human reality) be diluted or forgotten. This is very important and should always be remembered. If we see human life as it appears, as it was - and remains - explored in our time, that's when it really sets a strictly personal perspective (the period in which transcend the natural ideas coming from the study of things and focus vision on the peculiarity of what is human), we see that man is something, yes, he has things, make your life with things, but in no sense is it something ... Has in some way - as it is physical, it is one body - a natural dimension, animal, that is crucial, too. But it is not no thing, it's perspective, it's design, it's mission: all these concepts are precisely the very heart of the Christian Trinity. All this is of paramount importance and, in this context, appears in the foreground: freedom. The gentlemen who consider human life - not biological life, but life biography - the human life as we are given (Christianity, of course, to this: the male creature), our reality is given: it is a Sun We are authors of our lives, but this life is given not-done. It is not done, is that we have to ask: is a new development, is a task and can not even be understood as a mere development. Indeed, the wildlife has all the mechanisms which govern it, the animal has a system of instincts which is complex and perfect, who runs his conduct. Since the man did not. The man has few instincts, rather energetic, but in return has an imaginative horizon, a mental horizon, that is, man has to imagine his life, have to figure out the horizon of possibilities, their circumstances or their difficulties, has to project who he will be. I have insisted very - throughout my work and also in this course - the fundamental difference between what man is and who he is. We have already considered the other day which means the birth of a person, it is clear that what the child is born, comes from their parents, no doubt (their parents and grandparents, their ancestors and the elements that make the cosmos: oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, carbon and all the elements involved in the body of the constitution). What the child is born, it comes, but who is not: not from nothing, it is absolutely not derived ... Thus, it is clear the fact of creation, this fundamental fact. And when it comes to creation, theology speaks of the Creator. But the Creator - sorry! - Is not available, do not have it there, do not know him directly, is not present, we must look for it, it is a problem ... What, yes, this is the fact of creation, the creature. And it is no accident that in Spanish or Portuguese to designate a child - newborn or very small - for "creature", a "child". The Creator is not "at hand", you must find him, we can infer from the fact of creation that there is a Creator, but, I repeat, is not available. However, the fact of creation as such of course, because it derives from nothing: the boy who is born is absolutely irreducible to the father and mother, the ancestors, the elements of the cosmos, then, of course, this new reality, stranger, who is who (in contrast to that) is having to live in a world where it is and has, of course, a system of instincts that govern their conduct and have to choose at every moment, what you can do . Have to decide, you have to choose between possibilities - many possibilities - which is facing and, therefore, is free. Ortega, who did most of that penetrated the discovery of the reality of human life, said the man is necessarily free, "lo es por fuerza." It turns out that man can give up their freedom. You can give up their freedom in a free act. If I resign my freedom if, for example, I say, "I will now do what you tell me," I'm deciding freely and, in this case also perform an act of freedom, which is to dispense with it ... , so freedom is indispensable. However, there are many degrees of course, there are many degrees of freedom. The man may have little freedom because it is overwhelmed by the circumstances. It is clear that the man may have a condition greatly limited: you can not afford, can have poverty, can live in a situation in which lack the most important things you can be overwhelmed by other people, can live in a political situation that makes it impossible to freedom and which can not exercise their freedom in many ways, but is free. It's free, yes, all the time, despite being unable to perform certain acts free: one thing to have freedom and another to be free. You can be free from strongholds and there is always a stronghold. Where is the freedom that a person can take. Thus, freedom is something absolutely constitutive of human life and this is a consequence of religious self-evident: that man is at the same time, responsible. Because I am free, I am responsible. Remember that Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, theoretically, had presented difficulties to prove theoretically the existence of God or the freedom and responsibility by just met them as postulates of practical reason: the man is responsible and therefore has to be free. That is, freedom was seen as a postulate of practical reason why there is a fact, indeed the responsibility, the man feels responsible, the man feels subject to duties and, therefore, responsible and therefore should be free. If it were free, would not make sense to be responsible. From the Christian point of view, man is free, is master of his destiny. For now, it is responsible to himself and is responsible to God as well. God gave him the resources to live, but he has to decide your life, you have to imagine it, you have to design it. Therefore, the concept of mission is a purely Christian concept. I remember one very important way of Ortega I attended in 1933: he recognized specifically Christian character of the concept of mission: to mission is an invention, a Christian discovery. The man has a mission, has something to do and so can guide your life, you can direct it to the mission. And there, precisely, it establishes the connection to the notion of truth: "the truth will set you free," that is precisely the truth, that is, recognition of reality, acceptance of reality, face the reality as it is in its contents, that precisely is what sets us free. It is a concept absolutely linked to each other. And there is something curious, I do not know - and do not have easy means to verify - but I wonder: how often they appear, for example in the Old Testament, the two concepts: freedom and truth. There is the fact that the idea of freedom is different in Hebrew and therefore the Old Testament, but in any case, I have an intuition - from the normal reading, the usual - that the frequency is much smaller. In the New Testament, it is striking how often and aletheia eleutheria and their derivatives and the passages that appear connected. This leads to a consideration: the habitual way of living Christianity was a kind of abandonment of this fundamental concept of freedom is in good measure because the practice of Christianity and the Christian tradition was emphasized, is greatly emphasized the word "obedience" . The word obedience is obviously valuable and important, but, of course, obedience, for obedience, should be free. The free obedience, is not the same as the concept of Islam: the word Islam means submission. The Christian obedience is not submission, acceptance is free. Do not forget, for example, that at the crucial moment, at the very moment that will begin Christianity, the Annunciation, the Archangel Gabriel appeared before Mary and announced that it will have a child and that child will be the Holy Spirit . And she freely accepted. There is a free acceptance of Mary, which is what makes possible precisely the Incarnation. Let us not forget, for example, the words of Christ before his Passion, when asked the Father if possible remove from him the cup, but adds: "Not my will but yours." That is, the human will accept the divine will, accept the tremendous pain and suffering ... They are absolutely inseparable from the notions of Christian freedom and responsibility. It turns out that freedom has had many opponents in history, there is a real fear of freedom. There are a number of concepts that come to be a denial of freedom, we can call them together determinism. But there are many determining factors: within Christianity, think of all that was discussed on predestination, a form of theological determinism. Just before the dramatic situation of human life - which of course will lead to the salvation or damnation - the idea of predestination acquires a decisive role: much in Protestantism, but also in Catholicism: the theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth imagined many theories - some very sharp - to reconcile God's omnipotence with human freedom (the Dominicans, which tends more to emphasize the omnipotence at the expense of freedom, the Jesuits, while more strongly about freedom - their opponents thought that this was detrimental to the omnipotence -- , the doctrine of scientia media etc.). The fact is that there was a tendency to assert predestination, that Protestantism has a much greater, especially in Calvinism, there is a restriction on freedom. Especially in Calvinism, but do not forget that Luther was an opponent of freedom and, because of this, Luther broke with Erasmus. Erasmus had an interest in reforming the Church and, in principle, he saw with displeasure the reform movement, but the Bondage of the Will Luther seemed absolutely intolerable to the point of rupture between them was just the problem of freedom. Later there were several ways - some attenuated - determinism. Appears in a rather complex, in Spinoza, then there are a number of social determinism, economics, etc ... I have often thought that liberalism and democracy - which are different things that can and should intertwine, but are not identical! - Not had much luck intellectual, because the fundamentals of both - democracy and liberalism - were established mainly by very English thinkers such as Locke, who were people who believed in political freedom, but not much believed in personal freedom ... If liberalism and democracy had received its intellectual foundation in Leibnitz, things would have been very different, because then it comes to personal freedom, Leibnitz believed in it deeply ... Think of the leads of great social influence, a philosophy that does not seem especially bright, empiricism, which then comes in the form of utilitarianism Stuart Mill and others ... As a philosophy, is too little, and is relatively poor, however, social influence - particularly in the United States - has been immense (deriving from the views prevailing in the world: the famous well-being, the "welfare state" etc.). . They are conceptions of human reality that is not properly part of the core staff and reduce man to an organization or identify happiness with pleasure and unhappiness with pain (which actually are very different things) and have a conception of human quantitative rather than reality every single person, each individual ... There are other forms of determinism, as the biological determinism. Now is precisely the man is regarded as one body, and thus introduced into the animal kingdom (and man, of course, is an animal, rational animal, but say it is much more than that: it is a loving creature, which is very different: strictly personal, one transformed animality precisely because of its human condition). Today we talk a lot and it makes use of genetics - which undoubtedly is a factor - that changes what you are, not who you are. People walk today anxious and afraid (and rightly so ...) with what is called cloning. Clearly one could - in principle, do not know if it is technically possible, but it's thinkable - play a human body the same. There is the case of twins, identical twins, which are almost identical, as the bodies, but people are radically unique, completely different, each one is each one. Now if the man is reduced to its body, it is and if you forget who you are, then you lose freedom. There are other determining factors that have been very successful in our time and what are the economic and social determinism. Indeed, they are ingredients of human life as they affect the condition and not I, who am I. A I faced with other selves, who are a "you" and a God who calls you, too, Father .. I mean, this is a list of essential freedom, freedom of man before God, is not that God allows us to be free, He forces us, forces us to be free, puts us in freedom - this formula seems adequate -- and freedom of men in front of each other, against each other, just as are people. What happens is that this freedom can be abandoned, one can renounce it freely ... only that, of course, in this case, there is an abdication of the human condition itself. You think, for example, the fact of fanaticism. Fanaticism, it is a fact - a fact that explains much of history - is precisely the abdication of freedom: there are times when a person does an act of abdication of their freedom and decides to act like he is saying. This can be said that a person can be a group, a slogan, a race, a class or whatever ... The fact is that man that merges reality alien to him and gives up being himself, gives up his "mismidad, its authenticity and acts as an element, as it would ... Let's see, I remember seeing one on television scenes of an Islamic country (of course, is not unique to them ...) where people looked like ants running amok and I was concerned about seeing it: as he had produced a reversal of that is properly human: people who behaved not as people but as things, animate things ... This is possible, this can occur. Why? Because human life is the essence of freedom. The man can come to a dehumanization, speaking of dehumanization, we say that is something inhuman, subhuman ... Ortega took a step further and spoke of "deshominization" there may be a renunciation of the human condition itself. I think any state of disrepair of freedom, which every state of dehumanization or, even more of deshominization is transient. It is a radical form of alienated, is the abandonment of sameness, of being "himself". Then, of course, the human condition is not abolished, but is suspended, is smothered by a pressure originally accepted, I repeat, by an act of freedom. Therefore, the fanatic is responsible. You can not escape the responsibility fanatic. Yes he can act in a moment of alienation, but is responsible for the acceptance of fanaticism was free. If we consider the atrocities that occurred - and continue to occur - in history, who do not understand well ... is a serious religious problem. There is a popular phrase, colloquial Spanish, "is dejado de la mano de Dios". Something that loosens the hand of God, it gives off and it is an act of acceptance of fanaticism, then it produces a kind of mechanization: the individual no longer works properly from himself, acts on impulses received, acts often in mass as a pawn moved, for example, a terrorist. All this is suspension of the human condition and therefore of freedom. But there is a prior acceptance and, therefore, I do not think it destroys responsibility. Perhaps not the responsibility of a concrete act, but just to have accepted the abolition of personal liberty.

Nenhum comentário: