More and Henry: Paradox of Freedom

Giussani asks how it is that "man has this right, this absoluteness whereby even if the whole world were to move in one direction he has something within which gives him the right to stay where he is?" The Religious Sense, p. 91.

The only way to understand this, says Giussani, is in terms of something beyond biology. If we are solely a product of the biology of the mother and father, "a mere brief instant in which all the flux of innumerable prior reactions produced this ephemeral fruit," then "we really would be talking about something ridiculous, something cynically absurd when we use expressions such as 'freedom,' 'human rights,' the very word 'person.' Freedom, like this, without any foundation, is flatus vocis, just pure sound, dispersed by the wind." Ibid.

"In only one case is . . . this single human being, free from the entire world, free, so that the world together and even the total universe cannot force him into anything. . . . This is when we assume that this point is not totally the fruit of the biology of the mother and father . . . but rather when it possess a direct relationship with the infinite, the origin of all of the flux of the world. . .". Ibid.

"So here is the paradox: freedom is dependence upon God. . . . [O]nce we were not, now we are, and tomorrow will no longer be: thus we depend. And either we depend upon the flux of our material antecedents, and are consequently the slaves of the powers that be, or we depend upon What lies at the orgin of the movement of all things, beyond them, which is to say, God."

"Freedom identifies itself with dependence upon God at a human level: it is a recognized and lived dependence, while slavery, on the other hand, denies or censures this relationship. Religiosity is the lived awareness of this relationship. Freedom comes through religiosity."

"It is for this reason that the powerful, whoever they might be . . . are tempted to hate true religiosity unless they are profoundly religious themselves. . . . [A]uthentic religiosity in the other . . . limits, [] challenges possession." Ibid, p. 92.

This explains both More and Henry, and, seemingly, many of the disputes between religion and the state today.