Philip Rieff writes, "Freedom is always and everywhere a change of masters." The Crisis of the Officer Class, p. 128.
We have a name for our ultimate master in our finite and temporal world: "truth." Truth is an emblem of the transcendent, to which we owe obeisance, for our own good, and it is what makes freedom real.
The image of freedom as arbitrary selection from a smorgasboard of choices is so strong, that we need a strong corrective to understand what freedom truly is, and to conform ourselves to it.
Robert Sokolowski's work has largely been devoted to describing how human persons can live a life mastered by truth. Our rationality does in fact present us with alternatives, but that fact does not go far enough. The question is what choice do we make? The answer is, the best choice, one to realize our good. And our good is only known through our deliberation, our rational capacity, which can (but doesn't always) uncover the truth of things. The root of freedom is found in truth.
"If we love the truth, then when we attempt to determine the future we will be moved to deliberate truthfully, that is, to consider carefully all the realistic alternatives, including those we may find distasteful, and to choose the alternative that is truly the best, all things considered, here and now.
"Our freedom is a function of our veracity; freedom does not mean arbitrary selection, but adherence to what is best. Freedom is wanting what is truly good, not imposing what we want. " Phenomenology of the Human Person, p.27.
The concept is simple enough, it seems. If I am faced with an array of choices, some of which, if taken, will lead to disaster, and others to happiness, it stands to reason that I had better know the difference.
"The truth will set you free," says the old proverb, which is true, for truth is needed to choose what is truly best, the definition of true freedom.
In this way we are linked and bound to God: acting in truth, which is His, and acting freely under this tutelage.
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