SEX, Fried Chicken, and Freedom

The first Country Music band that ever got my attention was the Zac Brown Band.  It was the Summer of 2007.  My wife (who was not my wife yet) and I were spending the summer apart.  As I drove down the ol’ country roads where I was living, I would roll the windows down, turn the Country station up, and take in the wind.  The rock and the twain reminded me of holding my baby’s hand at the county fair.  Ok there was no county fair.  But I do remember hearing ZBB’s song, “Chicken Fried.”  Truth be told I liked “Whatever it is” better, but that song doesn’t lead into the theme of this post.  In case you don’t know “Chicken Fried”, turn it up!

I wanted to look at the bridge.  If it helps you to imagine listening to this during the Fourth of July fireworks, go ahead:

“I thank God for my life

                For the Stars and Stripes,

                May freedom forever fly, let it reign.

Salute the ones who died

                The ones who gave their lives

                So we don’t have to sacrifice

                All things we love

                Like….

Our chicken fried. A cold beer on a Friday night. A pair of jeans that fits just right. And the radio on.”

This part of the song is very patriotic wouldn’t you say?  What does it say about freedom?  Freedom is something that is part of the USA.  People have died and continue to die for this freedom.  The freedom enables us to enjoy the things we love.  For example?  Fried Chicken, beer, jeans, and radio.  Ignore for a moment that other countries also have beer.  If we could give a working definition of Zac’s freedom it would be something like, “The ability to choose and enjoy what you want among a multitude of options without external restrictions.”  That is a very popular way of talking about freedom isn’t it?  I’m free as long as I can do what I want, when I want, and with whom I want.  Nearly any choice that we make is “good” or “moral” or “ethical” as long as we are unrestricted in choosing it, and it doesn’t hurt anyone else.  Since everyone is obsessed with sex, I’ll use it as an attention grabber.  Any choice I make about sex is good or moral as long as it’s consensual.  Fair enough.

Christians however have this nagging tendency to insist that there actually IS a law that is outside of the individual, and the laws of the nation.  This law is given to humanity by God, and it not only tells us what we should do with our bodies, but how we should live in all areas of our life.  A choice is good as long as it is in agreement with the laws of God.  According to Christians, even an action that I choose among many other options that only affects me can be considered morally good or evil.

We’ve just entered into my second class of my MA program, “Theological Ethics.”  Welcome to the world of morality.  Buckle your seatbelts because people tend to get pretty fired up about morality.

Freedom is a significant theme for Christian theology as we insist that God created humanity with freedom.  How that freedom is understood is rather significant. Take William of Ockham for example:

Ockham was a Franciscan Friar in the 12^th century.   Freedom for Ockham was similar to ZBB, being able to choose your actions.  Some people call this “freedom of indifference.”  Faced with two options freedom of indifference is used well as long as there is nothing hindering a person’s choice.  Simple enough.  A person is neither good nor bad and an action is neither good nor bad.  What determines the “moral quality” of a person or her actions is how closely they conform to the law of God.  Ready for an example?

Sally lies to Freddy.  Is her choice morally good or evil?  I hope you chose evil.  Why is her choice to lie evil?  Because God commanded that we should speak the truth. 

What if God commanded the opposite?  What if God’s law was to be dishonest with your friends?  Would Sally’s choice be morally good or evil?  According to Ockham’s view, her choice would be morally good.  “Now now” you may say, “God would never have allowed dishonesty to be part of God’s law.”  Maybe not, but how do you know?  Do you possess the mind of God?

This view is still with us today.  Don’t believe me? Ok, back to sex.  1.  Is a woman using her freedom when she chooses to have sex with a man who isn’t her husband? 2.  Is a woman’s choice to have sex with a man who isn’t her husband morally evil?  3. How do you know?

If you answered “yes” to 1 and 2 you’ve inherited the “freedom of indifference” tradition!  You’ve really inherited it if you answered 3 by mentally scanning passages from Leviticus to see if adultery is forbidden by God’s law.  This moral system has been called a “morality of obligation” because one’s actions must align with an external law of God.

There is another way; a beautiful way; an excellent way; a way that leads to freedom!

Thomas Aquinas wrote about freedom not simply as the ability to arbitrarily choose between two options.  For Aquinas freedom is the ability to choose excellent actions inspired by the human inclination toward truth, goodness, and happiness.  Some people call this “freedom for excellence.”  A person is free when the person has the ability to choose that which is good.

Back to Sally who lied to Freddy.  Is Sally free in choosing to be dishonest?  Yes and no, right?  She was “free” insofar as she could have chosen not to. But decisions are rarely that simple are they?  Often there are pressures, circumstances, and other obstacles that stand in the way of a morally good decision.  Insert any number of very difficult situations where in the face of a potential dishonesty, other goods are obtainable.  For example, Freddy may be a young camper who is stranded up in a high tree. As Sally is coaxing him down the tree from the ground, Freddy asks, “You’ve climbed this tree before right Sally?”  Knowing that his confidence in her guidance is the only thing that will bring him safely down the tree, Sally lies and says she has climbed the tree before.  She lied, but also gained a potentially life saving good, Freddy’s confidence.   So we see that often circumstances are so complex that we may not be as “free” as we think.  We could refer to addictions, temperaments, habits, dangers, and any multitude of pressures that limit our freedom to really choose.  One of the results of sin, according to the Catholic tradition, is the darkening of the intellect and weakening of the will.  St. Paul saw a war within himself, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” Romans 7:19. 

True freedom, according to Thomas Aquinas is to be able to do the good, even in the face of the adversities mentioned above.  “But that is sometimes incredibly arduous to accomplish!”  Exactly.  This is why he insists that it can only be accomplished through training in the virtues.  At the beginning of the moral life, the student in the school of virtues must learn the law of God, and be guided by that law.  But something more is required than simple adherence to a law.  As the student matures, she becomes guided by the desire for truth and goodness that are not only spelled out by the law of God, but imbedded in her very nature.  Through practice, prayer, and the grace of God, she internalizes virtues so that there becomes joy in doing the good and the beautiful.

This virtue driven ethics depends on an internal transformation so that there grows an abiding joy in doing the difficult good.  This entire systems assumes two things. 1. That the law of God is not arbitrary.  It assumes that what God outlines for right moral living is a picture of the human fully alive—the human fully happy.  “Blessed (or deeply happy) are the merciful...”  2.  That despite the darkening of the intellect and the weakening of the will that was caused by sin, humans still long for the true, good, and beautiful.  That longing will only be fulfilled through finding the true, good, and beautiful.

I’m sorry Zac Brown, as much as I like your music, I’m not content with the simple ability to choose between options.  What I want is freedom to be fully alive.  I want freedom for excellence.