Freedom Redefined

Tim Keller writes in The Reason for God, “Freedom cannot be defined in strictly negative terms, as the absence of confinement and constraint. In fact, in many cases, confinement and constraint is actually a means to liberation.” He uses the example of limiting one’s freedom to practice and excel at playing a musical instrument. “You’ve deliberately lost your freedom to engage in some things in order to release yourself to a richer kind of freedom to accomplish other things.” Keller concludes, “Disciplines and constraints, then, liberate us only when they fit with the reality of our nature and capacities” (Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism [New York: Dutton, 2008], 45–46).