Season 2 Podcast 28 Freedom, Liberty, and Agency

Freedom, Agency, and LibertyFreedom comes from temporal laws. Agency comes from spiritual laws. Liberty comes from manmade laws.When governments form, one of the primary challenges is to determine how much freedom people should have.  Freedom determines what is possible. Moral agency determines what is good and evil. Liberty determines what is legal or illegal.  Sometimes they clash.  For example, in an issue such as abortion. Temporal law says it is possible; therefore, we have the technology to perform abortions. Spiritual law says it is immoral; therefore, abortion is forbidden by God and conscience. Manmade law determines if abortion is legal or illegal. Freedom does not have a moral component, but agency does. Freedom does not determine manmade laws, agency does. All manmade laws have a moral component for they must determine what is legal or illegal, what is acceptable or unacceptable, what is right or what is wrong. The law of nature determines what is free, in other words what is possible. Man must determine what is not free or more accurately what is not allowable. The law of nature says you may kill anyone you want or steal their property. It is the law of the jungle. Manmade laws say no you can’t do that.  Manmade laws establish boundaries on what natural laws allow.  Manmade laws cannot increase freedom because they cannot add one jot to what nature already allows. In government the question of rights arises and that is where things become fuzzy. In nature a freedom, for example, is anything that is allowed by temporal law. That includes, of course, lying, cheating, stealing, killing, robbing, raping, murdering, etc. In government, a freedom is any liberty permitted by the state.  A right is any liberty guaranteed by the state.