Modern Age - Winter 2016 - 75

REFLECTIONS ON ANCIENT AND MODERN FREEDOM

contrast, the acquisition of virtue remains fully in the natural and
human sphere-a matter of the right philosophical understanding of the Good and the moral discipline of the virtues.
However, the Roman Catholic Church in particular embraced
the synthesis of St. Thomas Aquinas, who aimed to reconcile Christianity and Aristotelianism by arguing for both a distinction and a
harmony between natural virtue, which lies within human power,
and supernatural or theological virtue, which requires grace.19 At all
events, Christianity introduced no essential challenge to the fundamental classical understanding of freedom, but on important
points confirmed it. Its principal contribution was to relate the
idea of freedom to the supernatural order. The Christian faith can
be interpreted in a manner that moves the question of freedom
into a new religious-theological frame without overthrowing the
concept of natural virtue in which the classics are invested.
Still, Christianity, with its concept of man's eternal destiny, necessarily limits the total claims of the classical polis over the human
person and gives rise to a new conception of the free personality
who can stand in conscience against the state where it oversteps
the boundaries of its legitimate authority. This notion is probably a historical precondition for the rise of modern liberalism,
which, however, exaggerates Christian personalism into a radicalized concept of human autonomy. The linchpin of liberalism is
the individual's absolute right over himself, which frees him from
the claims of political and religious authority. The most formidable of Enlightenment philosophers, Immanuel Kant, famously
attacked heteronomy-any law that is not self-legislated-as
"the source of all spurious principles of morality."20 Likewise in
the English-speaking world, John Stuart Mill argues, "In the part
which concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute.
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Modern Age - Winter 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Winter 2016

Contents
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