Essay (1 page): Freedom vs. Liberty

By Lynn S. Nored

Feb. 19, 2024

“Give me liberty or give me death!” is a quotation  Patrick Henry  made in a speech  at the Second Virginia Convention  on March 23, 1775, at the St. John’s Church  in Richmond, Virginia.[i]  Why did he not say “Give me freedom or give me death!”? Thomas Jefferson defined liberty as “unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”[ii]  Note that “liberty” is different from “unconstrained freedom.”  It is  freedom constrained by the natural rights of others.

Washington in his Fairwell Address did explicitly define liberty.  But it is clear that the concept included a “natural order of things.””  “If one reads between the lines, that there is an order for men’s lives, an order for nations, an order for relations among nations, an order by which parts belong to a whole, and an order by which balance and harmony can be maintained. Government is not the origin of this order, but it is necessary to the maintenance of it, even as it is ever a potential threat to it. Government is made necessary by the bent in man to disrupt order.”[iii]

Current dictionary definitions of liberty are a) the power to do as one pleases

b) freedom from physical restraint c) freedom from arbitrary or despotic control. This definition is at odds with the Founder’s understanding of liberty for which they fought. [iv] In our vernacular, there is little understanding of the difference between liberty and freedom. The dictionary definition of freedom is: “the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.” In other words, it is unconstrained freedom or liberty.

In biblical terms is “freedom” the ability for unconstrained action or is it the Founder’s definition of liberty ( constrained freedom)?  Paul’s letter to the Romans has a  lot to say about being slaves to sin. Christ Himself said “ Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”[v] So, there is a biblical “freedom.”  The question becomes is this freedom “unconstrained”? Does becoming a Christian give you the “freedom” to do what you will? Common sense tells us probably not as sin entailed many things that are enticing for humans today.  Paul tells us the following: “When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. ²¹ What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! ²² But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in^[a] Christ Jesus our Lord.” [vi] Freedom is constrained by righteousness.  No individual can do what he pleases and be free from sin.

As Americans we honor our Presidents on President’s Day on the third Monday of Feb. This year it is this Monday, Feb. 19^th.  So, let us remember the Founders fought for out liberty.  They did not countenance “unconstrained freedom” as so many want to do today.

[i] Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death (ushistory.org)

[ii] Liberty in the Declaration of Independence (thepursuitofhappiness.com)

[iii] https://fee.org/articles/george-washington-on-liberty-and-order/

[iv] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/liberty

[v] John 8:32

[vi] Romans 6:20-23