ETHICAL LIFE - by Huberto Rohden
It is wrong to think that lack of freedom in the
traditional sense, destroy the ethical life responsibility. It is possible to
establish the following principle to illustrate this truth: The more free is a
human being, the more he is responsible for his acts. And as no human being is
pleni-conscious, cannot be totally free.
Baruch Spinoza (1632 - 1677) denies that man is
entirely free in any of his actions, because freedom is identical to
consciousness, and as no man is pleni-conscious, no man can be truly free. Only
the Infinite is pleni-conscious, and therefore fully free. In God, the "infinite
substance", there is no trace of causality, in the passive sense, of a being
caused; any other being is subject to passive causality, and therefore is not
free. Since the essence of man is divine, in his essence man is free; but, as
the existence of man, his individuality as a phenomenon, is not identical to
God, but much inferior, it is logical that as existential individual, man is not
free, although he is as identical as the essential substance. The nature of God
that in man exist is free - while the nature of the world that in man exist, is
not free. The divine element in man is determinant, but not determined - while
the mundane element in man is determined not determinant. The cause determines -
the effect is determined.
So the man, free by his divine essence, is not
free by his human existence - that exist in him a mix of active and passive, of
positive and negative, of free and non-free - i.e., a limited freedom and
therefore a limited responsibility, partial, imperfect.
From this limited responsibility follows that man
cannot identify himself totally with God, nor even to be separated entirely from
God.
If, on the other hand, is limited the degree of
freedom of any creature, it follows that it can never exceed its divine cause;
that will always remain within the reach and sphere of God’s jurisdiction. The
conscious creature is free, even if rebels subjectively against God, and the
more is responsible for all its actions, never and in any case gets to be
totally free, in the objective order of the universe. If there was complete
freedom on the part of some creature, of course the Creator would have lost its
jurisdiction over that portion of its universe, and divine sovereignty would not
be absolute and complete.
So it is strictly logical to assert the moral
responsibility of men, though not is possible to admit that man is absolutely
free. The ethical responsibility does not require such absolute responsibility,
on the contrary, absolute freedom is incompatible with the ethical order. Only
where there is partial freedom can there be ethical order. God is not an ethical
being, because He is absolutely free.
Ethics does not exist in the world of complete
absence or in the complete presence of freedom - not in the dark world of total
unconsciousness or in the enlightened world of total omniscience.
Ethics can only exist in a world where it is
incomplete both the absence and the presence of freedom, that is... in the
shadowy world of semi-consciousness.
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