Our Fear of Freedom: The Refuge of False Belonging

On the outside a person may seem contented and free, but the inner landscape may be a secret prison. Why do so many of us reduce and domesticate our one journey through this universe? Why do we long for the invisible walls to keep us in and keep mystery out? We have a real fear of freedom. In general, everyone is apparently in favour of freedom. We fight for it and we praise it. In the practice of our lives, however, we usually keep back from freedom. We find it awkward and disturbing. Freedom challenges us to awaken and realize all the possibilities that sleep in the clay of our hearts. Dostoyevsky’s legend of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov is a haunting reflection on the idea of freedom. In the story Jesus comes back to sixteenth-century Seville during the Spanish Inquisition. He is put in prison, and the Cardinal Inquisitor comes to interview Jesus, but he remains silent. The Cardinal complains to Jesus in a fascinating monologue: “Why did you have to come back and interfere with our work?” He suggests that Jesus made a fatal mistake in overestimating humans. We are not capable of using the freedom that he attributed to and expected of us. The Cardinal says that the Church “corrected” his work. Instead of the invitation to liberation and creativity, the Church chooses to offer the people “miracle, mystery and authority.” This is what people like and need. People are not capable of freedom.