Nature of Freedom
Obey the Law
Five books are attributed to Moses, the Books of Moses, also known as the Books of the Law. Moses was a shepherd, slave-liberator, nation-founder, and lawgiver, among other things, and tradition has that Moses composed these five books to record the history of the people of Israel. At the time Israel was a new nation under God, and Moses’s writings helped solidify their culture and traditions.
The first book is called Genesis, which roughly means ‘origins.’ In the first stories of the Book of Genesis we are told stories of the origins of the universe and the origins of mankind and death, among the origins of many other things. These stories covered ideas on the questions I was seeking! In just a few of the first stories, in the first few chapters of Moses’s books, the meaning to the universe as well as the reason for death are answered. The two great questions of humanity are answered in the very first of these ancient stories.
These ancient stories, which, by the way, were written down not long after the invention of writing, answer questions that exist still today on our hearts. Pretty amazing when you think about it! From the beginning of humanity’s first written works, we have these stories which communicate ideas about the origins of the universe, humanity, and death. The ancients may not have written much, but what they wrote was wise and it was written well, hitting the mighty themes and big ideas important to all humanity in very memorable stories. Truly universal and great literature.
According to Moses, the world exists because a Creator made heaven and earth and installed mankind to govern his creation. Not only did the Creator make the universe, he made it good. In the act of creation, space and time was also created, and so the great Maker is infinite and eternal as he is outside of space and time. No wonder Lemaître knew so much! He had access to some great stories!
As a scientist, it’s interesting that modern science simply continues to prove what ancient religions revealed to the world thousands of years ago. These ancient religions, both Jew and Christian, provide a source of energy which is outside the universe as well as the promise that death will be dealt a final blow, “your covenant with death shall be annulled,” and in another place, “he will destroy death forever.” According to the Hebrew prophets, the Creator is a master craftsman who crafted a beautiful universe in relationship with Him. To this day we relate time to an ancient Jew who made seemingly ludicrous claims about being the coequal Son of God. So not only is the Eternal One creator of time, but time is relative to the life of his Eternal Son. Yes, Caesar may have made our calendar, but it is rooted and relative to Christ. To this day, time continues to witness to divinity.
According to Moses, death entered the world because of our disobedience to the divine law. Our destiny is to be in paradise with our Maker, eating from the tree of life, and obeying his precepts, which are rooted in a deep love for not only his creation but his people.
In the beginning, there was only one command, “do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil lest you die.” Humanity’s freedom from death exists insofar as we are obedient to the divine law, to seek good and know not evil. Disobedience separates us from God and shackles us to death, dooming humanity to die. A good universe cannot sustain evil, hence the moment we learn evil we begin to die. The good news is eternity will not sustain evil forever; evil exists only for a time. For, when the universe was created, the Creator, according to the first and ancient accounts, said “It was very good.”
As a scientist, it’s interesting to see that the divine law allows for forgiveness. For a time, the divine law allows for a certain degree of disobedience, for we don’t die immediately when we commit evil acts. This is contrary to Nature’s law, that does not allow disobedience but demands strict and constant obedience. In the very action of setting up scientific experiments, science testifies that there are laws of nature and those laws are perfectly predictable. Scientific claims move from theory to law when they are perfectly predictable. The laws of nature are severe, unforgiving, unrelenting, with clear boundaries and without mercy. Nature’s laws hold strict boundaries and those boundaries are never violated. Nature’s laws are perfectly predictable. If it were not, it’s classified as either a theory, hypothesis or not true. In fact, whereas freedom in the divine law is defined by choosing the good, freedom in nature’s law is observed by being perfectly obedient to nature.
Now, obviously the answers found in Moses’s writings regarding life’s big questions are answers from a particular tradition of people – a particular culture in a particular place and a particular time – but they offer answers that apply universally – to all peoples of all places and all times. Their ideas about origins and beginnings remain applicable today to people of all cultures, including scientists of the 21st century. The fact that this particular tradition and tribe of people accurately described key universal truths, like the beginning of the universe, and they described these things thousands of years before the rest of the world, is a spectacular accomplishment. An accomplishment worthy of further investigation. This is at the heart behind good science, the moment you notice something either repetitive or peculiar or simply interesting, you investigate and find out reasons why and hopefully discover truth. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it spurred the scientist. And at the heart of good science is this spectacular and fanatical pursuit of truth.
Moses himself shared a passion for investigation, a curiosity for research. His whole story starts with an investigation into a natural phenomenon – a burning bush that would not burn up. Moses’s mindset was not any different than today’s scientists. He noticed a peculiar event and went closer to investigate. Moses’s investigations changed his life, and the course of humanity and world history. His investigation revealed something fundamentally crucial to humanity, an idea that is slowly being spread throughout the rest of the world – the idea of freedom.
In Moses’s case, it was the revelation that the Creator desires for slaves to be free! The Maker loves freedom. Not only did Adam and Eve have freedom to make a choice in the garden, but their Maker desires for humans to make choices in their lives. The Eternal One does not desire for slavery to exist. Today, many take this divinely revealed truth for granted, but let us not do so. Let us heed Aristotle, and consider the idea from its beginnings.
The Greeks held slaves, and even the great thinker, truth seeker, and philosopher known today as Aristotle justified slavery. While in the second millennium B.C., Moses went to Egypt to set slaves free; nearly a thousand years later in the first millennium B.C., Aristotle wrote justifying slavery. In Politics he wrote, “it is clear that some men are by nature free, and other slaves, and thus for these latter slavery is both expedient and right.” Aristotle is a great thinker, there is no doubt. But the issue of slavery shows us a very important aspect of truth – when we look at the mysteries of this world, a truth seeker could make a very good argument based on fact and reason and yet be completely wrong. Aristotle’s justification of slavery is the perfect example of this. It is a wonderful argument based on fact and reason that ends up in foolishness – the justification of an institution all Jews and Christians (and Americans for that matter) understand as evil. And even though Aristotle used great logic, he lacked divine revelation and reached wrong conclusions. He tried to find truth, yet Moses had truth revealed. And that revelation was freedom rooted in love.
And so, Aristotle, who rightly advised, “he who considers things in their first growth and origin, whether a state or anything else, will obtain the clearest view of them,” wrongly concluded, “it is clear then, that some men are by nature free, and others slaves, and thus for these latter slavery is both expedient and right.” Aristotle lacked divine revelation to make sense of slavery and thereby did not understand the great truths which are the foundation of ancient Israel and our own country, the truth that slavery is wrong. So, Aristotle justifies slavery in theory while Moses sets slaves free in reality. This contrast between Jews and Greeks is important; while the Greeks had to seek truth, the Jews had truth revealed. And so, while we may respect ancient Greeks for being truth-seekers, we revere ancient Jews as truth-tellers.
The example of Aristotle and the great Greek thinkers teaches us something about the nature of truth. We can’t arrive at all important truths simply through logic. Logic, facts and reason may lead to foolishness if we don’t uphold certain basic principles correctly. For some of the important truths, we arrive at them only in faith, for that is the underlying basis by which we understand and interpret everything. In other words, we have to have a good foundation in order to understand the universe. This foundation, according to Hebrew prophets, is divine revelation; and the chief cornerstone of truth is the divine Word.
And the divine Word given by the Creator is to set slaves free. The divine Word has a profound impact on a political level. The divine Word given to Moses not only roots the universe in relationship to the Creator, in doing so, it allows mankind to have God-given rights. Political implications abound. This becomes the basis for innate human dignity of every person and allowed our American founding fathers to state “we hold these truths to be self-evident, all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Life and liberty are our God-given rights.
To protect the human dignity and rights of every individual, governments are instituted among men. God, not governments, give us rights. Governments are formed to protect our God-given rights. Yes, according to the American belief system and political theory, governments only exist to protect the God-given rights we have. Yes, the basis of our rights as Americans is a relationship with the God of the Jews. The love of God for humanity are the ideas shared by ancient Jews across the world in our synagogues and churches. And these ideas are the ideas that not only lead to the founding and independence of America, but also these ideas are what sustained us and allowed us to flourish. Ideas rooted in love, not selfishness; ideas rooted in freedom, not slavery; ideas rooted to respect our God-given rights to life, liberty, and love.
The moral of Moses’s stories is that if we divide Creator from Creation, we sever the logical reasons to respect individuals and individual rights. Without an everlasting Sustainer, we are condemned to “survival of the fittest” and as Dostoevsky noted “all things are permitted.” But freedom doesn’t come in permission but in obedience. If we follow the Darwinian theoretical ideal for animal kingdoms in civil life, we create an environment that allows for the justification of slavery and other horrific violations of human dignity to exist. The political system we have as Americans is firmly built on the unique idea shared to the world through Ancient Jews, the idea that creation is relative to its Creator, that the whole world is relative to the divine Word, that mankind is rooted in its Maker. Moses warned, remove the Creator from creation and chaos will creep into life. And death will soon follow.
And the facts of history bear this out time and time again. We need not review every instance, but let us simply note one. The great Russian thinker, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, when asked what went wrong in 20th century USSR where Marxist ideologies were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of souls, he said he found no better explanation than those frequently on the lips of poor peasant women, “we forgot God.” Truly, without God death is the rule. Without God, we are limited to death and dying and decay. The first stories foretold this, and all of history bears witness to it.
And so, humans have not just a natural law that we always obey and a divine law that we will ultimately obey, we also have a civil law that must be made harmonious with these other forms of law. (Note: the civil law is the same as the political law; polis is the Greek word for city). While the natural law is discovered, and the divine law revealed, the civil law is chosen and created and shaped and formed by people. The civil law is ever-changing, but as our American forefathers understood, there are eternal precepts that must be at the root of civil laws for societies to flourish. Because of the different aspects of these types of law, the approaches and consequences are necessarily different.
Since the natural law is discovered, it is always obeyed. In the natural world, the greatest freedoms come when scientists understand the laws of nature in order to obey them. As noted earlier, disobeying the natural law is impossible. And so, when we learn and understand the laws of energy transfer and the laws of gravity, we are able to use our understanding to create machines which allow us to do things which appear to defy the laws of nature, like gravity; but we only appear to defy the law of gravity. Reality is different, the reality is we obey the natural law to a greater degree than ever before thought possible.
Reality is we learn the laws of nature to obey them more fully and thereby learn to fly. Space travel is possible, not because we disobey the laws of nature like gravity and energy transfer, but because we obey these laws more fully. Humans flying is a result of our obedience to nature’s laws. Greater understanding of the laws of nature leads to greater levels of obedience, which only then, allows greater freedom.
Likewise, in a just society, the greatest freedoms are in obeying just laws. Law-breakers are put in jail, not law-abiders. A just civil society finds “liberty in law” as the American hymn states, and entrusts people with greater freedoms, not less, because true freedom is found in obedience to good laws. A just society protects God-given rights, and because it respects the dignity of human individuals, just societies will allow greater freedoms to exist, like the right to worship the true God freely, assemble peacefully, speak truth freely, and bear arms for safety. A just society understands that the greatest freedoms come through obedience to good laws, “thy liberty in law.”
Unfortunately for Moses, he found himself in an unjust society that did not respect human dignity or human rights. And his story is helpful in understanding how to make civil laws harmonious with divine and natural laws, which in doing so, brings justice to human communities.
The story of the beginning of the nation of Israel is instructive for understanding the importance of just laws and righteous living, whether through civil obedience to just laws, or civil disobedience to unjust laws. The ancient Israelites found themselves in an unjust society, shackled as slaves to Pharaoh. Yes, as Americans, we know “it’s strange that any men should dare wring their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces,” but alas, not everyone knows God’s heart. And in the story of the Israelite walk to freedom, we are instructed in righteous and unrighteous civil disobedience. In their story, we are made aware of the civil laws which form the basis for all just societies. Let us consider the story of Moses more closely.
Moses conducted two revolutions; he staged two forms of protest. One failed miserably, he was forced to flee for his life and exiled from Egypt, his home. The second was successful beyond belief and imagination, turning slaves into free people with land to call their own, and thereby creating a new nation under God. The second one led to the Exodus, and slaves walking to freedom in their promised land. In the first revolution, Moses was a brash and bold man who took the law and a man’s life into his own hands. That revolution failed because it started with murder and ended with wandering the wilderness for forty years as an exile and outcast. It was during this forty-year exile that Moses learned the divine way that needs to be imitated. Great freedom fighters of future times like our founding fathers, Honest Abe, the great Gandhi, and our beloved Dr. King all learned from Moses’s example. It was during this exile that Moses learned how to conduct the divine revolution, the revolution that started when he investigated the burning bush that didn’t burn up and was given the command “go free my people, the Israelites.”
Once the slaves were freed by the blood of the lamb and crossed the great sea of death, Moses gave the people a civil law – the Ten Commandments. These Ten Teachings are the necessary basic principles for human flourishing in any society. Principles like honor the Creator, honor your parents, honor family and marriage; remember to work and rest; respect property and truth; and do not covet thy neighbor’s goods nor wife. Or as Shakespeare summarizes, “Take heed o’ th’ foul fiend. Obey thy parents; keep thy word’s justice; swear not; commit not with man’s sworn spouse; nor set thy sweet heart on proud array.” These are the minimum standards necessary for a healthy society to exist. Moses’s Ten Laws give us the basic principles to harmonize our own civil laws. Moses revealed for all peoples the laws that lead to our good.
Revealed, because it was a gift from God. Created, because human societies must ultimately make a covenant not only between rulers and people, but between God and mankind. Our laws must harmonize with the divine law. This is how we guarantee our earthly journeys will protect both earthly and eternal rights. Civil laws will be ever-changing but must always align with the divine law and eternal truths proclaimed by Moses because each generation must decide to adapt these universal precepts to our particular moments and places and cultures and time.
We must remember the context of why these Ten Ideas on human flourishing were given – the eternal Word desires freedom for all people, and revealed to his people the 10 Teachings to help us walk in freedom forever. In this context, we have a way to judge societies and offer the antidotes to remove the poison of human evil. We have the standard of measure that we can measure ourselves against. And the fact that the longest lasting and continuous tribe on earth are the small group of people that put into practice these laws, adapting them to their use, we have further proof in the people of Israel of the enduring nature of these Ten Principles. More so, the longest-lasting human institution – the Catholic church – has shared these Israelite laws with the rest of the world, and gives further credence to the proof that these Ten Commandments reveal in some small part the way to touch eternity while on earth. Yes, they reveal the everlasting nature of their Redeemer to earthly communities, and in doing so, create the most sustainable communities in human history. Communities that live out these Ten Ideals do last forever; they do not die. Even when facing the hatred of the world, they still survive. They are as everlasting as anything that exists on this earth.
The lesson of the divine law is that God desires freedom, the lesson of nature’s law is that greater obedience leads to greater freedom, and the lesson of the civil law is we must find harmony in creating laws that reflect eternal truths. The greatest freedom on earth comes in the most perfect obedience to just and true laws. And these are all things we learn from studying Moses’s story.
Wow Moses, there are few like you! The laws you gave the world are at the root of the longest-lasting peoples and institutions on earth. The stories you gave us answer the great questions of life and eternity. And your example of how to live in freedom is without parallel. Yes, the world has few parallels or comparisons in accord to greatness as Moses. Instead, we must combine many great men to even come close to understanding Moses’s greatness. Let us look a little closer, and objectively, if we can, at the details of Moses’s life.
Moses was a son of slaves, sent down the river on an ark rather than perish under unjust laws aimed at slaughtering Hebrew babies; horrific laws to exterminate God’s children. Yet, Moses somehow survived and grew up a prince of Egypt, the son of Pharaoh. Moses had almost everything at his hands, and yet he lost it all in a heat of passion, killing a man to revenge cruelty towards a slave. He fled Egypt as a murderer and spent forty years in exile in the wilderness. He did most everything he could in the wilderness; he became a shepherd, married the daughter of a priest, had children, and waited forty long years for the promises of God to be fulfilled.
After forty years, he saw that bush that wouldn’t burn up and there began his epic transformation into a slave-liberator, nation-builder, prophet, ruler, leader, lawgiver, supreme judge, storyteller, writer, historian, myth-maker, and legend-creator. In that epic transformation he also became a friend of God and faithful servant in all his house. In short, and objectively speaking, Moses is a great man, and among the greatest heroes who have ever lived.
If Moses could be compared to great Americans, we’d have to combine many great Americans to even come close to the greatness and influence of Moses.
As to the making of a new nation, he stood up to Pharaoh like our founding fathers stood up to the tyrant kings of England. So, whether it was “thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let my people go” or “and for the support of our Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor,” either way, freedom was won and new nations formed under God. And rather than simply wage war for their rights, Moses taught us the same model Dr. King followed, simply speaking truth to power and willing to walk to freedom. Truly, it seems like there are none like Moses because he was so many things, including a Prophet of God.
As to freedom, Moses freed more slaves in one day than any person in human history until Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. But Moses didn’t simply free slaves, he helped them walk in freedom by giving them the ancient stories and divine laws to help them form a new nation under God.
Again, Moses didn’t just free slaves, he helped them walk in freedom by giving ancient Israel the old stories and laws to record the important truths of their new nation, just like how our founding fathers wrote The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution to help us form a more perfect union and walk in freedom not as separated colonies but as United States. Moses wrote not only the laws of the nation, but also chronicled the history of the nation, composing stories of the great patriarchs and ancestors like our historians might compile and canonize great works and legends in one canon. That compilation would include writings like the Magna Carta, Mayflower Compact; stories like those of Shakespeare to give us a sense of who we are as a nation; and mottos like Benjamin Franklin’s “rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God” and even words like his words inscribed on our liberty bell “proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” But that wouldn’t be it. There would also be songs like Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” and speeches like Dr. King’s “I have a dream.” All these people and their many works would have to be combined to give a hint of all that Moses did. Truly, there are no people like Moses.
Moses’s songs were sung by slaves yearning for freedom and Moses’s stories were told by Pilgrims searching for promised lands of liberty. His laws are the basis for nations and colonies, his words containing the ideas that give life and shape people’s identity. And he made it possible for nations to form out of twelve tribes and thirteen colonies, making many people one nation under God.
And for Moses’s people, the long road to freedom culminated in a series of great signs and wonders that led to a miraculous exodus from slavery. The revolution, a bloodless one where not one drop of human blood would be shed, would instead be memorialized by a celebration of lamb and wine saving and sparing many from awful slavery and certain death. Yes, there are few in the world who can claim the greatness of Moses – not Napoleon, nor Genghis Khan; not Mohammed, Caesar, nor Alexander the Great; not even our great founding fathers; not our marvelous poets and activists. To this day, Moses’s writings and stories are read in synagogues and churches all across the world. Truly, truly, I say unto you, the world has few parallels in accord to greatness as Moses. Objectively speaking, the big picture about Moses is he is great. There are few like Moses, faithful to God in all his house. Yes, the law was given through Moses, and from its fullness we all receive grace upon grace.
But, at the time, as an atheist-scientist fanatically pursuing truth, there are some curiosities about Moses which obviously pale in comparison to his overall greatness, but still important all the same. Yes, something that still softens the heart of every scientist, Moses’s stories are filled with the necessary foundations for good science! Not only did he accurately predict key scientific findings of the 20th century more than three thousand years ago, but his first stories were not only about science but also scientists. Bear with me a moment.
Adam, the first man, could be called a biologist and zoologist, for he took care of the garden of God and named all the animals. I would have thought the story of the first man would have been a wanderer like Cain, but instead it was a gardener and caretaker who named the animals, documenting them for all future peoples, including scientists.
Next, the all-famous flood story could likewise be considered to be about an environmentalist, warning people about disasters to come, who proved to also be an excellent engineer, shipbuilder, and sailor. Not only did Noah take care of all the animals, but he saved humanity from certain death and extinction by making the right preparations to survive the disastrous floods.
Later, Jacob could have been considered a notable geneticist, understanding how to successfully breed sheep. And we’ve already discussed Moses’s own investigations into natural phenomena. Time bids us move on rather continue these reflections on early and ancient scientists, but it is surprising to note that Moses found answers in the natural phenomenon he studied. And his answers defied all expectations. His investigation must shape ours, for we must seek to understand how Moses was able to see so profoundly into the mysteries of life? How was he able to scratch the surface, go beyond appearances, and see so deeply into the true nature of life, reality, and humanity?
Like Moses, we too must learn to go beyond appearances.