The 2000 Lord Acton Essay Competition

On Religion, Duty, and Liberty

Joel Hathaway
Covenant Theological Seminary

Lord Acton said, "No country can be free without religion. It creates and strengthens the notion of duty. If men are not kept straight by duty, they must be by fear. The more they are kept by fear, the less they are free. The greater the strength of duty, the greater the liberty." In this quotation, Lord Acton has struck upon the bedrock of a free society: true religion. Acton conveys a primary function of religion: to shape men for the freedom of duty. Acton indicates that both freedom and duty presuppose religion; in other words, duty and freedom are the natural offspring of true religion. History shows that fear and freedom are contradictory forces. Therefore, I contend, with Acton, that true religion produces a proper sense of duty through a right understanding of freedom.

First, true religion based on a firm foundation of truth primarily functions to serve men in defining and applying freedom. It is necessary to begin with a working description of true religion. “The basic idea of religion, then, is that of life with God—a life lived in recognition of God, in communion with Him.”¹ Religion, then, is that which serves to bring man into a right and proper position before his God and maker. This presupposes that there is a God, that he has set a method and pattern for duty, that he is worthy of our dutiful respect, and that we are in a position to give him due honor. It is upon this foundation that religion must be based if it is to be effective. However, only true religion functions in this “freedom to duty.” True religion primarily functions to serve men in their definition and application of freedom.

What is meant by true religion? This implies the existence of a true religion against which stand many false religions. All religions throughout the history of the world are alike in this regard: They all include the establishment of ordinances that, when kept, qualify the disciple for acceptance by a deity; all religions, that is, save one. Only in Christianity are men called to believe by faith and are saved—despite failures—by grace alone. This delineation is significant. One must believe that man is capable of perfection when subscribing to any religion that places heavy ordinances upon its followers. For those who believe that perfection is attainable, duty becomes their god. Yet inconsistency and failure will produce doubt and cause a disparaging of the duty that a false religion requires. Fear becomes the primary motivation—a temporary restraint in the neglect of duty and obligation—but, ultimately, it is ineffective, for “the dark deference of fear and slavery …will keep the dogs obedient to the whip,” but only as long as the whip is applied.² The ensuing consequences of such religion are nihilistic in nature; hopelessness—not faithfulness—becomes the abiding characteristic. Failure drives to greater fear, which Acton clearly understands to bind men to less freedom, not more. Such duty is not freeing but enslaving.

However, there is freedom in true religion. The word of God states that by grace men are saved through faith in Jesus Christ. This faith is of itself a gift of God, not of works, lest men should boast (Eph. 2:8–9). Because of our fallen state—our inclination to failure—we are unable to fulfill the law. Fear should dog us in heavy pursuit, but it need not. Christ Jesus—our legal, qualified, mediator—substituted his life of perfection for our life of imperfection. For this reason, we are no longer under the condemnation of the moral law, but under grace (Rom. 6:14). Under the law we are transgressors. But under grace we are free from the law and its punishment—and, thereby, free from fear—and it is in this freedom that duty is most adamantly pursued. As we come to realize our freedom from the eternal punishment of failure, fear abates, and love motivates us to obedience. In this manner, true religion serves the primary function of revealing to us the nature and extent of our freedom. So encouraged, so freed, we will naturally strive toward duty. “Forgetting these [failures and fears] which are behind reaching forward to those things which are ahead, [we] press forward toward the goal” of true religion: rightness and acceptance before God (Phil. 3:13–14). True freedom in religion comes when we realize our justified state before our maker. Then duty becomes an element of thankful sacrifice, not obligatory dread. But all of this depends on the foundation of truth.

In this way, duty flows out of true religion to freedom. This is the benefit of religion to society: When proper respect of the requirements of the law is paired with both freedom from the eternal punishment of the law and knowledge of the one who brought this freedom about, men dutifully engage, invest, and respond. This produces true liberty and “creates and strengthens the notion of duty.”

How is it, then, that freedom, which is seemingly nonrestrictive, produces a “greater strength of duty,” which is seemingly restrictive? It does so because freedom—which is liberty—is not at odds with duty; rather, freedom through true religion directs, focuses, and intensifies the duty of man. Consider how duty is restrictive. In the case of a husband, his duty as a husband is to his wife alone. His passion, love, energy, and life are to be poured out on no one other than his wife. Through duty, he is restricted to this woman. But now consider how duty is freeing. In the case of that same husband, note how great an energy, passion, love, and life he can freely pour out on his wife in a way that no single man may rightly do to a woman not his wife. Some may say these two are at odds, but we note that the husband is free only in the context of the woman to whom he is restricted. Duty and restriction coexist. Between these two guardrails, there is freedom; without one or the other, there is certain destruction.

In this way, true religion functions to produce duty through freedom from fear, for to deny God is to deny the maker of an eternal law to which human beings are accountable. Therefore, the denial of God is ultimately the denial of duty. It is at the level of religion where law ultimately begins. Where that religion is false, it is also subjective, destructive, and manipulative. And the law that comes from such a religion will be of the same nature. Duty to this law will come only in the form of self-interest, oppression, and fearful subjugation. However, where religion is true, objective, and unbending, it functions to produce duty through freedom from fear and brings forth a law that is of the same virtue.

True liberty is not total, unguarded freedom. “Liberty is not looseness. A kite that is released from its tether gets its looseness, but loses its liberty to be a kite. A ‘free balloon’ is the captive of every passing breeze.” ³ Neither are we to be bound so greatly that we cease to fly at all—only firmly enough that we may fulfill the function to which we were made. Liberty is not freedom from duty; rather, it is “the destruction of all despotism …moral, educational, charitable, political …and the restricting of the law only to its rational sphere of organizing the right of the individual, to lawful, self-defense; of punishing injustice.”⁴ Abolition of the law is not liberty; it is either despotism or anarchy. Careful observance of the function of the law (i.e., to keep us free) and foundation of the law (i.e., the God of true religion) is the freedom to which religion sets men. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”⁵ This vigilance must be against tyrannical subjugation under the law, on the one hand, and lawless chaos, on the other. In the country of such understanding, men will not wish for the law to be abolished but for all wanton injustice to be punished.

The laws to which men are subject under duty grow from the religion on which they are founded. False religion, which ultimately brings nihilism and despair, leads to despotism. True liberty is derived only from true religion, and it will thrive only insofar as law serves justly. “Law is justice—simple and clear, precise and unbounded.”⁶

It was noted earlier that the benefit of religion to society is that it directs, focuses, and intensifies the duty of man—or, as Acton wrote, it “creates and strengthens the notion of duty.” True religion directs and focuses society through freedom, and it functions to release men from tyranny and fear. True religion, in that it applies to all men, establishes the barriers of duty. A man who chooses to drive sixty miles per hour along a winding highway can remain relatively unconcerned as long as he is reasonably confident that all drivers in that region are familiar with, and abide by, general driving laws. The center yellow line on the road is what gives him growing confidence and freedom, not fear. This freedom through law and regulation brings about the true liberty needed to perform one’s duty.

Further, religion is the means by which a man may be extruded to greater levels of duty. “To be extruded is to be forced out under pressure into a desired shape.”⁷ True religion is that mechanism that forces, at high pressure, the soft metal of men through a die, to attain a desired shape. Religion molds and forms us. To be formed is naturally restrictive, but the ultimate purpose is to produce something of significance and function. A shapeless mass of metal is not restricted by shape, but neither can it function as a hammer, a ring, or some other object. It is the die that gives the metal freedom to be something; in the same way, the die of religion makes free the spirits of men. In this way, “The greater the strength of duty, the greater the liberty.”

It must be stated that this function of duty cannot be achieved through fear. Fear is not freedom. Where there is freedom, law establishes a system wherein fear need not exist. Fear exists only in the reduction or perversion of the law, for then freedom has ended and duty will no longer be obeyed. This is when men must be kept by fear, for the law has been perverted, reduced to some level of tyrannical rule, and it becomes the yoke of slavery. This is what I believe Acton meant by saying, “The more they are kept by fear, the less they are free.” But where law is used properly, duty prevails, for “the law is good [only] if one uses it lawfully, knowing …that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate” (1 Timothy 1:8). In corrupt systems, fear subjects all free men to slavery; true law binds only the lawless one.

Law derives its nature and power from the religion on which it is established. The God of true religion alone is a suitable basis for religion. The duty that flows from this stable base will be greater than the fear and subjugation that flow from false religion. Religion forms men into the image of either freemen or slaves—if slaves, then only by fear; but if free men, then to a greater dutiful purpose through function and form. In this way, the power of nations is directed toward greater fulfillment of purpose and meaning: freedom and liberty.

Notes

1. Morton H. Smith, Systematic Theology (Greenville, S.C.: Greenville Seminary Press, 1994), 13.
2. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (New York: Penguin, 2000 [1859]), 140.
3. Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1999), 157.
4. Frederic Bastiat, The Law (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1950), 51.
5. Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Navpress, 1991), 131.
6. Bastiat, 68.
7. Francis A. Schaeffer, The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer (Wheaton, Ill.: Good News Publishers, 1982), 3:12.