Freedom and Religious Worldview

The article, written in the form of a dialogue/discussion, examines the problem of freedom in the context of its interpretation in religious and philosophical thought. The starting point for considering freedom is the thesis that the concept of freedom, as it is presented in the metaphysical and spiritual traditions, hinders both the philosophical understanding of freedom and its implementation in practice since the status of the concept requires the identification of freedom with the knowledge of freedom. However, the knowledge, as it always implies being universal, excludes the possibility of a different understanding of freedom, which leads to the confusion of freedom and necessity. While criticizing this thesis, Mikhail Sergeev insists that the adoption of a particular system of beliefs, including religious faith, does not necessarily make other people understand freedom the same way, which leads to the elimination of freedom in real life and to the substitution of freedom by necessity on theoretical level: as the history of philosophy and religion shows, there have always been many different concepts of freedom, even within the same school or tradition. From the point of view of Aleksandr Rybas, the variety of interpretations of freedom is such only formally since each of these interpretations is aimed at formulating the only one, “true” concept of freedom, resulting from the chosen point of view and therefore making it necessary to characterize alternative views as false: the very idea of “true” freedom is rooted in the specifics of metaphysical thinking, which should be seen the reason for the rejection of freedom. As a result of the discussion, however, some common views on freedom were developed. In particular, freedom was defined as the inherent ability of man to consciously initiate his own changes and determine the parameters of his own existence. Moreover, it was argued that there could not be the only valid or universal form of human life.

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