62 Global Ethics for Leadership
4.5 Freedom with Guilt
“Genuine freedom exists on earth only together with guilt
(Schuld).”^29 This central biblical insight may also be understood philo-
sophically. This is not primarily because we wilfully trespass against
something we know to be right, but simply that the very act of taking
action, of “assuming liability for something”, means we have to accept
that through the consequences of this action, we also become liable vis-
à-vis others.^30
Still more radical is when the failure of human freedom is conceived
as not only entailing the possibility of guilt and liability as the price of
personal freedom, but where human sin comes to the fore as the destruc-
tion, even the death, of human freedom. Biblically, the term “sin” de-
scribes a shift of allegiance defining theological reflection about human
freedom, and causes this freedom to be seen as liberation from the pow-
er of sin. There is no self-causality for human beings when it comes to
their relationship with God. This is the central element of Martin Lu-
ther's theological understanding of justification in his thesis of the “un-
free will”. Correctly understood, this does not deny the freedom of hu-
man beings but understands it radically as freedom that is limited.
This freedom is limited not only because of the finite nature of hu-
man life or because of the opportunities, means and abilities through
which it is exercised. Rather it is limited in that it takes on the character
of freedom that has been liberated. The exercise of freedom presupposes
that our relationship to God is not based on self-causality, but that vis-a-
vis God we are those who receive.
29
Theunissen, Freiheit und Schuld, 343-356 (346). (ET Huber, Ethics, translated
by Brian McNeill, 5) 30
Ibid. 347.