Freedom – with Boundaries 67This sentence in the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians emphasises
the interconnectedness of freedom and love, of freedom and community.
The spirit of God is a spirit of community, of the mutual understanding
of what is different, of the equal dignity of persons irrespective of the
discrepancies in which they live. God’s spirit is a spirit of love, it leads
us (as Nicholas Woltersdorff explains) to care about the others, even
who are completely distant and strange to me. To overcome the divi-
sions between rich and poor, between those in power and those who are
oppressed, to bridge the gap between ethnic groups, religious communi-
ties, separated churches, generations and genders, is a way to exert free-
dom in love. Freedom that is aware of its boundaries is communicative
freedom, freedom in communion and communication. Christian congre-
gations are places of communicative freedom. This third dimension of
the boundaries of freedom has to do with the communicative impetus of
the Spirit. It leads to a concept in which "freedom for" is as important as
"freedom from", positive freedom is as important as negative freedom.
4.8 Free for Mutual Assistance in Vulnerabilities
Dietrich Bonhoeffer a sign of God’s grace as being that we are ena-
bled to take the “view from below”. The unity of freedom and love takes
concrete forms when we exert the preferential option for the poor and
the oppressed or, as Nicholas Woltersdorff convincingly puts it, the
“preferential option for the vulnerable”. It is not a one-sided option for
one set of people vis-à-vis another, it is a reciprocal option for mutual
assistance in our vulnerabilities. Christians are not only prepared to as-
sist others but hope also for the care of others when they need it. We can
avoid giving Christian love the appeal of a paternalistic benevolence if
we see the preferential option for the vulnerable as belonging to a mutu-
al and reciprocal covenant to which all human beings are called equally.
Empathy for the vulnerable is the way to justice.