to model ourselves on as the basic minimum for human existence. In such a case, genuine feelings of guilt are important to point out to us the error of our ways and to goad us into conforming to the cardinal standards of human conduct. At other times, we need to “violate” certain conventional standards if we think they are an obstacle to the realization of genuine new possibilities of being human to which we sincerely feel called. But we are uneasy before these possibilities as well. It is much easier to be merely conventional in our ethical life than to heed the summons of timeless values that transcend our societal, national or familial ideals.34
We may call this sense of dread in the face of new possibilities “anxiety.” One meaning of “anxiety” is the awareness of yet unrealized possibilities. It is the intimation that we have other routes of self-definition open to us alongside those that have been so determinative in the past. Our awareness of these unrealized possibilities that would give a new cast to our identity confronts us as a tremendum. Unlike the realm of the “actual,” the arena of the “possible” is inexhaustible, and so we are reluctant to plunge into its formless, abysmal depths, dreading that the boundaries of our finite existence will be annihilated by the excess of the possible. As Kierkegaard puts it, our impression of this realm of sheer unrealized possibility may induce in us a “sickness unto death.”35 However, one aspect of the experience of freedom consists precisely of the anxiety evoked in us by our awareness of ever new possibilities, ideals, or values.
An analysis of this anxiety can open us to a deeper understanding of freedom. When we use the term anxiety here, though, we are not referring to something abnormal or pathological. Rather, we are talking about a state of awareness that always accompanies our human existence, whether in a conscious or in an unconscious way. Without it, we would not be human existents at all. In other words, this anxiety is a characteristic aspect of our existence, not something that can be removed pharmocologically or psychiatrically. When psychiatry talks about removing anxiety, it is speaking of a pathological exaggeration or suppression of our “normal” anxiety. And it seriously misleads us if it pretends to cure us of our “existential” anxiety.36 Nothing can cure us of this anxiety. But such an impossibility need not be the occasion of perpetual unhappiness for us. Instead, it may be seen as an opening to the fulfilling side of freedom.
Existential anxiety may also be understood as the awareness of the fact that our existence is constantly subject to a fundamental and unavoidable threat. Paul Tillich refers to it as the threat of “non-being.”37 The awareness of this threat should be distinguished from fear.38 Fear is always a response to a specific danger, a definite object of terror. For example, I may fear a rabid animal, an authoritarian teacher, a poor grade on an examination, or the disapproval of parents and friends. And I may combat my fear of these by employing specific strategies. I may shoot the rabid animal, change classes to a more amiable instructor, study harder for an examination, or move away from home. Such strategies are often successful ways of coping with fear. Yet beneath all our specific fears, there is a sustained inkling of a pervasive and ineradicable threat which no evasive action can alleviate. There is at least a vague intuition that our existence is situated precariously over against the threat of “nonbeing.”
But what does this discussion of nonbeing have to do with freedom? Strange as it may initially seem, the experience of the threat of nonbeing that I have just described (drawing again from Paul Tillich) is one aspect of the experience of the horizon of freedom. “Nonbeing” is the face that freedom first presents to us as it invites us into its embrace. And difficult as it may be for us to understand, it is by realistically facing rather than running away from this nonbeing that we are liberated from the things that enslave us and drawn toward the fullness of freedom.
Nonbeing is terrifying to us, of course, and so we attempt to avoid it by tying our fragile existence to things that seemingly provide refuge from it. However, since all such things are themselves merely finite and, therefore, also subject to nonbeing, the security they give us is only fragmentary and ultimately illusory. Such precarious security is not truly liberating in the final analysis for it merely constricts our lives by binding us to objects that are too small to help us face existential anxiety. Just as we strive to turn the anxiety of nonbeing into specific objects of fear that we can control, so also we turn to specific objects, persons, events, nations, cults, possessions, etc. in order to anchor our existence against the invasion of nonbeing. Eventually, however, we will be forced to realize that they are mere “idols” that cannot give us the ultimate deliverance for which we really hope. How, then, are we to deal with nonbeing?
The threat of nonbeing can be met adequately only by a courage proportionate to the threat itself. It is through courage that we meet the threat of nonbeing and, in doing so, experience freedom-itself. Indeed, courage may be defined as the “self-affirmation” by which we accept and face up to the anxiety of non-being. The encounter with freedom in the deepest sense, therefore, is inseparable from the experience of courage.39
If human freedom has any realistic meaning at all, it cannot mean deliverance from existential anxiety. The quest for freedom is destined for frustration as long as it is undertaken as the search for refuge from nonbeing. This is one lesson that theists can well learn from existentialist philosophers. In what, then, does human freedom consist (freedom in our second sense), if there in no easy escape from fate, death, guilt and the experience of doubt and even meaninglessness? Is human freedom even a meaningful notion, given the fact that our existence is never “free from” existential anxiety?
Humanly speaking, freedom is the awareness that existential anxiety has been conquered rather than simply evaded. It is an awareness that, in spite of the pervasive threat of nonbeing, the core of our existence is always already ultimately secure. Such an awareness delivers us from the obsessive need to secure our existence in particular things and projects. It recognizes the futility of all such enterprises. And it allows for a serenity and peacefulness of existence that transcends the security which comes from our usual possessions.
But is such an awareness anywhere an actuality? Are there individuals who have achieved such a state of subjective freedom? I think that we do find such awareness exemplified in the lives of people who exhibit courage. It is not necessary to give examples of such courage here. We see it manifest all around us—in the heroic lives of ordinary people who have themselves been motivated to courageous acceptance of their lives by their participation in the great stories of human courage, passed down from generation to generation, in all cultures and traditions. We have all witnessed the way in which people overcome apparently insurmountable difficulties and emerge as stronger in the process of facing their problems than if they had taken flight from them. This everyday occurrence is, in fact, so commonplace that we hardly notice its utterly “miraculous” character. It is in the lives of such courageous people that we can catch a glimpse of the ultimate horizon of freedom that seeks to liberate our human existence in a decisive way.
Human courage faces and accepts existential anxiety instead of fleeing from it. And in the act of facing it head-on, it gives witness to a transcendent power capable of conquering the threat of nonbeing, providing a solid base for a realistic sense of freedom. We need not construct “proofs” for the “existence” of this power. The evidence for its reality is simply the acts of courage so manifest in the lives of those who accept themselves in spite of the existential anxiety that is part of their concrete existence.40 In their courageous self-affirmation, we can see evidence of their participation in an objective liberating “power” that conquers nonbeing. In viewing their heroic lives, we can also appreciate the true meaning of human freedom as participation in an ultimate horizon of freedom—call it freedom-itself—which gives them the courage to prevail
