Do we really want to be free? Didn’t we invent God so we wouldn’t have to be free? Before God, we are all debtors: guilty (schuldig). But debt – guilt – destroys freedom. Today, politicians appeal to high debt rates to explain that their freedom to act is massively restricted. Free from debt – that is, wholly free – we would truly have to act. Perhaps we run up debts perpetually so we won’t need to do so – that is, so we won’t need to be free, or responsible. 1
Indeed their excessive protests make me suspect that what is annoying them is not so much our pessimism, but, much more likely, our optimism. For at bottom, what is alarming in the doctrine that I am about to try to explain to you is – is it not? – that it confronts man with a possibility of choice. 2
Changelog
- Updated in June 2026