Session 9: Philosophy

For years and years, people have argued for freedom, fought for freedom, and died for freedom. Yet, we remain in debate about what freedom actually is and how to define it. There are two types of freedom: the negative or natural freedoms/rights and the positive freedoms/rights. Negative or natural freedoms/rights are those which we possess by virtue of free will. Positive freedoms/rights exist as a benefit of the community(ies) that we are part of. Although some of these freedoms/rights can exist together, should they? These different and competing concepts can lead to confusion and unnecessary conflict as we argue over what we see as the same term that is ultimately two different ideas contained in one word. Thus, my research examines aspects of freedom in the hopes of developing some tangible concept of freedom's definition. My research will further show whether finding common enough ground on what freedom is, exactly, could be a foundation for creating a utopia, or whether the concept of utopia is even compatible with freedom

This paper deals the with difficult subject of the Kingdom of God in Christian theology. It attempts to understand whether or not the Kingdom of God is just an eternal concept or if it has temporal aspects attached to it. I argue that that there is a temporal aspect to the Kingdom of God when it comes to building what Hovey calls the Polis. I use Myers and Hovey to make the argument that there is a temporal moral understanding of the Kingdom of God which should be accepted by the Christian as a state of being and used to strive towards bring the Kingdom of God to immanence.