The Freedom of a Christian: Grace, Vocation, and the Meaning of Our Humanity

Meilaender, a theologian and bioethicist who teaches at Valparaiso University, sees true freedom not as unconstrained choice, but as "the freedom of those who have been claimed and called by God," a freedom that can coexist with human limits and divine grace. "We can imagine," Meilaender writes, "a world in which the overall good is very important but also very complex, far too complex for any individual agent always to be sure of how his work contributes to achieving it." Whether directly or indirectly, the essays collected here suggest that such a world is not only imaginable; it is the world we inhabit. Themes of God's call and human responsibility recur as Meilaender discusses the relationship between theology and ethics, Christian understandings of vocation, and topics in bioethics. While unapologetic about his Lutheran theological roots, Meilaender engages a range of contemporary thinkers from Pope John Paul II to bioethicist Arthur Caplan. More broadly, Meilaender collaborates with a range of literary and theological classics—the Aeneid and the Iliad , Augustine, Dante, Kierkegaard— with a freshness that may send readers back to the bookshelf (or the backlist) to read or reread them, as Meilaender does, with contemporary issues in mind. (Sept.)