16. Human Freedom

If we enter the quiet study of the thinker and philosopher, we will see how the deepest minds have seen it as their task to explore what human freedom encompasses, for example Leibniz and Fichte. They asked: How should we relate to this central concept of our entire human spiritual life? Is man free, or is he under a necessary compulsion? Can we really face the criminal in the same way if we know that he was predestined to do an evil deed, or know that he was free, that he committed his deed of his own free will? — It could well be that, precisely because the question of freedom lies so deep, it is one of the deepest human riddles.