The fundamental idea of a human, from a religious (especially Christian) point of view and even from a scientific point of view in comparison with other animals is "Free Will".
This of course is not a religious statement, however, I want to use the story of Adam and Even to illustrate the importance - these stories are human-made and thus from my perspective work as the subconscious of the collective.
So the story goes that God made Adam and Eve and gave them paradise to live in, with only one condition - not to eat the forbidden fruit. This depicts that God is aware that it is a choice they have to make and thus sets a rule that will either be followed or not. Spoilers, Eve eats the apple, and they get kicked out of Eden.
Both Adam and Eve were the same humans as us, and we cannot say they were not conscious or led only by instincts, thus concluding that they had free will, they had the choice to obey or not.
But let's discuss the case in which God set the rule, but the rule was upon something that did not exist. "Do not eat the forbidden banana” but there is no banana. Does Adam and Eve have any actual free will over this? They can search for it, maybe indicating that they aim to eat it, or they could ignore it altogether as they never come in contact with it, but does this mean they have free will over whether they will eat it or not, or is it purely fictional?
If God decides to judge them based on the fact that they search for the banana that is wrong, as the final decision to eat it or not has not been made, but if they never find it at the same time the choice is never even placed. Therefore, are they given free will over eating the banana?
Let's dive into another example. You are given a choice, would you like to drink Cola or Pepsi? You order one and the waiter comes back saying that they just found out that it is out of stock and they brought you the other alternative. Your original free will over which one you will drink is removed and now you have to decide to either drink the 1 choice or drink nothing at all. But of course, this does not diminish your free will, you still have a choice - would be one argument.
However, what if we discuss something of importance and not so much which drink you want, but being put behind impossible choices. If someone suggests you have to do x or we will kill you. Of course, you have the free will to choose death, but if we put people in such extreme scenarios, in which they will choose 99.99% of the time what we want, do they still have free will, or have we stripped it away from them, without them even knowing.
Freedom
Free will, within the context of our modern society, is very much polluted. The concept is there, no one denies it and it is a fundamental element of humanity. Yet, we can manipulate people regardless of that element. It is therefore not an ingredient of humans but an attribute - the distinction being that it can be taken away without disturbing the owner.
We need to move on to another element that is crucial for us to execute free will, which is freedom. Unfortunately, you cannot have free will without freedom, to clarify, you do have free will however you would be the same as a horse wearing blinders.
But who is free and what is freedom? Baylor Johnson gave the following interpretation, which also combines the negation of freedom or what we described earlier as "pointless free will” due to the circumstances and context.
Freedom and free will are terms that seem to describe the same thing, however, free will is you being able to decide what to do or be done and freedom is your ability to execute your decision. If the environment you are in does not allow that decision to be executed then you are not free which makes free will quite pointless.
Acquired Freedom
Acquired freedom is a concept I have encountered in two different places.
Philosophy and Theology. This should not be surprising, but they both tackle it in the same exact way. Everyone is free, however you have acquired freedom if you are of the state of mind that enables you to will as you ought.
This statement took a while to digest and I first encountered it while reading about freedom within Orthodox Theology and specifically John Calvin, which was described as the freedom that only exists in people who aim to live a virtuous life.
Both the social philosophy and theology end up describing that to be truly free, you must follow a specific way of life or direction that they (whoever "they” are) define as virtuous.
I am torn on what to make of this, as I both understand it and detest it at the same time.
A person who aims to be stoic, do good for others, have no evil thoughts etc is more or less free. But this means that if that person wants to be an alcoholic, then they are not free anymore as they are bound to their addiction, yet shouldn’t it be part of their freedom to be an alcoholic? If they fell into such an addiction because of their preference or because of society matters not that much, one way or another they had freedom and when they fell into drinking they lost their freedom as they are slaves to alcohol.
We described here a very obvious addiction, that is undeniably bad for the person. What about more gray matters and things that are considered immoral by our society or church that are not addictions? Would you then not be free? Is your freedom conditional to society's definition of virtue?
If I have to hide to practice worshiping a different religion, an act that I would not consider a non-virtuous thing, I have lost my freedom.
Therefore I cannot agree with the definition of acquired freedom except on a purely theoretical level although the premise of it is very sound.
How can we be free?
To be truly free, you must sacrifice yourself in the name of freedom. To be free you need to let go of what you want - the freedom which includes free will and probably what I would describe as "acquired freedom” is only acquired by the removal of self.
You can only become free as long as the outcome and your environment do not matter. By eliminating your self you can make any choice and no one has any power of the execution. If you wish to not work you need to surrender many needs or find a way to remove yourself from the group, however, as long as you remain in the group your freedom is conditional unless the outcome is not relevant to you.
This kind of freedom however is not pleasant - more on that later.