We have seen that the liberty of the Christian is, by definition, something super-human, absolute, inviolable. But if all this be so, how are we to set any limits to it? What room does it leave for rules and law? Are we not being so carried away with our idea of Christian freedom that we are being led to an anti-social anarchy, an anarchy all the more dangerous for being an anarchy of the Spirit? And in point of historic fact, do we not find throughout the history of the Church an abiding suspicion of such an exaltation of the liberty of the Spirit? How can we reconcile such claims with the demands of social law and order, with the well-being of the human community?

All liberty has both a personal and a social aspect, because liberty and the common good are bound up with one another. But does not this present a serious difficulty so soon as liberty be considered, not on the natural but on the theological plane? And is not this only to be expected when one passes from the order of the natural philosophy to that of faith? Is not the Christian, who measures his standards by God alone, free from the clutches—in his most intimate liberties at least—of every social obligation? Are we not to expect here a sort of supurnatural logic in direct opposition to the logic of nature?