Freedom and Normativity in the Ascent of Mount Carmel

Abstract

The present work tries to articulate the relations, apparently conflicting, between the freedom of the person and the normativity that is imposed from another instance, that is, the will of God, in the form of commandments that must be obeyed. These relationships will be analyzed in the work of St. John of the Cross Mount Carmel, which stands out among other works of the holy doctor for his asceticism and peculiar rudeness. It is my intention to put to the consideration of the current reader a nuance of underlying liberation, which crosses Sanjuanist doctrine and gives meaning to the radicalism it proposes. This radicality is none other than the Gospel, after all, that of the narrow door that leads to the freedom of the children of God. The action of Love will be, precisely, to grant us - through a game of loving / painful seduction of successive “nights” - that true freedom for which the efforts of one’s own will are not enough.