What Can We Learn About True Independence?

Independence is a tricky concept. It conjures the idea of being free to do whatever you want to do. But if your imagination and desires are tainted in a way which keep you from pursuing what is truly good and beautiful and true – specifically what is good and beautiful and true and of a quality that can satisfy a person forever, then the freedom to do whatever you want, to chase whatever deep impulses well up inside of you, would actually be a form of slavery since you are not able to grasp what is good, beautiful and true when measured on an eternal scale.

In Jesus’ third temptation, Satan pa...